Software & Apps - Page 84

NFL sponsor and tech giant SAP will help bring technology to the Super Bowl experience, providing updated, custom information for football fans. Both companies have provided real-time team and player stats throughout the season, and will be continually improved for future seasons.

Using its own NetBase analytics software, SAP is going to provide an interactive exhibit for football fans in New York City, running through next Sunday. The information provided is based on data collected from social analytics, compiled throughout the season, including positive and negative team sentiment, team support from fans, and social media buzzword tracking.

SAP and other big-money sports sponsors are getting creative to help boost return-on-investment and company brand exposure. The NFL uses SAP cloud computing software and both companies are in the second year of a multi-year business partnership.

Today, a new report was released from ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, that stated that Microsoft is planning on releasing the first update to Windows 8.1 as early as March 11th, the same day the company has scheduled to push out its monthly security updates. This throws off analyst expectations for Microsoft's Build conference, which was expected to be centered around Windows 8.1.1.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 is expected to refine the operating system and will reduce memory usage and disk space requirements to help lower-end tablets really shine with the OS. Microsoft hopes that these lower system requirements will help the OS gain some market share in the mobile arena, and become popular among low-end tablet manufacturers. We are expecting to see Windows 9 launch in October, so maybe Build will be all about Windows 9 and its return to a more traditional desktop.

If WhatsApp is king of app-based text messaging, then Aviary rules the photograph editing app world. Today the company announced that it has hit a massive milestone in the success of its company. Aviary announced that its app for Android and iOS has been used to edit over 10 billion photos since its launch.

The company says that its success is largely due to the fact that its SDK is so popular with developers who have added the apps editing tools to their own apps and websites. Aviary has been integrated with more than 7,000 partner apps, with big names such as Pic Stitch, Tango, and even SquareSpace using features from the software. Aviary says that it now has over 70 million active monthly users and that it expects growth to continue in 2014.

In a statement the company said:

Fans of Microsoft Windows now have something to look forward to in 2014 if newly leaked information is correct. A "hacker" going by the name of, WZor, says that we can expect to see Redmond release Windows 9 in October of this year, not the following April as previously expected.

WZor has been accurate in the past, and many industry insiders believe him to have insiders deep within Microsoft, if not an actual Microsoft employee himself. The new release date rumor came in the form of a Tweet which read "Win 9 released in April 2015? No! No! No! ..WIN RTM-0 RELEASED SIGN-OFF DEADLINE IN 21 OCTOBER 2014 :)" In any event, lets just hope that Microsoft returns to their senses and brings back something more similar to Windows 7 instead of the atrocity that Windows 8 is turning out to be.

During the DLD conference in Germany, WhatsApp CEO, Jan Koum, shared some exciting news with attendees about the messaging app's usage numbers. WhatsApp now has more than 430 million monthly active users, which makes it the worlds largest messaging app by leaps and bounds.

More importantly though are the number of messages sent every day on the service. More than 36 billion outbound messages are sent in a day while 18 billion inbound messages are received each day. That equates to 50 billion text messages sent over WhatsApp each and every day. To put that into perspective, that is more messages sent each day than all SMS messages on every carrier world wide in a 24 hour period.

With many of the largest mobile carriers still charging fees for a set amount of text messages every month, WhatsApp is now the biggest competition in the SMS realm for every wireless carrier in the world. Most of my friends as well as almost everyone I know uses WhatsApp on a daily basis, and many who use it as their sole text messaging platform. With growth like this, I feel that there is no stopping WhatsApp and if the company can released a PC version as well, the sky is the limit on how far WhatsApp will go!

Tonight Adobe announced an exciting new feature for its Photoshop Creative Cloud software. The new 3D Printing feature allows users to create, color, and texture their 3D models and then button them up for 3D printing. Photoshop will also build support structure into the model to ensure everything prints exactly as planned.

As a heavy Photoshop user and avid 3D printing guru, this will definitely be something I try out in the coming weeks. While I think I may still prefer the tested methods of modeling an object and then prepping it for printing using a service such as NetFab, but who knows, Adobe could have just changed the game for experienced Photoshop users who are into 3D printing.

We've heard about the Threshold a few times, but now we have Microsoft insider Paul Thurrott reporting that the software giant will unveil its new "Threshold" OS as Windows 9, which will be released next year.

What will Windows 9 include? Well, Thurrott believes that we'll see Microsoft discuss its next-gen OS at its upcoming BUILD developer conference being held in April. Thurrott believes that Microsoft will shift away from the Windows 8 name after all of the problems associated with it, and will drop the Windows 8 branding in favor of Windows 9 - this could change, but right now this is what he believes will happen.

Thurrott also reports that development on Windows 9 will begin in late-April, with no build of it being teased or given out at the BUILD conference in April. He also reports that we should see something he is calling "Metro 2.0", that would be a major focus of Windows 9. He doesn't know what will be changed, but we should see the desktop be centered again, versus the company going all-touch as it did with Windows 8.

The machine to machine (M2M) industry will grow from a $45 billion market last year to an estimated $242 billion in 2022, according to the Strategy Analytics research group. The healthcare industry, consumer electronics, utilities and vehicles, and emergency all services will quickly control the M2M industry, with companies driving towards better efficiency. M2M helps enable data flow in both wired and wireless systems, with advanced frameworks available for industry specialists needing a customized service.

Healthcare, CE, Utilities and vehicles are areas that will see major revenue growth, through the driving out of inefficiency in existing processes as well as the creation of new service opportunities," said Andrew Brown, Strategy Analytics Executive Director of Enterprise and M2M research at Strategy Analytics, in a statement.

M2M is still in its infancy when compared to the tech market as a whole, but security, mobility, and cost containment are three major concerns. M2M operators need to carefully identify strategic partners and have an appropriate plan to reach newer customers unfamiliar with the benefits of M2M adoption.

CES 2014 - The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014 typically brings about joy for consumers and most companies, but Intel confirmed it would rename the McAfee Security brand. John McAfee, founder of the company that he later sold, now has a name of infamy bringing forth rather negative name recognition. Beyond John McAfee's wild personal issues, including a global search, wild spending and obscure blog posts, Intel is clearly interested in just moving forward.

It was just two years ago that Intel said there were no plans to change the McAfee name, but Intel wants to alter the company's public perception. In addition to a name change, product packaging and marketing will also reportedly be revamped.

During the Intel keynote, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said his company will provide mobile security to smartphones, tablets, wearable electronics, and other mobile devices. Intel will release additional details related to the company's free mobile software for smartphone and tablet owners later this year.

Microsoft is successfully guiding users away from Windows XP and up to Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 on new PCs, laptops, and other devices. XP's market share dropped from 40 percent at the start of last year down to almost 29 percent currently, with more businesses abandoning the OS. Despite being an archaic OS, much less secure than 7 or 8/8.1, Microsoft set an end-of-support date of April 8, 2014.

Microsoft wants partners to focus on migrating users directly to 8, but customers have the option to downgrade pre-installed systems to 7 if they are interested in a non-touch OS. There were reports that IT managers weren't taking migration seriously, and many casual users were unaware of potential security threats, but that stance is finally changing.

Back in November we reported that AOL had decided to shutdown Winamp for good. This news sparked a ton of outrage across the internet with long-time Winamp users feeling betrayed. Today it appears that Winamp may not on its death march after all, as the Winamp website URL has been transferred to a new company.

The Winamp.com domain has been owned by AOL.com since 2011 when the company purchased it from Spinner.net. A new record has been released that shows the URL has been transferred to a new name server owned by Radionomy.com. Many industry analyst are speculating that Radionomy has purchased Winamp from AOL and will keep the service alive. Radionomy is a company that specializes in tools and infrastructure for radio producers, and is partnered with more than 6,000 radio stations nation wide. This leaves me wondering if Radionomy is planning on repurposing Winamp into a DJ console for radio stations or something similar!

Canonical had finally seen the light, and has added TRIM support for SSD's to its core. This is a basic feature that has been present on most modern operating systems for years now. TRIM's only function is to extend the life of your SSD, and allows the operating system to tell which blocks of data are no longer needed and can be erased or overwritten.

This allows the SSD to perform more efficiently which results in performance increases, longer life and much less performance degradation over time. Windows first featured TRIM support back in 2009, and OSX adopted it in 2011. Android now even supports TRIM which was added back in July of this year. This means that Ubuntu becomes the first mainstream Linux consumer operating system to fully support SSD's without killing the drives prematurely.

Time Warner Cable subscribers that currently own an Amazon Kindle Fire HD or HDX tablet now have access to 300 live channels and 5,000 on-demand titles via their tablets. Time Warner already rolled out VOD for Roku set-top boxes, Microsoft Xbox 360 game consoles, the Samsung Smart TVs, and Apple iOS and Google Android devices.

It was rumored the Apple TV would receive the TWC TV app, but it looks like that might have to wait until early 2014.

Time Warner, like other cable operators, continues to try and tempt users to migrate content away from the living room - and rolling out apps for devices such as the Kindle Fire is an important step in the process. In a battle against cord-cutting, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes wants cable operators to create new and innovative ways to compete against Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and other Web-based, streaming services.

This morning, Instagram unveiled a newly added feature to its service that will allow users to directly share images and videos with specific friends via Facebook messaging and text messaging. Dubbed Instagram Direct, the new feature allows users to share images with friends directly in real-time and see likes, and comments instantly.

Instagram Direct has a few safety measures in place as well, with the most prevalent being a notification when someone you are not following sends you an image or video. The app will let you chose if you want to see this image or video, and if you decide not to, then you simply decline and the invitation goes away.

"As we've grown, Instagram has evolved not only into a community of photographers, but also into a means of visual communication. From a photo of your daily coffee to a sunrise shared from the top of a mountain hike, every Instagram moment contains something you find special-something you broadcast to your followers when you tap share," Instagram said in its official release. "There are, however, moments in our lives that we want to share, but that will be the most relevant only to a smaller group of people-an inside joke between friends captured on the go, a special family moment or even just one more photo of your new puppy. Instagram Direct helps you share these moments."

No mobile platform or software package is without its bugs, and Apple's devices are no exception. Recently reports have began to come in that show that some Apple users can not access iTunes or the App Store on the iPhones, iPods or iPads. When attempting to log-in the users are met with an error that reads: "FATAL::Unable to process your request. Please try again."

Additionally, Apple users trying to access the services from their Mac devices have been met with the same error, and it appears that the issue reaches to the iBookstore as well. Apple has not acknowledged the error on any of its Status pages, and no official statement has been made. The issue does appear to be fairly widespread, and I am guessing that an authentication server somewhere may be broken.

Microsoft's three key Windows platforms will eventually be merged into one, super OS, according to Microsoft executive Julie Larson-Green. The MS exec recently spoke at the UBS Global Technology Summit, where she said that this merging will take some time.

Larson-Green said: "We have the phone OS, we have Windows RT, and we have full Windows. We are not going to have three." The executive did have some comments regarding the necessity of the platform, for Microsoft's current operations: "We do think there is a world where there is a more mobile operating system, that doesn't have the risks to battery life or the risk to security [that Windows does]," she said, "but it also comes with a cost of flexibility."

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is making a comeback on iOS, windows phone, android, and kindle. Rockstar has remastered the 2004 PlayStation 2 classic with better visuals. Characters and cars have been updated to have a better overall look and better shadow detailing.

San Andreas for mobile devices has been redesigned to be used with touchscreen devices. The game will also include support for MFi controllers on Apple devices. An improved checkpoint system as well as three different control setups for driving and maneuvering have also been added.

Rockstar post:

Microsoft has evolved Windows over the years, to the point where Windows 8.1 is all but unrecognizable to its older operating systems - like Windows 95/98. Of course, time goes by, and we can't expect Microsoft to stay in the dark ages, while everyone wants something better. Well, Windows 8 ushered in a touchscreen interface for Microsoft, something that most people don't like because, well, they don't own a touchscreen. Sure, it's great for tablets and touch-enabled PCs, but not for normal desktop users, like myself.

There's some concept art that users have made for Windows 9, that address some of these problems that Windows 8 ushered in. The Windows 9 concepts all use a Start button, something that was complained about so much with Windows 8, that Microsoft was forced to provide a Start button in Windows 8.1. They look absolutely gorgeous, but I know Microsoft won't go in this direction, unfortunately.

I wish they would offer us a touch-enabled UI (that we see in Windows 8) but with a professional/desktop-based UI, as we see in these concept pieces. This would help Microsoft gain some of those lost customers back, and it would help the company get people to upgrade from Windows 7, instead of not providing anything to the user as an incentive to upgrade.

Today reports have surfaced that indicate that the industry's largest mobile music streaming service, Spotify, has managed to secure $250 million in financing which raises the company's valuation to the $4 billion mark. That is up more than $1 billion in just one year.

Unfortunately, even with a valuation of $4 billion, Spotify can not seem to make money. The cause of its negative cash flow stems from what many consider an antiquated business model that many big-name record labels are holding onto quite tightly. Spotify has managed to increase its revenue in just one year to more than $600 million, but its losses also increased to $77 million. Unless Spotify figures things out in the next few years, we may have to bid adieu to the streaming service we so dearly love.

Google has updated its Google translate app for Android. The update brings more supported languages, gesture, and better speech translation. The app has a "new sleek look" according to Google. Google says the app can now have good "fully translated back-and-forth conversations." The update's conversation translator has been improved greatly.

One of the new features the update brings is gesture support, you can turn your phone and it will switch between languages. Google has added Malay and Ukrainian to the apps camera translation, and Javanese, Hebrew, and Esperanto to the handwriting feature. The update is available to download through the Google Play Store, Google mentions the update is coming out today and tomorrow.