Software & Apps - Page 97

Android search app Google Now has some new abilities thanks to its update on Wednesday. Google Now's latest version adds support for movie theaters, public alerts, enhanced sports information and now includes Korean support.

Google Now can show movie showtimes based on how a user runs a search, or if the GPS in your phone detects a cinema close by. Public alerts can be displayed during emergencies, and will display information and warnings about storms, earthquakes and other emergency situations.

Sports information lets users manually input their favorite teams, after which they'll receive scores and updates on their team. The latest version of Google Now is available in the Google Search app, which is available for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean users through Google's Play Store.

Flipboard is an incredible app, I have it installed on my iPad, and my Android phone, and use it daily. Once I'm done with my day job, and TweakTown work, and I've spent my time my wife and my beautiful daughter, I relax on the lounge and open up the Flipboard app.

It's just so easy, and this ease of use has allowed it to expand its userbase in the last eight months, very, very rapidly. Last December saw the newsreading app reach 5 million users, but in those eight months, they've seen an explosion of 15 million more users, now sitting pretty at a total of 20 million users, and counting.

Flipboard started off as an iPad-exclusive, where it enjoyed eighteen months on iOS. It launched on the iPhone on December where it grew by one million users in just a week. In late-June, we saw the arrival of an Android-based version of Flipboard, as well as international editions with region-specific content landing in China, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, and Spain. Flipboard have also not stopped adding features into the app, including audio, Google+ and content from The New York Times.

NVIDIA have pushed out another set of drivers, with the GeForce 306.02 WHQL-certified drivers now available. GeForce 306.02 supports operating systems from Windows XP right up to Windows 8, including the usual bug fixes, updated profiles and added support.

Depending on the combination of hardware and software in your system, you should expect a few improvements if you're making the jump from the 301.24 beta, but if you're rocking the R304 family drivers, the improvements shouldn't be as large. GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 580 users will get the following improvements from the 301.24 beta:

GeForce GTX 680:

Samsung unveiled three new Windows 8, all-in-one PCs earlier today, and included is a widget called S Launcher. Why is this news? Well, Samsung doesn't want to confuse people with Windows 8's lack of a Start Menu, so they've pushed out S Launcher, which looks virtually identical to the Start Menu of Windows 7.

S Launcher is a simple widget that looks, and acts, just like the Start Menu we've all come to love over the last decade-plus. It's as simple as clicking the widget, start typing a word, and whatever word you type, it will show you the settings, and apps that relate to the item you've just searched for. There's also a separate settings icon which provides quick access to the most commonly used controls.

Samsung's S Launcher also allows you to drag and drop files for easy access and throwing them away when you don't need them anymore. The settings icon does come in handy, as Microsoft have shifted around a lot of the computer settings to places you're usually used to in Windows 7. This means that Samsung's S Launcher can save you time when trying to find something such as power management, control panel, and more, now found all in one easy-to-use spot.

Microsoft had announced their plans to release an official SkyDrive app for Android a few weeks ago, and they have kept their word and released an app today so that users can have access to their files across all of the various devices you may own and use. The app is designed for Android 4.0, but only requires Android 2.3 or higher.

The main features of the new app:

In other words, it does basically everything you would expect the app to do; it allows file uploads and downloads and the ability to manage those files, go figure. Microsoft did their best to keep "the same intuitive design of all SkyDrive experiences" while integrating some of the conventional Android interactions.

The days of Firefox "talking" to you while updating are over. With the release of Firefox 15 today, Mozilla has done away with that form of updates, opting for the silent updates, or background updates, utilized by Chrome and other software. No longer will you have to wait while it updates to the latest version! What a relief.

All joking aside, this really is a nice feature to have in software. One of the most frustrating things I have encountered in computing is when I really need to look up something quickly and the browser is updating to the latest version. Since the updater is an integral part of the software, Mozilla took its time testing this before releasing it.

"This was one of the scariest projects that I've ever worked on, since messing something up in the updater component could have catastrophic consequences in case it prevents users from being able to update to newer Firefox revisions," said Ehsan Akhgari, a programmer who worked on the project.

It looks as though Microsoft will be getting an exclusive sneak peak into your computer if you install Windows 8, as the Redmond-based company will be contacted each time you install a new application, according to software hacker Nadim Kobeissi.

Kobeissi noticed the news when running a network packed analyzer under Windows 8. Don't fret: this can be disabled quite easily. Known as Windows 8's SmartScreen feature, it acts as a protector to users from malware, and other things that can be otherwise harmful to your PC. The technology was first featured and introduced with Internet Explorer 8, as an extension of IE7's phishing filter.

When Microsoft released IE9, SmartScreen gained Application Reputation, which is a set of algorithms used to analyze the trustworthiness of downloads through digital signatures, heuristics, and information collected by the company. The technology works by using Microsoft's database of software trustworthiness, but the company collects information about user-driven downloads in the process. This data is obviously kept on Microsoft's servers.

Facebook has finally updated its aging app to improve its performance. Unfortunately, this update only takes care of iOS users as there has been no announcement regarding Android. However, if you are an iOS user, this update should make you significantly more happy with the Facebook app as it is quite a bit faster.

According to the Facebook post, "Facebook 5.0 for iOS is twice as fast as the previous version when launching the app, scrolling through news feed and opening photos in feed." This speed increase is due to the app being completely rewritten from the ground up. A quick update and you'll be able to see for yourself just how much better it is.

The changes are as follows:

Apple are still seeding out OS X 10.8.1 to developers, where they'll hopefully address some of the bigger issues with the initial release of Apple's latest OS, Mountain Lion. But, it looks as though some users have received notifications telling them that Apple are preparing to seed builds of OS X 10.8.2 for testing.

Apple seem to be moving pretty quick from OS X 10.8.1 to OS X 10.8.2, meaning that they're looking to clamp down on issues found not only in the original OS X Mountain Lion release, but 10.8.1. The issues in the OS X 10.8.1 are probably not that big to begin with, but it's good to see Apple moving quickly with updates.

Google, in their grasp for browser domination, have unveiled Octane, a JavaScript benchmark suite. Octane is a browser benchmark that measures performance when running the "complex and demanding web applications that users interact with daily".

Google have noted that the previous JavaScript-based benchmarks run artificial tests that were "created on an ad-hoc basis to stress a specific JavaScript feature". Where Google have steered Octane is different, as it extends the former V8 Benchmark Suite with 5 brand new benchmarks created from "full, unaltered, well-known web applications and libraries". Google have given a run down on the new tests:

If you want to try out Octane, you can right here.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, music streaming service, Spotify, looks to be launching in Canada shortly, with a hint of an expansion into "countries in Asia and South America", too. The news comes from Spotify's annual accounts that were published this week.

A Spotify spokesperson talked to The Wall Street Journal, bu refused to discuss the Canadian launch plans, saying that Spotify "plans to launch in new countries". Spotify's tentacles only recently reached Australia and New Zealand back in May, and the latest news from the company was the unlimited free radio on Android for users based in the US.

Spotify now sports over 15 million active users, with 4 million being paid subscribers, myself included. Once Spotify begins launching in other countries, these numbers should only increase.

Skype is a popular platform for communication among all walks of life. According to the post, "millions of people use Skype for iPhone or Skype for iPad each month." These users have requested features, and Microsoft has obliged with one of the most requested feature: Photo Sharing. They've also updated the apps for speed.

"In addition, we've made some improvements to the performance of the app, as we know many of you want to keep Skype running on your mobile devices all the time." The new feature allows users to send photos that were taken with a user's iPad or iPhone directly to friends and family via Skype. There is no file-size limit.

This means the feature can be used to avoid MMS fees or e-mail attachment size limits. Regarding the performance tweaks:

If you've only recently bought a Windows 7-based PC, and would like to upgrade to the upcoming Start menu-less Windows 8, Microsoft have opened up the registration page in order to do so. The Windows Upgrade Offer will upgrade you to Windows 8 Pro for just $14.99.

It's available to anyone who purchased, or will purchase a Windows 7 PC between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013. If you'd like to take part in the upgrade to Windows 8, you'll need to provide your 25-digit Windows 7 key as part of the online registration process.

Starting October 26, Microsoft will then send out promotion codes via e-mail, which can be used in the checkout within the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant.

Apple continues to show that it's not the most security-focused company with its response to a security vulnerability found in all iOS versions, including iOS6 beta 4. The vulnerability is that a text can be sent with a "Reply-to" number which is different from the actual sender number. This results in messages in which the sender can be spoofed.

As you can see, there is no mention or commitment to fix the vulnerability. Instead, they take the chance to promote their iMessage service. Unfortunately, everyone in the world would need to be using iMessage (a dream for Apple) for this to effectively take care of the vulnerability present.

It looks as though a preview of Mozilla's Firefox for Windows 8 is coming next month, which should show off the company's Modern UI styling and windowless Flash. We've known about the UI for a while, but this was before the whole Metro issue, as it was named Metro UI and has now had a makeover and unveiled as Modern UI.

New details are leaking out about the web browser for the upcoming OS, with a few screenshots to tease us with. A developer on the project, Brian R. Bondy, has posted an update on his blog that talks of Mozilla's progress with the app and their goals for its release:

The Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) has released a new draft which should see the release of a new video codec, H.265. The proposed High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) looks to save on space by up to 50% of the current MPEG-4 H.264 standard, with its aim of reducing the amount of bandwidth used by online video applications, making room for more.

A group of 450 people met in Stockholm during July in order to approve the new codec, which if adopted, would see double the amount of TV channels broadcast, all in the same amount of spectrum. Per Fröjdh, chairman of the Swedish MPEG delegation and manager for Visual Technology at Ericsson Research has said it will "have an enormous impact on the industry", and rightly so. He also notes that it is currently predicted that video could account for "90 percent of all network traffic" by 2015.

Fröjdh also believes that the new HEVC format could see a launch in the commercial product space as soon as next year. Apple would hopefully be an early adopter in H.265, as they were in H.264. Nokia and Microsoft also recommend H.264 as an alternative to plugins for video in the HTML5 specification. We should hear more about H.265 over the coming months.

AMD have just released a tasty version of their Catalyst drivers, version 12.8. The biggest gem in this driver is most likely going to be the Windows 8 support, which includes AMD's first logo certified and unified driver for Windows 8 production. This includes:

Major technologies / features also supported under Windows 8:

There's also some performance improvements with Catalyst 12.8 when versed against Catalyst 12.6:

Pinterest has released an Android app and iPad app after "very vocal" Android users persistently requested one. An iPhone app has existed for a while now, but also saw an update on Tuesday. The idea behind the apps is to allow pinning to be faster and more efficient so that you can "go offline and do things that you love."

Apparently, every product release by Pinterest was followed by the question "what about an Android app?" So that's what they did: "our custom-designed Android app makes it simple and fast to pin, so that the time you spend on Pinterest is as productive as possible. We also made sure the app works well on Android phones and tablets, regardless of your device's cost, speed or screen size."

Pinterest believes that their iPad app is the best way to experience Pinterest. "iPad owners may have the best Pinterest experience yet." iPhone users also received a redesigned app. The new version features a two-column layout so that users can see more pins, just like they have been requesting.

Adobe's run of Flash player on Android devices ends tomorrow, with the developer disabling new installs of the app on Android-based devices. The developer will now concentrate on HTML5 and other web-based technologies.

Adobe wanted to go head first into mobiles with Flash, but were met with some strong resistance from Apple. The late Steve Jobs wrote an open letter in April 2010, where he explained just why Flash wasn't allowed on the iOS-based devices. Jobs took a swing at Flash's reliability, security, impact on battery life and performance, as well as claiming that Flash was a proprietary web standard. He suggested that Adobe work on creating great HTML5 tools, which is now what they're doing.

But, Flash isn't just going to disappear. Adobe still have a huge market for Flash, with Google adding better Flash support to their popular Chrome browser. How much longer does Flash have to stay relevant? Well, this market is an ever-changing one, so its really an impossible question right now.

It looks as though the MegaUpload problems aren't stopping founder Kim Dotcom from getting right back into work, with the biggest hint that his new music program has not been delayed and will arrived later this year. The new hint comes from a tweet from the man himself, and is talking about Megabox.

I'm sure you've heard of it, but if you haven't, Megabox will be a music service that allows artists to sell music directly to its users. The last time Dotcom talked of Megabox was back in June, where he told Torrent Freak that: