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The most popular stories on BetaNews this past week March 9 -- 15

Publié: mars 15, 2014, 4:26pm CET par Mark Wilson

This is the week that saw the web celebrating its 25th birthday and Tim Berners-Lee took the opportunity to call for a web bill of rights, which I argued is essential for the future of democracy.

Another week means a fresh batch of security concerns. In Europe, users were warned of the dangers of connecting to public wifi hotspots, while a new report found that cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their techniques. Ian was on hand with advice for anyone trying to tackle or avoid viruses.

Here at BetaNews we have put Google under the microscope more than once. Brian revealed how the company is offering money in return for Google Apps referrals while Joe suggested that the end of Chromebook -- and indeed PCs in general -- is on the cards; although users can get a 60-day free trial of Google Music.

This was far from being the end of Google coverage this week. Subtle changes to Google's search results page made ads slightly less obvious, but this isn't necessarily the good news you might think. The search giant also announced that it would be encrypting searches in China. Sounds great, but I viewed it as a cynical marketing move benefiting no one but Google. Joe felt much the same about something else Google-related. Following a price cut for Google Drive storage, he pondered whether the convenience was worth the loss of freedom involved in getting in bed with Google.

After I complained that the Windows 8.1 update is rubbish, Brian disagreed, saying that it was time for the moaners to grow up and stop whinging. If you're really struggling with the Start screen, Wayne compiled a list of the best Start menu replacement tools to keep you happy.

Being offered an incentive to buy a phone, a computer or a piece of software is nothing particularly new, but if you've been putting off buying an Xperia Z2, the lure of a free Sony Bravia TV just might be enough to sway your decision. If you've already got yourself an iOS device the release of iOS 7.1 adds CarPlay support as well as new camera settings and speeding up of performance. Samsung busied itself mass-producing 20 nanometer 4Gb DDR3 memory for both PCs and mobile devices and also working with Microsoft on a wireless charging system.

It's not just buying a new phone that gets you something free. Getty Images announced that its pictures would be made available free of charge to anyone looking to use them for non-commercial purposes. In the world of media, Netflix released new details of which ISPs offer the best performance while at CeBIT the UK Prime Minister announced plans for an ultrafast 5G mobile network.

If you're looking for something fun to end the week, check out the updated Hitchhiker's Guides to the Galaxy game which was rereleased for the book's 30th anniversary. Oh, and if you're looking to bring in a little money with a skill you have, check out Fiverr which has just found its way to Android.

Enjoy the weekend, and sit back while more news comes your way.

Image Credit: vinz89 / Shutterstock
NConvert -- an amazing command line-based image processor

Publié: mars 15, 2014, 4:07pm CET par Mike Williams

In an increasingly touch-oriented world, the idea of using a command line utility to process images might seem, well, just a little old-fashioned.

And maybe it is. But if you regularly need to resize, rotate, crop or convert multiple images, then there’s still no substitute for a console tool like NConvert.

The program has an enormous amount of functionality, with tools to crop, resize and rotate images; tweak brightness, contrast and color; apply sharpen or blur filters; add watermarks, even remove or edit metadata.

NConvert can work its magic on just about any file, too. The program reads more than 500 image formats, and can export to more than 70.

It is still a command line tool, of course, but don't necessarily assume that makes it difficult to use. Take a look at this example command.

nconvert -out gif pic1.jpg

You can probably see immediately that this takes the file pic1.jpg and saves it in the GIF format.

That's only a very basic task, of course, but more advanced commands still remain very understandable. Try these.

nconvert -out png -resize 200% 200% *.jpeg
nconvert -out gif -dither -colors 256 *.jpeg

As you can see, the syntax is very straightforward -- no cryptic -d /x -g nonsense -- and this makes both commands very clear. We’re doubling the size of our JPEGs, then saving them as PNGs, before converting our next JPEGs to GIF, while choosing exactly how to reduce our color palette.

There is still some work to be done in reading through the various commands, of course, and figuring out exactly which you'll need.

Once you understand the basics, though, NConvert will give you enormous flexibility. Add it also scripts, and you'll be able to run them on demand; at a particular time of day; when your system starts, is idle or shuts down; before or after you run other programs, and much more.

But if you’re still thinking it's more complicated than you'd like, don’t worry, there’s a GUI version available in XNConvert: try that one first.
Mozilla disses Microsoft -- cancels Modern UI version of Firefox for Windows 8.x

Publié: mars 15, 2014, 1:04am CET par Brian Fagioli

The hatred of Modern UI and its associated Start Screen is well documented. Many users dislike the full-screen Windows apps, stating they are less productive with them. There can be truth to that -- working with multiple open programs and apps simultaneously can be problematic. Not to mention, there are very few apps compared to legacy programs. Some users may feel that if they cannot go "all in" on Modern UI, they don't want to use it at all.

It is hard to blame developers for not embracing Modern UI -- Microsoft hasn't even done so with Office. One notable app that has been conspicuously absent, is Firefox. Mozilla developers have been working on it, but a final, stable version never came to fruition. Sadly, Mozilla announces that it is cancelling the project, dealing Microsoft's Windows 8.x a significant blow.

"We've been watching Metro's adoption. From what we can see, it's pretty flat. On any given day we have, for instance, millions of people testing pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, but we've never seen more than 1000 active daily users in the Metro environment", says Johnathan Nightingale, VP Firefox.

Nightingale further explains, "we could ship it, but it means doing so without much real-world testing. That's going to mean lots of bugs discovered in the field, requiring a lot of follow up engineering, design, and QA effort. To ship it without doing that follow up work is not an option. If we release a product, we maintain it through end of life. When I talk about the need to pick our battles, this feels like a bad one to pick: significant investment and low impact. Instead, we pull it".

Many will claim the cancellation is an indictment of Windows 8.x and Modern UI and maybe it is. However, I am not so sure. Mozilla is citing low usage of pre-release software and projecting this on users of stable versions. This may be a mistake, as the behaviors of these two groups are likely very different. There is no guarantee, but it is possible that normal users would flock to it. Mozilla should at least give it a chance.

I also sense an air of negativity and petulance on behalf of Mozilla in its announcement. Nightingale repeatedly refers to the Modern UI as "Metro" -- something it has not been called in a while. Microsoft notoriously does not like the "Metro" moniker being used. Mozilla's use of the name comes across as a possible needling of Microsoft -- that is the perception, true or not.

Is Mozilla making a mistake or is this a smart move? Is it dissing Microsoft? Tell me in the comments.

Image Credit: Oleg Zhevelev/Shutterstock