Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » août 4, 2014

BetaNews.Com (14 non lus)

Lien pour 'BetaNews.Com/2014/08/04/Microsoft_s__3_Reasons_Windows_8.1_is_better__won%e2%80%99t_convince_anyone_to_switch'

Microsoft's '3 Reasons Windows 8.1 is better' won’t convince anyone to switch

Publié: août 4, 2014, 9:18pm CEST par Wayne Williams

taskbar

Microsoft continues to try and change opinions regarding its tiled OS, and today the company introduces a new video showcasing three reasons Windows 8.1 is better. It doesn’t say what it’s better than -- Windows 8, possibly, or Windows 7 -- but it does show how you can use Windows the way you want.

The minute long video is fast paced, colorful, and set to a pumping music track ('Sassy Gang' by Mike Sampey and Mark O'Grady). Frankly if you’ve never used the tiled OS before you probably won’t have a great idea of what is going on, but the flashy captions might help you make some sense of things. As for the three reasons? They are, in order, The Desktop ("it comes up automagically!"), The Apps (which you can pin to the desktop or the Start screen), and The Navigation (the ease with which you can switch between desktop and full screen apps).

I’m not sure the ad will convince anyone who has yet to try Windows 8.1 to make the switch, and it’s clearly aimed at a young audience. The 'It' at the start and end of the video ("Just the way you want it") cycles through various styles -- knitted, quilted, meat, leopard skin, fruit, and so on, before ending on a cake with cherries on top. Presumably Microsoft’s way of saying you can have your cake and eat it with the new OS.

I want to try and find something nice to say about this ad, I really do, but I just can’t see what Microsoft is hoping to achieve here. The video is too fast paced to sell the benefits, and I agree with YouTube commenter mossimen who says:

Horrible commercial, got a headache just by looking at it. They should try something more slow and more clear. If people don’t know W8 they don't get what’s going on from a W7 perspective.

And that I think is spot on. If you’re a Windows 7 user this will just convince you to stick with your current OS rather than switching to something that just looks really confusing and less capable.

But maybe that’s just me. Take a look at the video for yourselves, and let me know what you make of it in the comments below. Hit or miss?

HGST Research shows off world's fastest SSD with cheetah-like performance

Publié: août 4, 2014, 6:52pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

cheetah

Faster is almost always better. While computer enthusiasts are continually trying to get an edge and squeeze out more performance, they are often stopped by one thing -- a lack of money. Yes, in the computer world, you must pay to play and hardware is not always cheap. Often manufacturers will trot out something so remarkable (and expensive), that nerds start drooling and dreaming about owning it, but never actually achieve it.

Today, HGST shows off what it is calling the world's fastest SSD. Unfortunately, it is so fast that most people will not be able to afford it any time soon. With that said, it is only a tech-demo for now, but today's demos are tomorrow's consumer products. Are you ready for a cheetah-like SSD in your system?

"The SSD demonstration utilizes a PCIe interface and delivers three million random read IOs per second of 512 Bytes each when operating in a queued environment and a random read access latency of 1.5 microseconds (us) in non-queued settings, delivering results that cannot be achieved with existing SSD architectures and NAND Flash memories. This performance is orders of magnitude faster than existing Flash based SSDs, resulting in a new class of block storage devices", says HGST Research.

The company further says, "in order to fully expose the capabilities of these new memory technologies to the server system and its software applications, HGST has also developed a low-latency interface architecture that is fully optimized for performance and is agnostic to the specific underlying memory technology. HGST used its controller expertise to integrate the 45 nm 1Gb PCM chips to build a prototype full height, full length PCIe Gen 2x4 SSD card".

Dr. Zvonimir Bandic, manager of Storage Architecture at HGST Research says "three million IOPs is exceptional, but that is not the most exciting part of the demonstration. What is really exciting is to be able to deliver latencies close to 1us for small block random reads. This is something that just cannot be done with NAND Flash and current controller and interface technologies".

Solid state drives are pretty darn fast now and I never find myself wishing they were faster. However, it is important to continue pushing the envelope and improving technologies. Will many consumers be owning this technology any time soon? Absolutely not. Still though, it is exciting to dream. HGST Research and Western Digital (the parent company) should be applauded for this innovation.

Are you excited for faster SSDs? Tell me in the comments.

Photo credit: Lucasdm / Shutterstock

Wunderlist 3 adds real-time sync and refreshed design, drops support for Windows desktop

Publié: août 4, 2014, 6:51pm CEST par Nick Peers

Wunderlist

6 Wunderkinder GmBH has unveiled Wunderlist 3.0, a major new release of its to-do list manager for Mac. Also available for iOS and Android, the biggest surprise with this new release is the lack of a Windows update from version 2.

For the platforms still supported, Wunderlist 3.0 comes with the promise of a revamped real-time sync engine, major redesign and the promise of over 60 improvements.

Wunderkinder has revealed it’s busy developing a new Windows 8 app, but has ceased support for the existing Windows desktop app, which means users of older versions of Windows are left with the choice of continuing to use the old, depreciated build or either switching to the Google Chrome extension or accessing the Wunderlist service through their web browser.

The highlight of version 3 is its rebuilt sync engine. The new engine comes with the promise of greater simplicity and robustness, plus faster performance. Users will no longer have to wait for lists to load before they can start adding to their lists.

Wunderkinder also reveals that the Real-time Sync tool will also make it easier to build new features more regularly going forward, such as support for integrating with other apps.

The new interface is undoubtedly slick and eye-catching, but has also been built in tandem with the new sync engine for better responsiveness. The UI has also been simplified to reduce clutter and make the app feel lighter and easier to use, and is fully scalable so it can support small and large devices.

Other notable improvements in version 3 include instant sharing of new lists with others, while collaborative features previously restricted to Wunderlist Pro users have now been opened up to free users too, including commenting. A new Conversation and Activity Center has been built to accommodate this kind of sharing.

One final improvement to version 3 is support for Public Lists, which can be shared via social media with a single click.

Wunderlist 3.0 for Mac, Wunderlist 3.0 for iPhone and iPad and Wunderlist 3.0 for Android are all available as free downloads now. A free Wunderlist account is required to use the service, with Pro subscriptions available starting from $4.99 per month.

FBackup comes with promise of faster backup performance, improved statistics view

Publié: août 4, 2014, 6:49pm CEST par Mike Williams

fbackup

Softland has released FBackup 5.1 and Backup4all 5.1, minor new versions of its free and paid-for Windows backup products.

Both programs, which offer file-based backup and extended functionality via plug-ins, come with the promise of improved backup performance and more detailed statistics view, along with other minor improvements and bug fixes.

Improved backup speed should be found when performing backup jobs containing a large number of files. Both FBackup and Backup4all also gain "Last backup size" and "Total backup size" details in the Statistics view. The updates also now show file icons based on the system file extensions in both source and restore previews.

Backup4all users also gain optimized views for Explore and Backup for jobs containing sources from an offline network share. Other network tweaks include a fix that prevents the user interface freezing when selecting a job with sources from the local area network.

Also added to the paid-for version are two new command-line parameters for the EXE setup file, namely SettingsAvailableForCurrUser (default true) and AutoStart (default false) respectively.

A number of new languages -- French, Malay, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese Traditional and Swedish -- have been added to both new builds, while fixes include restoring the [F11] shortcut for the scheduler and ensuring the screen layout is preserved when the application is reopened.

FBackup 5.1 is available now as a freeware download (for personal and commercial use), while 4Backup4all 5.1 is available as a trial download with various licenses from Lite to Standard all available. Both require Windows XP or later.

Amazon Fire TV adds new services, including MLB and Disney

Publié: août 4, 2014, 5:12pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

amazon-fire-tv

Baseball season is in full swing and marching steadily towards the playoffs, and football is now in pre-season, making it a great time to have easy access to sports information. Now those who have joined, or will soon join, the Amazon ecosystem with a Fire TV, are going to get just that, along with other services as well.

The retailer announces the addition of MLB.tv, WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH Disney Jr., Animal Planet Live, and the WWE Network. "Customers are loving the selection on their Fire TV, telling us how easy it is to watch their favorite movies and TV shows, listen to music, and play games in their living room. And because of that, developers continue to bring great apps to the platform, with app selection more than doubling since launch", says Steve Rabuchin, Vice President of the Amazon Appstore.

More games have also been added -- we told you about Flappy Birds Family recently, but also added are Dungeon Quest, Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse, The Wolf Among Us, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and The Bard’s Tale.

Amazon is teasing additional content that is coming throughout the last part of 2014. Services will include WATCH ABC, WATCH ABC Family, NFL Now, A&E, Lifetime, Outside TV, Young Hollywood, North Face TV, Fashion TV, Green TV and Dailymotion.

If you have the tiny set-top box then visit the app store now to check out the new content, and keep an eye out for the rest that is on the way.

Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 available via Preview for Developers

Publié: août 4, 2014, 4:15pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1

Windows Phone users who are enrolled in the Preview For Developers program can now install Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1. The major update, which was announced less than a week ago, is set to officially roll out to the masses in the comings months.

The most important user-facing changes that Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 introduces are Live Folders, a new feature which finally enables folders on the platform, and improvements to the stock apps, privacy and security. Of course, it also makes way for Cortana's first expansion.

The personal assistant in Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 is available as a beta to users in China (where Microsoft is calling it "Xiao Na") and United Kingdom, and as an alpha in Australia, Canada and India (there, users will have to choose between UK and US English, to interact with Cortana).

Cortana has been adapted to work in China and UK, featuring local optimizations for both markets. In China, it looks and sounds different (compared to US), while in UK it features locally-used spellings and pronunciations and a tailored personality.

On top of Live Folders, there is another new standout feature baked in Windows Phone 8.1. Called App Corner, it is designed to be used by businesses which wish to control which apps their employees will see first right after booting their Windows Phones, and, naturally, which apps they are allowed to use. App Corner is a step towards a more BYOD-friendly smartphone platform, and should drive up Windows Phone's adoption in the business segment.

You can learn more about the new features and changes in Windows Phone 8.1 by reading my post detailing the major update. As I write this post, I am installing it on my Nokia Lumia 920. The upgrade process is taking considerable time to complete (more so than I originally expected).

If you'd rather not own it, Leak it

Publié: août 4, 2014, 1:38pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

Leak

If you have something to say, you can either say it to a person's face or resort to Leak, a new cloud service that lets you send anonymous emails that will likely never be traced back to you if some common sense is used. I prefer the open approach, but I sense that today quite a few people will embrace the latter.

The possibilities are endless. You can send any sort of message through the service, as long as you don't push things too far. Leak would rather you don't threaten or bully people, encourage damaging behaviors, send "graphic" images or porn, spam or share private information. Of course, based on the anonymous emails I am seeing (some sent "leaks" are publicly shared on the site), there are users who will do the obvious: abuse the service and act immaturely.

Leak has been used to let a coworker know that "You're the sexiest and hottest manager I've ever had", "I do not wear panties today, and I'm in the same office" or "Being with you is like drinking my first can of Coca Cola". In a real-life scenario, a sexual harassment suit would probably follow (or, at the very least, a not-so-flattering remark would ensue), but, courtesy of Leak, a bunch of coworkers get to say what they have always had on their minds without showing their true colors.

But that's not every Leak user. Some took to the service to give a classmate advice ("I am one of your classmates and I think you are talented but you should do something else"), admit that they are using someone ("I am just hanging out with you because you know a lot of people. That's it), or let their feelings be known to a coworker ("We're officially enemies but I wanted to say that you did a great job on our last project"). (You can even subscribe to get the so-called "best leaks of the week".)

Leak leaks

The recipient cannot know who sent the email from its details alone, because the message is sent through Leak's system. A leak I sent to myself, to test the service, has the subject From someone, anonymously and notifications at justleak dot it as the sender's address (obviously, with the signs in place). The sender can be identified in the subject as "a friend", "a coworker", "a family member", "a friend of a friend" and, like I've chosen, "someone". The key is hiding your identity well in the message to truly stay anonymous.

Home phone maker Gigaset launches new range of tablets in the UK

Publié: août 4, 2014, 1:02pm CEST par Wayne Williams

QV830_black_FR_Large_Crop - reduced size

Gigaset (previously Gigaset Siemens) is launching a range of affordable Android tablets in the UK. This is the first foray into the tablet market for the home phone specialist which will initially be offering two devices -- an 8 inch model and a 10 inch one.

The smaller tablet, the QV830, is available to buy from Curry’s now, priced at £99.99, while the larger QV1030 will be available shortly. The price for that model has yet to be confirmed.

As you’d expect from the QV830's pricing, the two tablets aren’t exactly the most powerful on the market. The smaller device has an 8 inch, 768 by 1024 screen, 8GB of flash storage, 1GB RAM, a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1.2GHz quad core processor.

The QV1030 has a 10 inch, 2560 by 1600 HD screen, 16GB flash storage, 2GB RAM, 8 megapixel rear camera with dual flash LEDs and a 1.8GHz quad core processor.

Both come with Android Jellybean 4.2.2 rather than KitKat.

Amy Ward, marketing manager at Gigaset UK said: "Our new tablets have been designed with the whole family in mind to be easy to use, fast and accessible. We want to enable more people to enjoy the benefits of a tablet both at home and at work and are confident that the new QV830 and QV1030 tablets from Gigaset will prove popular among customers".

Explaining the company’s decision to diversify, Ward says, "The move into the tablet market is a natural progression for Gigaset as we look to expand our portfolio and use our expertise in telecommunications to create even more high quality, meticulously designed technology for the home".

Intronis automates Bare Metal Restore for faster recovery

Publié: août 4, 2014, 12:35pm CEST par Ian Barker

Disk backup recovery

Backup specialist Intronis has announced that it’s integrating Bare Metal Restore into its ECHOplatform for small and medium businesses, which offers a flat-fee unlimited cloud and local storage pricing model.

The BMR functionality offers complete physical-to-physical (P2P) bare metal recovery and physical-to-virtual (P2V) BMR recovery options for greater flexibility and performance. Available at no extra charge to Intronis channel partners it allows recovery back to the original system or to a replacement machine.

It's also possible to recover to a specific point in time to overcome corruption or malware issues. Physical images can be restored to virtual drives or virtual machines and recovered images can be mounted as a drive to carry out individual file restores.

"By integrating BMR right into the Intronis ECHOplatform and U² pricing plan, we’re taking away the headache and added expense channel partners bear in having to 'rebuild, restore, reboot,'" says Chuck DeLouis, vice president of product management at Intronis. "With our BMR solution channel partners have access to a much simpler, highly-automated complete recovery process that virtually eliminates configuration errors, reduces expenses, and speeds recovery time".

The ECHOplatform delivers a secure, scalable, and comprehensive cloud backup and data recovery solution -- supporting a variety of in-demand services, plug-ins, and extensions such as physical imaging, VMware and Hyper-V, as well as SQL and Exchange backup.

At the same time the U² Plan simplifies pricing for channel partners by offering unlimited cloud and unlimited local storage at a fixed monthly cost. Neal Bradbury, Intronis' vice president, channel development says, "Add to the mix our new partner enablement resources and it's easy to see how Intronis is helping our channel partners better market, sell, and support best-in-class cloud backup and data protection solutions that are simple, secure, and can easily scale to meet the needs of their clients".

You can find out more about the ECHOplatform backup and recovery solutions on the company's website.

Image Credit: Oleksiy Mark / Shutterstock

Is TEncoder the ultimate video converter?

Publié: août 4, 2014, 12:26pm CEST par Mike Williams

TEncoder

When we tried it last year, TEncoder impressed us as a powerful video conversion tool with a stack of features: file, folder and folder tree import, video trimming, 800+ output profiles, excellent subtitling support, deinterlace and crop tools, full control over output codec settings, and a whole lot more.

It was an outstanding package, but the developer had only just got started, and major updates have taken the program into whole new areas.

TEncoder can now download videos from popular media sharing sites, for instance. You can specify links individually, in batches or from a playlist, and the program then runs up to eight parallel downloads.

There’s a tool to create animated GIFs from videos. It’s nothing like as capable as the specialist competition -- you’re only able to set the image resolution and the delay between frames -- but is adequate for many situations.

You can now customize your videos with an image watermark, positioned wherever you like.

There are new ways to process media files, too, as well as convert them. For example, you get a tool to merge an image and audio file to create a video, while another dubs a video with your choice of audio file.

All this can take a while, but a new "Post-encode action" can have the program close down itself or your PC when its finished.

One problem is that the sheer weight of functionality makes for a cluttered interface, and it sometimes takes a while to find what you need.

You also need to be wary of the installer, which by default tries to equip your PC with all kinds of junk (though if you pay attention these can all be avoided).

But overall TEncoder is an excellent video converter, packed with features and enormously configurable. Power users in particular should give it a try.

BiTMICRO launches high capacity SSDs for the enterprise

Publié: août 4, 2014, 11:17am CEST par Ian Barker

MAXio_PCIe_2

The way that many enterprises use data places heavy demands on storage, both in terms of capacity and performance. Whilst SSDs can solve the performance issue they don’t always offer the capacity required.

California-based BiTMICRO is a pioneer of SSDs having been involved with them since 1999. With the launch of its new MAXio E-Series PCIe drives it's aiming to deliver capacity, performance and reliability for companies that need to support high volume application workloads.

Based on the company's Talino ASIC Architecture the drives offer high capacity with a starting point of 1.5TB which is higher than most competitors. They also ensure integrity of the data with full Data Path Protection technology, from the moment data arrives at the host interface until it's stored on the NAND flash chips.

The range is aimed at enterprise applications with heavy load demands including video-on-demand, video streaming, online transaction processing, non-linear editing, gaming, file servers, web applications and cloud services.

"For years we have proven the value of our SSD technology in high-demand military and industrial computing environments such as air and space, military systems and mobile industrial solutions," says Zophar Sante, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Sales at BiTMICRO. "Now we are bringing this expertise to enterprise and mid-market customers. With MAXio E-Series SSDs, organizations of every size can achieve faster storage performance, greater reliability and true business availability".

Features of the drives include dynamic wear leveling to maximize the life of the flash drive’s chips for up to five years, protection of data at the firmware level for minimum overhead, and easy to use management software allowing users to optimize drive settings.

The MAXio E-Series is available now in capacities from 1.5 to 6TB, C-Series models with capacities up to 12TB will be available next year. For more information on the range you can visit the BiTMICRO website.

Lien pour 'BetaNews.Com/2014/08/04/Windows_8.1_Update_2_arriving_this_month____don%e2%80%99t_get_too_excited'

Windows 8.1 Update 2 arriving this month -- don’t get too excited

Publié: août 4, 2014, 9:45am CEST par Wayne Williams

windows update

In the (nearly) two years since launch, Microsoft has made sweeping changes to its tiled OS. The road from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 Update, has been an interesting, not to mention bumpy one. I was never a great fan of Windows 8, but I love the operating system it’s become.

However, poor market share, and negative word of mouth has meant that Microsoft has to move on and away from 8.x as quickly as possible and, as a result, any future changes and additions -- including the reintroduction of the Start button -- will be rolled into Windows 9 instead of appearing in the next 8.x Update, as had originally been rumored.

According to Windows watcher Mary Jo Foley, Update 2 is still set to arrive on August 12, as part of Patch Tuesday, but now it will be a relatively minor update. So minor in fact, that Foley says Microsoft will be referring to it simply as the "August update". The changes will be minimal, and there will be no big new features to get excited about. The Windows 8.x journey is nearing the end of the road.

Before Windows 8.1 Update arrived it was being referred to as Windows 8.1 Update 1. The trouble with the original name was it suggested there would be an Update 2, and Update 3 and so on, which wasn’t the smartest approach for a company already looking to move on to the next OS release. Despite Microsoft dropping the number from the Update, many users were still expecting at least one final push, a big Update 2, but it seems that’s not going to happen now.

Not only won’t the forthcoming update be very exciting, it won’t even be mandatory -- you can choose for yourself whether or not to install it.

Research claims nearly one in ten Android apps is malware

Publié: août 4, 2014, 8:38am CEST par Darren Allan

virus malware infection mobile

As many as 9 percent of Android apps are fully or partially malware, according to a new piece of research, although the majority of the blame (as ever) lies with dodgy third-party app stores particularly in Asia.

The figure comes from Cheetah Mobile's latest security report for the first half of 2014, which collected 24.4 million sample files during those six months, and found that 2.2 million were viruses.

That represents a rapid growth -- in fact an increase of 2.5 times compared to the total seen in 2013, and over twenty-fold compared to the number of infected files kicking about in 2012. It's no surprise, though, given Android's equally meteoric rise and the juicy large target of user numbers it now represents.

The major problem area is, as we've already mentioned, Asia -- and also some parts of Western Europe -- where third-party app stores reign, and therefore security and control is a far more lax affair.

Oddly enough, France is the worst spot in Europe with a 2.97 percent infection rate according to Cheetah, well ahead of Russia on 1.88 percent. The UK is on 1.07 percent.

The most afflicted country in Asia (and globally) isn't China -- which is on 2.45 percent, actually less than France -- but rather Vietnam on 3.65 percent. India is second worst on 2.96 percent.

Cheetah also noted that numbers of mobile payment viruses are rising dramatically, and are set to become the primary threat to Android hardware this year -- and a big threat to users, of course, seeing as they potentially stand to lose money via this kind of malware. Payment viruses represented two-thirds of the malware Cheetah detected in this latest report.

Photo Credit: style-photography.de/Shutterstock

Wearable technology is easily tracked

Publié: août 4, 2014, 8:24am CEST par Barclay Ballard

Wearables-2014-header-640x480_contentfullwidth

Users of wearable technology can have their information tracked with just $70 worth of hardware, according to a new study.

Research carried out by security firm Symantec used a simple set-up combining a Raspberry Pi computer and a Bluetooth radio module, to scan for signals. The technology was taken to parks and sporting events where it was able to record data being broadcast from gadgets close by.

At no point did the device try to connect to any wearables, but Symantec said the data could be collected because wearables are simple devices that communicate with a smartphone or laptop to pass on information.

Taking their device to public places in Switzerland and Ireland, researchers Mario Barcena, Candid Wueest and Hon Lau found that wearable gadgets were particularly susceptible.

"All the devices we encountered can be easily tracked using the unique hardware address they transmit," the team wrote in a blogpost.

Some of the devices were also vulnerable to being probed remotely to reveal serial numbers or other identifying information. The researchers revealed it would be "trivial" for individuals with computer knowledge to access this data.

The Symantec team said that the ease with which user data could be accessed was a major concern.

"The lack of basic security at this level is a serious omission and raises serious questions about how these services handle information stored on their servers," the report added.

Some apps also did little to secure data when traveling from the user to central servers. It was even possible to manipulate information to gain data about other users and cause databases to execute commands sent by external agents.

"These are serious security lapses that could lead to a major breach of the user database," the team said.