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BetaNews.Com (4 non lus)

Rdio brings new features to Favorites

Publié: janvier 24, 2015, 3:35pm CET par Alan Buckingham

Streaming music services are everywhere today and few people bother buying CDs because of them. While those with "golden ears" may not approve, for the vast majority the quality is just fine. Those who want more can look into Neil Young's Pono Player, but for the rest of us, Rdio will work out nicely and save you some money as well.

Now the music streaming service is announcing a slew of updates to its Favorites feature. Introduced last September, this section is now receiving a refresh that allows for much more functionality.

To start with, users can now select multiple tracks from an album or playlist and add them to favorites. Rdio has also added a "Play favorite songs" option, allowing you to play just those tracks you really like. There is also "Listener favorites" that will allow the user to discover new music. You can even sort Favorites by the most listened to tracks.

The company wraps up with the promise that "We'll continue to roll out more new features in the coming weeks, based on your listener feedback. We're dedicated to making Rdio the best music service in the world, tuned to you". In other words, stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Poprotskiy Alexey/Shutterstock
Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 9926 is much better, but there are known problems

Publié: janvier 24, 2015, 1:04pm CET par Mark Wilson

Yesterday, Microsoft took a lot of people by surprise by releasing Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9926 rather earlier than expected. Here at BetaNews we've installed the latest build on various machines -- virtual and real -- having battled with downloads, and now it's time for testing.

We'll be taking a look at this latest build in more depth in future articles, but before we do, it is probably worth pointing out some of the known problems. From playing with build 9926 just briefly it's easy to see that it's a marked improvement on previous releases, but Microsoft has helpfully forewarned users of issues they might encounter.

Of course, we must remember that this is only a preview; problems are very much to be expected and they'll almost certainly be ironed out in the final release. That said, things get off to something of an irritating start for some people who will find that rather than booting straight in to Windows 10, they are instead present with a boot screen. Microsoft explains that this is because of a "bug where a second boot option is persisted to uninstall the Windows 10 Technical Preview and roll back to the previous OS installed". It's just a matter of manually selecting the correct boot option each time, or waiting for 30 seconds for the default option to be selected.

The revamped Start menu has a few potential issues. You may find that the menu fails to launch from time to time, and icon labels can be truncated. One of the most eagerly anticipated features, Cortana, has quite a few problems at the moment. Microsoft points out that complex reminders may not be correctly created, and it is not currently possible to edit reminders. It's worth creating a test reminder as there's a possibility that the first one you create won't be displayed, and completed reminders do not currently move to the History section.

Gamers may experience problems with Xbox Live-enabled games, but Microsoft promises that a fix is in the pipeline. Other issues include the appearance of a battery icon on the lock screen of devices that do not have batteries, pixilation in Remote Desktop sessions, a disappearing Music app, and shorter-than-normal battery life on devices with Connected Standby.

As this is pre-release software, there will undoubtedly be more problems than this, but it's good to know what you're dealing with right from the start. We're still testing out this Build 9926, and you can expect more coverage as we try it out. In the meantime, have you noticed a marked improvement from previous builds?
Adobe issues security bulletin for Flash...again

Publié: janvier 24, 2015, 5:42am CET par Alan Buckingham

In the race to the bottom of security, Flash has remained a strong contender, competing with Java to win the competition. It's really nothing against Adobe, the company seems to try fairly hard to keep things safe. It's more that Flash is so popular that it becomes a primary target. Something Microsoft would know a thing or two about, given the success of Windows.

The company has issued its latest security bulletin. It isn't the best of news -- the report seems to encapsulate two vulnerabilities, and both are being exploited in the wild.

"Adobe is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2015-0310 exists in the wild, which is being used in attacks against older versions of Flash Player. Additionally, we are investigating reports that a separate exploit for Flash Player 16.0.0.287 and earlier also exists in the wild". The exploit was pointed out by third-party researchers.

The software maker is considering this a priority and recommending that users update to the latest version of Flash. At the moment, no patch has been issued.

Updating Flash can be tricky for the average user. Messages pop up on certain websites telling the person to do so and "helpfully" providing a link. However these are frequently fake. Always navigate to the Flash site to get your update from the real source.

Image Credit: Ribah / Shutterstock
Tweet translations come (back) to Twitter thanks to Microsoft Bing

Publié: janvier 24, 2015, 1:20am CET par Mark Wilson

After introducing the "while you were away" feature to help ensure you don’t miss out on tweets because of, you know, getting away from Twitter from time to time, there's now another feature that will help you to get more from the microblogging site. By teaming up with Bing, Twitter is now able to provide on-the-fly translations for tweets in foreign languages.

This is not an entirely new feature; Twitter has brought a translation to the web and mobile version of its service before, but it disappeared. Now the feature is back. It works in the iOS and Android apps as well as in Tweetdeck and on the Twitter website.

To take advantage of the feature, you'll first need to enable it in your account. Head to your Twitter account settings and in the Content section check the Tweet translation/Show Tweet translation box. That's pretty much all there is too it. But that's not to say that you'll then automatically see everything in your native tongue -- you'll have to click to translate tweets that appear in more than 40 languages.

The relaunch of the feature was given something of a quiet announcement:

We're introducing Tweet translation with @Bing Translator so you can read Tweets in multiple languages: [https:]

— Twitter (@twitter) January 22, 2015

If you spot a tweet in a foreign language, keep an eye out for a little globe icon. Click it, and the translation will appear below the original tweet. Of course, translation may not be perfect. Twitter warns:

"Although Bing Translator relies on advanced translation software to provide Tweet translations, the results still vary and often fall below the accuracy and fluency of translations provided by a professional translator. For this reason, the original text is always displayed above its translation".

Photo credit: ivosar / Shutterstock