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Submission + - Windows 8.1 Differences Unveiled (zdnet.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: ZDNet has an article detailing the upcoming differences in Windows 8.1 which is coming as a preview in a few weeks. There are a lot of small improvements based on feedback Microsoft have gotten from their users but the Start menu is still omitted in favor of minor updates to the Start screen. Although Microsoft does now make it easier to boot start into the regular Windows desktop in order to avoid the Start screen. The next version of Windows 8.1 will be free to Windows 8 users.

Submission + - Ethernet Turns 40 Years Old (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: Four decades ago the Ethernet protocol made its debut as a way to connect machines in close proximity, today it is the networking layer two protocol of choice for local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs) and everything in between. For many people Ethernet is merely the RJ45 jack on the back of a laptop, but its relative ubiquity and simplicity belie what Ethernet has done for the networking industry and in turn for consumers and enterprises. Ethernet has in the space of 40 years gone from a technology that many in the industry viewed as something not fit for high bandwidth, dependable communications to the default data link protocol.

Submission + - How BlackBerry Is Riding iOS And Android To Power Its Comeback (zdnet.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: While a fresh new generation of BlackBerry phones fight a ferocious battle for third place in the smartphone race, BlackBerry's other big business remains in a great position in its red-hot market, Mobile Device Management (MDM). At BlackBerry Live 2013 in Orlando this week, the company rolled out a major update to BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) and deepened its commitment to making BES a multiplatform solution that now deeply secures its two leading smartphone competitors. Ironically, the trend that brutally undercut BlackBerry phones during the past five years—the "bring your own device" (BYOD) movement—is now driving significant sales of BES, the company's backend software. At BlackBerry Live, the company released version 10.1 of BES. BES 10.1 will support a powerful new module that will launch at the end of June called Secure Work Space, which brings BlackBerry's high security mobile solution to Android and iOS. "Our customers have been asking, 'Can you just take what you've done on BlackBerry and put it on iOS and Android?'" said Pete Devenyi, BlackBerry's SVP of Enterprise Software.

Submission + - BlackBerry Q5 Debuts With Budget Buyers In Mind (cnet.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins on Tuesday unveiled the BlackBerry Q5, a budget phone designed for emerging markets. The phone will launch in the summer around the world, Heins said during its BlackBerry Live conference here today. The company said in a blog post that the Q5 would launch as early as July in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. There's no word on pricing yet.

Submission + - Microsoft Confirms Blue To Be Free For Existing Windows 8 Users (zdnet.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: As many expected and hoped, Microsoft is going to make the coming Windows Blue update to Windows 8 free for existing Windows 8 and Windows RT users. Microsoft's Windows Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller, during an appearance at the May 14 JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, shared the pricing news. Reller also acknowledged what those who've downloaded leaked builds of Blue have known for a while: Windows Blue is Windows 8.1. Windows 8 is currently available via a handful of SKUs — Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows RT (not exactly Windows 8, but part of the family). She didn't provide more information about plans for the coming Blue SKUs. Reller also said today that Microsoft now has more than 70,000 Metro-Style/Windows Store apps in the Windows Store. She also noted that the final version of Windows Blue (both the Windows 8 and the RT flavors) will be made available to customers through the Windows Store once they are available.

Submission + - Google Commemorates Atari's Breakout 37th Birthday (mashable.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: In celebration of Breakout turning 37, Google has turned one of its search queries into the classic Atari game. In order to play it just do a Google Image search for 'Atari Breakout' and watch as the image tiles turn into the old arcade game.

Warning: This is addictive and will waste a lot of time.

Submission + - Debian 7.0 "Wheezy" Released (debian.org)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: After quite a while in development, Debian 7.0, codenamed 'Wheezy' has been released. This release includes the ability to boot using UEFI on amd64 architectures and plenty of updated packages (more than 36,000). Nine architectures are supported in this release and it contains the Linux kernel 3.2. The installation images are up on the mirrors now.

Submission + - Portal Now Available On Linux (on.net)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: Valve have released Portal for Linux through the Steam platform. If you have a copy of the Windows version you will automatically have a copy of it for Linux in your account. There are also rumors of Portal 2 coming soon.

Submission + - Google And Adobe Beautify Fonts On Linux, iOS (pcworld.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: Users of Android, Chrome OS, Linux, and iOS devices may not realize it, but FreeType open source software is used to render fonts on more than a billion such devices. Not only that, but the FreeType project this week got a significant update from none other than Adobe and Google. Specifically, Google and Adobe on Wednesday released into beta the Adobe CFF engine, an advanced Compact Font Format (CFF) rasterizer that “paves the way for FreeType-based platforms to provide users with richer and more beautiful reading experiences,” as Google put it in an online announcement on the Google Open Source Blog. The new rasterizer is now included in FreeType version 2.4.12. Though it's currently off by default, the technology is “vastly superior” to the old CFF engine and will replace it in the next FreeType release, the project says.

Submission + - Google chief urges action to regulate mini-drones (suasnews.com)

Submitted by garymortimer
garymortimer writes: One wonders what Eric Schmidt’s opinion is of the Google staff that we know using the technology. Perhaps the technology is just dandy in their hands? The issue of regulation does need to be addressed in the USA. As ever though the shuffling of chairs and meetings to organize meetings seem to top of the agenda for the FAA.

The influential head of Google, Eric Schmidt, has called for civilian drone technology to be regulated, warning about privacy and security concerns. Cheap miniature versions of the unmanned aircraft used by militaries could fall into the wrong hands, he told the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

Submission + - Twitter Adding Music (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports that Twitter will soon launch a new music recommendation system for users of its service. The company teased the new feature and directed queries to announcement that We Are Hunted, a company focused on music recommendation through social media, would be shutting down and joining the Twitter team. 'Recommendations based on social media interactions have become common throughout digital media for things like restaurants and shopping. Many online music services offer these features as well. Spotify, for example, can broadcast its users’ playlists through Facebook. Twitter’s advantage, in addition to its size, may lie in the devotion of its customers. "Music is one of the most tweeted topics," said Ted Cohen, a former label executive who is now a consultant to digital music companies. "Discovery is critical to the growth of music, and the new gatekeeper is recommendations from trusted sources."' Oddly, those 'trusted sources' seem to be celebrities with Twitter accounts at the moment, as the system is currently invite-only and restricted to 'influencers.'

Submission + - Curiosity Rover Sees Signs Of Vanishing Martian Atmosphere (latimes.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: Before going incommunicado behind the Sun for a month, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover sent Earth evidence that the Red Planet has lost much of its original atmosphere. The findings, announced by Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, bolster the idea that the Martian atmosphere was once much thicker than it is today — and come less than a month after the rover drilled its first rock and found signs that Mars was once hospitable to life. Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars instrument sniffed the Martian atmosphere and counted up the isotopes of argon in the air. Isotopes are heavier and lighter versions of the same element, and when a planet starts to lose its atmosphere, the lighter isotopes in the upper layers are the first to go. So if scientists see fewer of the lighter isotopes than expected, it might mean that there was once much more air there.

Submission + - Stephen Hawking Predicts End-Of-Earth Scenario (cnet.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: Stephen Hawking, one of the world's greatest physicists and cosmologists, is once again warning his fellow humans that our extinction is on the horizon unless we figure out a way to live in space. Not known for conspiracy theories, Hawking's rationale is that the Earth is far too delicate a planet to continue to withstand the barrage of human battering. "We must continue to go into space for humanity," Hawking said today, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

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