It looks like Groupon is adding yet another mobile payments solution to the already crowded space that includes its own Groupon Merchants app for iPhone and Android. as well as competitors such as Square and PayPal Here. from various media outlets you’ll only receive a message that says “The item you’ve requested is not currently available in the U.S. store.” , which said it looked like a more simple and generalized version of Breadcrumb, a restaurant-centered iPad payments solution Groupon acquired last year. the company said that 45 percent of North American transactions occurred on mobile devices, compared with only 30 percent a year earlier.
. for enough hours of the day to be "working." The backlash has sparked a furious debate on the merits of WFH, and whether Mayer has it right or is simply another victim of CEO paranoia, convinced her employees are "ripping her off" by slacking when they should be grinding out work at their desks. . And that's the magic of how the app came to be. , "We'd like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do."
Traditionally, Google's cornucopia of services were all solitary islands in Sergey Brin's vast online sea—completely solitary, and completely cut off from one another. All that changed when the company instituted its new (and ) privacy policy, turning those islands of info into an interconnected web of sharing virtually overnight. Privacy buffs squawked, as they should've, but the collective hand-holding enabled some killer new perks that otherwise wouldn't have happened. Witness: The data dumping ground. Before, Gmail users were given 10GB of free storage space, which was kept wholly separate from the 5GB of cloud storage handed out to Google Drive users. Now, you'll get a flat 15GB of free storage, and you can fill it up with whatever you'd like, in whatever proportions you'd like. (Google Apps users get 30GB.)The company plans on rolling out a new storage settings visualization tool to help you keep tabs on which services are sucking up your digital data allotment. Google cuts heavy Google-ites a big break, too. Any documents, slideshows, or presentations created using Google Docs won't count against your storage limits, nor will any uploaded Google+ photos measuring 2048-by-2048 pixels or smaller. If that sounds like your preferred use case, congratulations! You basically just received a Gmail storage bump.
Computers just aren't selling like they used to, and many critics, analysts, and longtime Windows users point the blame finger at one culprit in particular: Windows 8. , they say. But are they right? Last Tuesday, Microsoft countered the doom-and-gloom by announcing that it has sold . That rate puts the company’s newest OS on par with Windows 7 at the same point in its lifecycle, and Windows 7 is the most widely used PC operating system in the world. But if global PC shipments are in free fall—IDC called the 14 percent drop in the first quarter the steepest single-quarter decline —how can Microsoft keep selling licenses like it’s the good ol’ days of Windows 7?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wants health tech developers in Silicon Valley to make greater use of its data to help make advances in the field and aid entrepreneurs in the region. The effort is part of a larger ongoing project within the federal government to make its health care data more open and intelligible to outside stakeholders such as businesses, tech developers and consumers. “We’re looking for underutilized assets within HHS, to bring more value to them,” said Bryan Sivak, chief technology officer at HHS. For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an HHS agency, operates the National Plan and Provider Enumeration system, which basically lists all the doctors in the U.S. along with their specialties, but it has so much jargon that to the layperson it is practically useless, Sivak said.
As Intel mulls a plan to expand its contract-manufacturing operations, the company has lost ground as the world’s top semiconductor company to chip suppliers benefitting from the success of mobile devices, according to a study by IC Insights released on Monday. Based on revenue, Intel remained the top semiconductor company, but has lost market share to Samsung and Qualcomm, which design and supply chips for smartphones and tablets. A lot of Intel’s chips are being used in PCs, whose sales are falling. Intel’s semiconductor sales in the first quarter were $11.56 billion, a 3 percent drop from the $11.87 billion in the first quarter of 2012. Samsung’s semiconductor sales were $7.95 billion, up by 13 percent thanks to a boost from Apple, whose chips for iPhones and iPads are manufactured and supplied by Samsung. Overall semiconductor sales totaled $53.5 billion in the first quarter, increasing by just 2 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Recording the fastest growth was fourth-placed Qualcomm, with a 28 percent increase in sales to $3.9 billion. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips are used in many of the latest smartphones including HTC’s One and some models of Samsung’s Galaxy S4.
—a subject you wouldn't think would require its own how-to guide. And yet. the conversation), I promised to return with a shortcut that would minimize the hassles of mousing and clicking through the Settings menu to reach the shutdown option. And then I plumb forgot! Reader Jodie recently called me on it, and rightly so. Here, then, from the Better-Late-Than-Never Dept., is your guide to creating a shutdown tile for Windows 8: (that's the Windows key and the letter D).
I have been using Gmail as my sole email client for years now, and I'm a big fan. But there's one key thing I need my email client to do that Gmail doesn't offer: Follow-ups. When I send an email, I often want to be reminded if the recipient hasn't replied within a few days, so I can resend my message or find out what happened. To me, this is absolutely crucial, which is why I was so happy to find Right Inbox for Gmail.
We’re happy to announce that PCWorld Digital Magazine is now available in an Enhanced Android Edition—and along with the and get the Enhanced Android Edition for free (a $39.94 value). The magazine on any Android device, and includes optimized pages and support for high-resolution displays. The enhanced format enables us to provide rich multimedia content not available in print, including videos, interactive slideshows and features, and other elements. And because we’ve remastered the magazine content into an Android-friendly layout, you can use the intuitive gestures and touchscreen capabilities native to the Android platform to navigate each issue. Your options include using the interactive table of contents, swiping from page to page, or gliding through article content with the tip of your finger. Embedded links take you directly to related information within the issue as well as to websites for additional content, and the app allows you to bookmark and share articles via email and Twitter. Print subscribers can access the PCWorld Enhanced Android Edition, for free, in three easy steps: Download the app from magazine account number (located on any print issue). Once you’ve logged in, your free issues of the Enhanced Android Edition will appear monthly in the Library section of the app. If you aren’t sure what email address you entered at the time of your subscription order, or if you need to add your email address to your account to get access, visit .
At PCWorld we work hard to stay on the cutting edge of technology, both in our reporting and with our publication. With that in mind, we’re proud to announce the launch of our newest PCWorld Digital Magazine Enhanced Editions, the , we’re pleased to offer them free to our current print subscribers! The PCWorld Enhanced Editions differ from PDF and replica versions of the magazine and incorporate rich multimedia content, including videos, interactive slideshows and features, podcasts, and other elements. The pages are all optimized and include support for high-resolution displays, and are remastered into device-intuitive layouts that allow for unique navigation through each issue. Your options include using the interactive table of contents, swiping from page to page, or gliding through article content with the tip of your finger. Embedded links take you directly to related information within the issue as well as to websites for additional content, and the app allows you to bookmark and share articles via email and Twitter. Print subscribers can access any of the Enhanced Editions in three easy steps. First, download the app from your device’s app store: For Android, you’ll find it on Google Play; for Kindle, it’s available on the Amazon Appstore; and on the iPad, use iTunes. Once you’ve downloaded and opened the app, tap the menu, and then tap magazine account number (located on any print issue), and you’re all set. Once you’ve logged in, your free issues of the Enhanced Edition will automatically appear in the Library section of the app. If you aren’t sure what email address you entered at the time of your subscription order, or if you need to add your email address to your account to get access, visit and update your account.
Last May we launched the PCWorld Digital Magazine Enhanced iPad Edition, which we allowed print subscribers to . And now we’re pleased to announce that we’ve created an Enhanced Kindle Edition! We’ve designed the magazine on any Kindle Fire, including optimized pages and support for the HD displays of the newest Kindle Fire models. The enhanced format enables us to provide rich multimedia content not available in print, including videos, interactive slideshows and features, and other elements. And because we’ve remastered the magazine content into a Kindle Fire-friendly layout, you can use the intuitive gestures and touchscreen capabilities native to the Kindle Fire platform to navigate through each issue. Your options include using the interactive table of contents, swiping from page to page, or gliding through article content with the tip of your finger. Embedded links take you directly to related information within the issue as well as to websites for additional content, and the app allows you to bookmark and share articles via email and Twitter. Print subscribers can access the PCWorld Enhanced Kindle Edition in three easy steps: Download the app from magazine account number (located on any print issue). Once you’ve logged in, your free issues of the Enhanced Kindle Edition will appear monthly in the Library section of the app. If you aren’t sure what email address you entered at the time of your subscription order, or if you need to add your email address to your account to get access, visit .
Further pursuing its strategy to help enterprises , Hewlett-Packard has updated a number of its IT management tools with more capabilities to work with public and private clouds. The updated software addresses “the new style of IT, where [IT shops] no longer support a monolithic environment in a data center but actually a set of distributed environments,” said Jerome Labat, vice president and general manager of cloud automation at HP. While the cloud can simplify many IT duties, “from an operation and management perspective, you still need to deploy and instrument. You still need understand your SLAs [service level agreements]. You still need to ensure the compliance and governance of your workloads,” Labat said. To this end, the company has released version 10 of HP Operations Orchestration, version 10 of HP Server Automation and version 10 of HP Database and Middleware Automation 10. The company has also packaged all these software programs, along with the newly updated HP Cloud Service Automation 3.2, in a single integrated package.
France should stop cutting off the Internet access of those accused of illicit file sharing, and close down the agency that polices online copyright breaches, according to a government-commissioned report. The report also recommended imposing a copyright levy on smartphones, tablets and other connected devices to remunerate rights holders; forcing publishers to allow libraries to loan out ebooks, and encouraging copyright collection societies to allow remixing of audiovisual works on community sites, as long as the remixers do not profit. Last August, Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti commissioned Pierre Lescure, a TV presenter and former entertainment industry executive, to advise on policies to support the French publishing, film and music industries in a world increasingly dominated by digital technologies and services. A similar report commissioned by the previous government resulted in the creation of the French High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi), responsible for policing the country’s “three strikes” file-sharing policy in which those accused of sharing copyright works face fines of up to €1,500 (US$1,947) and suspension of their Internet access.
promises to improve the way people use Microsoft Office 365 from iOS, BlackBerry and Android tablets and phones. Office 365 components like SharePoint Online, Yammer, Office Web Apps, Outlook and SkyDrive Pro. "We want to let people work on Office 365 from mobile devices in ways they haven't been able to," said David Lavenda, Harmon.ie's vice president of product strategy. Microsoft has been criticized for what is viewed as limited mobile access to SharePoint in particular. The company has a SharePoint Newsfeed app for Windows Phone and iOS, and plans to release it for Windows 8 before mid-year, and for Android later on. In addition, a SkyDrive Pro mobile app for Windows 8 and iOS is also due by mid-year; it's available now for Windows Phone 8.
Mobile security vendor Lookout plans to start flagging as adware mobile apps that use aggressive ad networks if they don't obtain explicit consent from users before engaging in behavior that potentially invades privacy. Ad networks, advertisers and app developers have until June 24 to start conforming to the company's set of privacy and security best practices for mobile app advertising if they want to avoid being blacklisted. "In 45 days, Lookout will classify as adware, ad networks that do not request explicit and unambiguous user consent for the following actions: display advertising outside of the normal in-app experience; harvesting unusual personally identifiable information; perform unexpected actions as a response to ad clicks," Jeremy Linden, security product manager at Lookout, said Friday in a . According to , the number of adware apps for Android devices increased by 61 percent during a five-month period ending in January. In the U.S. in particular, the number of adware apps increased by 35 percent during the same period.
A plan proposed by Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management last week to Michael Dell's proposal to take his namesake company private would leave it short of cash, Dell's board warned the bidders on Monday. It wants to know more about the proposal—including who the bidders plan to put in charge of the company—before it can formally evaluate it, the made public Monday. The company is already from founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake to take the company private, and under the terms of that deal cannot formally consider any new bid unless it appears to be a superior proposal. It's not clear whether Icahn's plan is intended as an that the Board could evaluate and potentially endorse or accept, or as an alternative it could consider if the pending sale to Silver Lake and Michael Dell fell through, the Special Committee of the Board of Directors wrote in the letter to Icahn and Southeastern.
Networks could use far less energy by 2020 even though they'll be carrying much more traffic, an industry group says. to speed up progress on more efficient networks, says it has identified technologies that together could cut network power needs by 90 percent even in the face of rapidly growing data demand. The group of equipment vendors, component makers and service providers will present that conclusion in a report due in mid-June. "There is potential with these new technologies to support the traffic growth and still make the energy consumption go down," said Thierry Klein, chairman of GreenTouch's technical committee. Klein also leads green research at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs division. The tools that make this possible include new devices, components, algorithms, architectures and protocols, Klein said. All have been proved in labs, he said. The potential energy savings represents a comparison between a 2010 network with that year's traffic levels and a theoretical 2020 network with projections of traffic amounts for that year.
Kim Dotcom has ordered the removal from his design plans for a controversial one-bullet plastic gun. The decision seems an unlikely one for Dotcom, who has become somewhat of an Internet folk hero for fiercely contesting criminal copyright infringement charges levied by U.S. prosecutors over his former Megaupload service. The legal uncertainty over the distribution of the CAD (computer-aided design) files by led Dotcom to err on the side of caution while the legal issues around the weapon are discussed, his lawyer, Ira P. Rothken, said Monday. "I think it's fair to say that we don't need to do a very complex legal analysis to understand that we are dealing with an issue of first impression regarding printing plans for 3-D guns," Rothken said. A case of first impression means there is no precedent for the legal issue at hand in a specific court.
in Outlook can boost your productivity measurably. Imagine if your inbox only showed the messages you wanted to see. Consider if you could locate vital contact information in seconds. What if you finally knew why some of the hyped Outlook features aren't working as advertised? These 10 tips will help you zip through your messages and agenda, and work more effectively overall. . There are multiple preset views you can choose, like one that displays the most recent emails only. to view that number of lines of the message text beneath its header. You can configure any of these options either for the current folder or for all mailboxes.
NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile carrier, will use location data from its 61.5 million subscriber devices to build a platform that monitors traffic conditions across the country. DoCoMo said it will leverage its access to massive amounts of location data to build a cloud platform of traffic information on which services can be built. The company will target individual consumers with products like navigation and drive recording services, and corporate clients such as car insurance companies with traffic monitoring and analysis. The company said it will invest $500 million (¥5 billion) to take a 7 percent share in struggling Japanese electronics manufacturer Pioneer as part of the effort. Pioneer is a major manufacturer of car navigation products, and already uses DoCoMo's networks for wireless services in its systems. The firms will aim to begin rolling out new services together from this year. Other companies such as Google use information gleaned from mobile phones to offer real-time along with turn-by-turn navigation services. But as an operator DoCoMo potentially has constant access to much more precise location data from its users.
Your solid-state drive sits there in silence. It’s sleek. Elegant. More than a little mysterious. The hard drive it replaced was easy to understand: A soft hum assured you that its platters were spinning. A quiet mechanical click informed you of its read/write operations. You’d groom it with the occasional defrag. Times were good. Now? Everything seems peaceful. But you keep hearing stories: An SSD’s performance deteriorates over time. They have disturbingly short life spans. If it fails, your precious data will be consigned to oblivion. Facts? Or fever-brained fiction? A high-end SSD is the pinnacle of computer storage today. Ditching your hard drive for one of the latest SSD models is like dumping your go-kart and hopping into a Formula One car. I’m not exaggerating: SSDs can produce a four- or fivefold jump in speed. They have no mechanical parts to break, and they emit zero noise. SSDs are the perfect storage medium—until things go pear-shaped. Or until you seek hard information about the technologies involved. One reason you hear so much fuzzy information about SSDs is that the companies that design and build one of the key components—the memory controller—guard their technology secrets more carefully than Coca-Cola protects its soda formula. It's a very competitive and lucrative market, with .
Yahoo has acquired a mobile gaming company, Loki Studios, taking its total acquisitions this month to four. in a possible reference to some of the people from the four companies who have moved to Yahoo. . Earlier in the week, Yahoo also acquired GoPollGo, a social polling tool. The company's founder and team said they were moving to Yahoo, and would no longer be supporting their offerings.
One of Microsoft's top Windows executives this week said the company remains bullish about and has no intention of dumping the limited-feature, touch-enabled tablet operating system. Analysts accepted that at face value, but remain suspicious of unless Microsoft makes dramatic changes, including dropping the price of the licenses it sells to OEMs. "Microsoft's strategy to portray Windows RT as for both work and play is not working," said Carolina Milanesi in an interview. "They need to change their tactics to position RT as the OS for consumption devices, to make the hardware a companion to the full Windows experience, not a replacement for it." Last week, Tami Reller, CFO of the Windows division, went on a mini-PR spree, granting interviews to several media outlets to slated for release later this year, and in some cases, offer mea culpas for mistakes the company made with both Windows 8 and Windows RT.
Airbus has partnered with Dell to provide electronic flight bag (EFB) systems for A320 airliner operators worldwide. An EFB is an electronic system for viewing and interacting with flight crew functions and replaces paper operating manuals, performance calculations, airport charts, and navigation charts. Dell Latitude laptops, which will adhere to regulatory standards, will be preloaded with the FlySmart system with Airbus software, and installed as Class-2 EFB equipment. The initial agreement covers Airbus' single aisle aircraft, but may be extended in the future to cover other types. A Class-2 EFB system is a portable laptop which is connectable to the aircraft's avionics systems and power supply via a docking station. Pilots can disconnect it from the aircraft, take it with them when leaving the aircraft and continue working with the data to prepare for their next flight.
Mobility has all but eclipsed speed and anything else as the capability garnering the most attention in desktop processors. . Many of these chips run well under 2 GHz, which is more than enough to enable vendors to create fast and fan-less tablets and laptops, such as the Samsung Chromebook. But clock rate speeds still matter to some.
Google has released a draft of its next five-year plan for login authentication that tries to stay at least on par with criminal hackers, but recognizes that strong security requires industry collaboration. The draft, which was released last week for security pros, may be discussed further at the Google I/O conference next week. It explores where Google might head following its first five-year plan, issued in 2008. Over the last five years, the security landscape has changed dramatically with the broad adoption of smartphones, the rise in and the evolution in hacking techniques and tools that require innovation in defenses. This year, Google rolled out to attach a specific device to an account holder. The company is now considering becoming much more aggressive with the mechanism, which is currently optional.
Western Digital has released new information about its first hybrid drive, revealing that it is using NAND flash technology from SanDisk. The drive is now shipping. WD to date, the WD Blue. use a small amount of NAND flash memory to accelerate performance in combination with a traditional hard disk drive for added storage. In the partnership, SanDisk will supply its iSSD NAND flash and WD will offer up its WD Black hard drive to create the SSHD. The drive uses a 6Gbps SATA interface.
The team behind the original
If the fast-cut footage from the trailer to Marvel's Agents of SHIELD left you confused last night, here's our guide to what (and who) you maybe missed.
The crew from Sant'Agata has lost its collective mind. There's no other explanation for the Lamborghini Egoista concept.
The
Finding your niche in the cut-throat tablet market is the key to success. Or at least the key to landing in a few kitchens. Archos introduced the ChefPad today. It's a 9.7-inch Android tablet aimed at the budding chef in all of us. Archos says the tablet is pre-loaded with its "Chef Apps Selection" that ...
It's unclear what exactly Zakaria Kandahari's relationship with U.S. Special Forces is, but the Afghans claim to have a video showing him torturing civilians.
The Supreme Court on Monday for the first time backed patents for a self-replicating technology -- Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soybeans -- along with its licensing agreement that allows farmers to use them only once.
The progressive values of the show seem to have faltered?and even started falling behind the mainstream?by failing to add LGBT members to the crew of the Enterprise.
Some nonprofits try to change the world by collecting signatures on petitions, others by blocking whaling ships, but Thought Caf? is trying to better the world through design ? specifically by using YouTube and Vimeo to share their animated infographics to help explain complex issues. The project seems to be working; their flagship series has just crossed 30 million views, and they've recently announced a new infographic-driven movie that features Jane Goodall among others.
Even a group of bandits hauling backpacks stuffed with millions likely won't speed the U.S. conversion to more secure card tech.
Steering wheels, watch your backs. This summer will see the world's first production steer-by-wire car -- the steering wheel talks to a computer, and the computer talks to the wheels. Here's a breakdown of the new system.
Amtrak passengers along the Northeast Corridor and in Pennsylvania will start seeing new hardware up front, with brand new locomotives replacing ones that are between 25 and 35 years old.
Carlos Slim's profit-taking is neither illegal nor evil. It's entirely rational for him to allocate capital to dividends and profits rather than investing in upgrades to his network, much less encouraging his competitors. He is in harvesting mode, because neither competition nor oversight pushes him to do anything else. What stands between us and Mexico? We have several monopolists, not just one.
Wired is celebrating Bike to Work Week by reviewing the hottest bikes and gear out there today, but in order to appreciate how far we've come, it's also time to take a look back.
Highlight CEO Paul Davison imagines ushering in a new form of publishing information about ourselves leveraging the increasingly powerful phones in our pockets, and the increasing number of connections we are making between each other. But rather than existing on some digital page on Facebook or LinkedIn, the publishing platform Davison imagines persists in the ?air above our heads.?
In his first interview since taking over as the head of Android, Sundar Pichar talks about his plans for the world's most popular mobile operating system and how it can play nice with Chrome.
A new season of
Federal authorities prosecuting two brothers on allegations they plotted to blow up a high-profile target in New York City are refusing to divulge whether they cracked the case by employing a style of warrantless electronic eavesdropping first introduced by President George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11.
California is studded with a network of sensors that can perceive almost any motion in the ground, including the slightest perturbation of the Earth's crust. The network began as a seismology research project, to track earthquakes in this fault-ridden part of the world. But as technologies developed, the network became more sophisticated, gathering far more ...
We've got the gear you need for rolling to work safety and stylishly, whether you're a hardcore racer, a seasoned commuter or an urban hipster with money to burn.
A novel coronavirus continues to spread, with infections now reported in France. Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna reports on the latest developments, including a statement from the WHO.
The Danish 1.54-metre telescope located at ESO?s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud. This region of sky includes glowing red clouds of mostly hydrogen gas, blue regions where starlight is being reflected from tiny particles of dust and also dark regions where the dust is thick and opaque.
Copenhagen Suborbitals is ready to begin tackling the giant, 20-meter rocket that will carry the space capsule aloft -- and have made the designs available for download. Wired Science blogger Kristian von Bengtson has an update from the DIY Spaceflight company.
ABC has finally confirmed what everyone expected all along: Joss Whedon's Avengers TV spin-off, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., is getting a series.
This spectacular, vertigo inducing, false-color image from NASA's Cassini mission highlights the storms at Saturn's north pole. The angry eye of a hurricane-like storm appears dark red while the fast-moving hexagonal jet stream framing it is a yellowish green. Low-lying clouds circling inside the hexagonal feature appear as muted orange color. A second, smaller vortex pops out in teal at the lower right of the image. The rings of Saturn appear in vivid blue at the top right.
The PROplus iPad Keyboard from Zagg is perfect for traveling typists, as long as they can handle a little extra weight.
Sailors of catamarans ? those light, fleet, double-hulled sailboats ? accept capsizing as a part of the game and train for flips before they ever grasp a tiller. Without the massive center-weighted keel of traditional monohulled sailboats, catamarans are much faster and more difficult to keep stable during maneuvers. The risk is especially well-understood by the America?s Cup crewmembers who will race the leading edge AC72 boats in July. But an abiding respect for these untested behemoths wasn?t enough to keep them safe Thursday, when a member of Artemis racing was killed when his boat crashed.
If you're a fan of Adult Swim's eclecticism, you'll love the channel's 2013/2014 schedule, which mixes Community's Dan Harmon, rock operas and Mike Tyson.
Nothing ruins a dramatic scene like buffering, so do yourself a favor and optimize your rig for streaming video.
A funny thing happened on the way to Congress yesterday. For once, lawmakers introduced a common-sense bill -- the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013. So you might assume that Congress will make a rational decision to guarantee our rights. But don?t kid yourself: This is an uphill battle. Technology advocates don?t have a great record of legislative wins compared to the deep-pocketed carriers and content lobbyists who are masters of playing the long game.