The most important technology news, developments and trends with insightful analysis and commentary. Coverage includes hardware, software, networking, wireless computing, personal technology, security and cutting-edge technology from the business world to the consumer world.
An Indian-origin scientist and his team is working to make smartphones function better. The team is adapting accelerometers, Global Positioning System (GPS) chips, gyroscopes and other sensors which will help smartphones study a user's mood, remove passwords and protect monetary transactions too.
The team is being led by Nitesh Saxena at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and they are working on an innovation that will become your favourite device soon. Saxena is the director of the Spies lab at the university and the team is pulling together data from accelerometers, gyroscopes and proximity sensors to chart the characteristic gestures that are generated by a user while answering a call or clicking a selfie.
Once your moves are understood by the software it can unlock your phone automatically or freeze it if the phone goes in wrong hands. As revealed by Saxena, the system will tap into user interactions with multiple connected devices like Google Glass and Apple Watch and this system is more secure too. The new smartphones will be able to measure temperature, humidity and barometric pressure too. All these readings will help a secure log-in to your computer and make passwords obsolete too.
The “Zero-interaction” authentication systems operate like the keyless entry. Saxena's team has also found out that readings from multiple sensors, including GPS, audio, temperature and altitude can actually hinder attacks. An Android based app has been developed, called BlueProximity++, that will use the readings to unlock devices instantly and securely as soon as the phone gets within the range.
The financial transactions can also be protected as the team has developed a countermeasure to verify the payment request. The system will use signals from a combination of sensors, like nearby WiFi hotspots and their signal strengths, and short audio snippets too that are captured by the phone's microphone. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
Is your personal life too much intruded by your smartphone? Then you can hope for a better hassle-free smartphone soon that will keep you connected without unnecessary intrusion.
Monohm Inc. has announced a device called Runcible which is modelled on the pocket watch. The device boasts of high resolution, round screen and it is a high performance phone too. It has a high-end camera too and it lets users refocus their attention on the real world much more. In a statement, Monohm Inc CEO and co-founder Aubrey Anderson has said that people are looking for something that will allow them control their digital lives in simpler ways.
Smartphones are usually invasive and commodified and Runcible is a good alternative too. Usually the app-centric approach of smartphones distract us from our lives instead of helping us leading better lives, as stated by Anderson. Runcible is built around Mozilla's open-source Firefox OS and KDDI Corporation is the first carrier partnership for the new smartphone. Runcible's operating system is based on Open Web standards. Runcible users can access the power of the web to command and control the growing number of IoT devices as well as other connected things around us.
Smartphones normally become obsolete within two to three years of launch, but this device's parts can be removed, repaired and upgraded, which means the device can be used for decades. Runcible never interrupts us with a beep or an alert and it helps users to stay focused all the time. The device will be made available by the end of 2015. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
Google is now planning to bring paid search results in its app store Google Play. This service is going to be similar to sponsored results from the web search to Play Store search. The company has shared that the testing of paid search results will be tested in the coming weeks. Apart from bringing revenue for the company, the paid results will also help the developers promote their apps.
Michael Siliski, product management director at Google Play wrote in a blog post, “App discovery plays a critical role in driving your continued success, and over the past year Google has provided best practices to enhance app discovery and engagement, as well as app promotion tools to get the most out of search and display advertising for developers. We are always looking for new ways to help you get your apps in front of potential new users. That’s why, in the next few weeks, we will begin piloting sponsored search results on Google Play, bringing our unique expertise in search ads to the store.”
According to Google, the sponsored results will be available only to a set of consumers and advertisers at the initial stage. After a few months, Google will evaluate the adoption of the paid results and feedback of the users and will take a final call on whether paid results will bring any benefit to Google Play. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
U.K. researchers have made a new record as testing of 5G data connections have showed that it can offer speed up to 1 Tbps. Researchers at the University of Surrey's 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) managed speeds of 1 Tbps which is basically thousand times faster than the currently available data connections.
If the Internet speed is 1Tbps, it would mean that a file, which is 100 times the size of a feature film, can be downloaded in just three seconds. The speed is more than 65,000 times faster than average 4G download speeds, as reported by BBC News. Earlier, Samsung Electronics had set a 5G speed record at 7.5Gbps, which is 1 per cent lesser than the Surrey team's research results.
According to 5GIC director professor Rahim Tafazolli, ten more advanced technologies have been developed by the team too and one of them would allow exceeding the speed of 1 Tbps wirelessly. Fibreoptics also offers the same capacity but the team has successfully done it wirelessly. The tests have been conducted in lab conditions over a distance of 100 meters, as reported by a news website V3. Now we wonder if the speeds can actually be implemented in the real-world conditions. Tafazolli hopes to showcase the technology in public in 2018. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
The Document Foundation has announced the first maintenance release of the stable LibreOffice 4.4, that is an open-source and multi-platform suite. The new updated release is available for download too. LibreOffice 4.4.1 release introduces some minor fixes so that office suite stays stable and dependable on all platforms.
According to the official announcement, LibreOffice 4.4.1 fixes more than 100 bugs which were discovered by developers as well as users in the previous release, LibreOffice 4.4 “Fresh”. It was announced at the end of January 2015 and it was said to be the most beautiful LibreOffice ever.
The press release by The Document Foundation says, “The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.4.1, the first minor release of LibreOffice 4.4 'fresh' family, with over 100 fixes over LibreOffice 4.4.0. The release represents the combined effort of the over 900 developers attracted by the project since September 2010, with at least three new developers joining the project for 60 months in a row.”
The press release further says that LibreOffice 4.4.1 and LibreOffice 4.3.6 can be downloaded from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
WhatsApp Web has increased its reach far and wide and can now be accessed on Firefox and Opera browsers too. The web version of WhatsApp was initially launched only for Chrome browser. As of now, Internet Explorer is the only major browser that the app doesn't support and we are unsure when the makers will introduce WhatsApp for IE.
WhatsApp Web can also be accessed on Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry platforms as well. WhatsApp has also been in the news for rolling out the voice-call support. The makers have not revealed any plans for a broad roll-out, but they have intermittently released voice-call feature to select users over the last few days. With this feature, users can invite their friends by calling them, but one doesn't know when is the official launch happening.
Voice-calling is one major feature coming on WhatsApp and the company is testing it rigorously these days, to check whether it is fit for the prime-time. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
If reports hold any truth, Apple Watch will use as much as one-third of the entire gold supply of the world. A report from TidBits, Apple will reportedly use about 746 metric tonnes of gold per year to produce one million units of Apple Watch Edition per month. Globally, about 2,500 metric tonnes of gold are mined in a year.
The report is completely based on rumours and speculations. So, for now, just take it with a pinch of salt. But, we assume that Apple will buy the supplies in bulk, as it does always, to bring down costs and stifle competition. The super-luxury Apple Watch edition made up of gold will cost about $10,000.
Apple Watch Edition will reportedly come with a casing made up of 18 carat gold. Each watch is likely to use 62.2grams of gold, claims the report. Going by these parameters, the total gold that will be used used by Apple would roughly be around roughly 746 metric tonnes, almost 30 of the total gold mined across the globe. Courtesy:- EFYTIMES News Network
The most valuable tech company, Apple, is one of the most challenging places to work. All best minds in the industry work at Apple. You are always surrounded by geniuses and there is always the pressure to perform at the top of your team. Apple also has a stressful work environment. Despite of all the constant work, Apple employees are still satisfied with their job.
The company has best reviews and ranking on Glassdoor. Some posts by Apple employees on Quora also suggest that Apple treats its employees really well. Here are ten reasons why Apple employees love their workplace and culture.
1. Big Impact:
The biggest part about working at Apple is its products. Apple’s products are most talked about all over the world. One of the former Apple employees has written on Glassdoor that, creating innovative products and taking part in developing new product categories are most rewarding things about working for Apple. Another current Apple engineer says, "This is a great opportunity to work with some really fantastic, dedicated people, who genuinely want to use technology to make the world a better place.”
2. Smart People:
Apple hires very smart people. Steve Jobs was always concerned about hiring only A-level staff in all departments of the company. All current and past employees have always appreciated working with really really smart people. All reviews on Glassdoor indicate the amazing work culture of Apple. Everything at Apple is about teamwork.
3. Lifelong Friends:
Apple has a great work culture. The teamwork has played key role in the company’s success. Apple employees always appreciate the company’s welcoming work culture. A former Apple employee has written on Quora, “Apple has amazing sense of belonging and community.” This community is ever lasting. Apple employees are great friends with each other.
4. Mature Work Environment:
An anonymous Quora user says, “Apple has older demographic of working. Most people in the company are in their 30s or 40s. They have tons of experience that they bring to the workplace.” There are no nerf guns or slackers in Apple.” Apple has much more mature work environment than other tech companies.
5. Salaries:
Many employees on Glassdoor have cited compensation as the main benefit of working at Apple. Overall salary and other benefits offered by Apple are great. According to data on PayScale, an average software engineer at Apple makes $76,000 per year. Most employees at Apple have salary package more than $100,000 per year.
6. Part-time Workers:
Workers at Apple’s retail division have comparatively less salaries than engineers and core team. But yet, many of them have praised Apple for providing benefits even if they work part time. There are many part-time Apple employees who are happy with the benefits that Apple offers them.
7. Flexible Positions:
Apple encourages employees to try different job roles in the company. Apple employees love the flexible job positions. There is plenty of room to move internally within the company. Specially Apple’s retail positions are very flexible. Employees can change their position within the company or even to a different Apple retail location.
8. Discounts:
Apple products are expensive. Apple employees get impressive discounts on all Apple products. Many Apple employees on Quora and various other social networking sites have claimed that discounts in Apple are amazing. Apple also offers discount on stock to employees.
9. Free Apples:
This is a funny part. Apple represents Apple fruit and hence, Apple offers free apples to its workers. Few current Apple employees in Cupertino are quite enthusiast about the fact that company supplies free apples to its workers.
10. Commuting:
Apple makes commuting very easy for its employees. Apple has its own shuttle service that transports employees from Bay Area to Apple’s HQ in Cupertino. Apple employees have given high rating to this shuttle service. Apple also offers good amount of stipend to those who travel by other public transport medium.
Network monitoring is necessary to ensure that the network always runs in a hassle-free manner. There are several open source network monitoring tools which are capable of excellent functioning and perform the basic tasks like checking for host availability and measuring bandwidth usage at their best. Here are the best six out of them:
Zabbix is easy to install, has an intuitive user interface and sufficient granularity to perform network monitoring tasks. Zabbix is completely open source without any paid Enterprise version. Its source code is open and available which makes it most attractive to small as well as large enterprises. Zabbix doesn't offer a commercial version though. It has commercial support contracts in different levels from Bronze to Enterprise.
It's an extensive performance graphing and trending tool which is used to track any monitored metric which is possible to get plotted on a graph. If it's possible to monitor disk utilisation and fan speeds in a power supply, then Cacti can track it and make the data quickly available.
This command-line powered product is based on Linux and it features a web-based monitoring interface. It's licensed under QPL Open Source license and it's available in both community and professional editions. RRDTool is used for buffer storage and graphing capabilities. It also supports auto-discovery of devices from servers and switches to printers and power devices. It has a nice user interface with modern features and good on-screen reporting but it has no direct export or reporting capabilities. It also doesn't allow adding devices by using IP address only.
Nazios is one of the old guards of system and network monitoring. It's quite fast, reliable and extremely customisable. It's definitely a challenge for newcomers and it also has a complex configuration. But Nagios somewhat lacks in power and reliability sometimes.
It also has a complex configuration and it has a modular design which allows the user selecting the core server, preferred GUI and add any desired plug-ins like reporting and graphing tools. The basic server can be installed using two simple commands. It also offers a simple online documentation. It has a modern interactive Web GUI, rich features and granular configuration options.
It's a great solution for tracking devices across a network. It works through a network infrastructure and catalogues devices. It also keeps track of everything it discovers and provides current location of any device. It's mostly used to locate stolen and lost devices and it can also display known and discovered connections on a map.
Chromecast is not the first device for gaming on TV but for select games Chromecast is an excellent option. There are several games which can be played the best with the help of Chromecast. Here is a list of six such games which are well-suited to play with help of the Chromecast on Android TV. All these games can be played along with the family and groups.
This game is exclusively built for the Chromecast. It's designed for a get together to play with a group. Each player can select answers on their phone in response to the questions which are broadcast on the screen. The questions are mostly related to pop culture and entertainment.
It's an adaptation of word-making game and it's quite fast-paced too. Players are supposed to create as many words as possible from the block of letters. Shaking a phone comes up with a new batch of blocks. As a play off of the traditional board game some letters will have double letter or word point value if they are used during gameplay.
If you are bored with the card games, then go for some mathematics. Math Duel will be loved most by those gamers who love solving mathematical problems and mainly mental maths. The questions don't require any difficult calculation and it's all about how one can answer the fastest possible. This game can be played by maximum four people and who has a total of 1000 points is the winner. The game uses Material Design which means it has thin fonts, bright colours and shard colours just like a Lollipop device.
It's a well-configured game to play on Chromecast. It can also be played by four people who can use their phones to drop the virtual checker pieces into the virtual game structure. Gestures can be used to swipe, rotate and direct pieces into specific slots on the gameboard. This game can be played solo too. It's quite smooth to play and also quite popular.
Emoji is best game for a party. Emoji lets you guess movie titles and sometimes movies titles have to be guessed from cartoon characters too. It's great fun and it's also competitive enough as it lets you show cards to other players if they are slow in progress.
This is a knockoff of Space Invaders and it's great fun too. You can control the spaceship with your phone, move it to the left and right and use the middle button to blast the aliens. The early rounds of the game are very easy but when round 10 comes nearer the aliens become stronger with their defence. You can create the best defence with as many players as possible at your end to form a more powerful front line.
Python programming language is considered as somewhat old-fashioned by many in comparison to C, Java and JavaScript. But that doesn't mean parties ditch Python as it has so many good things to think about. Instead there are some projects which can give the programming language a huge performance boost. There are two options to run Python faster on the same hardware – one is to create a replacement for the default runtime of the language and the other is to rewrite existing Python code for speed optimisations. Here are five projects which have the potential to raise the bar of Python's performance.
PyPy is one of the most visible options for CPython's replacement. It can also become the default one as it's highly compatible with the existing code of Python. PyPy uses just-in-time (JIT) compilation which is used by Google Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine too. PyPy 2.5, the latest version, has some more performance improvements like better support for some common libraries which are useful in boosting Python performance like NumPy. If anyone is using Python 3.x, then PyPy3 is compatible.
It's a Dropbox-sponsored project which uses LLVM compiler infrastructure to speed up Python with JIT compilation. Pyston is in its early stages and supports a limited subset of Python's features. It boosts performance of some key benchmarks of the language to a certain level. Pyston will soon be ready for remote production too.
It removes Python runtime completely and finds out ways to transpile Python code to languages which can run natively at high speed. It converts Python to C++ code. As it still depends on the existing Python runtimes, its portability is limited but conversion assures speed optimisation. Nuitka is aimed to interface Python directly with C code which will boost its speed.
C extensions for Python or Cython is Python's superset and a version which compiles with C and interfaces with C/C++ code. It writes C extensions for Python. The only drawback is that it's not actually writing Python, else porting code which cannot be automatic completely. Cython has great advantages in relation to speed optimisations. Numerous scientific packages for Python, like scikit-learn are drawn on Cython features so that the functions are fast enough.
Numba is a combination of Nuitka and Cython. From Cython it takes the concept of how to speed up parts of the language like CPU-bound math which is done by LLVM. Numba's compiled functions can be specified with a decorator and Numba works in association with NumPy so that the functions are found faster. But Numba doesn't perform JITing.
According to Python creator Guido van Rossum, Python's performance issues can be traced to improper use of the language. NumPy can help in making CPU-heavy processing better via multiprocessing extensions. It can also make calls to the external C code by avoiding the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL). There is no viable replacement for GIL in Python though.
Due to the recent high-profile hacks across the world, data protection is the buzzword in the technology industry. In the data center level, there are three main data protection domains which will be in highest focus throughout 2015 – data loss prevention (DLP), storage system recovery and data security. Let's take a look at the major data protection trends in all these domains and beyond them too:
1. Data Loss Prevention:
Data loss prevention means protecting data from getting lost. Cloud is a vital option in this architecture which is chiefly dependent on backup and recovery services. Cloud has grown a lot from early times when backup vendors used new code to backup applications and the cloud was being treated as just another target by the cyber criminals.
Backup and recovery trends: The speed of backup, rapid recovery and application optimisation are important components on a whole. Performance improvements have also made cloud services more powerful and there are several vendors which specialise in protecting and recovering data sets in the cloud.
File syncing and sharing: This facility is not limited to mobile files but mobile data is definitely a strong driving force in developing and managing repositories. Edge data protection mimics mobile content to a central repository for improved control, compliance and faster recovery. Edge protection is an emerging trend in data protection.
Cloud-based data protection: This kind of data protection grows along with IT sector's credibility and enhanced WAN acceleration. Cloud backup is a very simple operation and it's quite advanced too to create a virtual data center in the cloud by copying virtual server images and production data. There are several products which are optimised for virtualisation of the cloud.
2. Big Data:
Big Data is growing more important in context of personalisation of advertising which is expected to expand further in 2015. Big Data allows availability of a wider range of data collected across smartphones, apps, social networking and connected devices for targeted advertising campaigns. Though Big Data developments can be highly beneficial to the society, there is also necessity to minimise the risks associated with the use of Big Data. There are certain cautions which need to be taken to use Big Data like limiting collection and retention of data, maintaining transparency, carrying out privacy impact assessments etc.
3. Surveillance society:
Evolution of CCTV surveillance includes new and more intrusive tools. Some of the tools are Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), body worn video (BWV) and unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Special observation is being conducted into civilian use of drones as specific licensing or registration need to be introduced and data protection laws need to change urgently.
4. Storage system recovery:
Data storage needs to be protected at the best and it's one more important data protection trend in 2015. The newer RAID architectures take advantage of flash's high performance and they avoid standard RAID overhead and wear on SSDs. There are RAID alternatives like XtremlO Data Protection which uses wide striping and N+2 architecture. There is another alternatives called Pure Storage and Violin Memory.
5. Data security:
For consumer-level security the biggest concerns are privacy issues and identity theft. These issues are categorised under data center security. Stored data is always increasing and security measures are always finding threats from hackers. The recent Sony hack brought careless password usage into the limelight which is actually a common problem among the user community. Hence two-factor authentication is a growing trend now. The main technique is to check passwords against IP addresses and the most secure options are when a combination is created of password with physical objects and biometrics. Encryption trends are also on continuous growth which mostly occur around stronger data-at-rest encryption in the cloud as well as on the premise. The two-factor encryption keys are mostly recommended. Encryption control is also getting automated which means human intervention will no more be required in this architecture.
Flash drives in mobile devices are set to become faster and secure with a new standard approved by the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association.
The new standard, eMMC version 5.1, will lay the groundwork for new mobile storage that will provide faster access to data. Flash drives based on eMMC 5.1 will be able to handle 4K streaming and more data-intensive tasks.
Users are storing more multimedia and data files locally, and the need for faster storage has also increased with mobile devices handling more resource-heavy applications. Smartphones and tablets in some cases are replacing PCs as people's main computing devices.
Samsung has started making 64GB, 32GB and 16GB drives based on the new standard. The company is already shipping units to customers, but has not said whether those drives will be used in the Galaxy S6 smartphone, which will be announced early next month at the Mobile World Congress trade show.
Samsung's 64GB eMMC 5.1 will deliver a random read performance of 11,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second) and write performance of 13,000 IOPS, compared to a rough performance of 7,000 IOPS for 64GB drives based on the previous eMMC 5.0 standard. The random read and write speeds are seven times and 26 times faster, respectively, than Micro-SD cards, which are generally slotted inside mobile devices.
The speed improvements comes through some cache and data-streaming improvements.
The new standard could also make flash drives more secure. A new protocol called Secure Write Protection ensures only specific entities are able to access files and lock or unlock storage.
Beyond mobile devices, eMMC drives are also used in cameras, e-readers, printers and other consumer electronics.
A faster eMMC standard was long overdue, with the last refresh coming in October 2013. But, ironically, the standard already has a successor, as momentum grows behind the faster Universal Flash Storage 2.0 standard, which is ready now and was also developed by JEDEC. UFS is designed mainly for high-capacity flash drives in mobile devices, and is becoming relevant as the storage requirements of mobile users grows. Toshiba and Samsung, which back the eMMC standard, have been developing UFS storage in parallel.
Although eMMC 5.1 will eventually be replaced by UFS 2.0 in mobile devices needing more storage, it may live on in low-storage devices like e-readers.
While Chrome OS started life as a simple, stripped-down browser and little else, Google's operating system now has tons of tools, tweaks, and customizations that let you tailor your Chromebook to your specific workflow needs.
Just like Windows or OS X, Google's built additional functionality into Chrome OS's app launcher, the taskbar-like shelf, window sizing, and other functions to help you stay productive. These tips will show you how to make the most of those tools and start getting stuff done on your Chromebook.
Let's dig in!
Arrange your shelf
The shelf has many of the features you may know from the Windows taskbar. You can even relocate it to the left or right side of the screen, though not the top. Just right-click it and choose your desired location.
Move the shelf to the left or right side of the screen.
The Chrome OS shelf also gives you some flexibility in how you launch apps. You can right-click an app and select to open it by default as a window, pinned tab, or full screen. For example, I tell Google Play Music to launch in a separate window so it acts like a standalone music application, such as Spotify or iTunes on other operating systems. Doing the same with Gmail and the Google Drive productivity suite can help those feel like discrete desktop apps, especially if you activate their offline capabilities.
Customize the app launcher
Exerting order on the randomness of the Chrome OS app launcher can also streamline your workflow. Customize the app arrangement in the launcher by clicking and holding on an app and then moving it.
Group similar apps into a folder, just as you would do on an iPhone or Android device.
You can also move around the icons and bundle them together in folders, just as you would on an Android device or iPhone. If there are several different apps that you use from the launcher instead of the shelf, this is a great way to find them faster. Don’t forget, however, you can also hit the Search button (where the caps lock would be on a PC or Mac) and start typing the name of the app for another rapid way to launch your next task.
Focus on your task by going full-screen
With a couple of tweaks you can focus on one task, such as writing in a Google Doc or Office Online file. For writing, I like to auto-hide the shelf and set the tab in full-screen so I can just focus on what I'm working on. (Press the Immersive mode button, or F4, to entire full screen mode on a Chromebook.)
Writing a Google Doc is one of many uses for going full-screen with a Chrome app.
In Immersive mode, additional tabs are represented by horizontal bars along the top of the screen. Your shelf is represented by similar bars, so you can still switch between apps in Immersive mode if you don't feel like using one of the manyChrome keyboard shortcuts.
Snap windows on the left & right
Just like the Windows Snap feature that came out in Windows 7, you can dock two separate windows on the left and right sides of the screen for multitasking. It’s great if you’re editing spreadsheets, for instance, as you can update the spreadsheet on one side of the screen and view source data on the other side. You can also assign different browser tabs to each half of the screen.
Just like in Windows, you can dock two windows side by side.
To snap a window to the left or right side of your Chromebook's display, click and hold the title bar or tab, then simply drag it to the left or right edge of the screen.
Search Gmail and Google Drive right from the omnibox
If you’re searching Gmail or Google Drive often—hey, you are using a Chromebook after all—then this little trick will make you quicker. You can search these items right from the Chrome browser's Omnibox.
Search your Gmail right from the Omnibar.
Doing so requires some setup, however. Click the browser's options menu, then head to Settings > Manage search engines. Scroll to the bottom of the Other search engines box (pictured below). Then add Gmail in the Add a new search engine box at the bottom, type Gmail as the keyword, and the following URL:
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#apps/%s
Follow the same procedure for Google Drive, using Drive (or whatever you'd like) as the keyword and following as the URL:
http://drive.google.com/?hl=en&tab=bo#search/%s
Once you do this, you won’t need to navigate to these specific apps to search for any of the items. All you'll need to do is type either Gmail or Drive into the browser Omnibox, press Tab, then type in a search term and press Enter. It sounds like a lot of steps, but it's insanely quick in practice.
Notice all the "Other search engines" already loaded into Chrome's "Manage search engines" setting. You can perform the same steps to search within those sites, or add any site you'd like to quick-search using similar steps to those above.
Add a custom search engine in the Chrome OS settings.
It's this sort of extendability that makes Chromebooks strong enough to serve as your main computer, especially if you've embraced the wider Google ecosystem. Once you've mastered these steps, be sure to check out PCWorld's Chromebook power user tips and our guide to powerful websites that will make you forget about desktop software for even more tools and tricks that will help you squeeze the most out of your Chromebook.
This story, "5 Chromebook tips and tricks to fine-tune your productivity" was originally published by PCWorld.
With the aim of boosting its own services, Microsoft has decided to discontinue Google Chat and Facebook Chat in Outlook.com. This decision will be implemented in “the next couple of weeks.” Microsoft has already notified its Outlook.com customers about the change coming in. The company has sent out email messages on 24 February.
According to Microsoft, the company has taken the decision of dropping Google Chat integration as Google has decided to discontinue the chat protocol, that was used by the Google Talk platform. Google had earlier announced that it is replacing Google Talk with Hangouts and will not offer support for XMPP. XMPP, originally known as Jabber, is the open-sourced Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, an IETF standard for instant messaging. However, Microsoft did not cite a reason for discontinuing Facebook chat integration.
The email message from Microsoft read, “We understand that this may disappoint some of our customers, but we hope that you'll try Skype for Outlook.com chat, and voice, video calling, so you can take advantage of the more robust ways to keep in touch with friends and family.”
Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft asked about the reason to discontinue Facebook Chat and Google Chat support to which a company spokesperson replied, "Most Outlook.com customers already prefer to use Skype when they are chatting and we see this as a great option for anyone impacted by Google's decision to shut down Google Talk and associated APIs, or the recent deprecation of Facebook Chat for Outlook.com."
The much-awaited announcement has finally arrived for the OnePlus One smartphone users. Carl Pei, the co-founder of the company, has shared that OnePlus One smartphone will get its share of Android 5.0 Lollipop update in March. Both the Android 5.0-based CyangenMod 12S update, that will arrive on global OnePlus One units and Oxygen OS update, which will arrive on Indian units, will be available in this time line. The company has got slightly late in this roll-out, which was earlier expected to arrive in February.
The company has, so far, not shared any reason for the delay in rolling out the update. It has cited the update process as the reason of delay, which appears to be a lame excuse. But, if you don't want to wait for the official update to arrive, you can get Android 5.0 on on your OnePlus One smartphone by flashing a CM 12S nightly, Oxygen OS alpha version or Paranoid Android ROM.
For the Indian customers, here's another news from the camps of Chinese smartphone maker. OnePlus has introduced the 16GB variant of its popular One smartphone in India. Available in Silk White colour, the 16GB variant of OnePlus One can be purchased from Amazon.in at Rs 18,999.
This version of OnePlus One can quite easily be distinguished from its gray-only kin of 64GB. However, the White model doesn't have the sandstone finish like the gray one. Instead, the 16GB variant comes with plastic matte finish. OnePlus One is an impressive offering, that packs a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB RAM, a 13.97-cm (5.5-inch) 1080P display, a 13MP rear shooter with F2.0 aperture and Sony image sensor, a 5MP front camera, 3100mAh battery, 4G-support and and NFC. The smartphone runs CyanogenMod 11S, a customised version of Android developed by the Cyanogen team.
Given the fact that OnePlus is facing legal issues for using a CM build, the company has announced that it is coming up with its own version of Android OS. The build that OnePlus is developing will be based on Android Lollipop, the latest version of Android. OnePlus aims to release this new build for the Indian users next month. At this price point, OnePlus One 16GB variant is likely to compete with Xiaomi Mi 4, whose 16GB variant costs Rs 19,999 in the Indian market. The 64GB unit of OnePlus One is available at Rs 21,999.
On Wednesday, Lenovo Group Ltd announced that its website has been hacked, days after Superfish scandal happened. A few days ago Lenovo customers were asked to remove pre-installed software, Superfish, that was suspected to contain malware. This software was pre-installed on Lenovo laptops making the devices vulnerable to security threats.
The responsibility for the hacking has been claimed by Lizard Squad, on its Twitter page. Lizard Squad posted on its Twitter page, quoting the song from the movie "High School Musical", "We're breaking free! Soarin', flyin', there's not a star in heaven that we can't reach!” The hackers also posted a couple of screenshots of an email between Lenovo employees regarding the "Superfish" software.
Now Lizard Squad is a popular name as a notorious hacker group after their several high-profile attacks on Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live network last month. But members of the group are yet to be identified. In its statement to Reuters Lenovo said, "The domain name service server hosting Lenovo's website was hacked. We do not have any further information at this time to share. We'll update as soon as possible.”
San Francisco-based security firm CloudFlare said hackers have transferred the domain to CloudFlare in order to point it to a defacement site. In an email to Reuters, Marc Rogers, principal security researcher at CloudFlare, wrote, "As soon as we at CloudFlare noticed, we seized the account and worked with Lenovo to restore service while they worked to recover their domain.” Rogers also said CloudFlare was able to restore service before Lenovo recovered the domain, and the outage has been described as "quite small".
Since 2100 GMT on Wednesday, visitors to Lenovo website saw a slideshow of some young people looking into webcams and the song "Breaking Free" was playing in the background. The Verge reported the breach first. Till the time of publishing this article, Lenovo's website remained inaccessible and a message on the site said “504 – Gateway Timeout”.
Apple's Siri is all set to get a new upgrade and this time, it is in favour of the millions of Apple fans in India. Apple's voice assistant Siri will now have the ability to recognise the Indian English accent. Apple launched Siri a few years back and it was the first voice assistant ever launched, but it still has a lot of areas of improvements, particularly when it comes to non-English speaking Indians. Apple seems to have taken a cue from Google Now, which was launched after Siri, but is able to recognise the Indian English accent comparatively better. Apple will bring in the tweak with iOS 8.3 release.
A report from 9to5Mac claims that second beta of iOS 8.3, that was shared with the developers brings support for English for India. It means that Siri will now understand the voice commands spoken in Indian English accent. Users will now be able to dictate emails or write-ups to Siri without putting on any fake British or American accent. For getting on with the Indian accent compatible Siri, user has to go to Siri settings menu on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
The final version of iOS 8.3 is likely to arrive later this year. Apple will open it for public testing next month, via the public beta version. Apart from supporting the Indian English accent, iOS 8.3 will also bring support for Russian, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai and Turkish accents.
Python programming language is considered as somewhat old-fashioned by many in comparison to C, Java and JavaScript. But that doesn't mean parties ditch Python as it has so many good things to think about. Instead there are some projects which can give the programming language a huge performance boost. There are two options to run Python faster on the same hardware – one is to create a replacement for the default runtime of the language and the other is to rewrite existing Python code for speed optimisations. Here are five projects which have the potential to raise the bar of Python's performance.
PyPy is one of the most visible options for CPython's replacement. It can also become the default one as it's highly compatible with the existing code of Python. PyPy uses just-in-time (JIT) compilation which is used by Google Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine too. PyPy 2.5, the latest version, has some more performance improvements like better support for some common libraries which are useful in boosting Python performance like NumPy. If anyone is using Python 3.x, then PyPy3 is compatible.
It's a Dropbox-sponsored project which uses LLVM compiler infrastructure to speed up Python with JIT compilation. Pyston is in its early stages and supports a limited subset of Python's features. It boosts performance of some key benchmarks of the language to a certain level. Pyston will soon be ready for remote production too.
It removes Python runtime completely and finds out ways to transpile Python code to languages which can run natively at high speed. It converts Python to C++ code. As it still depends on the existing Python runtimes, its portability is limited but conversion assures speed optimisation. Nuitka is aimed to interface Python directly with C code which will boost its speed.
C extensions for Python or Cython is Python's superset and a version which compiles with C and interfaces with C/C++ code. It writes C extensions for Python. The only drawback is that it's not actually writing Python, else porting code which cannot be automatic completely. Cython has great advantages in relation to speed optimisations. Numerous scientific packages for Python, like scikit-learn are drawn on Cython features so that the functions are fast enough.
Numba is a combination of Nuitka and Cython. From Cython it takes the concept of how to speed up parts of the language like CPU-bound math which is done by LLVM. Numba's compiled functions can be specified with a decorator and Numba works in association with NumPy so that the functions are found faster. But Numba doesn't perform JITing.
According to Python creator Guido van Rossum, Python's performance issues can be traced to improper use of the language. NumPy can help in making CPU-heavy processing better via multiprocessing extensions. It can also make calls to the external C code by avoiding the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL). There is no viable replacement for GIL in Python though.
Gmail users have been affected by a bug, as it seems, in its 'auto-complete' feature as it's sending emails to wrong contacts. This feature allows inserting names of people in the 'To' field whom the user mails frequently.
But the bug is prioritising some contacts that are less frequently used. The problem has been reported by New York City venture capitalist Fred Wilson as he wrote that he received a bunch of emails that were actually not meant for him. People are complaining about the bug all over Twitter too, as reported by Business Insider.
But all Gmail users are not facing the problem. Google has acknowledged the issue via its Twitter post and said that it is already looking into it. Users have been asked to stay tuned till the issue is resolved. Gmail's Twitter post reads, “We're aware of an issue with Gmail and auto-complete and are currently investigating. Apologies for any inconvenience.”
Later one more post said, “Thanks again for your patience everyone re: Gmail and auto-complete. We've identified the issue and are working on a fix. Stay tuned.”
Canonical chooses number of wallpapers that are submitted by the community. Everyone is given a chance to see how their creation looks like after being implemented on the Ubuntu operating systems by default. Now the same is happening for Ubuntu 15.04 branch too.
As the development cycle for the Ubuntu branch is closing to its end, the community is getting a chance to participate in the wallpaper contest. It's a tradition now for many years and a successful initiative too. But this time participation is little poorer in comparison to previous times. Only a handful of images have been uploaded so far but that also means that you have a better chance to see your artwork in Ubuntu this time. Two years ago, hundreds of images were posted, some of them were not even original. But luckily enough the not-original images were spotted on time.
The submission process is still open and you can participate by following a simple set of rules. You can submit anything but don't ignore the rules precedented on the official website. Don't promote any brand, don't create an artwork that is sexually provocative, don't use any version number, don't promote any violence etc. Users must keep in mind that a dock will be present on the desktop so don't keep anything important on the left side.
You should definitely check the guidelines for more details. Iain Farrell, who is in charge of this contest, writes, "This will be the last wallpaper process I try to kick off unless there’s an outcry, and I'm really not expecting one. I think this has been a fun way to include non developers for a while but it may be time to find another way, if another way is needed. I really enjoy doing it but if we're not getting the interest then probably better to put our energy into something else.”
As the number of participants is low this time, starting with Ubuntu 15.10 something different might be planned and you might never again get a chance to submit your creation. So don't hesitate this time and give it a try. Best wishes!
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