Items tagged with Software
There's hardly anything that gets us at HotHardware more steamed than spyware, and we can only imagine how infuriated over 100,000 BlackBerry users in the UAE are after being fooled with a spyware-infused update. In a story that's sounds too bizarre to be true (but is, in fact, true), Etisalat--a major cellular operator in the United Arab...
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You know that Apple store down at your local mall? In a few months, it may be sharing a zip code with your local Microsoft store. In all goes to plan, the software giant responsible for Windows and Office will launch an assault on Apple and other consumer electronics companies by erecting a number of retail outlets designed specifically to...
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Can you say "unprecedented growth?" We had to pick our jaws up off of the floor just 1.5 months ago when Apple announced that it had surpassed one billion downloads in its heralded (and oft copied) App Store, and now--just days after this very store celebrated its first birthday--the California-based company is dusting off the party hats once...
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Less than a week after Google announced plans to venture into the operating system business, Microsoft is firing back with plans to offer a free version of its popular Office software suite that will run on the Internet. Although Microsoft didn’t mention the competition from Google during the announcement, many analysts see this latest move...
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Without a doubt, Google's Chrome OS has sent shockwaves through the entire software industry. Even companies that are just somewhat related to the netbook/browser/open source fields are taking notice, and you can bet the biggest player (that'd be Microsoft) is watching every tiny footstep as the proposed operating system inches closer to reality.No...
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Earlier this week, Google shocked many people when it announced plans to enter the operating system business and offer a Chrome operating system. Although the new Chrome OS isn’t scheduled to be out until sometime next year, many potential customers are already starting to ask questions. For starters, some people are already wondering if they...
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Shock of the month? The year, even? Out of absolutely nowhere, Google--the search engine champ at the moment and the developer of Android--has announced its first full-fledged operating system. Of course, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised. After all, it's not like Google hasn't been dabbling in applications for awhile now.In fact, this announcement...
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We already heard that Asus would be following Microsoft's plans in regard to Windows 7 upgrades, and now MSI is making sure that prospective buyers fully understand that they will as well. From purchases of MSI machines starting back on June 26th, owners will be offered the change to snag the Windows 7 upgrade for only a "small processing...
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We've written about China's Green Dam censorware a couple of times, and there's no doubt it's drawn a great deal of criticism. On Tuesday, China announced it would be indefinitely delaying the rollout of the product, which it had earlier said would have to be installed (or at least provided) on all PCs sold in the country as of July 1st. The...
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Good news, Windows fans/users. If you're in need of a PC now, but don't want to miss out on the Windows 7 train which officially leaves the station on October 22nd, Microsoft is stepping in to help. Today, the software giant announced that starting tomorrow (June 26th), consumers and small businesses that purchase a Vista-enabled PC from a...
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Dell and Microsoft have had something more significant than just a working relationship for some time now, but it looks like that partnership just got ratcheted up a notch. As more and more outfits (Adobe, for one) offer full applications online, Dell has landed a deal that will allow it to sell "digital" versions of Microsoft products. In...
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Symantec, McAfee and Norton. What do all three of those have in common? A little something with Microsoft, now. For years upon years, the first three companies have been ruling the PC security roost, all while Microsoft scrambles to patch its own operating systems when new exploits are discovered and reported. At long last, the OS maker has...
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For PC lovers, it's October 22nd that's circled in your calendar. But that's not the only major OS that's launching this fall. This week at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference in California, the company announced that its long awaited OS X Snow Leopard operating system would be shipping in September, undercutting Microsoft's own debut...
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Ever since Windows 7 Beta arrived on the scene, we've been putting it to the test in every way we could ever imagine. By and large, it has shown to be a leaner, more streamlined operating system compared to Vista, and hopes couldn't possibly be higher. Many have complained that Vista was never the successor to Windows XP that the general public...
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Yesterday, a Federal District Court judge in California heard arguments regarding a DVD copyright case between Hollywood movie companies and RealNetworks. Depending on what the judge rules, you and I may or may not be able to legally copy our own DVD collections to our computers. In October, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel temporarily...
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And the fines just keep on coming. Shortly after Intel was dealt a staggering $1.45 billion fine for alleged antitrust practices against the likes of AMD, Microsoft is now facing a slightly less painful $200 million payment to software ware i4i Ltd. This week, a Texas federal jury ordered Microsoft to pay the aforementioned Canadian outfit...
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After a long, long wait, Ubuntu Linux fans have been testing out the latest flavor all weekend. Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop, which is more affectionately known as "Jaunty Jackalope," has just been made available. Also of note, the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix -- which is obviously tweaked to work best on low-power netbooks -- can be downloaded today....
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College students with a valid ".edu" e-mail address from an accredited institution can snag a download of Microsoft Office 2007 for less than $60.With ever more free options (think OpenOffice) and college students being a traditionally poor and penny-pinching market, the average college student isn't going to shell out $679.95 for Microsoft...
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Size is in the eye of the beholder. A 0.0.1 upgrade from 2.2 to 2.2.1 sounds minor, but size-of-download-wise? Whew. On Tuesday Apple released a minor update to the iPhone / iPod Touch Software, 2.2.1. The typically vague release notes say: iPhone 2.2.1 Software Update This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:...
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Here at the HotHardware labs, we like to make use of SiSoftware's Sandra benchmarks for quick and dirty measurements on relative performance of a product versus another in its class. While the benchmark suite is virtually all synthetic testing, we've found that results and measurements generally scale pretty well with...
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In any discussion of the vulnerability of your computer to malware, the discussion is often centered around the cutting edge of the battles between new threats and new versions of browsers and software to combat them. But the dirty little secret we don't discuss much is: Most software is older than dirt. Does software need a fresh sale date?...
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Our biggest complaint with our DirecTiVo before it died: speed, or rather lack thereof. It's a common complaint.TiVo software version 9.3 will significantly speed up nearly all of the common tasks that customers do with a TiVo. No longer will the DVR pause for nearly a minute while it reorders Season Pass priorities or stall for half...
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