Quest Software on Monday announced a series of updates to its Toad open source database software applications, including new versions of its Toad Edge, Toad Data Point and Toad Intelligence Central products. After launching the first version of Toad Edge last summer, the company began seeing an uptick in downloads of freeware that supported MySQL on its Toad World community site. It also received requests to support MariaDB and Postgres, according to Julie Hyman, senior product manager at Quest. The company began supporting MariaDB last month.
SOURCE:Tech News World
There was some bad news for owners of the latest iPhone models on Monday. Batteries in the iPhone 8 and X may have shorter life spans than those in prior models. Typically, phone batteries begin losing their effectiveness after 500 recharges. Up to that point, they can hold up to 80 percent of their charge. After that, it's usually downhill for the battery. After only four months, iPhone 8 Plus owner Adrian Kingsley-Hughes found that his phone was racking up recharge cycles at an alarming rate.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Sometimes I wonder if boards think CEO is a throwaway job. Considering that boards used to have a ton of ex-CEOs on them, and given the historic bad choices that have badly hurt or destroyed companies, you'd think someone would have developed a decent process to pick a good CEO. You'd think that firms at least would learn from their mistakes. Intel now seems to have the second bad CEO since founder Andy Grove left the company, and I can't imagine what the heck Intel Chairman Andy Bryant was thinking in putting Brian Krzanich at the helm.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Nintendo, riding high off of record-shattering sales of its Switch gaming console, on Wednesday announced an out-of-the-box addition to the family, Nintendo Labo. With its Toy-Con creations, Labo could rewrite the script on the way gaming companies expand their audience to the children's market. Nintendo Labo, a do-it-yourself cardboard kit, offers five different Toy-Con projects kids can use to learn and interact with the Switch. The Nintendo Labo Variety Kit includes a Toy-Con Piano, Toy-Con Fishing Rod, Toy-Con House, Toy-Con Motorbike and two Toy-Con RC Cars.
SOURCE:Tech News World
A bug in the software used by Google Cast devices such as Chromecast and Home can slow down or crash WiFi networks. The problem -- initially believed to be isolated to a particular router model made by TP-Link -- appears to affect models made by other manufacturers, including Asus, Linksys, Netgear and Synology. Complaints on a Google user forum brought the problem to light earlier this week. "Initial setup was fine, everything was working ..., but then my WiFi network went down," wrote forum user Alastair Hadden.
SOURCE:Tech News World
IBM and A.P. Moeller-Maersk on Tuesday announced a joint venture to create a platform based on Hyperledger Fabric 1.0, with the goal of creating huge efficiencies in the global supply chain. IBM and Maersk have teamed up to provide a more efficient method of standardizing shipping logistics using blockchain technology. "Adoption of Hyperledger Fabric by Maersk and ... IBM has the potential to remake the shipping sector landscape and its use of information technology," said Brian Behlendorf, executive director of The Linux Foundation.
SOURCE:Tech News World
In recent years, CES largely has usurped the Detroit Auto Show as the "first auto show of the year." Automakers have used the annual Las Vegas shindig to highlight the latest technology in vehicles. So perhaps it was fitting that this year the NAIAS looked a bit more like a technology trade show than a car show. In addition to showcasing vehicles that soon could be on road and futuristic concepts cars, this year's auto show featured sessions on artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicle systems, vehicle security and mobility.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Roader's Time Machine Camera is designed to hang around your neck and, for up to seven hours of battery life, constantly capture what it sees. When you hit a button, it saves the last 10 seconds of footage and the following 10. You can send a low-resolution version of that 20-second clip to your smartphone immediately, and if you'd like to save a high-resolution version, you can grab that too. It could be a great solution for people who always find themselves just missing an important or interesting moment occurring right in front of them.
SOURCE:Tech News World
OK, I hate CES. It really is a horrible event, largely because of the timing -- and particularly this year, Las Vegas making it a nightmare to get around -- but man did they have cool stuff at the show. Among presentation highlights were Nvidia showcasing a whopping 65-inch gaming monitor TV. Lowlights included Intel showcasing a human-carrying drone as something out of a horror movie. Of course, the product I had the most lust for was a $54K racing simulator being used to showcase the new HTC Vive Pro. The Vive Pro is damn good too.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Major tech companies, including Intel, Microsoft and Google, scrambled to calm the mood this week after a large number of computer users reported performance problems linked to security updates for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. A firestorm of criticism has erupted over the response to the chip flaws, which researchers at Google's Project Zero discovered in 2016. Months passed before the problems were disclosed to the public. Further, the security patches released in recent days have been blamed for performance slowdowns.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Nintendo on Thursday revealed its upcoming Switch games for 2018 via a Nintendo Direct Mini video. Riding high after its major comeback last year, Nintendo announced a number of game titles that will be released in the first half of the year, including Mario Tennis Aces, Dark Souls, Donkey Kong Country and Kirby Star Allies, as well as a new mode for the hit Super Mario Odyssey. he Switch, which debuted worldwide early last year, has been Nintendo's fastest-selling console system of all time.
SOURCE:Tech News World
GeckoLinux offers both seasoned users and new distro adopters an easy way to try an openSuse-based spin loaded with features and an ample inventory of the leading Linux desktops. The developer released a major update of GeckoLinux earlier this week. I enjoyed testing the beta version last fall, and I was even more pleased with the added embellishments packed into this final version. Among the attractions of GeckoLinux are its innovations within the openSuse community. These include non-free packages not found in openSuse's default repositories.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Since launching the original Echo smart speaker in 2014, Amazon has expanded its line of Alexa voice-activated devices to reach a dominant position in the marketplace. Realizing it has a bit of catching up to do and possibly may need to redefine the ground rules, Google this week put the consumer electronics world on notice that this no longer is a one-horse race. Google threw down its gauntlet at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Its plans include not only expanding its Home smart speaker line, but also changing the entire conversation about the appliances and electronics that can form the basis of a smart home ecosystem.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Apple has responded to an open letter from investors who called for the company to address the negative impact of the iPhone on children and teens. Jana Partners and the California State Teachers' Retirement System have urged Apple to give parents more choices and tools to help ensure that young consumers are using the company's products "in an optimal manner." There is a growing body of evidence that frequent use of Apple's products by young people could be having unintentional negative consequences, notes the letter.
SOURCE:Tech News World
As much as I love to poke at the inner workings of my computer, I'll admit that until recently, I didn't give much thought to which version of the Linux kernel my desktop system was running. For most desktop users, this isn't odd. Compatibility of kernel modules is often critical for servers and production systems, but day-to-day desktop usage doesn't change much from update to update. Two things motivated me to scrutinize the kernel version more closely: considerations for specific hardware; and a very scary bug recently identified in Ubuntu.
SOURCE:Tech News World
Artificial intelligence dominated CES 2018 in a big way on Monday with major announcements on connected car advances and home system technologies. Google all but declared war on Amazon with its Google Assistant voice technology making its presence known at nearly every turn on the showroom floor. LG rolled out a new lineup of high-end AI OLED and Super UHD televisions infused with its ThinQ AI technology and Alpha 9 technology, combining cinema-quality home entertainment with the ability to voice control the entire home.
SOURCE:Tech News World
A recent article on the institutionalized sexual exploitation going on in tech companies is eye-opening. It comes on top of the realization that social media companies like Facebook are destroying the U.S., and former Facebook executives have been dissociating themselves from the company. Further, news recently broke of what initially was reported to be an Intel flaw, but turned out to be a bigger industry-wide problem. Behind it was the report that Intel's CEO dumped every share he legally could.
SOURCE:Tech News World
A renowned Linux innovator has developed a new mobile OS, called "Project eelo," in an effort to provide a level of data privacy that traditional Android and iOS devices fail to offer. Eelo will allow mobile phone users to regain control over their personal information at a price they can afford, said Gael Duval, who created Mandrake Linux back in 1998. Apple has become too expensive, too boring and is "going crazy with its products," he said, while Google has "become too big" and is capturing too much information about what we do.
SOURCE:Tech News World
"Girls in Tech is a global nonprofit. We focus on engagement, education, and empowerment of girls and women in technology," said Ishita Mandhan, a software engineer at LSQ and program director for Girls in Tech. "It's important to provide the support network to help women to develop their careers in STEM fields. Girls in Tech's Global Classroom "teaches girls and women around the world. It's a free-for-all course where you can learn to build a website, and it takes a holistic approach," she said. "It's 100 percent virtual and 100 percent free."
SOURCE:Tech News World
Nearly a dozen cybersecurity researchers this week reported two potentially serious exploits of vulnerabilities that exist in most modern processors. Three teams -- Jann Horn at Google Project Zero; a team at Cyberus Technology; and a team at Graz University of Technology -- independently discovered and reported the Meltdown exploit. Two teams independently discovered and reported the Spectre exploit. The Meltdown and Spectre exploits leave no traces in traditional log files, but they could used to capture sensitive information on devices.
SOURCE:Tech News World
.png "Menu")
