John Lister

With Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 now available, tech-heads are noticing a common theme: it seems to be a compromise between the 'traditional' format seen in Windows 7 and earlier, and the radical revamp that came with Windows 8. Start Menu ... Returns With a Difference Perhaps the most widely talked about feature -- still -- is the new Start menu. It displays the traditional view of programs on the left, while displaying live tile icons on the right. Users can control how much space the live tiles take up and can even resize it to full-screen mode, effectively replicating the main ... (view more)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned that the boom in Internet-connected home gadgets could increase security risks significantly. It's put together consumer advice and says it will work on applying the law to this new area of tech. The FTC ... has published a report on the " Internet of Things ". That's something of a vague term, but the commission defines it as any physical object that can connect to the Internet. Today, the Internet of Things doesn't simply apply to computer and smart phones -- it also applies to billions of other objects, including cameras, home ... (view more)

Two Facebook millionaires want US officials to regulate an exchange for buying and selling the controversial "cryptocurrency" Bitcoin. The move follows a scandal when the largest such exchange in Japan went out of business . The Bitcoin currency ... isn't issued by any government or backed by any assets. Instead, each new unit of the currency is created when a computer successfully solves what's effectively a puzzle designed to slowly increase the amount of Bitcoins in circulation. Every time one user pays a Bitcoin to another, a publicly available ledger of transactions is ... (view more)

It's official: Microsoft says that Windows 10 will be free of charge -- but the offer comes with limitations and caveats. The free upgrade offer is part of what could be the biggest change to the Windows business model, ever. Microsoft's comments at ... a launch event this week have been interpreted by some analysts as meaning Windows 10 may also be the last major release of the operating system. Instead, Windows may receive more frequent, but less substantial updates in the future. The Windows 10 free upgrade deal will only apply to consumer versions of Windows 7 (Service Pack 1) and Windows ... (view more)

Facebook is to implement a new feature to help cut down on the number of fake news stories that appear on the site, but says 'genuine parodies' will be unaffected. The report system won't lead to stories being removed from Facebook altogether; ... instead, it will make them less likely to appear on user newsfeeds. Links to news stories are becoming increasingly important on Facebook. A 2014 study by the Pew Research Center found that 30 percent of Americans say they get some of their daily news from Facebook, which is more than three times the figure for any other site. (Source: pewresearch. ... (view more)

Early last year, Microsoft released a free version of Windows for manufacturers that produced tablet computers with screen sizes smaller than nine inches. Known as "Windows 8.1 with Bing," the forecast was to make a big difference to the economics ... for manufacturers weighing up which operating system to use on its devices. Analysts are now speculating whether Microsoft will do the same with Windows 10 and, if so, whether the offer will apply on traditional PCs. It also raises the possibility that Microsoft could face accusations of unfair behavior in promoting its search engine . ... (view more)

As expected and according to Microsoft's Windows lifecycle page, Windows 7 mainstream support officially ended on January 13, 2015. It means there will be no more significant updates to the Windows 7 operating system, other than security updates. ... The end of mainstream support is in line with Microsoft's general policy of offering support for its operating systems five years after being released, followed by extended support for a further five years. The only exception to this policy was Windows XP, where the total support period lasted for 13 years. That was largely because the system ... (view more)

Facebook is to issue missing child alerts in user news feeds to US citizens. The alerts will be based on the user's location and will tie in with existing alert systems. The updates will be based on the AMBER Alert program that has been run for 20 ... years in the United States. AMBER Alert updates already go out via a range of media including: radio and television, highway electronic billboards, electronic signs outside participating retailers, and text alerts to users who have chosen to receive such messages. Whether and when to send an alert is the decision of local police, using their own ... (view more)

Microsoft has publicly lashed out at Google for revealing a severe security flaw in Windows 8.1 before it was able to release a fix. The public disclosure has reawakened a longstanding dispute about how to go about reporting security flaws. Comments ... on Google's website suggest that the same bug also affects Windows 7 Professional 64bit, with Service Pack 1; if true, it's equally likely the bug also affects other earlier versions of the Windows operating system, including Windows XP, which is no longer supported by Microsoft and will therefore remain unpatched. The bug involves the way ... (view more)

The CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is in full swing, with Hewlett Packard (HP) unveiling its $180 Windows 8.1 PC that's less than six inches square. Now, it appears that Intel is upping the ante with its Windows 8.1 computer that's just slightly ... larger than a USB thumb drive. Dubbed 'The Compute Stick,' the computer-on-HDMI is just four inches long. While the exact size is not yet confirmed, pictures suggest it's about an inch wide and around half an inch thick. Despite its tiny form factor, the device is as powerful as some entry level PCs seen in the market today. The ... (view more)