Tech News Archives - Page 133 of 135

Free texting apps have paid texting plans on life support

Posted on May 1, 2013

heywire In 2012 more text messages were sent via free texting apps on smart phones than by traditional SMS Text Messaging services, and the number of free texts vs. paid texts is growing at a fast rate. This is a great thing for consumers, but the cell carriers are taking a major financial hit because of it.

SMS text messages have always been a major source of easy profit for the carrier. They cost virtually nothing to transmit but bring in boatloads of cash.

But the immense popularity of apps such as Heywire, iMessage and WhatsApp have cut those profits by huge margins. And the bleeding is likely to continue and even pick up the pace as more users find out about these apps and begin using them. [Read more…]

LivingSocial has been hacked – Change your passwords!

Posted on April 27, 2013

The popular “Daily Deals” site LivingSocial.com has announced that their site has been hacked and the personal information belonging to over 50 million users has been compromised.

If you have an account with LivingSocial you need to change your password immediately (click here for tips on selecting one that’s tough to crack, but easy to remember). You should also begin monitoring your credit report and financial statements for irregularities.

According to LivingSocial, the customer data that has been compromised includes the following: [Read more…]

Samsung smart phones outselling iPhones 2 to 1

Posted on April 27, 2013

samsung-smart-phone Korean electronics giant Samsung has quietly become the 800 pound gorilla in the smart phone marketplace.

According to market researcher IDC, in the first quarter of 2013 Samsung shipped 71 million smart phones compared to Apple’s 37 million. In fact, during that three month period Samsung’s market share was greater than the next four companies combined.

Of the top five smart phone vendors, Apple is the only company in the bunch that actually lost market share in the first quarter. And another recent study shows that more customers switch from iPhone to Android when purchasing their next phone than the other way around. [Read more…]

Crucial Memory now selling a 1TB Solid State Drive (SSD)

Posted on April 21, 2013

Crucial Memory is now selling the world’s first consumer-grade 1TB SSD. It’s dubbed the M500, and at $600 you get all that massive storage for a mere 60 cents per gigabyte!

SSDs are quickly becoming standard in new laptop PCs, but their problem has always been limited storage space compared to traditional hard drives. Models in the half-terabyte range have been available for a while now, but their prices have kept them pretty much out of the mainstream.

But now that Crucial is selling this monster of an SSD for such a relatively low price, I look for the prices of smaller drives to drop in order to remain competitive in the market place. Could the traditional “spinning platter” hard drive soon go the way of the floppy drive? I think it very well could if SSDs keep getting larger and their prices per gigabyte keep dropping.

Click here to see Crucial’s complete line of solid state drives, including the 1Tb M500.

Microsoft seems to be considering big changes for Windows 8

Posted on April 17, 2013

Has Microsoft finally learned the value of listening to their customers? It appears that they just might have. Losing sales and market share by the boatloads will usually spur some soul-searching.

Reports leaking out of Redmond indicate that Windows 8.1 (aka Windows Blue) just might have a Start Button/Start Menu as well as an option for booting directly to the Desktop instead of the highly unpopular Start Screen. I for one hope the leaked information is true.

Many great companies have made major blunders (Is anyone reading this old enough to remember the “New Coke”?), but the smart ones eat a bit of crow and reverse course. It appears that the powers that be at Microsoft just might have a clue after all.

What do you think? Will they add these much-in-demand features back to Windows 8.1? Should they? I’d love to hear your opinions.