Is your photo out-of-focus? Try SmartDeblur 2.0 beta
Vladimir Yuzhikov has released the first beta of SmartDeblur 2.0, a powerful tool for recovering data from blurred images.
Top of the new features list is an “auto-detect blur” option, which allows the program to automatically figure out whether your image is suffering from motion, Gaussian, or just plain old out-of-focus blur, and perform the appropriate corrections.
5 million Americans cut cable's cord
What interesting timing. The same day Ericsson agrees to buy Mediaroom from Microsoft, Nielsen releases fascinating report "Free to Move Between Screens". The two things are strangely related. A decade ago, the IPTV division made more sense. Today, television habits are changing, something Microsoft brianiacs apparently recognize and others would be wise to do likewise. Nielsen hints at the future.
Consider where we are in just three years. Before iPad's launch in April 2010, few US television networks (I don't know that any) offered two-screen experiences. Now they're commonplace, under the presumption millions of Americans sit with tablets in front of their boob tubes (and they do). HBO Go launched two months earlier. Go back six years, you have Amazon, Apple and Netflix streaming and Hulu's launch. Along with the DVR's rise in popularity, how Americans consume television programming dramatically changes.
Microsoft dumps Mediaroom
Is IPTV an epic fail, or just for Microsoft? Ericsson is buying Mediaroom, ending weeks of rumors and leaving me (and presumably others) wondering what this means for Xbox 720 (or whatever Microsoft calls it) as an entertainment hub. Perhaps the visionaries up in Redmond, Wash. see something the Stockhom, Sweden-based telecom equipment giant should: IPTV has no long-term future.
Mediaroom is great. I've used the product since February 2008, when AT&T U-Verse came to the neighborhood. The program guide is straightforward and functional, and there are lots of trendsetting features, or were. Not much changed over the past two years, even while rivals added more HD-channel recording capabilities, among other enhancements. Many of the best, early features, such as streaming recorded shows among other boxes in the home, are mainstream from rivals. Mediaroom was not high on Microsoft's priority list.
Game time: Bing talks NCAA championship
Tonight is the big game, the culmination of March Madness despite the month having changed to April. It is one of the most heavily followed sports tournaments and betters win and lose fortunes with their brackets. This year Louisville and Michigan square off on the court for a chance at history.
While Bing, the Microsoft search engine, does not pretend to make predictions about which college will emerge on top when the final buzzer sounds, the service did release a bit of data about what fans are searching for in the time leading up to the showdown.
Microsoft beats Windows XP users into submission
What shameless exploitation. I know PC sales are slow, with Windows 8 giving no lift. So Microsoft resorts to this? Today, Stephen Rose issues an ultimatum: Windows XP support ends in 365 days. From April 8, 2014, there will be no more patches and updates for you.
How outrageous! Microsoft cuts off XP users thirteen-and-a-half years after releasing the operating system. My leather jacket is older, and the clothier who made it isn't forcing me to buy a new one. Nor does Texas Instruments demand I upgrade from the calculator purchased in college. If users want to run Windows XP forever, Microsoft should let them. Instead, it's compute at their own risks or upgrade.
HP makes a Moonshot
Before you think that Hewlett Packard is joining the Jeff Bezos-Elon Musk space race, I should clarify that the new HP Moonshot is actually a server that the company unveiled today. HP hopes that this new architecture will be a revelation to the current server market with a number of new features.
First, HP promises, not the moon, but that Moonshot will use 89 percent less energy, 80 percent less space and cost 77 percent less, compared to traditional servers.
The Apple-Google duopoly so dominates app downloads there is little room for BlackBerry and Windows Phone
Mobile app store downloads from the four major stores -- Apple, BlackBerry, Google and Microsoft -- reached 13.4 billion in first quarter, generating $2.2 billion revenue, according to Canalys. Combined, revenue from new sales, in-app purchases and subscriptions grew 9 percent from fourth quarter, while number of downloads climbed by 11 percent.
There are a half-dozen measures that mark successful platforms, with money being the most important. Developers typically go where they earn more. That's preface to a fascinating juxtaposition partly explaining developer preference for iOS, even though more Android devices ship and cumulative sales (750 million to 500 million) are larger. Google Play accounted for 51 percent of downloads during Q1. But Apple's App Store generated 74 percent of the revenue. Ponder those numbers for a moment.
WebSite X5 Free 10.0 adds server and new HTML5 image galleries
Incomedia has released WebSite X5 Free v10.0, a major new version of its beginner-friendly web building tool for Windows. The app, which is also available in a number of paid-for versions, now boasts an integrated webserver for faster site previews, overhauled template gallery and HTML5 image galleries.
Changes to the program’s interface include better file management, whereby all files linked to a project are automatically copied so the originals are left untouched. Aside from the new integrated web server, WebSite X5 10 also replaces the default IE engine for browser previews with Chrome’s Chromium engine.
Support for Windows XP ends a year from now, should you care?
In exactly 365 days Microsoft will stop offering support for its still widely used but venerable operating system. XP has certainly had a good run. Microsoft will have supported the OS for 12 years, which shows how incredibly popular it was (its success also perhaps speaks volumes about how much better than its successors it was perceived to be, I’m looking at you in particular Vista).
But now Microsoft is dropping extended support for XP, so what does that actually mean for consumers and businesses who are still using the OS?
Are you ready? Messenger merges with Skype
By now you probably already know that Microsoft Messenger is going away in favor of uber-communication app Skype, which Microsoft purchased back in 2011 for a whopping $8.5 billion. The app, released back in 2003, is slowly being merged into Microsoft products. In fact, the latest iteration of Office, 365 Home Premium, comes with free Skype minutes as part of the package.
Today is that day when Messenger officially merges with Skype. Until now, users had the option, strongly urged by Microsoft, to make this move on their own. That no longer is just an option. The company sent out a warning email back on March 21.
Yes! Microsoft really does need to rethink Windows 8
A fortnight ago I asked a simple question -- Is it time for Microsoft to make big changes to Windows 8? BetaNews readers weighed in on the topic and as I'd hoped it made for some fascinating and insightful reading.
Although plenty of people support Windows 8 and the Modern UI, a lot of readers feel that yes, Microsoft should seriously consider making changes to its divisive OS and accept that the "one size fits all" model isn’t working.
Get AutoCorrect and AutoText in any app
If you’ve a penchant for typos or having to type the same repetitive phrases day in, day out, you’ll be eternally grateful for Word’s AutoCorrect and AutoText functions. The sad thing is, of course, that once you exit Office they’re inaccessible, which must be frustrating as you read back that horribly misspelled message in your email client or psyche yourself up to enter your address for the umpteenth time into your text editor.
The good news is that you can gain this functionality across all your apps and tools in Windows with one small, perfectly formed freeware program. Step forward, WordExpander 1.5.15.
Microsoft wins, even if the PC loses
I am simply stunned by the ridiculous number of "Microsoft will be dead in four years" stories, following Gartner's grim PC forecast three days ago. I offered brief analysis then and promised something later, and this is it. Yesterday, colleague Alan Buckingham posted first: "Microsoft is nowhere near death's door" -- and he absolutely is right.
Throw a rock, and you can't miss a doom-and-gloom armchair analysis. Among the many are "Gartner: Microsoft is dead, Windows has expired, Office has ceased to be" (Computerworld); "How long can Microsoft go on like this?" (InfoWorld); "Apple's ultimate victory over Microsoft" (Motley Fool); and "Gartner may be too scared to say it, but the PC is dead" (ReadWrite). For the most part, all these armchair pundits are mistaken. Hugely.
Make Google TV your living room entertainment hub
A month ago I made a major change in my living room, moving from HTPC running Windows 7 to Vizio Co-Star Google TV box. While the move saved a lot of shelf space, that was not the goal. My living room computer was old and slow, Windows Media Center no longer received real investment from Microsoft and developers had largely come to ignore the platform -- I only got Hulu on it via a hack.
Your first question may be how I can watch and record TV now, but that is not an issue. I never used WMC for that because I have DirecTV, which does not support input to WMC, although the company had once planned to do so before scrapping the idea. So, my HTPC was simply used for viewing our collection of ripped DVDs and digital photos, as well as listening to our large music collection through the living room home theater speakers and those on the outdoor patio. In other words, I never used WMC to its full potential.
I won't pay AT&T early-termination fees
Yesterday T-Mobile started taking orders for iPhone 5, which goes on sale from the carrier on April 12. I ordered one black and one white 16GB iPhone 5, setting me back nearly $293, thanks to California's outrageously high sales tax (yeah, I know it's a pittance to many Europeans). I'm in process of ripping all five lines from AT&T's grubby paws and moving them to T-Mobile. Expect a very public spectacle, as I write about my struggle to get AT&T to reduce early-termination fees.
My first attempt on the first three lines failed. An AT&T customer rep knocked $100 off my bill, which isn't nearly enough. He said, and I've heard this before, the carrier's computer system wouldn't let him reduced ETFs. They're firm obligations that I don't feel obligated to pay -- well, not fully. I'm ready to make my case in the court of public opinion and in process hopefully raise more discussion about ETFs. T-Mobile does away with them. Why not other US carriers?
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