We've all loved to hate Microsoft's free Windows Defender software—it's been so mediocre that it's been considered the baseline metric in third-party tests. But recent independent tests show it's actually outperforming a number of third-party suites, some of which charge you money to use them.Results released by AV-test.org for the month of December put Microsoft right in the middle of the pack of its list of antivirus software for home users. Microsoft is still near the bottom of the heap in the business market, however, using the version of Microsoft System Center that’s been integrated into Windows 10’s business editions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Struggling amidst a continued downturn in the PC industry, AMD reported a wider loss than expected, though beating analysts’ revenue expectations.AMD reported a third quarter 2015 loss of $197 million on revenue of $1.06 billion, blaming lower CPU and GPU sales for the red ink. A year ago, AMD reported a profit of $17 million on revenue of $1.43 billion, a drop of 26 percent in revenue. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected AMD to report a loss of 12 cents a share and revenue of $995.87 million for the third quarter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We normally think of Intel as the engine of the PC. But as Intel proved on Tuesday, the company can keep increasing revenue even as the PC market declines—and if it ever recovers, Intel’s business is poised to take off.Why? Data centers.Intel’s consumer processor division, called the Client Computing Group, still makes up close to 60 percent of its business—$8.51 billion in total third-quarter revenue, compared to $4.1 billion for its Data Center Group. But while CCG profits fell by 20 percent that quarter, Intel still recorded flat revenue because profits at DCG, which include SSDs and Xeon chips, are up 9.3 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Jumping from Windows 7 directly to Windows 10 has to be something like a farmer visiting Times Square. Live Tiles flash and move. A nice assistant named Cortana always hovers nearby. Click on the wrong spot and you could be whisked away elsewhere on the Web. And there are always people asking who you are, where you live, what you like...Because the latest version of Windows is always asking for information in the guise of being helpful, it’s easy to think that Microsoft’s the poster child for the collective attack on your digital privacy. But it’s not.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 26 crazy and scary things the TSA has found on travelers
In fact, there are plenty of other companies who feel perfectly entitled to require you to hand over your personal info before they open their doors. On a day where Microsoft clarified what it does with your data to try and soothe your fears, a Bloomberg feature profiled Facebook’s “unblockable” ads, while a new Google program revealed that advertisers can now tune ads to who you are just by knowing your email address. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel announced a Core M-based version of its Compute Stick pocket PC at the IFA show, part of a small coterie of unexpected announcements Intel made at the trade show here.As expected, Intel formally announced Skylake, its sixth-generation Core processor. Kirk Skaugen, a senior vice president at Intel, called the chip its “best processor ever.”Skylake can scale from over 90 watts down to just 4.5 watts, the power consumed by the Core M, now rebranded as the Core m. That makes it ideal for two-in-ones and even tiny devices like Intel’s Compute Stick, which had used an earlier version of Intel’s Atom processor when it debuted. Intel didn’t announce a price or a ship date for the new Compute Stick, however.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The best of Intel Developer Forum 2015Image by Mark HachmanEach year, Intel holds its Developer Forum to lead the PC industry into the direction Intel wants it to go: powerful new PCs, connected devices, touchscreens, and the like. Well, a bunch of stale PowerPoint foils won’t do the job. So Intel and its partners seed IDF with some amazing, awe-inspiring demos, all in a bid to get the developer community behind this year’s technological focus. What sort of demos, you ask? We have some of the best in the following pages. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AMD has been forced to pick its battles, wary of going toe-to-toe with Intel and its mighty manufacturing machine. But AMD chief executive Lisa Su said Wednesday that it’s time for AMD to re-enter the ring and again commit to high-end, premium products.Su said that AMD plans to launch a new high-performance “Zen” core next year that will be marketed as the AMD FX CPU—AMD’s traditional brand for the high-end gaming market. AMD also plans to add cutting-edge high-bandwidth memory to its forthcoming Radeon graphics products, and address new, emerging markets such as the virtual reality space. Su also said she aggressively plans to go after the data center—not a space consumers may care about, but a high-margin business that Intel has used as a profit center for decades.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo may have publicly buried bloatware, but it’s anything but dead. After the company’s Superfish scandal, we shopped Best Buy and found it alive and well on major vendors’ PC offerings. A little research should save you from the worst of it, though. Here’s what we learned. Bloatware is as bloatware does
We call it bloatware, but PC executives make clear that they install software on PCs to benefit consumers and pad tiny profit margins. The vast majority is harmless (if obnoxious), and some, such as a year’s subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365, arguably increase a PC’s value without increasing the price.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Almost a year after tipping its hand at Google I/O 2014, Google announced Android for Work, a way to lock down sensitive business data on personal Android phones owned by employees—using versions of Android either old or new.Google said it would deploy Android for Work in not one but two ways: as a native work profile that can be enabled within the latest Android 5.0 (Lollipop) devices, as well as a separate app for devices runninng Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) through Android 4.4 (KitKat). Google also said that it had crafted a special business apps store, known as Google Play for Work, and brought its Docs, Sheets, and Slides business apps into the walled-off Android Work partition, plus versions of its browser, contacts and calendar apps. All of the information stored in Android for Work will be encrypted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AMD microprocessors are relatively cheap and powerful, and they consume little power. So why aren’t they featured in the latest generation of low-cost computers, Chromebooks?The answer, according to AMD chief technical officer Mark Papermaster, is that they just aren’t worth it—yet.“You have to really look at the Chromebook, and what Google’s objective with it is,” Papermaster said, speaking with a small group of reporters on Monday evening during the ISSCC conference. “For us, it's just a business decision, when you need our type of CPU and graphics technology that can make a difference.” AMD
Mark Papermaster, the chief technology officer at AMDTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft opened its Windows 10 Technical Preview for Phones on Thursday by supporting just midrange to lower-end devices, disappointing some early adopters who were hoping to try out Microsoft’s new preview.Currently, just six phones can download the Windows 10 Technical Preview: the Lumia 630, 635, 636, 638, 730, and Lumia 830. Aside from the Lumia 830, Microsoft’s “affordable flagship,” the remainder are midrange Windows Phones that were released according to Microsoft’s principle of driving Windows Phone market share by expanding its user base.10 mobile startups to watch
“We are starting with a limited set of devices supported for this first preview,” Gabe Aul, the engineering general manager at Microsoft who has been the point man for Windows 10, said in a blog post. “Windows 10 will drive innovation across screens of all sizes and we will have new hardware from Microsoft and our partners, including new flagship phones.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Verizon unquestionably is the best wireless carrier, according to a comprehensive nationwide study of the service provided by the top four U.S. wireless providers during the second half of 2014.
That doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for you. But it's a good starting point to help you choose the right wireless carrier, with a little hand-holding.
That’s because the national study, released Tuesday by RootMetrics, doesn’t dive into the specifics for where you live. What it does tell us, however, was which carrier was best in terms of call quality, data download speed, and other metrics. The data is broken down nationally, on a statewide basis, and in tested metro areas.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Verizon unquestionably is the best wireless carrier, according to a comprehensive nationwide study of the service provided by the top four U.S. wireless providers during the second half of 2014.
That doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for you. But it's a good starting point to help you choose the right wireless carrier, with a little hand-holding.
That’s because the national study, released Tuesday by RootMetrics, doesn’t dive into the specifics for where you live. What it does tell us, however, was which carrier was best in terms of call quality, data download speed, and other metrics. The data is broken down nationally, on a statewide basis, and in tested metro areas.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Mark Hachman