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Welcome to All Things Appy, TechNewsWorld's analysis of the best apps living on ourdevices today Before we became used to the slew of apps cluttering up our smarthones, desktopbrowser environments like Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox created "add-ons" and"extensions" -- the precursors of apps....

Microsoft could be cutting new inroads into the world of home automation, based on rumors circulating Thursday that it has purchased id8 Group R2 Studios. This acquisition will reportedly bolster Microsoft's Xbox division, which is likely to introduce a next-generation game console later this year R2 Studios was launched in 2011 by entrepreneur Bla...

The Federal Trade Commission and Google have reached a settlement on a two-year investigation the agency conducted into the search engine giant's business practices. In short, Google has agreed to give competitors access to standard-essential patents and allow its advertisers more flexibility in how they use rival search engines. Perhaps most significantly, Google has agreed to refrain from seeking injunctions to block rivals from using its standard-essential patents...

Leap Motion announced on Thursday that its touch-free 3D motion sensing and control technology will be bundled with high-end notebooks and premium all-in-one PCs high-tech vendor Asus will launch later this year The Leap Motion controller can track movements smaller than the tip of a pin with no visible lag time....

Don't expect google.nk anytime soon, but hey, it's a start Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, will travel to North Korea for a "private, humanitarian mission," according to the Associated Press....

Kim Dotcom didn't make his millions from the illegal downloads that took place on Megaupload, the now-defunct site he ran. Rather, he mostly made his money from ads that ran on the illegal download site, which highlights a need for ad networks to do a better job policing their stable of publishers The connection between ad networks and piracy sites...

Small businesses often find it challenging to gain access to the federal information technology market, despite efforts by government agencies to smooth the procurement process for small companies In a move to provide more opportunity for small businesses, the federal General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a bundle of IT contracts to sma...

A few weeks ago, I read a SmartMoney article titled "10 Things Cable Companies Won't Tell You." I have to admit it was a real eye-opener. We are all aware of a few of these items, but to have them all laid out in one piece was very powerful It looked at many top cable players such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevision and others. As compe...

A lot happened while you weren't looking. A stream of articles in December, especially, the week between the holidays, seemed to tie up some of 2012's loose ends and some point to significant changes in the years ahead. They also highlight the difference between hardware and software In software, we've been lulled into the belief that things change...

Cosmic radiation could accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease among astronauts, adding to the health risks it's already known to pose Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center's School of Medicine and Dentistry looked at the effect of high-mass particles with a high charge. These so-called "HZE particles" are the nuclei of ele...

After an arguably crummy 2012 for Facebook, it is kicking off 2013 on a positive note: J.P. Morgan raised its price target on the social network giant from US$29 to $35 at the start of the year, citing the progress the company has made with its mobile advertising business unit. Morgan research analyst Doug Anmuth said positive advertiser feedback ...

LG Electronics on Monday became the first manufacturer to make a 55-inch OLED TV available on the market, taking preorders in Korea for its device The device is the LG Model 55EM9700. It is listed at US$10,000, and will begin shipping in February....

Zynga has closed down 11 of its social games this week, including PetVille, Mafia Wars 2, Vampire Wars and Mafia Wars Shakedown. Some of the titles were completely shut down, while others were pulled from app stores or simply stopped accepting new players Zynga intends to reallocate resources to more successful titles while working to create new g...

On New Year's Eve, armed burglars lifted thousands of dollars -- and potentially more than US$1 million -- worth of merchandise from an Apple store in central Paris, according to Reuters The hit targeted a flagship Apple store, which carried a full array of products including iPhones, iPads and Macs. Police declined to comment on reports that put t...

Despite the arrival of a plethora of new tablets and Ultrabooks, plus a new operating system from Microsoft that was expected to drive PC sales, 2012 was a gloomy year for chip manufacturers. As any confident gambler might do when the chips are down, the leading consumer electronics original equipment manufacturers are expected to double down in 2013...

Call center software can now identify everything from anger to dissatisfaction in the voices of customers. Since call centers are all about voices, it makes sense to analyze those voices in order to provide better customer service. The field of voice analytics, in fact, has become a big business Both through recorded calls and through real-time an...

Subtitle Editor is a capable video editing tool kit to transform, edit, correct, create or refine existing subtitles on GNU/Linux/*BSD. Based on GTK+2, It also shows sound waves, which makes it easier to synchronize subtitles to voices ...

Iran boasted last week that its malware fighters fended off another attack on its infrastructure by the notorious Stuxnet computer worm Stuxnet targeted a power plant and some other industries in the southern part of the country, but Iranian computer experts were able to thwart the attack, a provincial civil defense official claimed....

This story was originally published on Nov. 14, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. Welcome to TechNewsWorld's new series exploring the app phenomenon that's threatening to relegate search and Web browsing to the technology history books....

This story was originally published on Aug. 4, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. It was a busy summer for Microsoft and chief executive Steve Ballmer....