Adobe Systems this week tipped its hand when it comes to the future of its Lightroom, revealing on its Web site a subscription plan for a mobile version of the software for editing and cataloging photos. 9to5 Mac spotted the subscription, a package costing $99 per year called "Adobe Lightroom for mobile".
Google today released the latest stable version of its Chrome browser. Version 32 includes many of the features that recently arrived in the beta channel, including improved malware blocking and tab indicators for when a site is playing sound, accessing the webcam and sending video to your Chromecast. Google uses a speaker icon, blue rectangle and red dot to indicate these different functions.
Paying for stuff with PayPal can sometimes be a pain. When users click to buy an item on third-party Web sites, they are usually redirected to PayPal's site, have to sign in there and then carry out the process. This is something the online payments company is now changing. Paypal announced on Monday that it is redesigning its online checkout system so that those annoying redirects are no longer part of the payment process. Now, customers should be able to do the whole checkout within a merchant's Web site and in fewer steps.
According to a January 11 report from Windows SuperSite's Paul Thurrott, Microsoft Threshold looks to be a spring 2015 release wave. Specifically, if Microsoft sticks to schedule, Threshold should crest around April 2015, Thurrott said he's been told by his own sources. Microsoft is going to disclose its Threshold plans at a "vision" level at its Build conference in San Francisco in April 2014, Thurrott said.
Adobe announced the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will recognize the company with a 2013 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for the role of its technology in Personalized Recommendations for Video Discovery. Adobe is receiving the award for developing the first recommendations system, which outlined the fundamental concepts of personalizing information for consumers as they search for and discover video content. The company will be honored during a ceremony at the International Consumer Electronics Show today.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an engineer and imagery expert who played a key role in development of Microsoft's Bing, has left the company for rival Google, according to a New York Times report. At Microsoft, Aguera y Arcas focused on augmented reality, mapping, wearable computing and natural user interfaces, and was an architect of Bing Maps and Bing Mobile. He was named a Distinguished Engineer in 2011 and oversaw development of Photosynth, a 3D panorama photo app.
Running Chrome apps on your smartphone isn't quite the app singularity that people want, where any app runs on any platform. But Google's about to take a big step toward that future in 2014 with Chrome apps for Android and iOS. Google is working getting its Web-based Chrome Apps to run on smartphones and tablets with a new project called Mobile Chrome Apps. Google developer advocate Joe Marini told The Next Web that Google would like to have a beta version ready in January.
For a company with as much expertise in running massive data centers packed with computing power, It's got to sting that Amazon Web Service gets all the glory when customers need cloud-computing infrastructure. Which is doubtless why Google is happy that its Google Compute Engine is out of testing and now generally available to all comers. The service offers a pool of servers on which customers can run various versions of Linux, paying for usage and assured that the systems will be up and running at least 99.95 percent of the time.
Windows 8.1 is now the fifth most popular desktop OS, at least as seen by Web tracker Net Applications. For November, Microsoft's latest flavor of Windows snagged 2.64 percent of all desktop OS traffic recorded by Net Applications. That number was a healthy gain from the 1.72 percent seen in October and the 0.87 percent in September. The rise also pushed Windows 8.1 just ahead of Mac OS X 10.9 with a 2.42 percent and just behind Windows Vista with a 3.57 percent share.
Apple has just released iOS 7 to registered developers. While still incremental, it's got a few noticeable feature updates yet for the young OS. The update, currently in beta, includes some bug fixes and user interface tweaks. For example, users can now toggle back and forth between a light and dark colored keyboard, better for use in dark settings. The update also lets iPhone 5S users upload "burst mode" photos - taken in rapid fire by holding down the shutter button - into the photo stream.