Software

It’s been nearly a decade and yet there is still no end in sight. No, it’s not the Samsung vs. Apple patent circus, which seems to have mostly died down. This one is between Google and Oracle and the final results could have widespread repercussions across the entire software industry. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just ruled that Google, in fact, violated Oracle’s copyrights when it used Java API in Android and could end up owing the Java owner more than $8.8 billion in damages.

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Mozilla, the company that recently called out Facebook's current default data settings, has just released an extension that addresses the platform's potential privacy issues. Called the Facebook Container Extension, this new offering stuffs Facebook into its own container tab whenever the social network is accessed, helping ensure the user's data isn't tracked.

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From the second invitations were sent out, we knew that Apple's incoming March 27 event will be focused on education. Today, however, we might be getting a clearer idea of what Apple will debut at the show, thanks to a new report that says a low-cost iPad aimed at teachers and students will be revealed. This will be a key component in Apple's attempt to win back the education market that it once dominated.

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Google is about to crack down on auto-playing video with audio, with the upcoming release of its Chrome browser taking a strict hand to noisy sites. Chrome 66 is currently in beta for those who want an early taste of what Google has been working on, though after that will graduate to the full release every user will be able to upgrade to.

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Plex, the popular home entertainment software, just added Plex News to its Xbox One app. With it, Xbox One owners who use Plex will have easy access to news content from a variety of providers like Reuters, Associated Press, and more. In addition, Plex recently announced an upcoming update for its Android app, one that will add local video casting to Chromecast and more.

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The original NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet just got a software update over 3 years after its initial release date. The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet was released in late July, 2014, and this update was sent in March of 2018. Granted, it's not an update of the OS - Android isn't going to get to Oreo here - but it is a rare show of long-term support for users in an industry in which short-term support is all that's usually expected.

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Although long available on tablet PCs, Windows 10 has generally been ignored in favor of iOS and Android tablets for many reasons. One of those is the torrent of updates you get each time and the downtime those incurs. Nowhere is that even more problematic than the “offline time” the OS spends when installing major feature updates, practically locking you out of your computer for as much as 2 hours. Microsoft is proudly announcing that it has reduced that downtime to 30 minutes on average. The catch? The overall process might actually take longer instead.

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This week the folks at Magic Leap announced their first Technical Preview of their Creative Portal and SDK for their burgeoning spacial computing platform. These tools were announced to be joined by Technical Preview builds of Unreal Engine 4 and Unity tools for developers to connect with the Magic Leap platform. "These tools and resources will be the first opportunity for creators to dive into the world of spatial computing and explore the building blocks of this next generation of human-computer interaction on Magic Leap," said a Magic Leap spokesperson.

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To consumers, and probably even to some businesses, there are really only a handful of operating systems in the world. There’s Windows, Mac, and Linux for desktops and Android and iOS for mobile. Of course, the reality isn’t as simple as that and there are a lot more than you can count, like Google’s Chrome OS, the Linux Foundation’s (really Samsung’s) Tizen, Jolla’s Sailfish, the discontinued Mozilla Firefox OS, and LG’s webOS. That last one is trying to grow out of its niche status and become a serious contender, and LG is open sourcing part of it in order to help it become a global platform.

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Very few, even Apple’s staunchest fans, will probably deny that Siri has become a lost opportunity. The first to arrive and popularize the voice-controlled, AI-powered smart assistant, it has been quickly overtaken by Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. The Apple HomePod was envisioned to be Siri’s new castle but instead left many disappointed in that particular aspect. It turns out, Siri has had a rough journey right from the start, and Apple’s development culture might have prevented it from regaining lost ground.

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Samsung's Galaxy S9 and S9+ may not have even arrived in stores yet, but the Android smartphones have already seen their first firmware update. The new software was released this week - it popped up on our Galaxy S9 review device today - and focuses on two of the headline areas of the smartphone, its camera and its biometric security.

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It’s almost pointless by now to keep track of the version numbers of web browsers, considering the biggest ones like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have passed the number 50 mark way back. Of course, it’s still just as interesting as ever to keep track of the features that these releases bring. And version 59 of Firefox has such treats for almost all its users, from desktop, to Android, to enterprise, and, yes, to Amazon Fire TV.

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