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Several high-profile online services, including Netflix, have been temporarily unavailable due to a problem at Amazon. It's another demonstration of the risks involved in having so many sites dependent on a single service provider. The problem took ... place on Sunday, August 25, and affected movie site Netflix and photo service site Instagram. Other affected sites included video sharing site Vine and vacation rental service Airbnb. These sites were either intermittently unresponsive or completely inaccessible. (Source: techspot.com ) The problem: Amazon's cloud services system was experiencing ... (view more)

Rename Master 3.8 This freeware utility is designed to help you rename many different files with just a few keyboard clicks. It's a handy utility for updating file names for your website, file archive, music / video / image collection, etc! Features ... include auto-preview and intelligent number sorting. http://www.joejoesoft.com Google SketchUp 13.0.4812 Are you an amateur or professional architect, designer, or engineer? Then you need to check out Google SketchUp, which includes a wide range of tools for creating three-dimensional sketch-ups of a home, office, or construction environment. http ... (view more)

A Google court filing says users of its Gmail service and their contacts have no right to expect privacy. It's a controversial position that will undoubtedly catch the attention of privacy-minded consumers and Google's main rival, Microsoft. The ... filing is a response to a class action lawsuit brought by action group Consumer Watchdog, which has complained about the way Google automatically scans emails and uses the contents to decide which advertisements to show a Gmail user when he or she logs in to the site. The case focuses on Gmail users and the terms and conditions they agree to before ... (view more)

Google has announced it will begin highlighting the search results that best answer a user's query. It represents a whole new approach for the ubiquitous search firm. In recent years, Google has focused on trying to answer a user's query quickly ... rather than providing them with the website that best answers their question. (That was partly a response to Microsoft's launching of Bing, which that firm promoted as a "decision engine" rather than a search tool.) The best example of Google's focus on speed over quality: Google Knowledge Graph, the box that appears on the right of the results page ... (view more)

Google has unveiled a new tool that allows Android users to find and track a lost smartphone or tablet device. The utility can also be used to wipe a smartphone's hard drive if recovery is deemed unsafe or unlikely. Google is calling the service ... 'Android Device Manager'. The firm says the service should be available to most Android users by the end of August 2013. It's been a long time coming. Apple released a similar tool -- called 'Find My iPhone' -- several years ago. That service lets iPhone users narrow down their smartphone's location to a specific geographical area (such as an ... (view more)

According to security firm Symantec, the Google Play store is home to many potentially dangerous applications. The firm says it found approximately 1,200 suspicious apps on the store over a seven-month period. Google Play is Google's digital ... distribution center, and it's where most Android users turn for downloads (in effect, it's Google's version of Apple's App Store). More than 700,000 apps can be found on the Google Play store, which has played a central role in Android's rapid growth in the mobile market. Between February and April 2013 sales of Android devices accounted for more than ... (view more)

Google has unveiled the next version of its popular, budget-priced Nexus 7 tablet computer. The newest Nexus 7 features a 1080p high-definition display, a quad-core processor, and a slightly higher price point. The original Nexus 7 was launched in ... mid-2012. Featuring a 7-inch display (hence the name), Google's Android mobile operating system (OS), and a $199 price tag, it was an instant success. The only thing sticking around from the previous model is the 7-inch screen. Faster Processor, Better Display, Bigger Price Everything else has changed: the price has ballooned to $229 (that's for ... (view more)

Google Keyboard for Android Easily type on your Android-based tablet device using Google Keyboard. This program makes entering text easy with Gesture Typing, which allows a user to simply lift their finger to finish a word -- no space bar required. ... http://google.com Letter Avalanche for Android Improve your spelling with Letter Avalanche, a new game that challenges players to spell as many words as possible before time runs out. Earn points and special coins by spelling words correctly, then compare your score with friends! http://www.tweaking.com This freeware software program is brought to ... (view more)

Outsourcing has become a popular way for big companies to save money. One example: offering 'bug bounties' that encourage independent researchers to help prevent security nightmares. According to a new study completed by University of California ... Berkeley researchers, it's far cheaper for technology firms to use these freelance security experts than expand an existing in-house security team. The study examined the bug bounty programs (otherwise known as vulnerability reward programs, or VRPs) used by two of the Internet's biggest firms: Google and Mozilla, makers of the Chrome ... (view more)

A new report finds that one of the web's most popular ad-blocking browser extensions, AdBlock Plus, has allowed some advertisers to pay money in order to circumvent the software's blocking feature. If you're not familiar with it, AdBlock Plus is one ... of the Internet's leading ad blocking programs. It's available for several different web browsers, including Mozilla's Firefox, Google's Chrome, and Opera. Previously, Mozilla has said that AdBlock Plus is both its most-used and most-downloaded browser extension. Not All Advertisers Treated Equally Once installed, the open source program ... (view more)