File History is a new feature of Windows 8 that Microsoft revealed in a new article on the Building Windows 8 blog. It is basically a file backup service that is monitoring select locations for file changes to automatically create a backup whenever files in monitored locations get changed. If you want, it is an undo option for files so that you can restore them to a previous state.
Microsoft yesterday patched 16 vulnerabilities, including one in Windows that's been exploited for weeks and two in Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) in the first-in-years back-to-back browser update. Of Tuesday's nine security updates, three were rated critical, Microsoft's most-severe threat ranking, while the others were pegged as important, the next-most-serious label. Among the products patched yesterday were all versions of Windows; Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 on Windows; Office for Mac 2011; and IE9, Microsoft's newest browser that the company has touted as its most modern and most secure.
OS X Leopard users are about to have yet another reason to spring for an upgrade — especially if they're hooked on Google's Chrome browser. The Chrome team wrote on Monday that Chrome will soon drop support for OS X 10.5 and that future versions will only be available for Snow Leopard (10.6) or higher on the Mac. The version of Chrome that will do this will be Chrome 22, which has just been seeded into the dev channel for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chrome Frame users.
Tami Reller, corporate vice president of Windows, told partners attending Microsoft's worldwide partner conference in Toronto this morning that Windows 8 is on track to be released to manufacturing the first week of August, and to be generally available by late October 2012. This also means that Windows Server 2012 will be released to manufacturing by the first week of August.
HP announced a raft of new Ivy Bridge desktops back in April, but it had a few more all-in-ones up its sleeve. Today the company is unveiling a mix of business- and consumer-targeted machines: the Compaq Elite 8300, Compaq Pro 6300, Envy 23 and Pavilion 23. You can choose different processors from Intel or AMD, storage and graphics. The price starts at $650 and goes up to $929.
Apple says it has resolved a problem that caused recently updated apps to crash when launched. The company said in a statement that only a small number of users were affected by the glitch. We had a temporary issue that began the other day with a server that generated DRM code for some apps being downloaded, Apple said. The issue has been rectified and Apple doesn't expect it to occur again. Users who experienced an issue launching an app caused by this server bug can delete the affected app and re-download it.
Opera users who are administrating a blog on Blogger, Google’s free blog hosting service, receive warning notifications as of lately that the browser is no longer supported by the service. Google notes that “parts of Blogger will not work” and that users may experience problems on the site because of the browser that they are using. A test in Firefox and Internet Explorer reveal no such notification on the site or the admin dashboard.
Google TV needs all the help it can get. That's why Sean Hollister was happy to see Sony explicitly mention that the box will support OnLive's streaming game service. Now, though, it appears there's some confusion about whether that's actually true. Sony told VentureBeat that the media player will no longer support the OnLive controller, and seemingly the OnLive service along with it. Logically, that makes a lot of sense, since Sony just bought OnLive rival Gaikai in a $380 million deal, and obviously Sony would prefer not to directly promote a competitor.
Google is continuing to shut down services which aren’t core to its business – something it has been actively doing ever since Google co-founder Larry Page took over as CEO. Yesterday, the tradition continues as Google is announcing the shuttering of five more services, the most notable of which are Google Video and iGoogle, its personalized homepage offering. Clearly iGoogle has outlived its usefulness. The service dates back to a time when homepage portals were people’s entry points to the Internet.
Financial services giant MasterCard and mobile carrier Deutsche Telekom announced yesterday that they would partner to accelerate adoption of mobile payments, which allow consumers to use their mobile phones to pay for goods and services. MasterCard sees business opportunity in Deutsche Telekom's 93 million mobile customers in Europe. The companies plan to begin in Poland and Germany, Deutsche Telekom's home country.