Browser maker Brave has acquired a search engine project that prioritizes user privacy, a distinction it hopes will set it apart from Google, the undisputed leader in internet search.  On Wednesday, Brave said it had purchased Tailcat, which was developed by Cliqz, a privacy-minded subsidiary of Germany’s Hubert Burda Media. Tailcat, which Burda shuttered in …

Microsoft is updating its widely used cloud computing technology to make it easier for millions of us to dump our passwords. The tech giant is making passwordless login a standard feature for Azure Active Directory, a cloud-based service customers can use to handle their employees’ login chores, the company said at its Ignite conference on Tuesday. The three-day conference, held …

I really wish I hadn’t broken my collarbone. But one silver lining from the experience has been learning how well technology lets me live my life with one arm immobilized in a sling. Far and away, the best feature has been speech-to-text tools that let me type without a keyboard. Honorable mentions go to swipe keyboards on phones, biometric authentication …

Microsoft will yank its old Edge browser out of Windows 10 PCs on April 13, an important step in its yearslong effort to move its immense customer base to a modern browser. Two decades ago, the software giant’s Internet Explorer crushed competitors like Netscape Navigator and dominated the market, but Microsoft let the software languish. Newer rivals like Firefox and …

Microsoft’s Azure Quantum service opened to the public on Monday, bringing the radically different computing technology to the world’s second-biggest cloud computing service.  Azure Quantum includes quantum computers made by Honeywell and IonQ. These machines use a design called an ion trap that employs electrically charged atoms as qubits, the fundamental element used by quantum computers to store and process …

IBM unveiled on Wednesday improvements to quantum computing software that it expects will increase performance of its complex machines by a factor of 100, a development that builds on Big Blue’s progress in making the advanced computing hardware. In a road map, the computing giant targeted the release of quantum computing applications over the next two years that will tackle …

Last July, Adobe brought several PDF-handling tools to the web, for example to convert Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files into Adobe’s widely used document format. Now the company has added some more new abilities and launched its Acrobat web site to house all the tools. Among the new tools are options to password protect a PDF, split a single …

Apple has added support for speech recognition technology into a version of its Safari web browser the company is testing with the release of MacOS 11.3 Big Sur for developers. The speech recognition interface lets websites and web apps listen to spoken words and use the resulting text. Apple released the developer beta version of MacOS 11.3 on Tuesday. The …

BMW is rolling into quantum computing, the German automaker said Wednesday, using a Honeywell quantum computer to find more efficient ways to purchase the myriad components that go into its vehicles. The car giant has begun using Honeywell machines, first the H0 and then the newer H1, to determine which components should be purchased from which supplier at what time to …

With Mozilla’s release of Firefox 85 on Tuesday, Adobe’s once ubiquitous Flash technology is really gone for good. The software had been widely used to expand gaming, video and animation on the web, though Adobe stopped supporting it at the end of 2020. Firefox was the last major browser to support Flash. Apple, whose late boss Steve Jobs helped sink Flash …