When Apple introduced iOS 11 in September, it boasted how new compression technology called HEVC shrinks your video files about 40 percent. On Tuesday, Firefox took a step to do even better. The latest Firefox test version, called Nightly, debuts compression technology called AV1 that Mozilla said makes video files 25 percent to 35 percent …
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Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox Quantum, and even if you long ago switched to Google Chrome, it’s worth giving the browser upgrade a spin. Why? First and foremost, version 57 of the open-source browser is faster, clocking in at twice the speed of Firefox 52 from March, according to the Speedometer 2.0 benchmark. Mozilla knows Chrome won many of us …
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Brave Software on Thursday released a new version of its browser that lets you donate money directly to YouTube stars. The free browser blocks ads by default but lets you distribute money anonymously to websites each month, giving more money to the websites you visit more often and letting you “pin” favorites you always want to fund. Now Brave lets …
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Intel’s years-long effort to supply the processor brains for our phones was a flop, but the company is working hard to bring its communication chips to our phones. A series of developments the company announced Thursday could help its mobile prospects and perhaps improve next year’s iPhones with a faster version of today’s network technology called gigabit LTE. Even if …
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It was another down year for freedom on the internet, a new report finds. Of 63 countries studied, internet freedom worsened in 32 and got better in 13, according to the latest assessment from Freedom House, a nonprofit devoted to expanding those freedoms. Part of the problem: election tampering in the US and 17 other countries. “Governments around the world …
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Four of the five biggest companies in tech now are backing an effort to make video easier and cheaper online. On Monday, Facebook joined the Alliance for Open Media, a consortium building new video compression technology that doesn’t require any patent licensing payments. The effort unified next-gen video compression work already under way at Google, Mozilla and Cisco, and includes …
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T-Mobile now offers 1-gigabit-per-second mobile networks in 430 markets, an expansion it hopes will help it woo subscribers away from Verizon and AT&T. Today’s mobile networks are powered by a technology called LTE (Long Term Evolution), and T-Mobile has brought an updated version called LTE Advanced to 920 US markets, it said at a press conference Thursday. In nearly half …
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Competitors like Samsung and Google may have caught up to Apple when it comes to mobile-phone photography, but iPhones might reclaim their lead if a startup acquisition works out. Apple bought InVisage, a company developing image sensor technology called QuantumFilm that could outdo traditional image sensors from giants like Sony. Apple confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch on Thursday. QuantumFilm, which …
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Starting next year, Google’s Chrome browser will stamp out some shenanigans that send you to a website you didn’t expect. Stephen Shankland/CNET You probably don’t like it when you navigate to a particular web page and then your browser unexpectedly jumps to another page — an action called a redirect and something the website publisher didn’t even want to happen. …
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A year ago, Apple overhauled its high-end MacBook Pro laptops with something the computing industry had never seen before: a touch-sensitive strip with a programmable display called the Touch Bar. Its flexibility shows the function keys it replaces to be relics from computing’s dark ages — specifically 1971, when IBM added them to mainframe terminals, Apple said. “This is crazy, …
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