USB, the workhorse port used for everything from phones to cars, is about to get even more useful. But consumers may find the changes puzzling at first. A new style of USB port called Type-C promises a lot. You can insert cables either way up so there’s no fiddling with the proper orientation. The port …
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You could be forgiven for thinking Adobe Systems just killed Flash, the software that for years delivered video, ads and games to Web browsers. On Monday, the company renamed its Flash Professional developer tools Animate, making a once-powerful brand name a historical footnote. Journalists weighed in with lines like “RIP Flash,” “Adobe is finally ready to say goodbye to Flash” …
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Mozilla is doing just fine without the millions of dollars it once pulled in from Google. The developer behind the widely used Firefox browser said Wednesday that it no longer relies on Google for its revenue and is confident new search-engine deals will bring in even more money. For years, Google in effect sponsored Mozilla by paying for Web searches …
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Adobe Systems on Tuesday released a new version of its Lightroom software for editing and cataloging photos, reversing a change that triggered angry protests from hundreds of customers a month ago. The new version — Lightroom 6.3 to those who bought a perpetual license and Lightroom CC 2015.3 for those who pay monthly through Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription — restores …
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Brendan Eich is back in business. A year and a half after resigning as Mozilla’s chief executive following an uproar over his anti-gay-marriage stance, Eich is spinning up a new company called Brave Software. With nine employees and $2.5 million in early funding from angel investors, the San Francisco startup has begun work on software that promises to make the …
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MENLO PARK, California — The future of photography is arriving here with a steady drip, drip, drip. At least that’s the plan for InVisage Technologies, a 75-person startup that hopes its exotic new material known as quantum dots will dramatically improve smartphone cameras when it arrives in devices in the first quarter of 2016. “It’s revolutionary on a number of …
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DUBLIN — OnePlus is a seemingly impossible company: a smartphone maker that’s made a name for itself in one of the most competitive markets around. OnePlus is no Samsung, LG, Sony, Motorola or Apple, in terms of either brand recognition or sales volume. But alongside fellow Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE and TCL’s Alcatel OneTouch, it’s showing that there …
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DUBLIN — Today, smartphones are a rarity, but a pioneer in the market predicts they’ll account for more than half of watch sales within a decade. “I believe in 5 to 10 years the majority of all watches in the world will be smart or have smart capabilities,” Eric Migicovsky, co-founder and CEO of smartwatch maker Pebble, said here at …
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DUBLIN — Google doesn’t presume to know what you’re thinking, but the Internet giant will offer its best guess with a new email feature called “smart reply.” Unveiled Tuesday, the smart-reply feature in the Inbox by Gmail app analyzes the text of incoming email and offers three tailored responses that you can ignore or customize. Smart reply should arrive this …
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Enlarge ImageFirefox SVP Mark Mayo Stephen Shankland/CNET PARIS — With its Firefox Web browser, Mozilla plans to take a significant step in the fight against intrusive online advertising. Firefox for years has had a “private browsing” mode that keeps no record of which websites you’ve visited. When Firefox 42 arrives on November 3, that mode will add a tracking protection …
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