Welcome to the Weekly Tech Update with me, Mike Walmsley. It’s a look at everything that is happening in the world of technology, the Internet, Search Engines and social media, so let’s get the show rolling…..
Technology
There’s a lot of buzz about the upcoming iPhone 5 and it seems a lot of other manufacturers are trying to beat Apple to the punch by launching their new handsets before Apple can. First off we have the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. It’s one of the so called “phablets” due to it having a screen size of 5.5”. The Note 2 is expected to be launched at the end of this month in Berlin. LG will also launch their Optimus Vu ahead of the iPhone.
The Carphone Warehouse are predicting that this Autumn will see the biggest ever number of smartphones sold.
A security flaw has been discovered in the way that iOS devices handle SMS messages. The flaw centres around a particular packet of data that is carried in a text message. In effect it allows a bad guy to include say a telephone number that you recognise in the body of the message but when you click on it to call it you are actually dialling another number. So take care if you get texts asking you to click on links within them.
Internet
You probably use many different devices to access the world wide web throughout the day. You might search for something at lunchtime on your work PC and then want to go back to that same search when you get home and you’re using your laptop or tablet. Google now allows you to save searches at an account level rather than only on the browser. This means that if you are logged into Google and you search for a topic on one machine then you will be able to see that search in your search history on all your other devices. This is just one more reason for you to take the plunge and create a Google account if you haven’t already done so.
You may have heard about 4G. It’s the advancement of 3G and is reported to be able to provide mobile broadband at comparable speeds to ordinary broadband. Sounds too good to be true? Well there have been concerns that the wavelength spectrum that 4G operates on is too close to those used by short range devices such as personal alarms or wireless microphones. OFCOM have investigated the issue and declared that 4G will not cause disruption to these types of devices. However the signal can affect Freeview signals. Fear not, though, the government has set aside money to provide filters to prevent this interference meaning you’ll be able tweet away to your hearts content about all those reality TV stars that you love to hate!
Search Engines
Google confirmed that they rolled out their latest Panda update on Monday 19th August. Panda was designed to ensure that sites providing high quality content gain higher rankings, so if you saw a dip in your rankings after the 19th take a look at the content strategy for your web site.
According to data analytics firm, Implied Intelligence, Google provides better local search results than providers such as Bing, 192.com and The Phone Book. They checked 1400 businesses but even the top ranked Google only covered 58% of the addresses. This means that there are a lot of businesses out there who are potentially losing out on business because they are not listed on Google Places. With more and more people searching via mobile devices being optimised for local search is crucially important. The data from your Google Places listing helps provide the directions that users of mobile devices receive on their mobile devices.
Social Media
If you use the popular WhatsApp then beware of a Facebook App that purports to be from WhatsApp but when you authorise it then redirects you through to a very shady URL. WhatsApp is a popular messaging service but does not have an official Facebook App.
Finally, did you know you can now delete photos from Facebook? I bet you thought you already could. In the past when you “deleted” a photo on Facebook it stopped it appearing in your photo albums but if you already had the URL of the image then you could still get to view the offending pic. Not anymore. Now Facebook say that when you delete a photo it will be permanently scrubbed from their system within 30 days.