What's New

Google announced today that it has implemented a new updating method called file-by-file patching that reduces the size of app updates on Android by 65% on average.

The company started to use the bsdiff algorithm earlier this year to reduce the size of application updates by 47% on average when compared to the full size of the Android app.

VideoLAN, makers of the popular VLC Media Player program for various desktop and mobile operating systems have released VLC 2.2 for UWP today.

VLC 2.2 for UWP, what is that you may ask. When Microsoft released Windows 8, VLC ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of a VLC app for that operating system.

The campaign was successful, and the company released VLC for Windows 8 eventually to the public.

MaterialChess is a free application for Google Android devices that lets you play and train chess in a variety of ways.

One of the most refreshing features of the application is that it is completely free of charge. It does not cost a dime, does not request privacy invasive permissions, does not contain advertisement or in-app purchases.

While that is a great start for an app, it is not the only thing that makes this chess application shine.

Themes in Windows have not changed all that much since the release of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.

All versions of Windows ship with a selection of themes that you can switch between. Microsoft divides themes up into regular themes and high contrast themes, but that is about it.

Each theme may change the desktop background, color scheme, sounds and screen saver. If you want more customization, you need to patch system files first to install full themes afterwards.

These full themes may change other interface elements, icons for instance.

Trusted Contacts is a new personal safety application for Android devices that allows others to find out your last known location.

The main idea behind the app is to give one or more contacts the status of trusted contact. These can be family members, close friends, parents, or your spouse.

Opera Software integrated what it calls an address bar speculative prerenderer in Opera 43 to speed up the loading of resources from the address bar.

We talked about this back when the developer version of Opera hit version 43, but did not know much about the feature as Opera did not reveal an awful lot of information about it.

Back then, we knew that it used an algorithm to speed up the loading of addressed that get typed or suggested by starting the loading before you select the result.

Google is about to roll out an updated version of the company's captcha protection that tries to determine whether a connection was made by a user or Mr. Roboto.

Captchas are designed to separate between humans and bots. While sites may want to allow entrance to all human visitors, they may not be as forthcoming when it comes to bots.

Mozilla releases updates to Firefox Stable regularly. The organization did so on a six week schedule in the past, but has loosened that up a bit in recent time.

This schedule bumps the number in front of the dot by one. Smaller updates may increase the number after the dot to fix smaller issues or introduce changes to the browser.

Firefox Beta, Developer and Nightly versions are updated more frequently than the stable version.

VrBackupper is a free backup program for Microsoft Windows that lets you back up virtual reality data for safe keeping or migration.

Virtual Reality is not mainstream yet, but it seems to have better chances than 3D TVs to get there. We have a couple of competing systems that are available right now, including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Playstation VR.

Lucas Chess is a free chess training and playing program for Microsoft Windows devices that ships with an impressive set of features.

While I do know how to play chess, I was never particularly good at the game. My father taught me the game of kings, but I lost interest in the game and started to explore other gaming options early on.

Chess has simple rules that anyone can learn quickly, but it is highly strategic and requires excellent forward thinking capabilities.