Best free photo editing software: 10 top image editors you should try
Modern cameras can make digital photography seem very easy, and even the most basic models will often produce crisp, clear photos.
You'll still have occasional issues with lighting, white balance, red-eye and more, though, so it's a good idea to keep a photo editor around to help resolve them: but which one?
The extremely demanding (or very wealthy) may still opt for Photoshop, and there's no doubt it's a great program.
But if your finances won't stretch that, though, don't worry, there are some excellent free tools around.
We've found 10 of the very best free photo editing apps, and whether you're looking for comprehensive editing power, ease of use, arty effects or just a quick way to spice up a photo before posting it on Facebook, there's something for you here. Read more...
China wary of Android dominance over nation’s tech market
China signaled it wants to reduce its dependence on Google's Android OS, alleging that the U.S. company has discriminated against local companies over the use of the mobile operating system.
"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is heavily reliant on Android," according to a white paper from a research division of China's tech regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "Although the Android system currently remains open source, the core technologies and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."
The comments, published online this month, were reported by local publications on Tuesday. Read more...
Which tech degrees pay the most from day one?
Young technologists have a variety of undergraduate degrees that they can pursue at the collegiate level. But which degree is going to produce the most job offers and the highest starting salaries? Should college students major in computer science, software engineering, IT, or some other niche in order to snare the top prize four years from now: a six-figure starting salary, perhaps with stock options?
We talked to colleges and professors across various tech disciplines about industry demand for their graduates. We pored over starting salary data from the PayScale College Salary Report 2012-13. We also looked at unemployment rates by college major compiled by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce.
One trend is clear: The more challenging the tech-oriented major, the more job opportunities available to newly minted graduates ... as well as higher starting salaries. Students who take more math, science and engineering courses in college, tend to earn higher salaries upon graduation. Of course, whether a senior in college has multiple job offers with signing bonuses and other perks depends on their grades and internships. Also, graduating from a highly selective technical college helps tremendously with on-campus recruitment. Read more...
Oracle pulls Java 6 plug, but Apple likely to keep patching OS X Snow Leopard
Apple on Monday patched Java 6 for OS X, following Oracle's lead and quashing a browser plug-in vulnerability that hackers have been exploiting.
Oracle issued the "out-of-band," or emergency, update for Java 6 and Java 7 to patch two critical vulnerabilities. One of those bugs -- designated CVE-2013-1493 -- has been exploited in the wild since at least Feb. 28, according to security firm FireEye, which discovered the attacks.
Because Apple maintains Java 6 for OS X -- unlike Java 7, which Oracle handles -- it followed with its own update, as usual. Read more...
Canonical announces Mir display server to replace X Windows
Canonical has announced plans to develop new, open source Linux display-server software called Mir, in a move that it says will help further its goal of offering a unified Ubuntu user experience across PCs, smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs.
Traditionally, desktop Linux distributions have rendered their GUIs using software derived from the X Window System – X, for short – a venerable graphics layer that was developed for Unix by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1980s.
But many Linux developers think X is showing its age, and that it makes it too cumbersome to create the kinds of sophisticated graphical effects that modern desktop users have come to expect. Read more...