Industry

FAA preparing to remove restrictions on in-flight electronic devices

Ban on device usage during takeoff and landing has long been believed to be based more on anecdotes than actual data

Chrome will block NPAPI plug-ins over stability, security concerns

Google plans to completely remove support for the popular Netscape Plug-in APIs from Chrome by the end of 2014

Update: Google fixes lengthy, widespread Gmail malfunction

A 10-hour disruption that affected email delivery and attachment downloads affected close to 50 percent of Gmail users

ZTE will bring second wave of Firefox OS phones to US next year

ZTE will begin selling its Grand S and Nubia phones in the U.S. through retailers starting in October

BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iPhone will not roll out this week

The company is trying to block an unreleased version of the Android app that has been downloaded by over 1 million active users

MICROSOFT answers Apple with, er, Surface 2 — BLACKBERRY bought for patent cudgel — FLIPBOARD approaches $1B valuation — BETAWORKS threatens VC model

Microsoft puts Windows XP laggards in a pinch

Windows 8.1 is no longer recommended for upgrades, and a Windows 7 sales cut-off looms

BlackBerry’s future — or what’s left of it — is in messenger services, not devices

The former king of business smartphones needs to ditch devices entirely and focus on being the enterprise-grade messaging service provider it's always been

Oracle: We’re getting Java security under control

Most problems date back more than a decade and resulted from old versions of Java being run, a company official insists

Surface 2 branding, specs, and pricing: Wrong, wrong, and wrong

Microsoft could've hit several home runs; instead, Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 are largely marginal improvements to the originals