Recent articles in Maximum PC News

• Motorola, Woot.com Sold Refurbished Xooms With Previous User Data Intact. Quick question: what's the one thing you should absolutely, positively do any time you trade in or return a piece of used tech? Answer: wipe the hard drive. If you already knew that, you might want to spread the word to your friends and neighbors, because Motorola forgot to wipe the info off of a bunch of used Xoom tablets it recently sold to enthusiastic Woot.com buyers. Oops! "A bunch" is a relative statement, of course, as is the "around 100" number Motorola tosses out in its press release outlining the goof. Over 6,200 refurbished Wi-Fi tablets were sold by Woot.com during the affected period between October and December, so 100 isn't a terribly high percentage -- unless it's your info left on a Xoom hard drive, that is. From Motorola's press release: It is possible that users might have stored photographs and documents. They may have also stored user names and passwords for email and social media accounts, as well as other password-protected sites and applications. To try and make things right, Motorola is offering anybody who bought, then returned a Xoom at Amazon Best Buy, BJ’s Wholesale, eBay, Office Max, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, or Staples� a free two-year membership in Experian’s ProtectMyID Alert. The company is also trying to track down the affected units and ensure that data from previous users is wiped.
• Dropbox Offers Up To 5GB Of Additional Space To Beta Build Users. Dropbox has a lot of things going for it, but if you use the cloud storage service with any regularity, there's a good chance you'll bang up against the 2GB offered in the free version fairly quickly. (Assuming that you don't Gmail account chain trick outlined in our Dropbox Cheat Sheet, that is.) If you're chafing at your no-cost bonds, the service is giving you an opportunity to add up to another 5GB of space absolutely free -- if you're willing to be a guinea pig, that is. Dropbox is still working out kinks in its as-yet-unreleased automatic photo and video upload support, you see. As this forum post outlines, if you download the experimental beta build (links found in aforementioned post), Dropbox will toss another 500MB of space your way the very first time you automatically upload a photo or video. After that, you'll get another 500MB of free storage space for every additional 500MB worth of photos/videos you upload. There's a 4.5GB cap on that, though, not counting the 500MB awarded for your original upload. Plenty of other tweaks and new features are also included in the build. (Thanks to Engadget for pointing the offer out.) Dropbox also offers an Android version of the beta build, complete with all the same abilities and offers. It's not up in Android Market -- being a Beta build and all -- but you can nab the .apk file with this link that comes courtesy of Pocket Lint.
• Ubisoft DRM + Server Switch = Unplayable Games Next Week. DRM sucks. You know it, we know it, Gabe Newell and CD Projekt know it. Ubisoft apparently never got the memo however, and in the process of switching servers next week, the company will offer up yet another reason for DRM sucktitude. Thanks to that nasty always-on DRM, six games won't be playable whatsoever during the move -- single player included. Plenty of other games will have their multiplayer capabilities "impacted" during the transition, including console versions of the games. According to a statement by Ubisoft (thanks to the always-useful Slashdot for sending us its way), the transition should start on Tuesday, February 7th; there's no word how long it will take. Single player and multiplayer will both be disabled for the following games: Assassin's Creed - MAC Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 - PC Might & Magic : Heroes VI - PC Splinter Cell Conviction - MAC The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom - PC The Settlers - MAC Rather than try and list out all the games that will have their multiplayer nerfed, Ubisoft took the easy route and instead decided to list the small handful of games that won't be affected at all. The following will be fully playable at all times; any you don't see here (or above) will have their multiplayer "impacted." Anno 2070 - PC Assassin’s Creed Revelations - OnLive, PC, PS3, X360 Driver® San Francisco - PC, OnLive, PS3, X360 Just Dance 3 - X360 The Settlers Online - PC web-based Isn't DRM grand? I think you may be driving gamers into Pirate Bay's arms, Ubisoft.
• Internet Explorer Increases Market Share Lead Over Chrome, Firefox in January 2012. Google's Chrome browser failed to increase its market share last month for just the second time in two years, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer added more than a percentage point, according to data by NetMarketShare. That's not the start to 2012 Google was hoping for, though there are still reasons to be optimistic about Chrome's future. This is just one month, after all, and Chrome dropping from 19.11 percent in December 2011 to 18.94 percent in January 2012 is not cause for panic. If we go back a full year to January 2011, Chrome's market share was sitting at 11.15 percent, and just 5.72 percent in February 2010, which is as far back as NetApplications allows us to look. Firefox also lost market share last month, dropping from 21.83 percent in December 2011 to 20.88 percent in January 2012. That's nearly a full percentage point, and it allowed Chrome to close the gap, despite losing share itself. Internet Explorer emerged as the big winner, going from 51.87 percent in December 2011 to 52.96 in January 2012. It's actually the fifth time IE increased its share since February 2010 when it commanded 62.71 percent of the desktop browser market. All this goes out the window if we look at market share numbers from StatCounter. According to StatCounter, IE's global market share dropped from 38.65 percent in December 2011 to 37.45 percent in January 2012, while Chrome increased its second place position from 27.27 percent to 28.4 percent during the same two-month period, with Firefox in third place sliding ever-so-slightly from 25.27 percent to 24.78 percent.
• Microsoft Guts Marketing Department in Massive Revamp. Microsoft has reportedly begun trimming (or slashing, depending on how you want to look at it) its workforce by letting go of a "small percentage" of employees who held marketing positions with the Redmond software giant as it looks to revamp and streamline its operations. The company didn't specific exactly how many employees were let go, though several reports have the number pegged at 200. ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley captured a tweet by Maher Al-Khaiyat (@mkhaiy), a Marketing Manager at Microsoft, announcing "major layoffs today as a result of marketing org restructuring," though it has since been removed. In a separate report, GeekWire claims to have confirmed with Microsoft that layoffs are now underway. "Given the rapid changes in technology and the shifts in how our customers connect with Microsoft, great marketing is more important than ever to Microsoft’s future success," a Microsoft representative said in a statement, according to GeekWire. "We’re taking steps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our marketing, and to strengthen career paths for marketers at Microsoft. Some of these changes involved the reduction of a small percentage of marketing positions, to better align our resources with our business needs and clarify roles across the marketing function." Microsoft recently reported record revenue of $20.89 billion for its second fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011, up 5 percent from one year prior.