Hasta La Gadget!

There is always the first time for everything in life, and Google too, is a company that does experience its fair share of firsts from time to time. In fact, strong third quarter results have seen Google’s shares soar past the $1,000 mark for the first time in the company’s history. It was not too long earlier this morning after the share market opened, that Google Inc. shares made the jump to over 12% to touch the $1,002. This is interesting, especially when you consider that the stock itself did not make it past the $928 mark in regular market trading ever since Google went public at $85 per share a good nine years back.

This could be attributed to better-than-expected third-quarter results that were reported by Google late last night. The figures reported pointed out that the company’s advertising prices continued to decline, but that is being offset by a larger number of people who happen to click on ads. I don’t know about you, but I hardly click on any of the Google Ads – how about you? And to think that some analysts were thinking that Apple was going to surpass the $1,000 mark for its stock price some months back. Oh, the irony of it all.

Google Stock Goes Past $1,000 Mark original content from Ubergizmo.

It seems that there are some mid-2012 models of the MacBook Air that are having some issues with its SSD, where an unspecified issue will cause the complete erase of the SSD’s data. This is not a small matter as lost data can be incredibly frustrating and Apple has since released an update for the MacBook Air lineup which basically tests the MacBook Air’s SSD to see if the drive has the problem that would cause data to be erased. Should there not be any fault found, a fresh firmware will then be installed, but if a problem is found, Apple has stated that they will replace the affected SSD for free.

According to the update’s notes, “Apple has discovered that a small percentage of flash storage drives in these MacBook Air models have an issue that may result in data loss. This update tests your drive and, in the majority of cases, installs new firmware to resolve the issue. If your drive cannot be updated, Apple will replace it, free of charge.” It is unknown how widespread this issue is, but there are multiple threads on the Apple Support Community forums which shows that this is an issue that has been around for a while. In any case if you own a MacBook Air and would like to check your SSD for any problems, hit up Apple’s website for the download.

Apple Issues MacBook Air Update To Test For SSD Failures original content from Ubergizmo.

We heard a dedicated Facebook app for Windows 8 was currently in the works just a few months ago, although we haven’t heard much of the application since its confirmation. Wonder now more about the Windows 8 dedicated Facebook application as its currently available on the Windows Store. (more…)

Facebook Launches Official App For Windows 8.1 original content from Ubergizmo.

When we were young, all we wanted to do was grow up so that we can do all the stuff that grown ups do. There is that sense of thrill and adventure to it, of course. Well, Facebook recently made an announcement concerning another change in the site’s usage terms, which would see previous restrictions on the way that minors used the social network lifted up. Basically, anyone is now able to post publicly, whereas in the past, only those who were 18 and above could do so, while minors were restricted to just sharing updates with friends or friends of friends.

Facebook mentioned, “While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services.” I would suppose that other social media services here would refer to Twitter and Instagram, and this move was most probably made to make sure it does not get left out otherwise there is the risk of seeing its user market share drop. All right now, I guess all of you young ones out there will whoop with joy and perform a celebratory dance, but seriously, how much more different would your life be? The world doesn’t need another angsty or emo-laden public post as there is the news which does that already.

Facebook T&C Allows Teens To Post Publicly original content from Ubergizmo.

We do know that the folks over at Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP after April 8, 2014, which would be five years after it stopped mainstream support. Once that date comes and goes, the venerable 12-year-old operating system will no longer be on the receiving end of any new security updates, so its users will have to learn to use the computer by themselves and to make sure that they take all of the necessary security precautions possible to prevent any unwanted intrusion into their system. Google, however, might have been feeling a little bit more benevolent, as they have announced that they will offer support for Chrome users on XP for an additional year – that is, until April 2015.

Google claims that browser bugs are one of the easiest ways for malware to be able to infect computers, and since Windows XP will no longer be getting any security updates anymore after April 2014, it will most probably be an opportunity for hackers to exploit its vulnerabilities. Hence, this is where the Chrome browser comes in handy, as it might mean those with a more security minded point of view might just make the switch from Internet Explorer to Chrome by then.

Chrome Support For XP Users Extended Until April 2015 original content from Ubergizmo.