Software : Apple admits to being 'embarrassed' by early Maps

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• Apple admits to being 'embarrassed' by early Maps
• Chrome will soon let you control Bluetooth smart devices in your home
• Round up: The best free keylogger for Windows 2016
• Round up: The best free PDF to Word converter 2016
• Round up: The best free YouTube video converter 2016
• Round up: The best free PDF editor 2016

Apple admits to being 'embarrassed' by early Maps Posted: Apple's Eddy Cue (SVP of internet software and services) and Craig Federighi (SVP of software engineering) have finally talked about the early - troubled - days of Apple Maps, admitting that they "completely underestimated the product." Cue explained to Fast Company: "If you think of Maps, it seems like it's not that hard. All the roads are known, come on! All the restaurants are known. There's Yelp and Open Table; they have all the addresses. Mail gets delivered; UPS has all the addresses. The mail arrives. FedEx arrives. You know, how hard is this? That was underestimating." That underestimation came from the idea that they were simply replacing analogue maps with digital ones and led Apple to putting a small, isolated team in charge of developing it, when really it was a much bigger job. But how did Apple Maps get out the door in such an unfinished state? It sounds as though the scale of the problems simply weren't known, with Cue noting that "We were never able to take it out to a large number of users to get that feedback. So, to all of us living in Cupertino, Maps seemed pretty darn good. Right? The problems weren't obvious to us." New approaches and new features The result of that is that the company now does a lot more betas, which is why customers are able to test new versions of iOS before launch. That's one positive that came out of a situation which Cue admits to being "embarrassed" by. And rather than abandoning Maps the company worked to develop new competencies and build it into what it is today. Not that it's a finished product by any means. Cue explained that when it comes to quality – to testing and validating information: "We've improved it significantly, and Google's improved theirs significantly, but it's still a problem that needs to be better. For both of us." Cue also talked about how the company is improving the service using crowd-sourced data: for instance, if a lot of users are suddenly downloading golf apps at a location, or traffic has all started heading in a new direction to the expected pattern, that would signal that a new golf course has opened or a road was shut. He said in the former case the company would then check satellite pictures to see if a golf course has suddenly sprung up, or 'in a worst-case scenario, you would have to drive by.' With the traffic data, Federighi confirmed that device travel patterns are used, but that the data is kept completely anonymous: "that [data is] something that is personal to you and provides value to you, but we don't want Apple to know when you go to work. So we keep that intelligence on the device, but we can anonymously track things like traffic patterns." You can also expect new features to be added to Apple Maps over time. Cue and Federighi wouldn't be drawn on exactly what, but Cue did note a couple of areas he'd like to see improved, including more detailed traffic information and reminders of the names and locations of restaurants you like in places you don't often visit. For now we should probably just be thankful that Maps has reached a state where Apple is no longer suggesting users try its competitor's apps. Apple Maps is getting even better with iOS 10

Chrome will soon let you control Bluetooth smart devices in your home Posted: Chrome is about to get even more features thanks to experimental Bluetooth support. Soon, you'll be able to control Bluetooth devices inside Chrome, without the need to download an app. Bluetooth support in Chrome is still in the early development stage, and we probably won't see any products support it for a while. However, Google's engineers have already showed off what Chrome can do with controlling smart home devices like the Philips Hue bulbs. Check out the full Google Dev Summit presentation if you want to know all the technical details about how the Bluetooth API works. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BUwOBdLjzQ The feature will work by allowing Bluetooth devices to communicate with Chrome and vice versa. The feature can work completely offline as well, so you won't need to navigate to a website to control your devices. One of the big advantages of Bluetooth support in Chrome is that hardware makers can simply create one web app to work on multiple devices, instead of creating a specific Android and iOS app. This may even mean less popular operating systems like Windows Phone and Blackberry will get support for Bluetooth devices. Google already has a beta version of Chrome that includes Bluetooth support for developers to experiment with, but it only works on ChromeOS and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Mac and Windows support is coming later, and even Linux will get some love. Via: Android Police Top image credit: François Beaufort | Screenshot How your phone will soon control your entire house

Round up: The best free keylogger for Windows 2016 Posted: The best free PC monitoring software Protect kids from the worst of the web When it comes to protecting kids from online nasties, there are two schools of thought. One school prefers to block inappropriate content, but that can have its problems: parents can't know about everything dodgy online, and content blockers don't necessarily block inappropriate content on chat apps or offensive content sent by friends or peers. The other school is to have a big chat about the dangers, trust your kids to be sensible, and then spy on them just to make sure. If you suspect your child is being exposed to something awful such as cyberbullying or grooming, monitoring software may help you deal with the problem. 1. Windows Live Family Safety Watch your kids online and stop them seeing the worst of the web Family Safety was bundled into Windows 8, but if you're running an older version of Windows you can download it via Windows Essentials. The app offers a range of parental controls including restricting web browsers to specific sites or specific kinds of content; tracking your kids' activities and enabling you to see what websites they've visited; locking down search engines so they don't return inappropriate results; and limiting what can be done at specific times - handy if you're trying to ensure your kids aren't spending every waking hour in multiplayer gaming or social media. It's particularly good if you use Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Edge browsers, making it our top choice for keeping youngsters safe online. 2. Kidlogger Where did they go, who did they speak to, and what did they say? We're in two minds about using logging software for children and teenagers: tracking every single keystroke, SMS, photo, instant message, Skype call and location feels like an invasion of privacy, but we can see the benefit for parents who suspect their child may be keeping something important private, such as online bullying or grooming. The free version of Kidlogger tracks one device and keeps logs for nine days; upgrading to US$29 (about £22.39, AU$38.35) per year gives you five devices and 30 days of logging. The service is available for Windows, Mac and Android, and there's a separate app for non-jailbroken iPhones and iPads. 3. Norton Family More than just tracking - Norton also actively protects youngsters online Norton would really like you to subscribe to the paid-for Premier version, but the free Norton Family does a good job without costing anything. You can block inappropriate web content and monitor the kids' online activities, see what they've been searching for and how often they've been on Facebook (and whether they're using a fake name or age), ensure they don't accidentally give out personal information and lock down your internet connection at specific times. The Premier version adds video supervision, location tracking, Android app and SMS use and time-locks for Android apps, and costs US$49.99 (about £38.62, AU$66.14) per year. 4. Spyrix Free Keylogger Keyloggers have something of a bad reputation online, as they're often used by hackers and criminals, but they can be a force for good too, and Spyrix's features enable you to see what your children have been up to. Although it's dubbed parental control software, it's really a monitoring program: it doesn't stop the kids getting up to no good, but it does let you see exactly what they've been getting up to. That means it isn't really appropriate for younger children's computers, but it may be appropriate for older children if you suspect online bullying or other unpleasantness. 5. Revealer Keylogger Free A simple monitoring tool, Revealer only records keystrokes Revealer Keylogger Free is one of the most popular Windows keyloggers around, and while its most powerful features are reserved for the paid version - screenshot capture, automated log sending and extra stealth protection - the free version covers the basics very well. It's fast, doesn't drag your system down, runs automatically at startup and cleans up logs after a set period to prevent them from getting too big. Just be careful when you install it, as like many free programs its installer is rather keen on getting you to install potentially unwanted software too. 6. Refog Free Keylogger Get reports on typing, software use and network connections Refog Free Keylogger comes from the same stable as Refog Personal Monitor and Employee Monitor, which offer a huge range of features for monitoring home and office PC use. The free version is essentially a stripped-down version of Personal Monitor, logging keystrokes, URLs, app usage and chats. The paid-for version adds email delivery of logs, webcam shots and notification of specific keywords, but if you don't need such features then the free version covers the basics well enough - although it's worth noting that the free version is only a trial, not a free-forever product. 7. Heavenward Free Keylogger A simple logger with added password protection for peace of mind Heavenward Free Keylogger covers everything you'd expect from a Windows keylogging program: it can monitor multiple users and keep itself hidden from them; it can track everything that's typed into a Windows app; it can email you logs at specified interfaces and it can password-protect the logs so only you can see them. It's compatible with Windows versions from XP to 10, and it works in multiple languages too. It's simpler than many rivals but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it means it's easy to set up and use. 8. Best Free Keylogger Capture regular screenshots as well as keypresses The name was poorly chosen - Google it and you get screeds of reviews of keylogging software, not this particular app - but Best Free Keylogger is a good package: it does almost everything its paid-for Pro sibling does except for unlimited screen shots, remote delivery of reports and premium tech support. It records keystrokes, internet activity, chats and takes up to 10 daily screenshots, it's invisible and password-protected and you can schedule the monitoring so it only takes place at specific times. 9. iWantSoft Free Keylogger Dedicated tracking for Macs, but it won't watch Facebook and Twitter If all you want is simple keylogging for your Mac then iWantSoft Free Keylogger is worth considering: it doesn't record chat sessions or social networking, which may rule it out for many parents, but it does log keystrokes, clipboard use, websites and programs launched. It isn't completely invisible - tech-savvy kids will be able to find it, although it doesn't appear in the system tray - and it doesn't email reports to you, but it's small, simple, doesn't take up many system resources and covers the basics just fine. 10. Widestep Elite Keylogger A great tracker for Macs, but not the best option for Windows users How's this for confusing: the free Elite Keylogger on Windows is just a trial, but the free version on Mac is a full free program. On a Mac it records everything the user types, whether it's in chats, on online forms or in forums. It monitors the clipboard too, takes screenshots at set intervals and works with OS X El Capitan as well as older Mac operating systems. The Pro version adds username and password logging and recording both sides of chats and instant messaging session, and unlike the free version it's completely undetectable - but the free version does more than enough to make this a recommended app for Mac users.

Round up: The best free PDF to Word converter 2016 Posted: Convert PDF documents to Word Convert PDFs to Word documents If the precise formatting and fonts of a document are essential, PDF is the perfect format. It requires nothing more than a competent PDF reader for documents to display precisely; everything's packaged in and ready to go. Which is all lovely until you need to extract some of that information. PDFs, if you're using software like Adobe Reader, are usually a one-way street, consigning you to look and not touch. Unless you possess the original document used to generate the PDF in the first place, editing is going to be out of your reach. Or is it? We're here to look at the solution: PDF to Word converters. These tools will analyse PDF files, extract the text and images, and make the best stab they can at creating a Microsoft Word-compatible file that replicates the source. Results are unlikely to be absolutely perfect – particularly if the text in your PDF has been scanned or flattened to an image. Look for a converter with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) if you do have flattened documents. We tested using a sample magazine page from our chums at Computer Arts, and opened the results in Microsoft Word 2010. Note that LibreOffice's much looser interpretation of the DOCX standard will likely lead to quite poor results. 1. Foxyutils A wily utility that copes well with unusual fonts Foxyutils' PDF to Word converter takes the top spot in our test for several reasons. First, it was by far the cleverest when it came to picking a font similar to that of our test document, outputting a Word file very close to the original PDF. Second, it did well with the images in our document, recognising that there was more than one and breaking them up appropriately. And third, when you use Foxyutils' tools, you contribute to the company's tree-planting efforts. Isn't that nice? There are slight restrictions – a lack of OCR chief among them - and obviously you'll need internet connectivity to get the job done. But the lack of a dedicated software package to install, Foxyutils' use of SSL, and its promise to delete files as soon as they're downloaded means you could use this in a business situation if required. 2. Nitro PDF to Word Converter Quick, solid PDF conversion with a couple of niggles You'd be forgiven for missing the free online version of Nitro PDF to Word Converter when visiting its site, given that it's so smothered in adverts for its paid-for desktop app, but this is a perfectly competent free tool – no OCR though, sadly – suitable for occasional use. Upload your PDF, give it an email address to send the results to, and it'll transform that PDF into Word, Excel or Powerpoint files and vice versa; we wouldn't recommend using the Excel converter for mission-critical work, however. We were impressed with its attempt at converting our test document. There was a bit of text cleanup required, possibly as a result of the unusual font, but it separated the page's images into individually editable boxes, got the layout perfectly correct, and even managed to replicate the drop-cap, a feature that's often missed. Overall, not a bad job at all – we'd have preferred a direct download rather than it being delivered via email, but that's a small gripe. 3. UniPDF Great for batch processing but not compatible with all files UniPDF is a completely free Windows desktop app (unless you're using it commercially) but one which fell over for an unspecified reason when converting our test PDF to Word format. But let's not be hasty here: UniPDF happily extracted the raw text, had no problem converting the PDF to a pixel-perfect PNG file, and did an good job of converting that very same PDF to HTML format, which we'll count as at least a partial pass. Although UniPDF doesn't support OCR (so flattened PDFs won't convert to editable text) we were impressed with its ability to translate our document's mildly unusual fonts into similar examples. It's also an easy app to use if you're doing batch processing – just drag in a folder full of PDFs, hit 'convert' and it'll go through each automatically. Considering the long-winded limitations of many online tools, this is a reason to try UniPDF. But if you absolutely must have a Word document? Maybe not. 4. Free File Converter Quick, easy and dirty converter that does more than just Word Free File Converter couldn't be simpler: upload your PDF, select an output format (everything from doc to ebook formats like EPUB and MOBI) and click the button to get a download link to your converted file. As you might expect, it offers a number of different format conversions besides just PDFs, although there's no OCR to be seen. Results were just all right. Some of the text formatting Free File Converter gave us was a bit off, with certain headlines running over from one line to two, and it rendered all of the images on the page as a single background graphic, limiting flexibility. But there's one huge upside: Free File Converter can handle PDFs up to 300MB in size, so if you've got a huge, simple PDF to process it could be just the trick. 5. OnlineOCR An OCR specialist – as long as you feed it the right file Our sole OCR-only tool in this test, but there's a reason: OCR works well in certain circumstances, and very poorly in others. Our magazine page, when flattened and run through OnlineOCR's converter, did not fare well. Whether this is a limitation of the unusual fonts or the background images we're not sure, but the mess it made of the boxes at the bottom of the page suggest it's just not great at this sort of complex work. That's not to say it's a poor tool. Far from it; this outperforms a number of competing sites in its class, so much so that we've actually used OnlineOCR here at TechRadar to pull text from magazines so old that their archive discs have crumbled – although this required a lot of preprocessing to improve the clarity and contrast of text. Scanned PDFs of black text on white background tend to work perfectly without any fiddling, so if you've got a suitable source you'll get on well with this tool.

Round up: The best free YouTube video converter 2016 Posted: The best free YouTube converters Download and convert YouTube videos YouTube is a great resource for viewing videos, but at some point you might want to download them to a computer or mobile device. You might want to watch them offline, burn them to a DVD for archiving, or convert the audio to an MP3 for entertainment while driving. So what's the answer? Hunting down a YouTube conversion tool would be a good start, and luckily there are plenty around that won't cost you a penny - such is the magic of freeware. It's important to note that you should only download videos when you have the copyright owner's permission to do so. YouTube's terms of service explicitly prohibit unauthorised downloading. 1. aTube Catcher Download and convert videos to play on your PC, mobile device or console aTube Catcher is an appropriately named YouTube conversion tool that will catch any video downloads you throw its way before converting them to your chosen format. It supports AVI, FLV, MOV, WMV, MPG and MP4, in addition to less common formats such as PSP, which is used for Sony's handheld games console. The installation process is speedy, and once up and running you'll be presented with a colourful Windows 10-like grid that clearly presents the available options. From there you can dive straight into aTube Catcher's video conversion utility for converting to another file format, or convert the soundtrack to an MP3 for audio playback. Once you've chosen a format, drag in the files you want to convert and right-click 'Start' to set them going. You can prioritize certain clips to have them converted first, or simply leave it to work on the queued files from top to bottom. 2. Free YouTube to MP3 Converter Convert YouTube videos and rip soundtracks to MP3 format Free YouTube to MP3 Converter is a freeware program that converts videos from YouTube to other popular video formats - including WMV and AVI - in addition to audio ones formats such as MP3. The program lets you queue up multiple files for conversion and features a clean interface that clearly displays what files are waiting to be converted. It's a particularly useful tool for musicians who may want to download guitar backing tracks to jam along to, or similarly you could grab a karaoke backing track to burn to a CD ready for that weekend party. 3. Freemake Video Converter Super-speedy conversion into almost any video format you can name Freemake Video Converter features an attractive design and supports more file formats than you can shake a USB stick at. You can convert your downloaded video into more than 200 formats - including AVI, MP4, WKV, WMV, DV, RM, QT, TS and MTS - and you can choose to rip and convert audio to MP3 if you just want the soundtrack. Freemake claims that a few of its features are unique - including integrated CUDA and DXVA technology that apparently converts videos faster while using less CPU resources. It's certainly one of the fastest on our list, but its speed will ultimately depend on the power of your PC. 4. Free Studio Tweak clips for perfect playback on your chosen device Developed by DVDVideoSoft, Free Studio comes with a massive 25 video conversion options that can convert your files automatically once they've downloaded for viewing on different devices. It's particularly useful because it bundles multiple convertors into a single program, saving you hunting for several solutions when converting to different formats. It's a flexible program that allows you to work with HD video file types in addition to high quality MP4 video. It also comes with an advanced screen capture tool that allows you to record a section of the screen, flip it and rotate it before saving the edited output to disk with the option of saving to another device. 5. YTD (YouTube Downloader) Dropped connection mid-rip? No problem with YTD YTD (formerly known as YouTube Downloader can download and convert videos from some of the most popular video websites - including Facebook, DailyMotion and College Humor - in addition to YouTube. It features the ability to convert videos into most popular video formats - from MP3 and MP4 to WNV, FLV, MOV, 3GP and AVI. The program's makers claim that the latest version is faster and more stable than previous releases. It also has the handy feature of resuming downloads automatically if your internet connection goes down temporarily. Have we missed your favorite tool for converting YouTube videos to a different format? Let us know in the comments below.

Round up: The best free PDF editor 2016 Posted: Free PDF editors Edit, split, merge and convert PDFs Adobe describes PDF as "three letters that changed the world", and it has a point: the Portable Document Format, to give it its Sunday name, was invented by Adobe to make it easy to share electronic documents. It's now an open standard used in everything from publishing to public bodies, and there are stacks of tools to create, edit, annotate and organise PDFs. But which ones are best? We've collated 10 of the most useful document wranglers for Windows. If you're a Mac user, don't forget about the Preview app - it's a very useful PDF editor in its own right, although some other programs can do even more. 1. Foxit Reader A powerful PDF reader and editor that can be customized to suit you Of all the free PDF tools available for Windows, Foxit Reader is our favorite. It looks and feels rather like Microsoft Office so it's instantly familiar, it has a tabbed interface for working on multiple PDFs simultaneously, and it enables you to complete forms and annotate documents. It also includes security tools for protecting your PDFs. It's expandable via a bunch of add-ons and if you find yourself needing even more power its paid-for sibling, PhantomPDF, has extensive organisation, sharing and document tracking features for a very reasonable US$109 (about £82.82, AU$144.89). 2. Adobe Reader Adobe's cross-platform software is superb for marking up documents Yes, Adobe Reader on the desktop has a reputation for being overly complex and overly needy - but the iOS and Android editions haven't inherited its flaws and stand on their own virtual feet as fast, flexible and lightweight PDF editors. Some of the best features require an Acrobat Pro subscription, so for example editing text isn't possible without Pro, but you can sign and fill forms and export Office documents to PDF. There's support for Dropbox too. 3. PDF24 Creator A printer driver with added editing features for perfect conversions One of the simplest ways to add PDF to Windows is to install a PDF printer driver. Windows sees it as a printer driver, but instead of controlling hardware it actually converts documents to PDFs. That's what PDF24 Creator offers, but it also adds its own Assistant that can split or merge PDF files, adjust document properties, re-order pages, password protect PDFs and add digital watermarks or signatures. It's hardly the prettiest app around but it gets on with the job and doesn't require loads of system resources. 4. Adobe Acrobat DC (trial) Edit text, replace and tweak images, add signatures and much more besides The DC stands for Document Cloud, and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is designed to cover every eventuality - for a price. You can try out the software for free, but the license is an annual subscription that works out at £11.42 (about US$15, AU$20) per month for the Standard edition and £13.33 (about US$17.54, AU$23.33) per month for Pro. The Standard edition gives you online access via Adobe's Document Cloud, the ability to create PDFs from almost any source, to work on PDFs via the mobile apps and to electronically sign documents. Going Pro adds multimedia support, the ability to edit scanned documents and the option to request electronic signatures. 5. Nitro PDF Reader Surprisingly powerful, with support for both image and text editing Here's another app that looks awfully like Microsoft Office, and once again that's no bad thing. Nitro PDF Reader has a feature set that shames some paid-for apps: despite a price tag of zero it offers document to PDF conversion, annotation and highlighting, image extraction, text editing and e-signatures. It's definitely one to try before you consider paying for a PDF app. 6. PDF-XChange Editor A free PDF editor with OCR for converting image-based PDFs Tracker's PDF-XChange Editor comes in three and a half flavours: a free Lite version for non-commercial use, two paid-for versions at US$43.50 (about £33, AU$58) and US$54.50 (about £41.38, AU$72.60) respectively and a free version of the $43.50 app that removes some of its advanced features. The Lite version doesn't do much - it's a print-to-PDF app to create searchable PDFs from pretty much any Windows app - but it also has has OCR scanning, Google Drive and Office 365 support, commenting and annotation, markup and file conversion. Paying for a license adds the ability to create forms, more advanced organizational tools and more extensive editing options. 7. SlimPDF Reader A tiny tool that's lacking features, but won't stress underpowered PCs The name should set expectations here: SlimPDF Reader promises to be "10% of the size of Adobe Reader but views 100% of PDFs". It's microscopic by app standards - just 1.43MB - and that's largely because it doesn't really do anything other than view PDFs. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though: its tiny footprint means it doesn't drag your system down like more advanced PDF apps often do, and it's ridiculously fast on even the most modest PCs. 8. Icecream PDF Converter Split hefty documents into manageable sections before conversion Icecream PDF Converter comes from the same developer as the useful Icecream Ebook Reader (which also doubles as a good-looking PDF viewer). This app's all about the file formats, though. You can drag and drop PDFs onto the app and convert them to JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, EPS, HTML or WMF format, and you can also convert ebooks and Microsoft Office documents to PDF. It can also run batch conversions and partial conversions for when you only need a few pages of a huge document. That's the good news. The bad news is that you're limited to 10 page PDFs when you export and five files per conversion to PDF unless you buy the Pro version for £14.95 (about US$19.69, AU$26.21). 9. AbleWord Convert documents from text format to PDF, and vice versa Here's a blast from the past: AbleWord looks very like an old version of Microsoft Word or a recent OpenOffice.org app. It works like those apps too, but the unique selling point here is that it supports PDF files as well as the usual DOC, DOCX and RTF formats, and that means it's a handy tool for anybody who needs to create documents in PDF format or convert between Word and PDF formats. OpenOffice can export text documents in PDF format too, but reading them requires installing an extension. AbleWord has PDF import built-in. 10. PDFsam Basic A versatile tool for merging and splitting PDFs in multiple configurations PDFsam is an acronym of PDF Split and Merge, so you can probably guess what it does. Yep, it splits and merges PDF files. You can use it to combine multiple documents or break a single document into multiples, you can merge alternate pages - handy if you're trying to turn single-sided scans of double-sided documents into something readable - and you can split by size, which is useful if you're splitting a huge document across USB drives or other small storage options. There's also a handy tool for rotating pages across multiple documents.

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