Software : Google's next target? The classroom

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• Google's next target? The classroom
• Downloads: Download of the day: Vivaldi
• Round up: The best free download manager 2016

Google's next target? The classroom Posted: Even if you're not in education, you're no doubt familiar with what Google now refers to as its education applications. Though we use them separately as and when we need them, Google says that its Gmail, Sheets, Hangouts, Docs, Drive and Calendar apps (when combined Power Rangers style) can "help teachers and students share and learn together in innovative ways." Ten years after Google launched Google Apps for Education, it's renaming the app collection 'G Suite for Education' to better highlight the fact that they can and should be used together in the classroom. Faster and easier To further improve how the apps can work specifically in a school setting, Google has also added new features to the tools "that make work easier and bring teachers and students together." The basis for most of these new features is Google's Explore tool. The Explore tool and its machine intelligence is being added to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides in order to make them faster and easier to use. Thanks to Explore, students will be able to easily summarize spreadsheet data without learning formula in Sheets; find relevant images and additional topics for research while they're writing in Docs; and quickly create polished presentations using suggested layouts. While students will find these streamlining features useful, teachers are likely to benefit from the improvements made to Calendars. To make organizing staff meetings easier, Calendar will suggest times when all invitees are available and if no such time exists will suggest ways to solve the scheduling conflicts. Google says its Education Suite is "built on the idea that when people can work together easily from anywhere, they accomplish more" and that these improvements should "help teachers and students take back the time they spend on repetitive tasks." Promising to continue to focus on developing machine intelligence and "transforming schools", Google says we should expect many more improvements to come. Google Andromeda: everything you need to know

Downloads: Download of the day: Vivaldi Posted: Download of the day: Vivaldi Vivaldi is a fully customizable open source web browser built around the same technology as Google Chrome. You can add, remove and edit every single feature to suit the way you prefer to surf, and create your own quick shortcuts and links for easy access to all your favorite sites and tools. It not only supports keyboard shortcuts – you can also define your own gestures for use with a mouse or touchscreen. Once you've experimented with Vivaldi, you might never go back to your old browser. Why you need it Vivaldi's standard homepage is a set of customizable tiles (a little like your Bookmarks list) that can be refreshed so you can check for new content without visiting each site. You can create as many of these pages as you like, or open one or more websites in tabs instead. The browser offers an excellent choice of search engines (you aren't automatically tied to Google or Bing), and if your preferred option isn't listed you can easily add it manually. Vivaldi has an optional sidebar for displaying a second site, which is perfect for Twitter or RSS feeds, and you can choose whether your tabs are positioned at the top, bottom or beside the page. Tabs can also include a small thumbnail of the current page, making them easy to navigate, and can be arranged into stacks to keep them organized (great if you often have dozens of tabs open at once). The interface can be customized with a co-ordinated theme, individually selected colours, or hues that shift to match the page you're currently viewing to make the browser as unobtrusive as possible. If all that isn't enough, Vivaldi also supports Chrome extensions, making it almost infinitely expandable. Key features Fully customizable interface Intelligent tab organization and previews Bespoke keyboard and gesture shortcuts Support for Chrome plugins Works on Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10; Linux; Mac Price Free

Round up: The best free download manager 2016 Posted: The best download manager The best free download manager Older internet users will remember the pain of early downloads: you'd spend a few days trying to download a GIF of a cat chasing a laser pointer, only for the connection to drop when someone else picked up the phone. Download managers were essential, because they enabled you to resume broken downloads and make the darn things download faster too. Dedicated managers and accelerators are still relevant today, especially if you're prone to downloading enormous operating system ISOs or trying to get your videos via unreliable Wi-Fi. These are our favorite apps for taming traffic, boosting BitTorrent and managing media downloads. 1. Ninja Download Manager A superb free download manager for saving and converting media files Ninja Download Manger is a relative newcomer to the downloading party, and it looks considerably more contemporary than its, er, contemporaries. The interface is simple and modern, and the download accelerator is capable of grabbing files 10 times faster. It does this by splitting each file into chunks, then downloading each one using a different server connection, making downloads not only faster, but also more reliable. If you're into music and movies you'll be delighted by its sequential setting, which lets you begin playing a file while it's still downloading. There's also a built-in video downloader with support for YouTube and Vimeo, and a video converter that changes the file format automatically once it's finished downloading. There are lots of fantastic download managers around, but if you love music, films and TV then Ninja Download Manager is perfect. 2. Free Download Manager An open source download manager that's packed with bonus media tools Free Download Manager aims to be all things to all people. It's a download accelerator, a BitTorrent client, an audio and video previewer and a traffic management tool, and because it's open source, it's completely free and receives regular updates from its community of developers. There's a portable version that you can run directly from a USB stick, plus powerful scheduling features and a very handy remote control that means you can leave your downloads running and check on their progress from any internet-connected device. It can spider sites to download specific kinds of files, and you can choose to download only the bits of a ZIP file you actually want. It's an exceptional program, and it was tough to choose between this and Ninja Internet Download Manager for the top spot. 3. Download Accelerator Plus A stripped-down version of a premium manager that's superb in its own right The free version of Download Accelerator Plus is a pared-back version of DAP Premium, but it's much more than just a demo and contains all the essential features you need for quick, reliable downloads. The free version lacks the DAP Premium's privacy protection, but it does include a link checker, video previewing, file conversion, safe downloading and multiple connections to boost the speed of your downloads. Download Accelerator Plus is clearly designed for media fans, and can help you avoid irritations such as slow servers and internet congestion. 4. JDownloader 2 An advanced download manager that's optimized for power users JDownloader 2 is a free, open source download manager with a massive developer community, and it's available for Windows, Linux and Mac. It's really one for power users, with support for over 300 decryption plug-ins, automatic RAR extraction, password list searching and OCR to automatically complete some of the CAPTCHA 'I'm not a robot' checks you encounter on download sites. You'll need the Java Runtime Environment to run it, and you'll need to be careful when installing it: the installer contains adware, which will be bundled in with the download manager if you don't specifically deselect it. 5. Free YouTube Downloader Grab multiple videos in moments and save them in resolutions up to 8K Its installer is a little too keen on adding bundled software, but deselect the extras you don't want and you'll discover that Free YouTube Downloader is an excellent download manager. Unlike some of the more powerful options it's designed as a downloader first and foremost, so you get a good multi-stream download manager for grabbing several clips simultaneously, but few file conversion options. Free YouTube Downloader can download files of up to 8K resolution (in MKV) and convert to AVI and MP4 format for playback in your media player of choice. Remember that you should only download videos from YouTube if you have the copyright owner's permission. 6. DownThemAll A free Firefox add-on that grabs all the links and media from a page at once If Firefox is your preferred browser, try DownThemAll - a well-crafted extension that lets you download all the links or images in a webpage at once. Downloads can be paused and resumed, and the integrated accelerator lets you grab files files four times faster through cunning use of multiple server connections. It's a superb addition to an already excellent browser, and unlike some free download managers there are no catches - there's no unwanted advertising and all its features are yours to enjoy completely free of charge. 7. iGetter Find and grab the files you need, whether you're using a Mac or PC Most download managers are for Windows, but iGetter also comes in a Mac OS X version. You can schedule downloads for specific times - handy if the servers you want to use get hammered during peak hours - and find server mirrors. As with most download managers worth their salt, you can resume broken downloads and benefit from accelerated downloading. iGetter also includes a site explorer that you can use to find content on web and FTP sites. It integrates with Safari, iCab and Firefox on Mac and Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows. 8. Website Ripper Copier Going offline? Download an entire website to view when you're disconnected Sometimes you don't just want to download a few files; you want to download the entire website. And to do that you need two things: permission from the copyright owner, and a website ripper such as Website Ripper Copier. There's a free trial you can use to check it out before spending US$39 (about £30, AU$50) on the full version, and you can set very complex criteria to ensure that the app only downloads the content that you actually want. There's also a clever retrieval history, so the app won't try to re-download an online resource it already has. 9. Internet Download Manager Ignore its ugly interface and you'll find a very capable download manager Internet Download Manager promises to be the fastest download manager around, which hopefully makes up for the unappealing user interface. The free version is a trial, but the paid-for version is hardly pricey at US$11.95 (about £9, AU$16) for a year of speedy, hassle-free downloading or US$24.95 (about £19, AU$32) for a lifetime license. Internet Download Manager integrates with almost every browser imaginable, grabs videos, automatically checks downloads for viruses, accelerates download speeds, resumes interrupted downloads and supports download scheduling. You can also set it to grab all files of a particular type from websites. 10. GetRight A classic tool that's kept up with the needs of today's downloaders We have fond memories of GetRight: it's been kicking around for 14 years, helping people fight the curse of ancient enemies like dial-up internet and more modern horrors such as flaky Wi-Fi. The free edition is a trial and the full version is US$19.95 (about £15, AU$26). The download manager integrates with Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera, and supports torrents as well as the more common http/https and ftp/ftps formats. It accelerates downloads by creating multiple simultaneous connections, and resumes broken downloads where they left off. In short, it's an excellent little download manager and there's a reason over 12 million people have installed it.

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