Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » octobre 2012

US wireless carrier T-Mobile announced two weeks ago that the 5.5-inch Samsung Galaxy Note II will come its way "this fall," and surprise, surprise -- it's available starting today.

Unlike AT&T, that announced the "phablet" alongiside the LG Optimus G a week ago and priced the Galaxy Note II at $299.99 on a two-year contract, T-Mobile will sell the Samsung-made quad-core smartphone in Marble White and Titanium Gray for a marginally higher $369.99 on a new two-year contract, basically $70 more than what the former charges for it.

"Why $369.99?" you may ask. By signing up for a new two-year contract T-Mobile slashes $230 from the suggested retail price of $649.99 and also adds a $50 mail-in rebate card. However, for some even $299.99 may be hard to swallow let alone $369.99.

Networking infrastructure company Cisco announced on Tuesday evening that its first "Smart+Connected" city will be the planned community of Lake Nona, Florida which exists inside the city limits of Orlando. The fifteen-year Lake Nona project will be Cisco's first of nine planned Smart+Connected cities. The company first announced this initiative more than two years ago.

The Smart+Connected initiative is Cisco's experiment with building the communications infrastructure that connects all aspects of a community, from government to health care to education to enterprise to home and beyond. More than simply a communications ecosystem, the initiative is squarely focused on preparing for the nascent "Internet of things" era.

This means the project will touch on all of the community-focused communications we've seen developing independently over the last decade: wireless voice and data communications, fiber to the home networks, digital signage, IP video surveillance, "smart grid" energy management, and more than 20 other "smart services" across the entire Lake Nona community.

Cisco and Bahamas-based private investment firm Tavistock Group are going to turn Lake Nona into a modern "Aerotropolis," or an urban area whose economy is centered around an international airport and the global workforce that enters and leaves through it.

Cisco says the project will unify urban development and IT, and will include "an integrated urban plan [to] enable information exchange between services, fulfilling the need for increased security, energy conservation, enhanced productivity and digital lifestyle."

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Uh-oh. While Apple was launching all its new and improved products yesterday, bad news brewed in the background. I just hope the company hasn’t pre-emptively spent any of the $1.05 billion it was awarded from Samsung recently, because the US Patent and Trademark Office has just ruled that 20 patents relating to overscroll technology (the bounce effect that happens when you scroll beyond the edge of an image or document) are invalid, and that could spell problems for the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation.

According to Groklaw, "the notorious rubber-band patent [Apple's] been going after Android with, has just been tentatively rejected by the USPTO on re-examination. Apple has two months, until December 15, 2012, to respond and try to save it".

The bounce-back patents, which were investigated following an anonymous request back in May, were rejected due to a lack of novelty -- there was not deemed to be enough of an inventive step between the prior technology and Apple's patent. Samsung was quick to seize on the preliminary finding, submitting it in a late night filing to Judge Lucy Koh, who is currently considering appeals.

The preliminary ruling isn’t binding (there’s still a lengthy process ahead), but it might be enough to persuade Judge Koh to overrule the jury on this matter, allowing Samsung to reintroduce the overscroll effect into its devices in the US. This will also be good news for other smartphone manufacturers who have fallen foul of the ‘381 patent, including HTC.

While this is a potential setback for Apple, the company still has plenty of patents in play, so it’s unlikely to have a major impact on the result of the trial, but it could reduce the amount of money Samsung has to pay. It could also be just the first of several such findings.

In further good news for Samsung, according to Reuters, a Dutch court ruled today that the Korean company didn't infringe on an Apple multi-touch patent with its Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets.

Photo Credit: JustASC/Shutterstock

Tweaking performance is something that virtually every Windows user is interested in. There are various degrees to which performance tweaks can be applied, starting with simple things such as ensuring that there are not too many programs configured to start when Windows launches, to more advanced options such as tinkering with services and the registry.

Whether you are a newcomers to system tweaking or a more seasoned user, turning to a third party-tool -- rather than doing all of the legwork yourself -- not only helps to save a good deal of time, but also helps to reduce the risk of making mistakes that could have disastrous consequences; edit the registry incorrectly and you could find that you have an unbootable system on your hands.

There is a seemingly endless number of programs available, both free and paid for, that claim to make it easier to tweak your computer or deliver better results than manually tweaking. IOBit Advanced SystemCare 6, available as a Free or commercial Pro version, is an all-encompassing utility that aims to satisfy the demands of the power-user whilst remaining accessible to those who are less experienced.

Things get off to a very warm and friendly, hand-holding start with the appearance of a helpful, although perhaps not strictly necessary, introductory tutorial. The app and its interface are really fairly self-explanatory, but it’s still nice to find that absolute beginners are being catered for.

Simple or Expert?

We’ve mentioned that this is an app that is suitable for beginners and experts alike, and it’s easy to switch between Simplified Mode and Expert Mode -- by default the app works in simplified mode after installation, so anyone new to the world of tweaking is not going to be thrown in at the deep end and left wondering what to do.

Taken at face value, Simplified Mode is a very dumbed down version of the app. Whether this is a ploy to make the Expert mode more appealing is open to debate, but being presented with a single Smart Scan button when working in basic mode is going to quickly drive most users to switch to Expert mode.

In Simplified Mode it is still possible to access individual components of the tweaking suite by clicking the Quick Settings link at the bottom of the screen, but this is tucked out of the way at the bottom of the screen so that the option to switch modes is more prominent.

Getting Tweaked

For the remainder of this review, we’re going to concentrate on the Expert component of the app and it is almost inconceivable that this is not where most users will end up heading -- it is where the guts of Advanced SystemCare are to be found after all.

Once you are working in the more advanced mode, there are three sections of settings to work through: Care, Toolbox and Turbo Boost. In the Care section you’ll find twelve different collections of settings ranging from privacy checking to registry cleaning.

Each of these individual components can be added to the overall scan, which can include as many or as few of these options as you like. Sadly, there are no additional options to be found in each section, they are either enabled or disabled. Or at least that is that way it seems to start with.

While it may appear that the only option available to you is to select or deselect a component, hover over a section heading and a previously hidden settings icon will appear. Here you can access the main settings screen from which you can configure the options you would like to use. Although this does enables you to set up the program to your liking, it is not the most intuitive aspect of the program. This may be expert mode, but it is no excuse for poor interface design.

Free vs Pro

There are plenty of free tweakers to choose from, and IOBit Advanced SystemCare 6 adds to this number, However, there is also a Pro version of the program available that gives you access to a number of additional tools and options. The claims associated with upgrading to the Pro edition of the app are slightly vague – doubling of PC speed, tripling of internet speeds, and cleaning the registry ‘more deeply’ – but the decision to part with some cash will unlock a many  more options.

It is difficult to say whether the Pro version of the program is worth the money. There is no denying that it helps to make life a little easier when it comes to tweaking, but there are no ground-breaking settings revealed that a true "pro" would not be able to change anyway.  However, autocleaning options and scheduled boot-time optimization are certainly useful.

Away from the main program interface, integration with Windows means that some options can be accessed from the right click menu in Explorer. For example you can right click a file and have it securely deleted from your hard drive according to the settings you have already configured.

Summing Up

Tweaking tools are something of a difficult breed of software to judge. The results that can be expected will vary massively from one computer to another. What cannot be denied is that IOBit Advanced SystemCare 6 Pro certainly helps to make life easier. You do not need to remember where all of the important settings are to be found in the registry or which area of the Control Panel you need to visit to optimize different aspects of your computer. The software lists for $29.99, for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and 8.

Verdict: Fairly average tweaking tools that bring nothing out of the ordinary but gets the job done with no nonsense.

We Like: Accessible to all levels of computing ability, reasonable results may be noticed.

We Don't Like: Some settings are rather unintuitive, vague claims of program benefits, Pro price is a little high.

Photo Credit:  Dino O./Shutterstock

The ASUS Windows 8 tablet roadmap leaked little more than a month ago, giving pundits reason to speculate on whether the rumored pricing would hinder the success of the Windows 8-based devices.

The Taiwanese company has officially announced pricing for its VivoTab RT (Windows RT-powered) tablet and put previous pricing rumors to rest.

One week ago, Microsoft announced the price of entry-level 32GB Surface tablets would start at $499 without the Touch Cover, so how does ASUS stack up against the norm imposed by the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation? The VivoTab RT is powered by the quad-core nVidia Tegra 3 chipset similar to the one found in Surface and will start at $599 for the Wi-Fi version, presumably in 32GB storage trim.

It comes with a 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display in a 8.3mm thick shell and optional keyboard dock, will be available in both 32GB and 64GB storage options and weighs 525 grams, which is competitive compared to similar offerings. A model with 4G LTE will be available in the United States at AT&T, while a 3G model will be introduced in select European countries through Vodafone.

Google is intent on making as much of the world available in Street View as possible. It recently added 250,000 miles of roads and additional special collections, and even provided a startling glimpse inside one of its own data centers.

The company has several methods of gathering this visual imagery, including a fleet of Street View cars, trikes and snowmobiles. Its latest innovation is Trekker, a backpack with a camera on top, which is currently used to capture 360-degree photos of the Grand Canyon.

According to this blog post, "The Trekker -- which its operator controls via an Android phone and automatically gathers photos as he walks -- enables the collection of high-quality imagery from places that are only accessible on foot".

Provided the pictures all come out cleanly, and don’t have the back of the operator’s head in them, this is likely to be just the first of many such foot-based explorations.

Microsoft launches Windows 8 in just two days, and manufacturers such as HP are putting all their cards on the table, and announcing pricing for their Windows 8 lineups.

Even though there were models introduced long before today, HP chose to keep quiet about their pricing. But after Microsoft priced its Surface tablet, the company has finally announced that its similarly-sized Envy x2 sporting an 11.6-inch display and the Intel Atom Z2760 processor will be priced starting at $849.99. One of the most recently introduced devices with attractive accessories, the business-oriented ElitePad 900 running the same type of processor bearing the "Clover Trail" code-name, is still a no-show in terms of pricing, and instead will be announced closer to its availability.

The Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 with a 14-inch multitouch display, Beats Audio and optional AMD graphics card is currently available for pre-order in the United States, starting at $799.99. With a larger 15.6-inch multitouch Full HD IPS display, a thickness of 17.9mm and Intel Thunderbolt technology, the SpectreXT TouchSmart Ultrabook will be priced from $1,399.99 beginning in December.

The Envy 23 and Envy 20 TouchSmart all-in-one devices that come with 10-point large multitouch displays are currently available for purchase in the United States starting at $999 and $799, respectively.

HP also announced pricing for devices that do not come with touchscreen displays. The Pavilion Sleekbook 14 and its bigger brother, the Pavilion Sleekbook 15, are currently available from $499 and $579.99 respectively. The Envy m4 and the Pavilion dm1 that offers up to 200MB of free data per month using T-Mobile's network start at $899.99 and $499.99. The business-oriented EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook will go from $1,049 starting with October 26.

The SpectreOne with a 23.6-inch display and NFC technology will be available starting at $449, while the now available Pavilion 20 AiO and Envy Phoenix h9 desktop PC are priced from $449 and $889 respectively.

As text editors go, Notepad and Wordpad are clearly just a little too basic, which is why a host of developers have made their own replacements available online. But if you’re just a regular user then many of these may seem too complex, with syntax highlighting, code folding, regular expression support and many other features which may not rank high on your priority list.

There are also some mid-range editors around, though, and Jarte is one of the most interesting: portable, free and feature-packed, yet also concentrating on the kind of functionality that matters to most people.

What you’ll notice first, unfortunately, is the program’s rather unconventional interface. There’s no menu bar, for instance. You can hover your mouse cursor over one of the tiny icons to see various menus, but these tend to ignore many Windows conventions. It looks nice, but it’s also confusing, at least initially.

Don’t give up, though. If you check the menus you’ll realise that Jarte’s commands use very conventional shortcuts: Ctrl+O to open a file, Ctrl+F to find text, Ctrl+P to print, even F7 for the built-in spell check (as with Word). You probably already know how to do most basic tasks.

And the interface can also be given a clearer look in just a few seconds, adding labels to the icons and bringing back a conventional menu bar, if you prefer it (click View > Show Main Menu). All of which will help you forget the interface, and concentrate on what really matters here -- the excellent feature set.

Jarte can open plain text, RTF, DOC and DOCX files, for instance, in multiple tabs.

Your documents can include tables, pictures, hyperlinks, even equations.

You get a full range of paragraph formatting options, and a format brush to help you apply them.

There’s a configurable “auto save” option. Easy footer and header configuration. Template support. A clipboard manager to help you display and reuse 25 clipboard samples; a screen capture tool; and the option to integrate a dictionary and thesaurus.

But what we really like about Jarte is the depth of functionality. So sure, you can left-click a tab to switch to that document. But right-click a tab and you’ll find options to move it; to copy the file name, folder name or full path of the document to the clipboard; or to open Explorer or a command prompt at that folder, ready for immediate use. Just small things, but genuinely useful, and there’s a host of similar goodies dotted throughout the program.

If you might be interested in a Notepad replacement which isn’t just aimed at developers, then,Jarte is a great free example which gives you plenty to explore. Just be aware that you might not like the interface, at least initially, so be prepared to spend a few minutes learning the basics and adapting it to suit your needs.

Photo Credit: urfin/Shutterstock

Google’s standing in the Muslim world isn’t great right now. The company’s refusal to pull the offensive The Innocence of Muslims video from YouTube has led to lots of criticism around the world. The Saudi Arabian government even led calls for a new international body to censor the internet purely as a result of Google’s stance.

However, perhaps in an effort to appease angry Muslims, Google has announced that from today it will stream the ritual of Hajj (the world’s largest pilgrimage) live from Mecca, on the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information's YouTube channel.

As Google explains in a blog post, "The Hajj represents one of the five pillars of Islam; it requires all Muslims around the world who are able-bodied and can afford it to perform the pilgrimage once in their lifetime".

Muslims in Iran, Pakistan, or Afghanistan won’t however, be able to watch the live stream, as YouTube is still banned in those countries.

Unless you have spent some time under a rock recently then you probably know that Microsoft is about to officially unveil Windows 8 for the masses. The public has had access to the new operating system for some time now, through three iterations of betas, from Developer Preview to Consumer Preview and finally landing at Release Preview. The OS will debut this Friday, but the Redmond, Wash.-based company will actually hold their launch event on Thursday in New York City.

The big shindig is now bigger. Microsoft is inviting all of New York to what they are calling "Microtropolis". This is a 160 foot version of the city that the company calls "Manhattan experienced through Windows".  This isn't a Microsoft pop-up store, but there will be one of those in the Big Apple as well. This is more of a concept art project designed to show off the latest OS in an interactive way.

"As you walk into the installation, you are literally walking through the avenues and streets with skyscrapers towering above." Microtropolis will have 25 neighborhoods alive with content reflecting the people, places and culture that add the character to each location.  Microsoft has partnered with other personalities and institutions known in the areas to make the display become even more life-like.

Microtropolis will open to the public beginning on October 26th and it will run through November 3rd. It will all be set up at New York's famed Hudson River Park's Pier 57 and will be open daily from 10am to 10pm. There will, of course, also be a store set up for visitors to purchase the new Surface tablet while they are there.

Likely the exhibit exit will pull a very Disney park-like trick by dumping those passing through into that shop. You can find out more information by visiting the announcement over at the Windows blog. If you are in the area be sure to stop in and let us know your impressions.

Alan Buckingham is an avid fan of all things technology, including Microsoft, Android, Google, and more. He worked in IT for 20 years before getting out of the corporate world. When not writing about or using gadgets and software, he can be found on the trails hiking or mountain biking with his family.

For those of you skydiving from the edge of space or returning from a week in some Fringe alternate universe, today Apple announced iPad mini -- so far the autumn's worst kept secret. Rumormongers got right the event and sales dates, product name and screen size but flubbed the price; sorry it's not $249 or $299, Bub. That's in another alternate reality. But do dream.

I just have to ask, again: Will you buy iPad mini? I look forward to the impact facts will have on your answers. In February I asked: "Apple is rumored to be developing a smaller tablet. Would you buy an 8-inch iPad?" About 56 percent of the 3,624 respondents answered "Yes". That's a high number. But much has changed since, with Google Nexus 7 joining Kindle Fire at $199, Amazon offering 8.9-inch tablets and Apple choosing to price higher than many people hoped. So I ask the question again, offering new poll and your chance to comment.

Apple's 7.9-inch tablet starts at $329, which unfortunately is right about what I expected. Following Amazon and Google to $199 or $249 just isn't Apple's style. But how odd that Kindle Fire HD 8.9" is in many ways superior at $299. Take screen resolution, for example: Amazon serves up 1920 by 1200 to the fruit-logo tablet's 1024 by 768. Both companies offer similar curated, end-to-end digital content platforms -- music, movies and more.

Pre-orders start October 26, and WiFi models go on sale November 2. Apple will eventually offer six iPad minis -- three with LTE radios, which will be available about two weeks later. Price range is surprising -- $329 to $659. In the United States, cellular models will be available from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon in either black or white.

How Does iPad mini Compare?

iPad mini is the most expensive tablet in its size class and easily exceeds models with larger screen. For example, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7-inch is $199 and 10 inch $349 -- from Amazon, and that's $50 for either off the list price; both have 16GB storage and WiFi, like entry iPad mini. If you're looking to spend a premium price on a 7.x-inch tablet, Apple will take your money to the bank. What I hope to learn from the poll is how many of you see value in paying more.

Let's size up against the competition:

iPad mini: 7.9-inch back-lit IPS display (1024 x 768 resolution, 163 pixels per inch); A5 dual-core processor; 1GB RAM; 16GB, 32GB or 64GB storage; 5-megapixel rear-facing and 1.2MP front-facing cameras; Bluetooth; WiFi A/N; HSPA+/LTE (on three models); accelerometer; GPS; gyroscope; microphone; battery unknown; and iOS 6. Dimensions: 200 x 134.7 x .28mm and 308 grams.

• iPad mini 16GB WiFi: $329
• iPad mini 32GB WiFi: $429
• iPad mini 16GB WiFi/LTE: $459
• iPad mini 64GB WiFi: $529
• iPad mini 32GB WiFi/LTE: $559
• iPad mini 64GB WiFi/LTE: $659

Nexus 7: 7-inch back-lit IPS display (1280 x 800 resolution, 216 ppi); 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor; 1GB RAM; 8GB or 16GB storage; 1.2MP front-facing camera; Bluetooth; WiFi A/N; accelerometer; GPS; gyroscope; magnetometer; microphone; near field communications; 4325 mAh battery; and Android 4.1. Dimensions: 198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm and 340 grams.

• Nexus 7 8GB WiFi: $199
• Nexus 7 16GB: $249

Kindle Fire HD: 7-inch LCD IPS display (1280 x 800 resolution, 216 ppi); 1.2GHz OMAP4460 dual-core processor; 1GB RAM; 16GB or 32GB storage; front-facing camera; Bluetooth; WiFi A/N; accelerometer; gyroscope; microphone; 4400 mAh battery; and Android 4; Dimensions: 193 x 137 x 10.3mm and 395 grams.

• Kindle Fire HD 16GB: $199
• Kindle Fire HD 32GB: $249

Amazon offers the non-HD Kindle Fire for $159. There are also two 8.9-inch models, in 16GB and 32GB configurations, and the aforementioned higher resolution display (1920 by 1200):

• Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16GB: $299
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 32GB: $369
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G LTE 16GB: $499
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G LTE 32GB: $599

Early Reaction

The comparisons speak for themselves. Something else: About a year ago, I asked BetaNews readers: "What price would be low enough for you to buy a media tablet?" Among the 2,929 respondents so far, 82.21 percent responded $299 or below, with 26.66 percent saying $199 and 51.38 percent $199 or less. Based on the poll, and your responses, Apple has overpriced iPad mini for the mass-market.

1DaveN comments: "IMO the only market for this is the tiny percentage of people who want a real iPad, can't afford one, but can somehow scrape together the bucks for this mini. And if price is the trigger, why not opt for something of similar size but half the price?"

Apple starts selling a smaller tablet on Nov. 2, 2012. Prices start at $329 (7.9" display; 16GB; WiFi). Will you buy iPad mini?

BetaNews reader skruis responds: "Agreed. If people were too cost conscious to buy the larger device and instead opted for a smaller 7-inch device then even with the lower price of the mini, it's still not a guaranteed sale as the non-Apple devices are still cheaper. They'll sell but I don't see them dominating the 7-inch market".

I also asked for reaction on Google+, and, whoa, did it come. Saeed W says iPad mini is "way too high for a 2nd screen device". Greg Vlahakis agrees: "$355 with tax is too much for most people..they could have been more competitive".

"At its price point the Mini is a joke", Kevin Gault says. "Really Apple? A lower screen resolution compared to the Nexus 7, same battery life and an ancient UI. Way to go for more failure Apple".

My analysis resonates with James Prudente's sentiments. "It seems clear that the price and build materials are designed to maintain their high margins", he says. "But at this price point it will seriously cannibalize full size iPad sales, which will negatively impact their revenues".

"There's no doubt that there will be people who buy the mini irrespective of the price", Ramesh Prabhu observes. "Apple had this opportunity to send the rest of the small tablet manufacturers to the edge of the cliff, but blew it by pricing it at $329 + tax".

The Google+ crowd isn't exactly hot on iPad mini; it is Android territory, after all. What about you? Will you buy iPad mini? Please take the poll above and give reasons in comments -- and, please, say whether you own other Apple devices and which ones.

Windows 8 is a highly controversial operating system and a big gamble for Microsoft that can largely be attributed to the new Start screen interface that the company introduces in it. The Start screen is not just a program launcher like the Windows Start menu was, as it is also the location where apps are run in. Apps, of which some come pre-installed with Windows 8 and others can be installed from the Windows Store, run in full screen on the interface. However, you can add your own shortcuts to the Start screen page, to open documents or desktop programs quickly from here.

If you like Windows 8's start screen but want to keep on using a previous version of the Windows operating system instead, you may be interested in a new beta program that IOBit just released. WinMetro basically adds a Start screen-like interface to versions of Windows that do not ship with it. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

WinMetro loads the Start screen after installation and by default on every system start, just like Windows 8 does. You can easily switch between the new interface and the classic desktop with the shortcut Windows-X, which may be confusing at first considering that Windows 8 users only need to tap on the Windows key to switch between the interfaces.

The Start screen itself lists a number of app tiles that resemble those that Microsoft ships with Windows 8 by default. Available here are apps for weather, finance and calendar; news; maps; Bing search; and Facebook and Twitter, which all launch in full screen here. You will notice that some apps simply display their contents in Internet Explorer running in kiosk mode though, but that should not really be much of a problem.

Next to the apps are shortcuts to desktop applications that you use frequently on the system. A click on a shortcut loads the program on the desktop directly. WinMetro keeps on running in the background by default, likely to speed up the switching between interfaces while you are working on the computer. You can open the program settings to disable that, so that it won't run in the background when you switch to the desktop. If your computer has a fast hard drive or SSD, you won't notice much of a difference either way.

WinMetro adds the Charms Bar to the system as well. The Charms Bar is available on the Start screen and on the desktop. You can trigger it with the shortcut Windows-C, or by hovering your mouse cursor over the lower right corner of the screen. The Charms Bar offers options to search, to load the Start screen interface or the settings.

Search is not as fast as that in Windows 8. It is basically the same function that you get when using the Start menu of the operating system. Filters are available to only display photos, music or videos. A filter for applications, on the other hand, is missing, which usually means that you get a large list of hits unless you search for the full file name instead.

The settings display options to change the volume, open network management or power options to change the state of the PC.

The program lacks a few features that are available under Windows 8. You can't add or remove tiles or shortcuts on the Start screen right now. While I can understand that you can't add new apps available on the Windows Store to the program, it should not really be a problem to add your own custom program shortcuts to the interface.

WinMetro starts automatically with the operating system by default, and will keep on running when you switch to the desktop. You can change both options in the program settings. Please note that the sidebar process will still run on the system after making the changes.

"Don't upset the apple cart" takes on new meaning for the company Steve Jobs cofounded. Supply chain simplicity defined his leadership, starting with the many products axed after he took the interim CEO title in early 1997. While complexity creeped into some product lines over the years, mainly iPod, Apple followed a streamline approach. Until today. Tim Cook oversees a suddenly complex tablet lineup, following iPad mini's introduction early this afternoon.

Before today's event, Apple offered eight different iPad configurations -- that's without separately counting carrier-specific LTE models. The mini, which goes on sale November 2, brings the number to 14. It's a crowded lineup, with overlapping features and prices not seen from Apple since the early- to mid-1990s. Something else: Apple chose to price higher than what BetaNews surveys show people want to spend on a tablet, particularly in the mini's size class, and too close to other models, risking some sales cannibalization -- or worse, none at all, if customer confusion hurts sales.

Fifty-four Configs

The good: iPad's starting price is now less than ever -- $329, and that's sure to appeal to buyers looking to spend less than $399 for aging iPad 2 or $499 for entry fourth-generation model. But from there complexity creep follows each jump to higher amount. Briefly:

• iPad mini 16GB WiFi: $329
• iPad 2 16GB WiFi: $399
• iPad mini 32GB WiFi: $429
• iPad mini 16GB WiFi/LTE: $459
• iPad 4 16GB WiFi :$499
• iPad mini 64GB WiFi: $529
• iPad 2 16GB WiFi/3G: $529
• iPad mini 32GB WiFi/LTE: $559
• iPad 4 32GB WiFi: $599
• iPad 4 16GB WiFi/LTE: $629
• iPad mini 64GB WiFi/LTE: $659
• iPad 4 64GB WiFi: $699
• iPad 4 32GB WiFi/LTE: $729
• iPad 4 64GB WiFi/LET: $829

Compare the 14 to what some other manufacturers offer:

• Amazon: Six Fire HD models, two each for 7-inch, 8.9-inch and LTE, ranging from $199 to $499.
• Google: Two Nexus 7s -- 8GB ($199) and 16GB ($249), both with 7-inch displays.
• Microsoft: Three Surface configurations, starting at $499 and all with 10.6-inch displays.

Only Samsung offers a tablet lineup near Apple's complexity, as it supports multiple operating systems (Android, Windows) and makes carrier specific models. In the United States, carrier-specificity for AT&T and Verizon means two configurations for iPad 2 WiFi/3G and three, adding Sprint, for every LTE model. So what is that? Another 13 configurations, which, granted, are more hidden from consumers? From manufacturing and distribution perspective, that's a logistically complex product lineup -- and that's without considering the confusing choices consumers will make.

The more SKUs sold, the more traumatic managing inventory, particularly when a product is hotly demanded. For example, during the initial iPhone 5 sales rush, the local Apple Stores here in San Diego consistently had Sprint models available when sold out of those from AT&T. For some reason the 32GB Verizon model would often be available, too. Why that one is anyone's guess, and clearly Apple retail managers guessed wrong, which will be easy enough to do with iPad mini.

But wait! From an inventory management perspective, the number of models is even more, because there are black and white colors. So the base 14 is really 28, but then there are carrier-specific models. Is my math right? Fifty-four? That's figuring 7 WiFi models in two colors (14) + 6 LTE models for three carriers (18) x 2 two colors + 2 WiFi/3G tablets from 2 carriers + 2 colors. I'm surprised Wall Street analysts don't fuss more about this kind of complexity and what it means for sales -- lost ones for a high-demand product -- and toll on gross margins.

Complexity Creep

Consumers can expect to be confused by all the choices -- and that's just looking at iPad mini and ignoring iPhone 5 and iPod models with flat screens. Before the mini, Apple offered one screen size: 9.7 inches. Now there are two, adding 7.9 inches. Screen resolution dramatically differs: 1024 by 768 for the mini and iPad 2 and 2048 by 1536 for fourth-gens.

Someone shopping for the smaller iPad can spend as little as $329, get the lower resolution, 16GB storage and WiFi. The larger screen in same storage capacity is $70 more (iPad 2). But wait! The smaller tablet uses the new Lightning connector and has Bluetooth 4, while the larger one uses the older, 30-pin connector and offers Bluetooth 2.1. So while the screen is larger, some of the other tech is older and incompatible with newer gear and, presumably, some future Apple tech. The lower-cost tablet also comes with better cameras (5 megapixels front; 1.2MP back) and supports Siri, which isn't available on the costlier $399 iPad.

Just wait until Christmas morning to see what these subtle differences will mean to Jack or Jane Consumer getting less than expected because grandma was sure bigger would be better -- and, hey, it costs a little more, too. You can be sure somebody will transform 7.9 and 9.7 and end up with the wrong size tablet.

Look at the crowded and confusing configurations. Between $529 and $599 there are four different choices. The 7.9-inch iPad mini with 64GB storage and WiFi is $529. For the same price: iPad 2 16GB with WiFi and 3G. Now explain that difference to Aunt Louisa. For $30 more is the iPad mini with 32GB WiFi and LTE. So within $30, there are three different storage capacities and two different cellular technologies. But wait, at $599 is the iPad 4, with 32GB storage, WiFi and superior display -- twice the resolution.

This lineup is recipe for customer confusion and good reason not to work for Apple this holiday season. Seriously, the company should offer counseling sessions for over-worked staff that have to explain this stuff.

Then there is pricing, which I planned to include here but will break into a separate story. So briefly, I'll end with this: Amazon and Google have lowered pricing in this size class to between $199 and $299, which is consistent with what you say is acceptable. About a year ago, I asked BetaNews readers: "What price would be low enough for you to buy a media tablet?" Among the 2,929 respondents so far, 82.21 percent responded $299 or below, with 26.66 percent saying $199 and 51.38 percent $199 or less. Now match lower pricing expectations against Apple's higher pricing complexity, and there's trouble ahead.

Do I suggest sales disaster? No. Apple's brand has strong sales pull, but confused customers aren't often happy ones and iPad mini is sure to suffer unnecessary shortages among some configurations. Again, why isn't Wall Street complaining? I say this: Simplicity sells, complexity smells -- and this lineup stinks like my neighbor's garbage.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wants 2012 to be "the most epic year" for the company determined to make a splash in October with the launch of Windows 8, Surface, and Windows Phone 8 all within a few days of one another.

To complete the package, Microsoft has announced a major update for the Xbox dashboard, the launch of Xbox SmartGlass, and a cheaper Xbox 360 console.

Part of the "Entertainment For All Plan," the 250 GB Xbox 360 will retail for $99 when the user signs up for two years of Xbox LIVE, while the Kinect combo will retail for an extra $50 more.

Beginning today, Microsoft will deploy a new update for the Xbox 360 that will bring Internet Explorer, a new music service, easier-to-find entertainment content using Bing voice search and Kinect. Then on top of all this, Microsoft also launched SmartGlass which touts an "amazing" multi-screen experience that will let users connect multiple devices for a broader multi-screen experience. Nintendo is attempting a similar style of multi-screen content consumption and gameplay with Wii U.

Xbox SmartGlass is a free app that connects devices such as tablets and smartphones to the Xbox Entertainment ecosystem. It works with Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8 devices, as well as Windows 8 and RT tablets and PCs. The Xbox 360 can be remotely controlled to pause, resume, rewind or advance content using the touchscreen interface from the device.

Xbox Video allows users to continue watching content on different devices. For example, a movie begun on a Windows 8 tablet can then be resumed on a plasma TV, or it can display the names of the cast and crew of a film as well as discover related files. Similar to this, Xbox Music lets users control the TV using their connected devices, and discover related artists and tracks, read biographies as well as other features. Xbox Sports delivers real-time stats, player bios, news and more sports data on the second screen.

On the Internet access front, a smartphone or tablet can be used to pan, pinch or zoom web pages, as well as input text using the keyboard from the controlling device. Browser sessions can be transferred between devices.

An essential trait for any Xbox-related technology is gaming, and Xbox Games uses a phone or tablet as a second screen to check progress and achievements, or act as a remote control.

Though SmartGlass-enhanced content will be limited at first, Microsoft says it's working on providing new experiences and updating old ones to take advantage of the bonus screen real estate.

At WWDC 2012 in San Francisco last June, Apple debuted its latest generation of Macbooks. Today, at an event to spotlight the new iPad Mini, Apple also unveiled a version of the 13" Macbook Pro which includes the high definition Retina Display. For the last five months, this display has only been available on the 15" Macbook Pro.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the 13" Macbook Pro is Apple's most popular notebook computer, and by adding the Retina Display into the mix, the company now offers four different stock versions of the PC.

In addition to the improved display, the Retina-equipped Macbook Pros are also built to be significantly leaner than the models debuted just six months ago. To achieve a thinner profile, Apple has equipped these new models exclusively with either 128GB or 256GB of flash-based storage. Their processors are 2.5GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5s and the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU. They are the lower-end systems on a chip within the Macbook Pro line, but they're paired with 8GB of RAM by default.

Processors can be bumped up to 2.9GHz dual-core i7, storage can be bumped up to 768GB of flash, but the RAM is what you get.

With all this taken into account, the baseline 13" Macbook Pro with Retina display will cost $1,699, and the model with more storage will cost $1,999. They're considerably cheaper than the 15-inch Retina Macbooks from June, but lack the quad-core CPU, discrete GPU, and larger memory configurations, so features and price balance out somewhat. They are available for order online immediately.

Months of rumors have come to this: Yes, Virginia, there is a smaller iPad, and if they don't sell out, you could get one for Christmas. During a special media event today, Apple unveiled iPad mini.

The new tablet's screen measures 7.9 inches, compared to 9.7 inches for fourth-generation iPad, also announced today. Screen resolution is 1,024 by 768 -- the same as iPad 2 and other tablets in the size class. The device weighs .68 pounds and is 7.2mm thick, or about one-quarter more than fourth-generation iPad. Apple claims 10-hour battery life. The tablet runs an A5 dual-core processor and packs a 5-megapixel camera on the back and another camera, mainly for video recording on the front. Contrary to rumors, prices start at $329, not $249.

Apple's unveiling comes three days before Microsoft struts out Windows 8 and Surface tablets. Can you say slap in the face? Microsoft will get little coverage of its launches without some mention of Apple's device. iPad mini preorders start same day as Windows 8 debuts. It's a marketing coup, and nasty work at that.

Some analysts are convinced that, like original iPad, the mini will be category changing. "Just as Apple has dominated the market for 9.7-inch tablets with its iPad, iPad 2 and new iPad models, the company is poised to rule the market for 7.x-inch products, driving rapid growth of the segment in 2012 and 2013", Rhoda Alexander, IHS iSuppli director, asserts.

The analyst firm sees the segment's share of tablets rising from 24 percent in 2011 to 28 percent this year and 33 percent next. "The battle in the 7-inch space is highly spirited, with most of the other leading vendors already offering price-competitive products in this size range", Alexander says. "IHS predicts Apple will successfully position the smaller iPad as a device that will be attractive and easy to adopt for both new and returning customers. This will spur rapid sales growth and provide tough competition for other companies contending in this size range".

Other competitors chose lower selling prices, such as Amazon Kindle Fire HD or Google Nexus, which both sell for $199. The entry-level iPad mini, 16GB with WiFi, sells for $329. The 32GB model is $429. Cellular models add $130 to the price and will go one sale about two weeks after the WiFi models.

Pricing differences may not matter, as Alexander predicts supply shortages. "The major factor limiting shipments of the smaller iPad will not be demand, but a combination of production challenges and potential component supply issues", she says. "Reported production difficulties point to the likelihood that Apple is once again pushing design boundaries with the new product. Sources also indicate there have been some supply issues for parts used in the Apple Lightning connector and in the display. If Apple can resolve these issues rapidly, 2013 shipments and sales may exceed the current forecast dramatically".

Today's mini debut comes just two weeks after Apple sold its 100 millionth iPad, CEO Tim Cook revealed during the media event. Apple in part positions the smaller iPad for the education market, which is surprising considering the company missed back-to-school buying season by many months. Of course, there is always next year, eh? Textbooks are major area of interest, with Cook claiming 2,500 US schools using iBooks textbooks.

Cook claims that nearly every Fortune 500 is deploying iPad, which I find unbelievable. More likely, a large number are merely supporting devices employees bring to work -- a common trend that transcends iPad. But today, with complete refresh and smaller iPad, Apple is sure to further capitalize on the bring your own device to work movement, if nothing else.

Speaking of refresh, Apple did not change larger iPad's screen size or price, but did boost features, claiming -- and testing will tell -- 2 times performance overall and for graphics compared to third-generation iPad.

Contrary to rumors, Apple will not retire iPad 2, which stays in the lineup at $399.

Today, during a special media event, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that 200 million devices already have iOS 6. That works out to half cumulative shipments -- 400 million. The company may update that number during its quarterly earnings call in two days.

The number starkly contrasts with Android, where just 1.8 percent of devices are on newest version Jelly Bean. The difference demonstrates the extent of operating system fragmentation of one versus the other. Uniformity offers many advantages to developers and customers using their apps. Consider this: Jelly Bean released in mid-July, iOS 6 last month. So Apple reaches considerably more users with its newest OS than does Google. There is no comparison.

Cook's focus on iOS 6 adoption deflects from one unsaid -- number of cumulative shipments, which the company recently put at 400 million. The number trails Android, which surged ahead of iOS during summer. At last count: 500 million devices.

Daily Android activations now total 1.3 million, up from 900,000 in June, according to Google. At that run rate, Android device sales, based on activations, work out to 117 million every 90 days. Looking ahead, IHS iSuppli now predicts that cumulative Android smartphone shipments will reach 1 billion next year, but iOS not until 2015.

The numbers tally is more than symbolic, as Apple seeks to re-energize the platform with the new iPad mini. Android's numbers by and large come from cell phones, where, according to Gartner, the operating system's sales share is more than three times Apple's. iPad is the tablet leader, by considerable margin, but quarterly handset shipments dwarf the other platform. By the numbers, Android wins the smartphone wars. Tablets still favor Apple.

In October 2009, I explained why "Apple cannot win the smartphone wars". iPhone is to Android handsets what Macintosh was to the DOS/Windows PC in the 1980s and 1990s. The Mac's rocky start in 1984-85 gave way to great success because of several killer applications, with desktop publishing being among the most important. But by the mid 1990s, Windows PCs pushed down Mac market share. iPhone follows similar path.

Today's event is all about recharging iOS platform momentum around iPad, capitalizing on strong brand awareness and early market share lead and extending apps appeal to developers and customers.

Platforms succeed for combinations of reasons leading to network effects:

• There are good development tools and APIs for easily creating applications
• There is at least one killer application people really want
• There is breadth of useful applications
• Third parties make lots of money
• The platform is broadly available
• There is a robust ecosystem

But the underlying most important: Third parties make money, lots of it. As Android numbers far exceed iOS, the Mac-Windows comparison looks like the more likely scenario. Even if Android wins the platform wars -- and that's no certainty -- Apple doesn't necessarily lose. The market clearly is consolidating around two major cloud-connected platforms.

With regards to money and potential making it, Cook put out some numbers: $6.5 billion paid to developers. Additionally: 700,000 apps in Apple's App Store -- 275,000 for iPad.

The music industry has tried various things to combat piracy over the years, ranging from actually selling music online, to suing alleged file sharers/customers. In the United Kingdom, the British Phonographic Industry is trying to force internet service providers to block access to infringing sites.

The Motion Picture Association started the trend last year by going to the courts and asking them to block access to Newzbin 2, a members-only site sharing music and video. The BPI followed its approach, successfully getting the High Court to order ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay, and now it’s got three more major torrent sites in its crosshairs.

According to the BBC, the BPI reportedly asked six ISPs -- BT, Virgin Media, Sky, O2, EE and TalkTalk -- to voluntarily block access to Kickass Torrents, H33t and Fenopy, but having (hardly surprisingly) not got its own way, the organization is now set to return to the courts in a bid to get its request turned into an order in time for Xmas.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, a spokesman for the UK Pirate Party said: "It looks like web blocking is now a reality in the UK -- the BPI have found a way to censor sites they don’t like. The excuse is piracy, which totally disregards the legitimate uses of torrent sites, and conveniently neglects to mention that they are a major platform for independent musicians. Essentially, it’s the classic behavior of monopolistic corporate bullies who want to stamp out competition".

Although the court-ordered blocking of The Pirate Bay did initially have a major effect on traffic to the site from within the UK, many torrent users simply went elsewhere, accessed the site through a proxy, or used one of the many mirrors that were set up to get around the block. The BPI clearly knows it can’t stop hardened pirates from accessing illegal content, but it can reduce the options available to more casual downloaders and that, for the moment at least, seems to be its primary tactic.

Photo Credit: Regissercom/Shutterstock

Whether some might people like it or not, we live in the cloud era and there the key role is played by services. But what happens when there's an outage? Yesterday I tried to log into Flipboard, but unlike what would usually happen, the message "service is currently down" greeted me.

It wasn't a scheduled maintenance. Flipboard announced via Google+ that the service was down and it "only" took roughly five hours to get it back up. So what happened? According to Data Center Knowledge and Wired, when Amazon Cloud went down so did Heroku, Flipboard, Foursquare, Reddit "and others", with problems reported to its North Virginia-based servers. But the cloud is supposed to be the future, and it doesn't include pulling the plug and sending people off: "Go to sleep, I'm incapable of anything now!"

Coincidentally (or not) while Amazon Cloud was down yesterday so was our group chat, and replacing its essential functionality with an alternative can be cumbersome like going from instant messages to writing emails; it's just not doable and time-consuming at the same time. Even so, Google+ worked so I did manage to briefly discuss some topics but the cloud lost a bit of its appeal from my perspective.

I'm a Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive user, and mostly because I don't trust any entirely to use just a single one for storing documents, pictures or videos. There is that constant feeling that at one point or another somewhere between me and the server something bad will happen that will prevent me from accessing my files. That I can't shake, especially knowing that luck isn't always on my side.

I use cloud services on a daily basis, starting with group chat, storage, email, etc. When one fails I can't properly carry over my daily activities. Flipboard is something that I can honestly live without for a few hours, but because of events like these I find it problematic to rely solely on the cloud for my daily endeavors.

Is the cloud reliable enough? With a backup or an alternative way of using a certain service, I'd venture to say that it can be although it is far from perfect. The problem comes when there is no fail-safe implemented and all hope rests on doing things a certain way expecting nothing bad to happen.

Photo Credit: Ovchynnikov Oleksii/Shutterstock

When Apple debuted the iPhone 5 just over one month ago, I was assigned to cover the launch event in a liveblog, despite the fact that I wasn't actually present at the event. So I did the liveblog the only way I saw fit: in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

So here we are again, there is another Apple event today in San Jose, where the company is expected to unveil a couple of new products including the smaller, cheaper 7-inch iPad, and a new Macbook with a high-resolution Retina display. The event will begin at 10am Pacific, or 1PM EST, and I'll be providing a live, unscripted sarcasm track starting approximately an hour before the event begins. Unlike the iPhone 5 launch event, this one will be live streamed at Apple Events.

Because this is BetaNews, and we want to expose you to as much advertising and annoyance as possible, you have to refresh the page to get the latest updates.

2:35pm EST--And again, there's no mention of Bing anywhere.

2:15pm EST-- And that's it. Wrap up: 13" Macbook Pro has a new screen. iMac is skinnier. Mac Mini Server exists and was worth 45 seconds of your attention. iPad 4 has a better processor and cellular connectivity. iPad Mini is a Mini iPad and is superior to the Nexus 7 because I said so.

2:12pm EST-- Tim Cook would like to thank all of the teams at Apple that worked SO hard to take their entire product line and slightly change the size of the cases.

2:10pm EST--

2:08pm EST-- Base configuration of iPad Mini is 16GB of memory, wi-fi only, $329...the Wi-Fi/Cellular model with 64 GB costs $659. Pre-orders begin on Friday. October 26. Also known as Windows 8 Day.

2:03pm EST--This is now the second time an Apple executive has said "You can use it with one hand!" This is important because of reasons. Internet reasons.

1:59pm EST--Schiller just singled out the Asus/Google Nexus 7 in a side-by-side comparison with iPad Mini. Nexus 7 owners quietly swell with pride as Apple reveals who opened up the market to them.

1:55pm EST-- iPad Mini has the exact same resolution as the iPad...and it can run all the same apps...yet it's obviously completely different because it's 1.8 inches smaller across.

1:52pm EST--One guy stood up to take a picture of the picture of the iPad Mini with his iPad.

1:48pm EST--Fourth Generation iPad has faster A6X processor, faster wireless, and it's an incremental upgrade that was literally used as the curtain in front of the iPad Mini.

1:44pm EST--Tim Cook is a graduate of the Mister Rogers school of diction. He flips it on when talking about education.

1:32pm EST-- New iMac includes a new type of storage called "fusion." It dynamically moves most-used apps to flash storage and less-used to HDD. It is the follow up to fission storage, which was developed at Apple's Bikini Atoll research facility.

1:25pm EST-- And here's the new iMac...

1:23pm EST--This Macbook Pro has an EPEAT Gold rating, which means the guys from iFixit won't have to use a blowtorch to cut it open for repairs.

1:17pm EST-- New 13.3" Macbook Pro is 20% thinner, one pound lighter ("Lightest Macbook Pro ever!") 2 Thunderbolt ports, usb3, HDMI, SD card slot, Retina Display (2560 x 1600) with 29% higher contrast ratio, 75% reduction in glare, 178 degree viewing angle. It's an AMAZING screen, which Apple doesn't make.

1:16pm EST--13" Macbook Pro is Apple's best-selling Mac, so they're going to make it obsolete.

1:13pm EST--New version of iBooks contains continuous scrolling in addition to pagination. The advantage to this is in pranking people. You can walk up to someone reading an iBook and fling the book 200 pages ahead in one bad-ass swipe.

1:10pm EST--160 million Game Center users. That means there are 40 million people with iDevices NOT playing iBridge with their grandparents.

1:07pm EST--200 million devices are iOS 6 right now. "Fastest software upgrade rate in history...that we're aware of."

1:04pm EST--"Amazing" count is at six.

1:01pm EST-- Tim Cook: More than 5 million iPhone 5s sold in the first weekend, it's the most iPhones ever sold... Here's a video of us selling iPhones!

12:57pm EST--

Nothing says technological innovation like a movie theater from 1927.

12:38pm EST--

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2: "Your Tablet Buddy on the Go" Eventually, Samsung hopes to work its way up to being your tablet bro.

12:32pm EST--

Google/Asus Nexus 7: "The Playground is Open" Isn't the maker of unmarked white vans upset that Google stole their slogan?

12:23pm EST--

BlackBerry PlayBook: "The World's First Professional Grade Tablet." (For professions that don't need a way to check their email.)

12:18PM EST--Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus: "7" Tablet, Reloaded" ...Unfortunately, it was reloaded with Honeycomb. Could also be replaced with slogan: 7" Tablet, Endlessly Reloading.

12:13PM EST--Lenovo IdeaPad A1: "Have a Little Fun" ...We can't promise you a moderate amount of fun, so you will have to settle for a little.

12:07PM EST-- "Galaxy Tab: Have it all, Anywhere." (...Anywhere except countries where we're banned for copying Apple.)

12:03PM EST--
"HTC Flyer: A Tablet Like No Other." This is actually a pretty accurate slogan, given that this device launched before there was a real 7" tablet "craze."

12:00PM EST-- Since the main attraction of today's event is expected to be a 7" iPad, I've been wondering what silly post-colon slogan Apple will add (iPad Baby: think diffwent.) All the popular 7" tablets up to this point have had pretty lame slogans. Let's have a look...

I struck a chord with my recent column on H-1B visa abuse, so soon follow up with an enormous post that tries to explain the underlying issues. But before then here’s something I came across that doesn’t quite fit that theme but was too interesting to let pass unnoticed -- how companies like IBM intimidate employees and discourage them from speaking up.

A few years ago there was a class action lawsuit against IBM. Thirty-two thousand server administrators were being forced to work overtime without extra pay. IBM lost the suit and paid a $65 million settlement. That’s just over $2,000 per affected employee before the lawyers took their share. Then IBM gave all those workers a 15 percent pay cut with the justification they’d get it back in overtime pay. Next IBM restricted the workers to 40 hour weeks so there would be no overtime.

VP approval was required each time someone needed to work overtime. The net result was all the server admins worked exactly 40 hours a week and for 15 percent less pay. I’m told by some of those IBMers involved that they were then put at the top of the layoff list. At the end of their severance pay period after being laid off many were rehired as contractors -- for less money and no benefits. At that point they were at 50-60 percent of their original pay. Eventually most of those jobs were shipped overseas.

One could argue, of course, that nobody forced IBM server administrators to stay with a company that would treat them that way, and I think that’s strong argument. But I’m a guy who was fired from every job I ever held and so may not be the right person to judge proper employee or employer behavior.

Reprinted with permission

Photo Credit: HomeArt/Shutterstock

Piriform has updated the Mac version of its popular freeware cleaning tool to add full support for the latest revision of Mountain Lion plus an option for selecting files and folders to include or exclude from scans.

CCleaner for Mac 1.05 also resolves issues with older versions of OS X, and includes a number of other performance and stability improvements in addition to the usual round of minor bug fixes.

Version 1.05.189 launches with the promise of full compatibility with the latest revision of OS X, 10.8.2. It also adds a new feature that allows users – via the Options button – to manually specify folders, files and file types to either specifically include or exclude from the program’s scans.

The new update also comes with an improved Uninstaller tool that is better equipped to handle subfolders inside the Applications folder. It’s also increased the stability of the Repair Permissions tool when a USB thumb drive has been inserted.

The program should also provide more updates through the GUI and improve memory management during longer cleanup operations. It also promises to resolve issues with stability on older versions of OS X, specifically 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).

Other bug fixes include the resolution of incorrect file counts for the Safari internet cache, plus an issue with Chrome that could leave a single cookie undeleted. These two bug fixes are joined by a host of other minor – and unspecified – tweaks  and fixes.

CCleaner for Mac 1.05.189 is a freeware download for Macs running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later. Also available is the Windows version, CCleaner 3.23.

Following an earlier tweet from Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager on SkyDrive at Microsoft, the Redmond, Wash.-based company announced the availability of the new Office Web Apps across Outlook and SkyDrive which sport a refreshed look and feel in line with Microsoft's modern design language deployed across its various services.

It also features expanded device support with touch-friendly editing from tablets, co-authoring and collaboration support across the Web apps, as well as more editing and formatting controls. The latest version promises general improvements to the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Web apps.

The Word Web App now comes with support for adding and viewing comments which acts as a way of providing feedback. Documents can be designed and formatted within the browser, and a number of features have been borrowed from the desktop application such as layout and picture tools and word count.

Within the new Excel Web App, the user can add or remove sheets from an edited spreadsheet, merge cells, auto-fit columns, AutoSum, and print directly out of the browser.

The new PowerPoint Web app promises a similar experience to its desktop counterpart, including viewable comments and full transitions, and it also features audio and video playback on phones and tablets as well. Touted as a cloud collaboration feature, the Web app also comes with co-authoring and comment support.

Finally, the OneNote Web App claims to deliver an improved page and section search, comes with new support for ink viewing and can be shared as an URL and viewed on the usual PC, phone and tablet using the browser.

Emsisoft has updated its freeware portable anti-malware scan-and-remove tool, Emsisoft Emergency Kit 3.0. The new build, which is designed to be run directly from USB stick, has been updated to include two of the latest anti-malware engines from Emsisoft and BitDefender.

The new build also promises significantly less false alerts, new performance settings for advanced users and optimized malware cleaning.

Emsisoft Emergency Kit 3.0, which consists of four separate components – two scanners, a system analysis app and tool for deleting stubborn files, drivers and Registry entries – is notable largely for its new scan-and-remove engines. Both Emsisoft and BitDefender engines are the latest versions, found in its commercial anti-malware tool, Emsisoft Anti-Malware 7.0.

One immediate benefit of including the new BitDefender engine is a significant drop in the number of false positives, which Emsisoft credits to BitDefender’s presence. The new Emsisoft engine is responsible for faster scan times overall, while expert users can tweak the CPU use of the scanner to deliver faster scans if required at the expense of other system processes.

Version 3.0 also claims optimised malware cleaning means that Registry entries affected by malware can now be restored, while it also comes with what Emsisoft describes as an “easy to understand”, improved user interface.

The final tweak sees a switch to smaller, incremental updates – not only does this speed up the update process, but makes hourly updates ready for use more quickly.

Emsisoft Emergency Kit 3.0 is a freeware download for PCs running Windows XP or later, including the forthcoming Windows 8. It’s designed to be run without installation, and can be transferred to USB stick for portable use.

Photo Credit: njaj/Shutterstock

Google News is one of the search giant’s more contentious services (Brazil's National Association of Newspapers recently blocked it from using its members' content because the service allegedly drives traffic away from their websites), but there’s no question it’s an incredibly useful resource, pulling content from a wide variety of sources.

Last year Google made it easier to scan for stories, and this year it’s implementing some useful changes to the News search results pages.

Now when you run a search on News, you’ll see the one main story, with related articles from other sources collapsed into "news clusters" that can be expanded with a single click. According to Rudy Galfi, Google News’ product manager: "This improvement makes it much easier to scan through the search results to find just the collection of news coverage you’re looking for".

In addition, some of these expanded news clusters will include a bar of videos and photos related to the story’s content.

Finally, the layout has been tweaked, so the cluster image now appears on the left with the source information moved to just below the article links.

Ahead of the public unveiling of the new Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system, Nokia has unleashed the Lumia 510. It's the Finnish company's entry-level smartphone, which surprisingly runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, and is priced to take on less expensive devices, a decidedly different market from its bigger brother the Lumia 920.

With a suggested retail price of $199 (before any tax or operator subsidy) the Nokia Lumia 510 is packed with a 4-inch TFT display with an 800 x 480 resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor with 256MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel auto-focus back-facing camera with VGA video recording, 4 GB of internal storage. As far as connectivity goes, it comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, A-GPS, and HSDPA/WCDMA cellular radios. For the 1300mAh removable battery Nokia quotes 38h of music playback, 8.4h of 3G talk time and 6.2h of talk time using 2G networks.

Like with any Nokia Windows Phone-based device, the Lumia 510 comes with the usual array of apps such as Nokia Drive, Maps and Transport which should add some value to an otherwise run-of-the-mill device.

The Nokia Lumia 510 is priced to take on cheaper Android smartphones and similarly priced devices running Bada OS which dominate the market at the $200 price point. The Finnish company plans to limit the availability of the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango-based device to Asia (including China and India) and South America where it will be available starting in November.

Microsoft may have changed the name of the interface formerly known as Metro to Modern Interface, but that does little, if anything, to stop consumers and software publisher from continuing to use the original moniker. As such, one of the apps that brings the look of Windows 8 to older versions bears the name WinMetro.

Regardless of the technical appropriateness of the name, WinMetro is a handy utility for anyone impressed with the aesthetics of Windows 8 but who is not looking to make the jump from the current operating system. While the tool is not a replacement for the Start menu in the strictest sense of the word -- it is not possible to remap the Windows key to bring it into view for instance --- the application is a neat overlay that brings you the look and feel of Windows 8 at no cost.

There are two components to WinMetro, the Start Screen and a side bar. The Start screen can be used to access your most frequently-used programs, but it is also home to a series of widgets. These are slightly limited, but the ability to view the weather forecast, news headlines and slideshows is an almost identical replica of what is to be found in Windows 8.

There are numerous aspects of the Windows 8 interface that are missing, but everything that is here looks great. The controls for volume look great but, just as in Windows 8, they are slightly fiddly to access. In many respects the look of WinMetro is cleaner and easier to read than Windows 8, and you might well find that it sates your interface upgrade needs until you decide whether to make the jump to Windows 8 or not.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the WinMetro review page.

Microsoft obviously wants Surface to be a home run, and to encourage prospective buyers to queue up for the October 26 launch of Surface alongside Windows 8, the Redmond, Wash.-based company is throwing in a nice bonus for the first hundred Surface buyers at its retail stores.

These select customers will get a one-year Xbox Music Pass valued at $99.99; Microsoft's way of ensuring that its Surface tablet will get public attention on launch day and rewarding those waiting to purchase the not-so-cheap Windows RT-powered devices. Because after all, long snaking queues are indicative of a company's ability to drum up excitement for a new product or event, and that is a sign of overall popularity.

Initial Surface excitement has been quite surprising as far as BetaNews reader interest goes, with 26.17 percent of respondents to our recent poll saying they've already pre-ordered Surface, or plan to do so. A further 20.37 percent said they were interested in purchasing Surface within three months of its release.

Will that $99.99 Xbox Music Pass make a difference and kick up excitement a bit more? One thing's for sure, it will make those people who are already interested in Surface get in line earlier.

Somebody believes Google's marketing claim that the $249 Chromebook is "for everyone". Just five hours ago, I reported the device's availability. It's not anymore. A spokesperson confirmed this evening that Google Play sold out of the portable during its first few hours of availability "with more stock coming soon".

Google introduced the new Chromebook, which uses ARM processor rather than x86 processor, on October 18, with pre-orders starting same day. What's different today: Google selling the portable direct from the Play store, alongside Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7. Samsung manufactures the portable, which shape, 11.6-inch screen and overall size resembles Apple's MacBook Air. But Google makes a value push, by selling a computer with similar benefits for one-quarter the price.

Stated differently: You could buy four ARM Chromebooks for the price of one MacBook Air. Looked at another way: A small business could buy direct from Google a smartphone ($349 Galaxy Nexus), tablet ($199 Nexus 7) and laptop ($249 Chromebook) and still have $200 left compared to the price of Apple's entry-level laptop.

Of course, we don't know how many ARM Chromebooks Google stocked. But given the marketing push -- two page ad in Friday's New York Times being example -- the search giant surely prepared some early sales rush. Then there is the price, which I stated in my first-impression review as devastatingly appealing -- all but irresistible. It's almost a no-brainer "yes".

What's most surprising to me, is the interest. No one could accuse BetaNews readers of being Google lovers. Three days ago I asked: "Will you buy $249 Google Chromebook?". Surprisingly, among the 1,474 respondents, only 51.96 answered "No". I expected a much higher number, considering what Chromebook represents. The computer is designed to be always connected, relies almost completely on cloud applications and services and doesn't run Microsoft Office. Different often doesn't sell. But then there's the price, which makes taking a chance, if nothing else, appealing.

Among respondents, 12.96 percent said that they have or will pre-order, with another 19.81 percent planning to purchase within 3 months. Buying polls are never reliable. What people say they want to do often isn't what they do. However, if even a fraction of the one-third of respondents bought (and kept) $249 Chromebook within the first three months, the cloud computer would be huge success. Remember, Google isn't making a volume play, particularly with Windows 8 launching this week, but one of expanding mindshare. Chromebook is at this juncture more about advocating a different digital lifestyle.

BetaNews reader IT advisor is "thinking about buying one". He continues:

I'll keep my desktop machine at home for heavy computer tasks. But the Chromebook looks appealing to take on the road. When traveling, I just need basic features. Mainly email and web browsing. For this, the cheaper ARM-based Chromebook would be better suited than the x86 version, as the ARM one has longer battery life.

At $249, you wouldn't need to insure it if you went traveling, as it's not the end of the world if you lost or broke it (besides, all your documents would be in the cloud). The keyboard would suit anyone who touch-types, as tablets aren't very suitable for fast 10-finger typing.

Aaron Hurt: "It's absolutely at the right price point. I've been using an Eee PC 901a as a Chromium laptop just for the couch or in the car and it was 'usable' but not very functional. I've already bought into the entire Google Ecosystem and this just makes sense. It should be a fantastic complimentary system to my Nexus 7 and should be more useful for school work on Google Docs/Drive. I'll be in for one, maybe two if my wife steals mine".

Will you buy $249 Google Chromebook?

Web designer Spike Pecan has "owned and loved for more than a year -- is not designed to do the same things. It is designed for web access, and cloud-based applications and storage. I have NEVER found myself wishing I could design vector-based objects on my Chromebook, any more than I would think my cell phone is deficient because I can't run Photoshop on it. The Chromebook does what it is supposed to do, and it does these things extremely well. Kudos to Google and Samsung for changing the rules of the game. Cloud-based access is the future, like it or not".

And you?

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox

For the last couple of years, there has been an increase in corporate executives being assigned to a post known as Chief Digital Officer. At the Gartner Symposium/iTxpo 2012 on Monday, market research company Gartner predicted that by 2015, as much as 25 percent of all organizations will have a Chief Digital Officer in their executive staff.

The first decade of the 2000's saw a dramatic rise in two technology-centric executive offices: the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Depending upon the environment in which they work, these executives do different things. Generally speaking, however, a CIO is the head honcho of information systems and IT, and a CTO is an individual chosen to bring broader technological vision, direction and management to a company or government, sometimes outside of the realm of what could be considered IT.

The CDO is an executive who is essentially in charge of tech evolution. Consulting firm Russell Reynolds Associates describes the CDO as an individual who helps a company drive growth by converting traditional "analog" businesses to digital ones, and by overseeing operations in the rapidly-changing digital sectors like mobile applications, social media and related applications, virtual goods, as well as "wild" web-based information management and marketing.

"The Chief Digital Officer will prove to be the most exciting strategic role in the decade ahead, and IT leaders have the opportunity to be the leaders who will define it," David Willis, vice president and analyst at Gartner said in a statement on Monday. "The Chief Digital Officer plays in the place where the enterprise meets the customer, where the revenue is generated and the mission accomplished. They’re in charge of the digital business strategy. That’s a long way from running back office IT, and it’s full of opportunity."

Willis says the position of CDO is not defined by infrastructure or hardware like the CIO and CTO roles, but instead it is defined by shifts and productivity and innovation.

Powerful technology is cheap and ubiquitous, and a problem can't be solved by hurling the best and newest hardware at it, or by jumping on the latest IT buzzword-tech instead of providing actual innovation. There has to be someone in a company who can figure out the most clever ways to utilize this cheap and ubiquitous technology, and that's who the CDO will be.

Photo: Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock

Almost a week ago Sprint announced that it will carry the LG Optimus G for $199 starting in November, and ahead of its release a developer already posted a method to gain elevated rights (also known as "root" among modders) for the quad-core powerhouse coming Sprint's way.

According to the developer rooting the Optimus G for Sprint is done in the same way as for the South Korean version, and only requires to install the LG Android drivers and download the necessary file that performs the process itself. Gaining elevated rights is fairly simple judging by the involved steps that need to be performed, but using this method users will receive a number of prompts in Vietnamese that have to be accepted in order for the process to complete.

Basically all it takes is a little patience and two reboots to open the Qualcomm-powered LG flagship to a larger number of Google Play Store apps, but it is also the first step towards opening the device for developers to release custom Android distributions.

Despite making huge sums of money in the United Kingdom, many of the major tech companies based there pay surprisingly little tax. Exactly how little has only just started to come to light, thanks to investigations by several national newspapers.

The latest company to be exposed for paying a pittance in UK tax is eBay which, according to the Sunday Times newspaper, paid just £1.2m in 2010, despite its UK subsidiaries generating sales of close to £800m, and making an estimated profit of £181m.

Facebook paid just £238,000 in UK tax last year on sales of £20.4m, according to the Evening Standard newspaper. Although independent analysts believe the social network’s actual turnover was closer to £175m.

According to The Telegraph, Google paid just £6m on earnings of £395m in 2011, and between 2004 and 2010, paid a total of just £8m in UK corporation tax. Amazon was revealed by the Guardian newspaper to have paid no corporation tax at all over the past three years, despite generating sales of more than £7.6bn.

The companies all manage to avoid paying tax by using legal loopholes. Facebook and Google divert their sales through Ireland (a method called the Double Irish), which has a lower corporation tax than the United Kingdom, while eBay and Amazon divert sales through Luxembourg. Apple apparently also uses both Ireland and Luxembourg to reduce its tax liabilities.

The issue is hardly unique to the United Kingdom. In the United States the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations recently criticized Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard for using places such as the Cayman Islands to avoid paying a fortune in taxes. And an article in the New York Times estimates that Apple’s federal tax bill would have been $2.4 billion higher last year without the use of tax avoidance schemes.

Do these tactics, or more specifically the figures involved, surprise and/or anger you? The companies are doing nothing legally wrong, but what about morally? Please leave your comments below.

Great ideas usually take time to germinate into a model that is truly feasible. People are notoriously slow in grasping new paradigms, preferring to flirt with a comfortable present that is more often than not, entirely worthy and sufficient. This consumer mindset is an issue that faces aspiring and radical technology entrepreneurs, it is not sufficient to simply have the chops to think and execute the new ideas, but the right timing is nearly as crucial. To possess the patience and sense to release a radical idea into the wild only when the market is ripe is a factor that can determine make or break.

People discovery is a concept that has floated around the mobile app industry for quite some time. Apps like Badoo, which was founded in 2006 by a Russian entrepreneur and currently has a user base upwards of 150 million, operates around a fundamentally location-based model, by allowing users to see and interact with like-minded people around their specific region. Scores of other location-based apps, such as Banjo and Sonar, have managed to find relative success in their respective niches as location tag aggregators over various social networks and as friend-finding systems.

Solving Problems People Don't Have

However, none of these apps have managed to crack into the notion of "passive people discovery" -- a concept that is far more daring and out of sync with a current person’s typical lifestyle. Highlight, an iPhone-exclusive application is perhaps the only app that has pursued this vision right from its inception without pivoting into more conservative and "present-day friendly" fields. Highlight co-founder and CEO Paul Davison’s determined and unwavering pursuit of this utopia, where "you’ll walk into a room and know everyone’s name" is admirable, however his app and his team have paid the price for ignoring the warning signs. Highlight boasts a mere 5,000 daily users according to AppData, which is down from approximately 9,000 back in May.

The sad truth is that nobody actually goes out with the expectation or intention of meeting and discovering new people along the way. For instance, if I was riding the subway to work, the idea that I would happen to stumble across my new best friend during transit is something of an outlandish view, and a wildly optimistic one too. Many people have taken this fact along with Highlight’s declining influence as reason to dismiss "passive people discovery" as a niche concept far too obscure to ever succeed. The short-sightedness of a claim like this, however, is embarrassing.

For example, Kirill Sheynkman of RTP Ventures says "a lot of these apps come from a problem that 99 percent of people don’t have". Sure it’s a problem that almost nobody has, but is the app really trying to solve a problem? Is it a requirement that all apps be born out of a problem that needs to be solved? Highlight was never designed to be the kind of app that would allow people to scour the streets of downtown in order to find interesting people to meet up with. When you look at it from this perspective then Sheynkman is certainly correct, an inability to find cool and interesting people within a certain distance radius isn't exactly a societal problem that people scream to be fixed. But if we’re kicking back with a coffee and find a great person to talk to in the same café, then we’d certainly be glad that the app’s there.

Evidently, Highlight has its merits and theoretically speaking, Paul Davison’s vision for the app and the future of social encounters is appealing and enticing -- it just needs a few more things to fall into place for it to be viable. Something as radical as Highlight isn’t the type of app to go viral and bask in exponential adoption rates, at least not now. The consumer is a hypocritical entity -- far too fickle to take for granted but also far too invested in current trains of thought and behavior to embrace unconventional breakthroughs.

Someone To Watch Over Me

Privacy is the tallest hurdle that Highlight has to jump over, and it’s a remarkably tall one too. The main criticisms of Highlight from opponents of the app have been simply the fact that it’s "creepy", as if it’s just inherently disturbing for like-minded people to realize that you exist within close proximity. For the sake of the app it would be preferable if the main criticisms were "it kills my battery" or "it’s intensely laggy" because those faults can be ironed out through engineering. You can’t engineer social sentiments, at least not in the sense that would exist in Davison’s nature -- through streamlining code.

The extent to which the consumer backlashes at the mere thought of being watched without explicit knowledge can be summarized adequately by looking back at the Carrier IQ scandal. Carriers and phone manufacturers installed the Carrier IQ software onto many phones, tracking the cellphone’s user activity. The ultimate aim of this tracking was simply for the purposes of troubleshooting and diagnosis; however, this reassurance offered no succour for an already enraged and compromised consumer collective. The scandal raised an important discovery of particular pertinence to companies meddling with user data -- consumers are intimidated by the idea of being watched, even if it’s for their ultimate benefit. This issue runs contrary to the trajectory of Highlight, which necessitates analyzing user data and usage patterns in order to deliver results of greater interest and relevance.

So how does Highlight overcome such a prohibitive consumer mindset? Well, it can’t because the consumer simply isn’t ready and now simply isn’t the time. Warming up to the idea of "passive people discovery" will require people to warm up to the idea of having publicly accessible information follow them around like a cloud above their heads. And for many and most users, this level of transparency exceeds the boundary with which they are comfortable.

Facebook is the best example of great timing. Right from its inception it has gradually worked towards greater transparency. User backlash has been evident, but its impact on Facebook’s growth has been negligible. CEO Mark Zuckerberg got people accustomed to the idea of sharing initially with the "what’s on your mind" status prompt, and then he let our friends see what things we "became fans" of. Then he changed "become a fan" to "like" because nobody becomes a fan of things in the real world, we simply like them -- subtly breaking down the wall between our real world and our regulated privacy clad online persona. By making the notion of sharing much more palatable, the company then enabled location-based sharing and more recently, seamless and frictionless sharing through its Open Graph API.

Siri Shows How Future-Tech Fails

Timing is a factor that can explain why certain technologies which were deemed potentially industry-shifting haven’t found legitimate practical use. Siri on the iPhone demonstrates this; it was poised to be a game changer when released with the iPhone 4S. In the advertisements, Siri seems like a game changer. To the user, it is just an entertaining gimmick.

You could argue that it’s because Siri doesn't do anything as well as it should -- an Android apologist certainly would -- but the truth is, it does. Perhaps not to the extent that the ads portray it, but it certainly suffices in providing quick answers to everyday questions that would normally require us to jump through hoops to find. Sure it’s gimmicky, but it’s more than that. Samsung, through its S Voice emulates Siri, clearly seeing the potential in the idea of the "virtual assistant".

The truth as to why Siri has been deemed by many as one of the most overrated and impractical innovations in the mobile industry is because talking to your phone is just weird. Such behavior hasn't yet entirely transcended the realm of science fiction, or the geek universe. It’s too radical to be normal. Nobody wants to get caught on the train talking to their know-it-all friend Siri.

If Apple had allowed Siri queries through text as opposed to simply speech, its practicality and use would probably be significantly higher. Text entry is a much more subtle form of communication, and users need to be eased into the idea of talking to their phones, instead of having the concept dumped on them.

Google Glass is another example, an idea that will change the world one day but is far too futuristic to digest now. Once people get acquainted to the idea of technology merging seamlessly with the way we live, then people will discover the appeal of Google Glass.

Being a forward-thinking technology entrepreneur is both a blessing and a curse. The ability to think, imagine and develop in anticipation of a distant future is an immeasurable gift, but many would be too smart to realize that society will be slower to catch up and much less open to embracing new ideas. This is Davison’s dilemma; he’s developed for a future that the market simply isn't ready for yet. People aren't prepared to open up to a level of transparency that is necessary for an app like Highlight, but we’re getting there. When that time comes, Highlight will be in an environment where it can gain the pervasiveness in order for it to succeed.

Photo Credit:  Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock

Jeremy Liu is a high school student who first became obsessed with technology in the 8th grade when his father bought him an iPod touch after months of begging. At a time when iPhones and the iPod Touch were spectacularly rare, the device managed to fascinate both himself and his friends. Liu now shuns the mainstream and roots for underdogs, owning a Windows Phone, Blackberry PlayBook and Sony Walkman X. Since then technology has grown from a passion to an obsession and he now directs his energies towards writing. You can find him on Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr.

Realtime automobile traffic data service Inrix on Monday released a major update to its freemium Inrix traffic app for Android. Now in its second year on the Android platform, Inrix has improved aspects both premium and free within the application.

Inrix Traffic utilizes live traffic data and scheduled event data to calculate the fastest routes immediately at the time of travel, or at some point in the future rather than strictly using distance calculations like Google Maps. Inrix incorporates school traffic, event traffic, and live traffic to generate trip lengths and live ETAs. This update adds recommended departure and travel times, personalized traffic alerts, and the ability to send out automatically-generated ETA texts and emails to contacts.

The premium version of the app now has the very timely gas price feature, which shows drivers where the cheapest nearby gas stations are from a list of 100,000 stations across the U.S. This type of application has become very popular in recent years, and a search for "Cheap Gas" on Google Play yields some impressive results: GasBuddy and YP Local Search with Gas Prices, each with over 50 million installs, Waze Social GPS and Gas with 10 million, and GasGuru with as many as 50 thousand installs.

The premium version of INRIX Traffic is a one-time fee of $24.99 for a lifetime license.

Three weeks have passed since the Android Open Kang Project team released a new build, and after a long wait AOKP Jelly Bean Build 5 is now available, bringing along the latest version of Android with it. Also released is a new app named Kangerator for following and downloading new AOKP releases.

The latest build is based on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, build number JZO54K and apart from introducing support for the AT&T variants of the Samsung Galaxy S III (d2att) and Galaxy Note (quincyatt) and removing support for the HTC One XL/X (evita), it also brings a number of features from the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich builds, such as NavBar widgets.

So what does AOKP Jelly Bean Build 5 bring that's new to the table? Apart from the previously mentioned, here is the list of enhancements:

• alternate default app chooser
• custom NavBar for tablets
• highly customizable Lockscreen Ring targets with a new ROMControl editor
• menu UI Overflow toggle
• option to disable vibration when expanding notifications
• RAM Bar in Recents panel
• Timeout and instant lock options in Slide lock
• VPN Traffic quota in "human readable format"

For users not coming from the previous build, a Lockscreen targets reset might be required.

The Android Open Kang Project team also announced that it is working with the CyanogenMod team to submit their features and improvements into the CM source.

The newly introduced app, Kangerator, allows users to check AOKP changelogs, choose between AndroTransfer and goo.im for download source and internal file downloader for the former. There is also an auto-update feature that can schedule checks for new builds.

Microsoft's voice, video, and text chatting service Skype has revealed that the new Windows 8 version of Skype will be available on Windows 8 day one, October 26. The entire application has been crafted to follow the Windows 8 design ethic, with big touchable icons, a new dialer screen, a live tile on the homescreen that shows incoming messages and missed calls, and integration with the Windows 8 People app.

Prior to Skype's announcement today, there were plenty of hints that Skype would be getting a major Windows 8 upgrade, with mentions of "dual microphones tuned for Skype" and "hands-free Skype video chat" on Surface hardware pages, among others.

According to Skype, new Windows 8 machines will ship with Skype already installed, and Windows RT devices will have to download the new application from Microsoft Store or Skype's Windows 8 app page. The video embedded below also mentions that in Windows 8, Skype is always on, a key feature in the mobile aspect of Windows 8 and Windows RT devices.

Here at BetaNews, we expected that Motorola Mobility would embody a new attitude about Android updates following Google's acquisition -- fast upgrades for Android smartphones and more developer-friendly approach, similar to the Nexus lineup. That hasn't come to pass. A number of developers are rising with the "Support My Moto" campaign, designed to grab the Google subsidiary's attention and eventually make the company deliver on its promises.

"Support My Moto" campaign claims Motorola promised Android updates, but never delivered. Among the devices: Droid X2, Atrix 4G, Photon 4G, XT882 and MT8720 that are currently left running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Not too long ago, Motorola promised a $100 credit for smartphones that will not receive the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update, and according to the XDA Developers user that started the campaign the company is still figuring out how the program will be implemented for non-Verizon users. But according to the supporters of the campaign, these are not the only problems that they are trying to get resolved.

Motorola currently offers devices with locked bootloaders, and for those that wish to have the restriction removed, it released the Droid Razr HD Developer Edition and added the Razr HD and Razr i to the "Bootloader Unlock" program that only supports a total of six devices at the moment. "Support My Moto" wants Motorola to add more to the program and to release the source code, so that the developer community can create custom Android distributions and generally give owners the ability to mod their smartphones, even though that involves losing the warranty.

For customers that purchased Motorola smartphones that were removed from the list of devices to receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or 4.1 Jelly Bean, "Support My Moto" encourages them to take the matter to the Better Business Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, The Consumerist and has also started a number of petitions such as the Bootloader Unlock Petition, Software Update Petition, Support My Moto Petition and Latin American and Europe Software Update Petition.

If you want to cut the size of your JPEG images then reducing their image quality setting (usually accessible in the Save dialog or your program settings) will usually deliver spectacular results, but it’s not the only option.

Just about every JPEG also contains additional information, beyond the core image data itself, which further increases its size. And so if you’re in a situation where every byte counts, as with JPEG web graphics, say, then it may be worth using jStrip to remove these unwanted extras for you.

The program can optionally delete comments, for instance, EXIF data, colour profiles, thumbnails and more. As well as carrying out more general cleanup tasks, for instance removing extra bytes at the beginning and end of the file, spaces between data blocks, and assorted other extras you most probably don’t need.

While this sounds impressive, it’s important to keep in mind that, with most images, eliminating every one of these makes hardly any difference at all (you might save 100 bytes, if you’re lucky).

There are occasional exceptions, though. We found a button on a website which jStrip managed to cut from 11,372 to 749 bytes, for instance, a 93.4-percent compression rate (and with no change in image quality).

And so, if you have several small JPEG graphics on a website, for instance, then it’s probably a good idea to at least check them with jStrip, just to see what the program can do for you.

To get started, launch the program, click File > Options > JPEG, and make sure it’s not deleting anything you care about. If you want to keep your EXIF tags, for instance, clear the “Remove EXIF data” checkbox.

Next, create a folder somewhere and copy your JPEGs to it. (JStrip overwrites your images with stripped versions, so you should always work with copies.)

Choose that folder within JStrip (close and restart the program if it’s not visible), click the Start button, and – that’s it. As there’s no reencoding involved here, no complex analysis of the image itself, jStrip is super-fast, reducing even hundreds of files in just a few seconds.

As we’ve mentioned, the results are generally nothing special. Our typical saving was a mere 50 bytes. Sometimes it can compact files by considerably more, though, and so it makes sense to let jStrip take a look at your web graphics, just to make sure they are the smallest possible size.

Photo Credit: Laborant/Shutterstock

When Microsoft released the Office 2013 gold code, the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation also announced that starting October 19 customers that purchase the currently available version of its office productivity suite will receive a "free upon availability" copy of the new version, and Microsoft has held up its end of the bargain.

What does it entail? It's a fairly straightforward process, as after purchasing and activating a qualifying Office 2010 version the customer can sign up for an email reminder to get notified of the time to redeem the offer and, after Microsoft makes Office 2013 available, the latest version will be ready for download. For a number of Office 2010 variants, the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation has also announced that customers will be able to get a three-month trial of Office 365 bundled together with the corresponding free version of Office 2013.

The eligible Office 2010 versions are: Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional, University, Mac Home & Student, Mac Home & Business. The Office 365 offer applies for the first three listed variants.

For those that want to take Redmond up on its offer there are operating system limitations to be considered beforehand, as Office 2013 can only run on Windows 7 or higher, and for Macs it works on versions newer than (and including) OS X 10.5.8.

This week, Google will demonstrate real commitment to Chromebook, by bringing to market a lower-cost model with refined Chrome OS and package primed for mass-market buyers. Until retailers started taking preorders on October 18, the current generation Chromebook, Samsung Series 5 550, sold for $449 and its predecessor for $329. The newest model's $249 price is devastatingly appealing -- all but irresistible. It's almost a no-brainer "yes", particularly for most anyone wanting Apple MacBook Air's svelte size and empowering ergonomics without the hefty price tag.

But there's more here tempting than selling price. Chrome OS has reached near mass-market usability, supported by cloud apps and services that will be good enough for most people. Google even provides Chrome Remote Desktop (beta) for accessing other computers. That's right, you can connect to Macs or Windows PCs, run applications and get to data. While PC marketers and geeks focus on faster and bigger, real world performance is more measure of what you need than what they offer. The new Chromebook needs to pass the "good enough" test, and does so in many ways.

But what's good enough for some isn't everyone, and that's particularly true here in part because of new architecture. Earlier models pack x86 processors, while the new one has ARM, like the chip architecture used for most smartphones or tablets. Here: 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos 5250 dual-core processor. Netflix isn't available, for example, and there is trouble streaming Amazon video at any reasonable quality. Overall performance doesn't match the Series 5 550 and certainly not many current laptops. But for many uses, the new Chromebook is good enough and simply remarkable for the price. It isn't meant to be the computer that does everything, just can-do what lots of people need most.

One question this post seeks to answer: Is the device "for everyone", as Google marketing claims.

Before continuing, I want to discuss organization of this first-impressions review. There are three main sections: Hardware and performance; software and user experience; buying profiles. I expect techies will be more interested reading the lead section first, while other people might want to jump to one of the others right away. Please keep in mind that while I have used a Chromebook as my only PC since late May, I have only spent about three days with the new model. That's why this review is a first-impression.

One Strong ARM

Google introduced the Chromebook concept in December 2010, shipping 60,000 Cr-48 test models. In June 2011, Acer and Samsung released first-generation models with 11.6-inch glossy and 12.1-inch matte displays, respectively. For two months that summer, I used the Samsung model, the Series 5, as my primary PC, but later gave up in part because of performance. In May 2012, Samsung launched the second-generation Chromebook, which I used as my only PC since. The newer, lower-cost model marks a stunning evolution, by adding ARM to x86 support.

New architecture. ARM brings advantages but makes trade-offs. For example, like smartphones or tablets, the $249 Chromebook is fanless and runs super cool. Lower-power consumption improves battery life at lower clock speed but also sacrifices performance. Samsung should have included 4GB memory, particularly considering the 2GB there is slower 800MHz, to liven responsiveness. I'll explain more why, mainly because of Flash, in section "Meet and Greet".

ARM also means there's more Samsung in the new model than ever before, which includes the microprocessor. That makes the new Chromebook a lot closer to an end-to-end product that Apple might make. There the similarities to MacBook Air are striking, and the portables could easily be confused at a glance. I'm surprised Apple fanboys aren't yelling "Copycat!" already.

Keyboard and Trackpad. Compared to MacBook Air, the new Chromebook is a helluva bargain, some 750 bucks less. The costlier computer is metal vs plastic for the other. Screen resolution is similar, but MBA display is considerably brighter, around 400-nit vs 200-nit, which isn't bright enough for my tastes. The 550 is 300-nit. Otherwise, the $249 Chromebook display is remarkably sharp, offering vivid colors, which is surprising for matte. I prefer matte to glossy, because the latter is all but useless in sunlight.

Keyboards are similar, and I can only described Samsung's as exceptional. There's something about the touch of the keys and overall ergonomics that make writing quite joyous. I can only say "wow". The trackpad is excellent, too, actually one of the best I've ever used. Combined with dimensions and screen size, the ergonomics match and in some ways exceed MacBook Air. Think about that, if writing is your priority.

Specs. 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos 5250 dual-core processor (ARM); 11.6-inch matte display, 1366 x 768 resolution, 200-nit brightness; 2GB RAM; 16GB SSD; SD-card slot; Webcam; USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports (one each); WiFi A/N; Bluetooth 3.0 compatible (dongle required); HDMI port; Chrome OS 23. Weighs 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg) and is 0.8 inches thick.

By comparison, the Samsung Series 5 550 is 3.3 lbs (1.48 kg), while MacBook Air weighs even less -- 2.38 pounds (1.08 kg). The 550 also comes with older Chrome OS 21 (more on that in section "Meet and Greet").

I have only done preliminary battery-life testing, but early assessment is 6 hours or more, depending on use. Google and Samsung state 6.5 hours.

Benchmarks. Over at Google+, Harry Evangelou asked if I could run the Peacekeeper benchmark. I don't think much of benchmarks, but a lot of you do, so I acquiesced. The $249 Chromebook delivered 971 and the 550 model 1848. However, that was logged in, with extensions running. Using Guest mode, they benchmarked 1202 and 1975, respectively, on battery. The ARM model nudged up to 1212 when plugged in to electrical.

Performance. Yesterday, over at ZDNet, James Kendrick posted a comparison review between the ARM and second-gen X86 Chromebooks. He writes: "It's barely noticeable but the new Chromebook with the ARM processor seems just a step slower". I don't agree. The $249 model is noticeably slower than the one costing $200 more. The benchmarks bear this out, too. The newer starts up a tad faster, about 9 seconds, and near-instantly from sleep.

Speed is subjective. What is too fast or too slow? Someone moving from the Cr-48 will see marked improvement, while the Series 5 user gets something better, just not great. By comparison, 550 owners may be dissatisfied. Mileage on other computers will vary. My daughter has the 13-inch aluminum MacBook purchased in October 2008. It's a painful performer, and the ARM Chromebook is speedy, by comparison.

The question to ask: Is it fast enough? I can't answer for you. For me, the ergonomics so appeal that I'm willing to give the 11.6-inch Chromebook a good long test. Chrome OS does a surprisingly good job managing tasks and tabs, something I'll further discuss in the next section. As such, the operating system on Samsung ARM delivers overall smoother performance than many Windows PCs running x86 processors, subjectively.

In terms of price-performance, this computer is plenty fast enough for $249. What? You expect a Porsche for Datsun pricing? Most people should be satisfied for the price. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Samsung sees a higher return rate for people finding the computer to be too slow. I say: Give it a chance, people. I am. You might be surprised in the end.

Wireless. Like its predecessor, the new Chromebook is Bluetooth 3.0 compatible, meaning if you provide the dongle. WiFi covers all the letters users should care about -- a,b,g,n -- but I observed strange behavior. Amazon won't play videos at acceptable quality (see section "Meet and Greet" for more) and speedtest.net shows lower-than-expected wireless throughput -- 3Mbps to 8Mbps, with one odd one topping 18Mbps, yesterday. Several tests today topped 20Mbps. On watching the speedtest speedometer push past 20Mbps but then record 8Mbps, I now believe the test doesn't run right, with Flash running on ARM being the problem.

Meet and Great

Chrome OS is a work in progress that evolves faster than the hardware, and on the ARM Chromebook changes are like "wow".

Chrome OS 23. The user experience is immediately surprising, because the OS is so polished, especially compared to the version shipping on second-generation Chromebooks. My Samsung Series 5 500 has Chrome OS 21.0.1180.92, stable-channel "lumpy". The newer one is 23.0.1271.39, stable channel "daisy". Settings on both portables is "stable" channel. Will Google skip over v22, and why is 23 stable and not beta? These are the mysteries of Chrome OS development that mark a dramatic surge forward in consumer appeal.

In April, with Chrome OS 19, Google introduced new program manager "Aura", which is quite evolved four numeral versions later. There is spit and polish everywhere, and the UI takes on more elements from Android, subtleties like swapping the settings wrench icon in the upper right-hand corner to three vertical lines. Aura's earlier rough appearance is now smooth, and little things, like the Apps List staying where last used, remove annoyances and increase usability. Google introduced the feature in August.

'Get Started'. Out-of-box first impression means everything, and it's more important for Chromebook than many other portables, since the laptop is meant to be used nearly always connected and changes some computing fundamentals, like accessing all apps in the browser and storing content in the cloud. For Chrome browser users, the different usability model shouldn't be so different. Others will need some education, and Google provides it.

The new Chromebook starts into a meet-and-greet screen -- the new "Get Started" app, which provides information in 16 areas, such as creating documents, making video or voice calls, printing, using web apps and working offline. Users can even "schedule a call with a Chromebook Guide to get a personalized tour of your new Chromebook". Everything about the out-of-box experience fits with the "for everyone" marketing.

Setting up Chromebook is as easy as logging into your Google account. Users of previous models will find all their settings immediately synced and migrated. So the apps and desktop used on one follow you to another. Setup is that simple and maintenance about equally. Google dispatches new versions, with new features about every two months and most content automatically saves to the cloud. Easy is the best way to describe any Chromebook, from setup to ongoing management to daily use. If you can navigate a browser, you can use Chrome OS and content and settings follow you from device to device.

Applications. Google provides lots of utility via Docs, Drive, G+, Music, Talk, Voice and YouTube, among many other services. Some products, like Docs and Gmail, are available offline. Chrome Web Store offers access to plenty more apps, and you will be surprised at the selection. That experience isn't much changed from what I laid out three weeks ago about the Series 5 550 ("Chromebook changed my life").

Make no mistake, there are plenty of good apps for getting lots done, and they often load faster than their desktop counterparts. With desktop software, your PC bears the burden of loading lots of bloated code locally. With web apps, the heavy lifting is done on the server. This is important, and perhaps what Kendrick meant: Apps performance is about the same, or just slightly slower than the 550. But once a bunch of tabs are open, or even a couple with Flash, the $249 Chromebook loses something. It's not as snappy -- web pages take a little longer to load. Most people should be satisfied enough, though. It's not bad by any means.

Some of that sluggishness has to do with tab switching. On the Series 5 550, the Intel procesor and 4GB of memory deliver enough. Even with 20 tabs open, operations are smooth. On the first-generation ARM model, like I observed on the second-gen x86, Chrome OS recovers RAM (rather than maintaining large swap file) by prioritizing tabs. So even with a half-dozen open, I see this behavior, such that when going to an idled tab, Chrome OS refreshes the page. For some services, like WordPress, content returns. For others, such as Google+, the typed content flushes away. The process also disengages the group chat service BetaNews uses.

Hulu, Netflix and YouTube. Who doesn't watch video on the web these days? If ARM Chromebook is "for everyone", then it must do video well. Hulu experience is quite good and a little better than YouTube. Full-screen 720p video is smooth but not silky. There are no apparent dropped frames, but they're there. Playback doesn't so much stutter but stagger.

Amazon Instant Video is a real shocker, and the service appears to misidentify connection speed. When logged in or using Guest mode, Amazon delivers low-quality video streaming, asserting connection is only 384Kbps. That makes the video service all but useless.

Netflix is a total non-starter. It's not available. Period. On Google+. Magnus Danielsson rightly explains why: "The Netflix App uses Native Client, which is tied to x86. This won't work until they finish the LLVM based Portable Native Client". So if the new Chromebook really is "for everyone" then Netflix should be available. If you want the video streaming service, the computer isn't for you.

Flash. There are reasons why Adobe has largely given up Flash on ARM. On the $249 Chromebook performance is wonky, depending on what Flash, where. Video works, and apps do much better. Since many Chrome apps are Flash based, the whole cloud OS paradigm would fail without it. Flash apps are no real problem. I often use iPiccy Photo Editor to process images, for example. The Flash-based service runs just fine. Startup is a tad slower than the 550 Chromebook but still faster than launching most software apps on a PC.

Flash ads are another matter, and they are deadly. If I open more than a few blogs that run Flash ads, trouble starts. These sites load painfully slow -- and disappointingly BetaNews is among them. I saw this same problem on the first-generation Samsung Chromebook -- the one with only 2GB of memory. Its ARM successor should have 4GB, like the Series 5 550 -- Flash would be better. So Adobe's tech is mixed benefit/trouble. With the exception of games, don't sweat Flash apps. You want them, you got them. But beware Flash ads, if not already using some kind of blocking extension.

For Whom?

Google's marketing tagline for the new Chromebook is "for everyone". That raises the question: "Is it?" Absolutely not. Until testing the $249er, I used the 550 as my only computer for five months. I'm a fan and would love to recommend the new portable "for everyone", but can't, which is too bad. Chrome OS delivers a surprisingly good computing experience, and Google primped this model for the masses. There is much to like about the $249 Chromebook, and at least for this week I will use it as my only computer, While I can't say $249 Chromebook is "for everyone", it is right for most anyone, and that could be you. Perhaps me, too.

So, then, who is this computer for?

• Anyone living the Google lifestyle. The new Chromebook will sync with all the stuff they've got, while freeing them up from using Macs or Windows PCs.
• Home users looking for an affordable new computer. Like MacBook Air, this is a couch or carry-anywhere laptop. Actually, the new Chromebook is remarkably comfortable in the lap. I wrote some of this review from the love seat, while music videos played on the TV (Hey, it is Sunday).
• Anyone wanting a poor man's MacBook Air. The Chromebook sells for $750 less than the Apple laptop but is physically about the same svelte size, also packs 11.6-inch display and delivers a terrific keyboard. For the price of one MBA, you can buy four new Chromebooks. Think about it.
• Writers. The keyboard is nothing short of fantastic. I can't exactly describe how much better is my typing speed on the $249 Chromebook, compared to most every other laptop to feel my fingertips.
• Students, or perhaps parents buying for them. The new Chromebook is easily carried and cheaply replaced if lost or stolen, and recovering data is as easy as logging into a Google account.
• Educators. The $249 Chromebook offers the price advantage of tablets or netbooks with better performance, less maintenance hassle (and presumably lower ongoing management cost) and a great keyboard. Students can log into any Chromebook as guest or using Google ID. Their settings go with them, so they are not bound to a single portable.
• Small businesses. The advantages are similar to education: Buying price, management, productivity apps (used in the browser), total cost of ownership. Imagine outfitting an entire office of 10 for $2,490, including most of the needed apps.

I can't yet say that the 11.6-inch Chromebook is good enough for me. But I want it to be. I'm demanding; if good enough for me, it's probably good enough for you.

Photo Credits: Joe Wilcox

In the late 90's and early 2000's, American music video channel VH1 aired a program called Pop-Up Video, which took existing music videos and augmented them with additional information about the performers, the videos, the music, and so forth. This information "popped" on screen at relevant times with an audible bubble popping noise.

The show turned out to be so popular that it ran for six years, and came back to VH1 nine years later. Right now, it's in its second year as a revival.

Mozilla has created a free Web-based application that lets users augment Web video or audio files just like a Pop-Up video episode. Users can drag and drop intertitles, links, google maps, images, and tweets into their base media file, which can come from YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, or any HTML5 video source. The media file and all the augmentations show up in a standard timeline interface which should be familiar to anyone who has used video editing software of any sort. It even includes the ability to skip sections of the video, add loops, or automatically pause in playback.

Currently, Popcorn Maker is beta Version 0.9, and Mozilla partnered with TED to give the world a look at the practical and educational applications of such an interface before it officially launches at the Mozilla Festival on November 9th.

The video we've embedded below shows some examples of how Popcorn Maker can be used to enhance a TED Talk, and if you click here you can remix the video yourself, or start your own project in the editor.

Furthermore, if you'd like to help Mozilla out in its finalization of Popcorn Maker, you can fill out a quality control report for the beta after you're done testing.

As anyone with a heartbeat knows, Apple has a product event coming on Tuesday the 23rd in San Jose at which we’ll certainly see the iPad mini, perhaps a new MacBook Pro and maybe some new iMacs. But whatever is being introduced I think it’s fair to say that the event is still in flux, because Apple late Wednesday canceled another corporate event in Arizona scheduled for the same time, this one at The Phoenician resort.

Apple booked the entire hotel (600+ rooms) for Sunday through Wednesday. Their setup people were on site Tuesday. Late Wednesday, as setup was nearing completion, Apple told the resort that they “wanted all of their managers to be on site in their stores next Tuesday for the upcoming tablet release” -- that they were canceling the function.

There are two bits of information here:

• the iPad Mini is definitely coming, which we all knew
• they are likely to be for sale immediately in Apple stores, which we definitely didn’t know.

Why else would the store managers need to be there?

So why the flux-up? The first we heard about a tablet event it was supposed to happen on the 17th, not the 23rd. My guess is that the ship date for those million or more iPad minis slipped a week and nobody thought to tell the people getting ready for Arizona.

That’s the way things work sometimes in big companies.

Photo Credit: The Phoenician

Yesterday, Google suddenly unveiled, in cooperation with Samsung, the first ARM-powered Chromebook and for remarkably affordable price -- $249. There also is a $329.99 model, that includes 3G. Both are available for pre-order now from major retailers, and Google Play will join stores selling the WiFi-only model next week.

The question: Will you buy? It's the right time to ask, because the price is so appealing. From my initial testing, about 24 hours now, it's hard not to recommend this new Chromebook, if for no other reason than price. But as I'll further explain in my forthcoming first-impressions review, there are plenty of trade-offs for the price -- and benefits, too.

For Whom?

At this early stage of testing, I see two major buying categories for the new Chromebook: Someone who considered an older model (but was put off by the price), or even purchased one, and buyers looking for something else that doesn't require purchasing a new PC. The latter group could include everyone owning one or more aging PCs to those new to computing and put off by it. Easy is the best way to describe any Chromebook, from setup to ongoing management to daily use. If you can navigate a browser, you can use Chrome OS.

Google and Samsung unveiled the second-generation Chromebook, the Series 5 550, in May for $449. A 3G model sells for $549. I wouldn't recommend either 3G Chromebook. The cellular radio simply is not good enough, when Verizon, which provides the service, is largely standardized on much faster 4G LTE.

How do the WiFi models compare?

$249 Chromebook: 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos 5250 dual-core processor (ARM); 11.6-inch matte display, 1366 x 768 resolution, 200-nit brightness; 2GB RAM; 16GB SSD; SD-card slot; Webcam; USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports (one each); WiFi A/N; Bluetooth 3.0 compatible (dongle required); HDMI port; Chrome OS 23. Weighs 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg) and is 0.8 inches thick.

$449 Chromebook: 1.3GHz Intel Celeron 867 dual-core processor (x86); 12.1-inch matte display, 1280 x 800 resolution, 300-nit brightness; 4GB SDRAM; 16GB SSD; Intel HD graphics; webcam; two USB ports; Bluetooth 3.0 compatible (dongle required); DisplayPort; WiFi A/N; Gigabit Ethernet; 4-in-1 media card slot; and Chrome OS 21.

Yesterday, BetaNews reader Bobby Frank asked: "Should I swap out the two Samsung 550's i just bought last week for my teenagers for this new model and save myself a total of $500? Will this new model perform as well? Btw, is an ARM processor better than the one x86 in my kids' current Samsung 550?"

I answered:

Performance is absolutely slower on the $249 Chromebook. The Q is what's good enough for the money. I really like the keyboard and overall ergonomics better of the cheaper model. At the request of someone on Google+, I did quick Peacekeeper benchmarks yesterday from my live account (extensions loaded) rather than guest account: 971 for $249 Chromebook, 1848 for the 550. The newer one has Chrome OS 23, but the older is (supposedly) up to date at Chrome 21.

Bottom line: I find video to disappoint on the cheaper model compared to the older one. If the teens do Netflix and YouTube, this might not be best choice. Otherwise, the higher screen resolution, better keyboard and coolness (no fan needed with ARM) make up for what performance what your teens will loose from the 550.

I will rerun the same benchmarks from guest mode for my first-impressions review. Meanwhile there is another value proposition regarding both Chromebooks. The cheaper one comes with 100GB Google Drive storage -- two years, for free.

Will you buy $249 Google Chromebook?

Ten Things to Think About

Yesterday, I posted some, quick initial reaction that might help you deciding whether or not to buy. I add to them here.

1. The screen is 200-nits, which is a little too dim for my tastes.

2. Display temperature is different from the Series 5 550 Chromebook. Blues are bluer. I like it overall.

3. Colors really pop. This is one of the best matte screens I've seen, surprising in the price class.

4. In brief YouTube tests, full-screen 720p video is smooth but not silky. There are no apparent dropped frames, but they're there. Playback doesn't so much stutter but stagger. This is a step back to Samsung's original Chromebook, which I found to be disappointing.

5. Performance definitely lags compared to the 550. It's not as snappy -- web pages take a little longer to load. Most people might be satisfied enough. It's not bad by any means, just not as good.

6. Google specs say Bluetooth 3.0 compatible, which is true of the 550 -- if you add a dongle.

7. Volume and overall audio fidelity is superior streaming Google Music than the 550. But that could be different Chrome OS version (23 vs 21). The 550 audio has improved over several OS releases.

8. Like MacBook Air, this is a couch or carry-anywhere laptop. Actually, the new Chromebook is remarkably comfortable in the lap, and the keyboard just totally rocks.

9. I'm going to be really disappointed if the performance misses, because I like the form factor, screen resolution, keyboard and Chrome OS version better than the 550.

10. There's much to like for the price. I think $249 is more than reasonable for what you get.

Something Else

Everyone considering the $249 Chromebook should ask what value matters for the performnance? The portable isn't meant to be the computer that does everything, just can-do what lots of people need most.

BetaNews reader danman1111 gets it: "$249 is the right price! I recently commented that a $500 Chromebook couldn't compete with a $500 tablet. But a $250 Chromebook, perfect. This will really be a challenge to MS, since a Chromebook will do most of what a PC will do for half the price. Imagine buying a Chromebook for the price of a windows license. Sure it will take from OSX too, but I imagine that MS will be hurt much more and MS won't have an answer for this".

Well, lots of people -- including trade analysts making big predictions, spoke similarly about netbooks. Where are they today? Looks like they're Chromebooks.

Yesterday on Google+, Shankar Uprety asked: "Just curious how well flash works with this new ARM processor?"

I responded: "That's easy enough answer. Many Chrome apps are Flash based. So the whole paradigm would fail without it. I often use iPiccy Photo Editor to process images. The Flash-based service runs just fine. Startup is a tad slower than the 550 Chromebook but still faster than launching most software apps on a PC".

Flash is good enough, even for modest gaming. But $249 Chromebook is no scream machine (well unless you buy it expecting that and scream in frustration). There is lots of value somewhere, which I'll go through in my first-impressions review.

So there remains the question. Will you buy $249 Chromebook? Please take the poll above and explain why or why not in comments below.

Office 365 happens to be a product I think has a lot of potential. To be fair, it's Microsoft's second try at dedicated cloud-based email. Redmond first went toe to toe with Google Apps back in the days of BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), but they're distant cousins at best. With a few years' separation, Office 365 is Microsoft's answer to the growing threat Google Apps poses to Exchange.

The way I see it, Microsoft's torn internally. They are clearly still developing a wide range of Server and Exchange revisions on the usual upgrade cycle, but then signal a clear concession to the cloud by killing off Windows Small Business Server. While mixed intentions obviously represent the reality that they are innately a traditional software company, they realize that business is moving to the cloud whether they hold the leash or not.

If the death of SBS is any indication, it's that small businesses are slowly being bumped into the cloud. And just like the Coke vs Pepsi debate, businesses choose between two well-qualified giants. Continue in Microsoft-land with Office 365, or jump ship to the maturing email newcomer that is Google Apps? It's a tough question to answer, and one that small businesses are approaching my tech company FireLogic with on a near weekly basis.

I've been down this editorial road before. A few months back I wrote why I believe Google Apps is winning over users. But my previous opinion piece focused on the larger picture of suite vs suite. Lots of businesses look to these cloud giants solely for email. So I decided to pit the two in a cage match on this very topic, leaving the complimentary fluff aside so businesses can form their own reasonable opinions.

Both Office 365's Outlook web client and Google Apps' Gmail app have various things to offer. One size doesn't fit all, and I'm sure that businesses may find comfort in the good parts of each offering. I'm not here to say which suite a company should ultimately go with. But from a purely feature and performance perspective on email clients alone, a few judgments can definitely be made from my own first hand experience.

If Outlook had a Cloud Baby, Office 365 would be It

This fact may be welcome news or prove to be a burden, depending on how addicted connected you are to Outlook. I've spoken with numerous business owners who say that if they can't have Outlook, they'd rather not use email. It's usually that they just haven't seen the capabilities of Google Apps' Gmail, but also realistically because it's the only thing they've used for years. Either way, Microsoft has crafted the closest clone to what desktop Outlook looks like -- without the need for desktop software, of course.

While some aspects of Office 365's online email client are nuanced and clever, my biggest gripe sits with just how much of traditional Outlook got baked into Office 365. One of the worst aspects of Office 365 email is that in comparison to how zippy I find Gmail, O365 is just awkwardly slow in this regard. In preparation for this article I compared two (for lack of a better term) obese email inboxes, each powered by the two distinct email providers.

The Google Apps' Gmail account showed consistent performance when both changing folders (labels for native Gmail speak), responding to messages and working with different aspects of the account in general. I tried to give Office 365 the best benefit of the doubt that I could and used multiple different browsers including IE 9, Chrome (stable) and Firefox 16. It was smoothest on Chrome, but still slow in many aspects, especially just sifting through the primary inbox area. Even after being fully loaded, it had a tough time just scrolling through over 2,400 emails I gathered in the inbox. Gmail was as fluid with a full inbox as with an empty one.

Performance aside, visually Microsoft just can't bear to cut ties with Outlook it seems (good or bad is your call.) While I think Outlook is a decent desktop client (not great), when it comes to email, the cloud begs for a re-imagination of the UI. It's where Gmail offers a breath of fresh air by forgoing what we think of as a classic email interface. For example, one irk that sticks out is how Office 365 forces viewing of every new email message into a new popup window. Sure, I could revert to using the traditional preview pane, but I should have a choice I think. Gmail allows for native inline message viewing or via horizontal/vertical preview pane, for the record.

It's not all a mess in Office 365 Outlook, however. I give it some high marks in the way menus and settings areas are organized. Compared to Gmail, which tends to feel crammed like a sandwich in some option screens, Office 365 divides settings logically by tasks and affords some cleanliness in overall organization and layout. And for those who are looking for a brisk cloud replacement to desktop Outlook with a small learning curve, Office 365 delivers.

Outlook diehards will find themselves right at home. But seeing as Google Apps allows for seamless syncing with desktop Outlook if needed, it's hard to say that I prefer a half-baked reincarnation of Outlook in my browser.

Gmail's Strongest Points: Spam Filtering, Speed and Flexibility

If you're willing to learn the ins and outs of the Gmail interface, then you've got some real nice features under the hood. One of the benefits of Google's handling of Apps is the fast-track development path that allows Gmail to evolve at a much faster pace than Office 365 Outlook. There's no comparing the two when it comes to new features and filling gaps on sought-after needs. Google is definitely in tune with what its users are asking for, and just by skimming their public update feed, you can see that "stale" is far from how to describe Google's stance on Google Apps.

I tend to prefer the fast development path. It affords quicker implementation of features that my FireLogic customers yearn for, and represents what a cloud service should be: agile & responsive. Lots of businesses I consult for are initially wary about such a quick development path but in the end it's all personal preference. I expect Office 365 to move faster in changes/fixes than what traditional Exchange/Office offer, but not as swiftly as Google. Microsoft's still fairly new to the cloud game, let's remember.

When it comes to spam filtering, arguably one of the hottest topics in email today, I tend to see Google Apps' Gmail doing an overall better job than Office 365. I think a lot of this advantage has squarely to do with Google buying the spam filtering experts at Postini a few years back. While the standalone Postini product is going away, the inner workings of this quality filtering system are essentially fully rolled into Gmail, and the results are evident. In my non-scientific testing and experience, Office 365 missed more than a dozen blatant items of spam while wrongfully marking legit emails. Gmail handles spam as impeccably as I've seen on the market with minimal false positives.

That's not to say Office 365 is bad. It's leagues better in spam filtering than traditional on-premise Exchange (by a wide margin, I'll add.) Traditional Outlook users know that without some third-party app involved, spam becomes near uncontrollable. While I clearly chalk spam control in favor of Google Apps, Office 365 is a comfortable second place candidate.

One of the other aspects of Gmail that I just adore is the aspect of Labs. While these are turned off by default, they can be adjusted on a per-user basis or controlled on a per-domain level. These are features, adjustments, and other small fixes that Google is testing on Gmail users on an opt-in basis. Many of the Labs available are very useful and handy in improving your inbox workspace.

For example, there is a Lab that allows you to move the chat box to the right side of your screen; another Lab allows for quick Google Maps previews of addresses inside an email. One of my favorites (which I turn on for customers by default) is called Undo Send which "takes back" emails a short time after they are sent. We all know of times when we really didn't mean what we said, or forgot an attachment. These are just some of the ways which Google lets you experiment with functionality to your liking.

By contrast, Office 365 Outlook is pretty much "what you see is what you get" when it comes to interface and layout. A few things, like email preview, can be adjusted but on the whole the product is fairly static in design and UI. Of course, tweak-aholics may just opt to connect to desktop Outlook, but this defeats many of the positives of what cloud-centric email provides (if you've ever encountered a busted PST file, you know my pain.)

Each Platform takes a Different Approach to Unified Communications

An important aspect of each platform is how they view the topic of unified communications. And each system is starkly different in this area. Microsoft clearly appeals to those who may have on-premise phone systems that are capable of tying into its backend, while Google Apps takes an ala-carte approach in which users can take advantage of as little or as much as they please.

If you're looking for a seamless connection to your IP phone system via Microsoft's Lync, then Office 365 will suit your fancy. The platform allows you to choose between a variety of price points that allow you to take advantage of merely online-based live chat functionality or to tie in the entire phone system natively. I've seen offices in action that have this working, but keep in mind that Office 365 setup with Lync can get complicated quickly. The important take-away here is that you can go this route if you need to.

Google Apps' Gmail is an entirely different beast. It offers a very nice integrated chat system via Google Talk that essentially taps into the entire Google Accounts network (meaning Google Apps and Gmail accounts.) If you have a Google+ account tied to your email address, you can chat directly with connected friends in the same interface as you do with coworkers and business colleagues. Chat history (text form only) is automatically saved in your account for future reference, and can be searched/printed just like any regular email.

Where Gmail's "extended" communication functionality shines is in voice and video chat. Right from your browser, you can initiate a Skype-esque voice call to a fellow coworker, or opt for the bells and whistles of video chat through Google Hangouts. I'll be completely honest and say that this feature alone is worth the $50/person per year price tag on the service, since it provides a bevy of features which even Skype has a tough time competing with. You can do up to a 10 person live video meeting with friends or colleagues on the fly and even share desktops. I don't admit this in public, but my company has been doing virtual meetings using Hangouts for about a year now (we love it.)

Office 365 Outlook offers a very minimalistic approach to in-browser communications. There is semblance of inter-company chat in Office 365, but it's very clunky and honestly not half as clean as what Gmail provides. It definitely seems like an after-thought by Microsoft and didn't get the time of day it deserves. To be fair, you can install Microsoft's Lync desktop client to get most of what Gmail offers by means of live chat, but again, this does nothing to cut the desktop software umbilical cord. If Microsoft is serious about being "all-in" with the cloud, it needs to get this functionality into the browser and off the desktop.

Gmail offers the Best All-Around package, but Office 365 has its Place

Most businesses looking to make the jump to the cloud will likely find themselves best suited with Google Apps' Gmail. It was built from the ground up for browser-based email usage, and truly dumps the need for rescinding back to desktop Outlook (unless you truly need it.) Between the benefits it affords around "extended" communications features, spam filtering and overall speed, it's a clear winner in my book.

But I'm not counting Office 365 out by a long shot. Microsoft is truly dedicated to the cloud era as is evident from their killing of Small Business Server. There is no reason that Microsoft can't fix the current shortcomings in Office 365 Outlook and bring their cloud platform into the next generation. Besides, if the new Outlook.com service is any beacon of hope, it's that Microsoft still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Photo Credit:  2jenn/Shutterstock

Derrick Wlodarz is an IT professional who owns Park Ridge, IL (USA) based computer repair company FireLogic. He has over 7+ years of experience in the private and public technology sectors, holds numerous credentials from CompTIA and Microsoft, and is one of a handful of Google Apps Certified Trainers & Deployment Specialists in the States. He is an active member of CompTIA's Subject Matter Expert Technical Advisory Council that shapes the future of CompTIA examinations across the globe. You can reach out to him at info@firelogic.net.

Oracle has released its first minor update for the 4.2 branch of its open-source, cross-platform virtualization tool. VirtualBox 4.2.2 is primarily a maintenance release, with a large number of notable bug fixes and few feature additions.

Notable items in the update include an adaptation of changes introduced in Mac OS X 10.8.2 which led to virtual machines failing to boot. Other changes include a restoration of selected tool-tip functionality and a implementation fix for the Windows WDDM video driver.

Version 4.2.2 restores VM item tool-tip functionality, which had been dropped temporarily in version 4.2, plus adds group item tool-tip functionality too. Other user-interface fixes include resolving a bug that prevented users from changing any settings prior to creating a virtual machine. Version 4.2.2 also ensures the VM receives keyboard focus on Windows hosts when entering full-screen mode.

Other notable bug fixes include resolving an issue whereby the VM would hang on resetting under certain circumstances, and some network fixes including one that would crash VirtualBox during intensive network transfers.

The guest BIOS has been tweaked so certain legacy guests, most notably Windows 95, can find the boot device after a warm reboot, while an issue with auto-booting OS X guests has also been resolved.

Various bug fixes have also been applied to the Additions drivers -- Linux Additions now support X.Org Server 1.13, while Windows Additions has resolved an issue with automatic screen resize for NT4 guests.

While a minor update in itself, VirtualBox 4.2.2 includes the major updates introduced in version 4.2.0, released last month. These include support for placing VMs in groups, enhanced support for Windows 8 and improvements to its networking capabilities.

VirtualBox 4.2.2 is an open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s joined by the proprietary free-for-personal-use VirtualBox Extension Pack 4.2.2, which adds enhancements such as support for USB 2.0. Users will be prompted to update the Extension Pack after installing version 4.2.2.

Photo Credit:  Denis Davydov/Shutterstock

According to the results of a worldwide, multi-year study conducted by industry body GSMA, the total number of global mobile connections will reach 6.8 billion by Q4 2012.

However, the number of actual unique mobile subscribers is much less. By stripping out machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and inactive SIM cards, and factoring in that consumers apparently use an average of 1.85 SIM cards each, GSMA was able to arrive at a figure of 3.2 billion mobile subscribers, or around 45.7 percent of the world’s population.

Taking into account various factors, the report estimates that this figure will rise to four billion in the next five years, which sounds like good growth, but isn’t really, seeing as the global population will likely expand from 7 billion to 7.4 billion during the same time frame. The biggest growth areas will, unsurprisingly, be in developing countries and rural areas.

The report finds that Europe has the highest mobile adoption in the world, with United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and Finland touching close to 90 percent subscriber penetration. The United States has 69 percent, Japan 88 percent and Russia 73 percent. Africa currently has the lowest usage (just one in three people with access to a mobile service make use of it). In China, the world’s largest mobile market, the figure is 43 percent, but set to rise to 52 percent by 2017.

Of course, as GSMA notes in its report, a significant portion of the world’s population isn’t connected to a mobile service for good reason. The young, the old, disabled, incarcerated or unemployed, account for an estimated 2.3 billion, and those with no network coverage account for an additional 1.5 billion. If you take those two groups out of the equation, global unique subscriber penetration rises to 68 percent.

The research was conducted in 2009, 2011, and 2012 and across 39 countries (around 75 percent of all global connections).

Photo Credit:  glossyplastic/Shutterstock

Poll results to question "Will you buy Surface RT?" are in, and the numbers are surprising. Among the 1,530 respondents so far, 43.46 percent won't buy the tablet. That's actually a considerably lower number than I expected for a new device running a new operating system from an old technology company. Just shy of 24 percent of you already pre-ordered -- and good thing. Microsoft apparently already sold out the entry-level, $499 model, which delivery date is now "within 3 weeks". The other two tablets still deliver by October 26, launch day.

Another 18.1 percent of respondents plan to buy within three months, which works out to 41.84 percent between now and the end of January. If Surface really does that well, Microsoft will have helluva hit. If. What people say they will do isn't often what they do. Buying polls reflect intentions, which can change for all kinds of reasons. Little things, like early reviews, social media buzz or cash to spend.

Something else: Comments don't exactly sync with poll results. Many more of you commenting expressed reservations, at the least.

BetaNews reader deadbirdgolf "bought 2 two" -- both 64GB models, which come with keyboard cover. That's a $1,398 commitment before tax.

Bob Grant would "rather get one of the newer Android tablets for less, and do almost everything the RT does. (including having a dedicated external keyboard/mouse)". Meanwhile, nvic "Won't buy because of the ARM architecture. Might consider a Pro model though whenever it comes out, since I do need something beyond a desktop that runs my normal software".

I had wondered how many people would answer this way: "No thanks, I am waiting for iPad Mini", Ashma Randi Sharma comments.

Lonewolfe:

Pretty sure I am going to get myself a RT and Pro. Content consumption (music, Internet, etc) and note taking on the longer battery life RT and content creation and media (3D Design, audio editing) on the Pro. It'll still come into a smaller form factor than the super-laptop I am using now (and probably about the same price, $1,700 laptop with $1,200 out of pocket). My Zune will not be retired. My WP8 will tie in nicely and my overall lifestyle fits perfectly with the Surface tablet.

JohnnyCanuck asks: "1366 x 768 resolution and no GPS? You've got to be kidding me. Will stick with my ASUS TF700T, thanks".

Commenter soggybiscuit expresses a common sentiment: "Windows RT will fail, get windows 8 full version, regular windows is guaranteed to be around for another 10 years".

Microsoft's 10.6-inch tablet launches Oct. 26, 2012 for $499 starting price (32GB). Will you buy Surface RT?

IT advisor agrees:

One-hundred percent chance WinRT will flop. Full Windows will live on, but the mini Windows RT on the ARM processor will die a quick death.

There are already two powerful incumbents in the market, iPad and Android. To dislodge an incumbent, you have to have a product that's either more open or a product that's absolutely revolutionary. Windows RT is neither. To make a no-hope situation even worse, WinRT is going to market with too few apps, at too high a price. Android is the real competitor, and Android will ultimately overtake Apple and win the tablet market.

As I said, full Windows will live on for years ahead, but people who buy these Windows RT tablets are going to be left with pieces of junk in a few months when the RT platform collapses and disappears.

If you bought Surface and would like to review it, please email me, joe at betanews dot com. We love reader reviews, and this is an important product for Microsoft. You can help others considering buying the tablet.

Microsoft is taking its subscription-based productivity suite Office 365 into the realm of higher education in the first quarter of 2013 with a new package called Office 365 University.

At just $1.67 per month, college students can get Office 365 for their entire four years of undergrad for just about $80. The subscription includes the usual Office Home and Student Gang: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, plus Outlook, Access, and Publisher which aren't available in the $119.99 desktop version (but are only available to Windows PC users.)

Office 365 University will be available to full- and part-time college students, as well as faculty and staff of accredited institutions. As is typical for education discounts, a product activation process is required, unless of course the subscription is purchased at a Microsoft Store, where pre-purchase verification can be done.

Starting today, students who buy Office University 2010 or Office University for Mac 2011 will also receive a free subscription to Office 365 University when it becomes available. This essentially gives students using the desktop software free use of Outlook, Access, and Publisher for a year.

Photo: Andreser/Shutterstock (with sarcastic modification by Tim Conneally)

Bad news for some people who pre-ordered the new Samsung Chromebook yesterday. Shortly after the announcement, the South Korean manufacturer introduced a 3G model.

Chromebook 3G comes with an 11.6-inch display sporting a 1366 by 768 resolution, 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos 5 dual-core processor based on the Cortex A15 architecture, 2GB RAM, 16GB SSD for storage, runs Chrome OS and, on top of the Wi-Fi model from yesterday has a Verizon Wireless 3G WWAN with up to 100MB of free cellular data per month for a period of two years. The price for getting a Samsung Chrombook with cellular connectivity is $329.99. Worth it?

Considering the other Chromebook bears a $249 price-tag, paying $80.99 more may seem a bit far fetched. The price would be more compelling if the computer had 4G LTE instead. That's a good question for Samsung to answer: Why no LTE support?

Chromebook 3G is available for pre-order now from major retailers.

Last May, Google expanded the carrier billing option in Google Play to include all media content (apps, books, music, movies, TV shows, periodicals) for fifteen different wireless carriers worldwide. In the United States, this included AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

Now, it looks like Verizon Wireless is joining in on the act.

Friday, the Google Play store announced on Twitter that "Big Red" customers will be able to pay for apps, music as well as other items via their phone bills. Verizon Wireless users can expect this new feature to be rolled-out over the coming weeks, though an exact date has yet to be provided. Paying for Google Play items only works on the carrier's network, and not for devices connected via Wi-Fi, and involves selecting the option to bill the mobile account for the purchase.

According to Google, the device/service plan must be opted in for premium content purchases, with the former set up for use with carrier billing.

Credit: Vectorlib-com/Shutterstock

The release of Windows day is mere days away and the release rate for tools geared up for the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system is accelerating. One of the most controversial aspects of Windows 8 is the new Start Screen, and this is a feature that many tweaking tools concentrate on. This is certainly the case with Start Screen Pinner which, as the name suggests, makes it easy to pin almost anything to the Start Screen.

Start Menu tweakers are tools that crop up fairly frequently, and there are plenty of utilities that have been designed to make the Start Screen of Windows 8 easier to use by reinstating the Start button. Start Screen Planner is slightly different in that it provides you with a way of adding new shortcuts to the Start Screen rather than changing the way it work or the way in which you access it.

This is a very simple tool -- it is tiny and does not even need to be installed -- but it provides you with an incredibly easy way to add links to almost any item to your Start Screen. This include files, folders and libraries that you use frequently and want to be able to access easily, but there is also the option of adding more useful shortcuts to system tools such as individual Control Panel applets.

Many users who have tried out the preview releases of Windows 8 have found that the new Start Screen is a little awkward to use. Start Screen Pinner does nothing to change the way it works, but it does help to make it a great deal easier to add more useful shortcuts that will enable to get around your computer more quickly.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the Start Screen Pinner review page.

When I opened Apple Maps in iOS 6 for the first time, I was struck by how basic the actual maps are. Zooming in shows the roads, and road names, but it’s all very simple. By contrast, when you zoom into Google Maps you often get to see the buildings on either side of the roads, which can help to get orientated and locate important landmarks.

Google today boosted this subtle but incredibly handy navigation feature by adding a further 25 million new algorithmically-created building footprints to the desktop and mobile versions of Maps.

The additional buildings appear in various major metropolitan regions of the United States, including Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and were generated using aerial imagery and computer vision techniques to automatically determine the shapes and heights of the buildings.

In the blog post announcing the new additions, Google states that this expansion is part of its "ongoing effort to provide you with maps that are as comprehensive as possible". Unlike, say, those provided by a certain rival company…

What happens if you're interested in getting one of the latest Sony smartphones, but you want Android 4.1 Jelly Bean instead of the slightly older Ice Cream Sandwich build? According to Sony, you'll have to wait until the first quarter of 2013 (that's right) to run the operating system that Google announced back in June on devices such as the Sony Xperia T.

The Sony Xperia T and TX are shipping today in a number of "global markets," with the little brother, the Xperia V, on its way as well. For its newly released smartphones, the Japanese consumer electronics maker will release the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade in the middle of the first quarter of 2013. Sony confirmed that the global version of the Xperia Go, Xperia Ion, Xperia J, Xperia P, Xperia S and Xperia Acro S will also receive the upgrade, but did not yet announce when, only "in due course," which might be less than reassuring to owners.

In mid-Q1 2013 Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be approximately seven months old, and with manufacturers like HTC and Samsung that already have either an update under way or new smartphones shipping with Jelly Bean, it makes Sony look like it's postponing the update a bit too long.

Eight days before Windows 8's big launch, Microsoft served up expected, dismal news about its successor, in the wake of disastrous third-quarter PC shipments. They sapped Windows division revenue and profit, keeping to a recent trend. There was never a question of negative impact, merely how bad -- as Wall Street analysts expected overall company revenues to decline. The question everyone should ask: Can Q4 be any better than this?

For fiscal first quarter 2013, ended September 30, Microsoft revenue fell 8 percent to $16.1 billion, year over year. Operating income: $5.31 billion, down 26 percent. Net income: $4.47 billion. Earning per share fell 22 percent to 53 cents. The results are impacted by a $1.36 billion, or 13 cents-a-share, deferral related to Windows 8 and Office 2013 launches.

Without the deferral, Microsoft would have reported $17.4 billion revenue (flat year over year); $6.7 billion operating income (down 7 percent); and 65 cents earnings per share (down 4 percent).

Average analyst consensus was $16.42 billion revenue and 56 cents earnings per share, for the quarter. Revenue estimates ranged from $16 billion to $16.87 billion, with estimated year-over-year decline of 5.5 percent. Microsoft announced results after the bell.

"While enterprise revenue continued to grow and we managed our expenses, the slowdown in PC demand ahead of the Windows 8 launch resulted in a decline in operating income", Peter Klein, Microsoft chief financial officer, says. "Multi-year licensing revenue grew double-digits across Windows, Server & Tools, and Microsoft Business Division products as businesses commit to our technology roadmap".

In a stunning turnabout and indication just how weak is the PC market, Microsoft's Server & Tools division generated more revenue and income -- a first -- than Windows & Windows Live. When including the deferral, Windows division revenue fell by 33 percent, income by 50 percent.

PC Crisis

For more than a year, the PC market demonstrated consistent resistance to growth. But third quarter, which usually gets back-to-school buying lift, delivered steep declines. Global PC shipments fell 8.6 percent year over year, according to IDC, shockingly surpassing the minus 3.8 percent forecast. Gartner puts the decline at 8.3 percent. The United State is in free fall, with shipments down 13.8 percent by Gartner's reckoning and 12.4 percent according to IDC. For the better part of a year, analysts excused declining PC shipments as market anticipation for Windows 8. But the slowdown during back-to-school buying season foreshadows weakness ahead.

"The third quarter has historically been driven by back-to-school sales, but US PC shipments did not increase, not even sequentially, from the second quarter of 2012", Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, says. "There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market", Craig Stice, IHS senior principal analyst, says. "Now three quarters through the year, the usual boost from the back-to-school season appears to be a bust".

He adds: "Optimism has vanished and turned to doubt, and the industry is now training its sights on 2013 to deliver the hoped-for rebound. All this is setting the PC market up for its first annual decline since the dot-com bust year of 2001".

The PC market slowdown hit Windows harder but still sapped Office.

Q1 2013 Revenue by Division

• Windows & Windows Live: $3.24 billion, down 33 percent from $4.87 billion a year earlier.
• Server & Tools: $4.55 billion, up 8 percent from $4.22 billion a year earlier.
• Business: $5.5 billion, down 2 percent from $5.64 billion a year earlier.
• Online Services Business: $697 million, up 9 percent from $641 million a year earlier.
• Entertainment & Devices: $1.95 billion, down 1 percent from $1.97 billion a year earlier.

Q1 2013 Income by Division

• Windows & Windows Live: $1.65 billion, down 50 percent from $3.27 billion a year earlier.
• Server & Tools: $1.75 billion, up 12 percent from $1.57 billion a year earlier.
• Business: $3.65 billion, down 2 percent from $3.7 billion a year earlier.
• Online Services Business: Loss of $364 million, up 29 percent from $514 million loss a year earlier.
• Entertainment & Devices: $19 million, down 94 percent from $340 million a year earlier.

Division Highlights

Microsoft reports revenue and earnings results for five divisons: Windows & Windows Live, Server & Tools, Business, Online Services and Entertainment & Devices. Results presented here include the deferral.

Windows & Windows Live. Weaker than-expected PC demand hurt the division during fiscal first quarter. Revenue fell by 33 percent and income by a stunning 50 percent. Still, volume-license sales, which represent about 25 percent of the total, rose by double-digits, helping to insulate against PC market malaise.

According to Microsoft's 10-Q filing: "Windows Division revenue decreased from the prior year, due mainly to the deferral of $783 million of revenue related to Windows 8 Pre-Sales and $384 million of revenue related to the Windows Upgrade Offer. Windows Division revenue was also negatively impacted by a decline in the PC market, decreased inventory levels within distribution channels as OEMs and retailers began to prepare for the Windows 8 launch, and continued higher relative growth in emerging markets, where average selling prices are lower than developed markets".

Even when removing the deferral and presales, division revenue fell by 9 percent year over year.

Typically Microsoft sees some falloff in Windows license sales ahead of a new version launch, but third quarter was unusually severe. "Retailers were conservative in placing orders as they responded to weak back-to-school sales", Kitagawa observes. "By the end of September, retailers were focused on clearing out inventory in advance of the Windows 8 launch later this month".

One reason; Manufacturers will roll out new design concepts, including convertibles and slates, supporting Windows 8, giving all parties even more reason to make store shelves as bare as possible ahead of October 26.

Looking ahead, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is optimistic: "The launch of Windows 8 is the beginning of a new era at Microsoft". To that end, Windows 8 presales are up 40 percent compared to its predecessor.

Server & Tools. The division was Microsoft's star performer and foreshadows much positive about the overall server software strategy. The division is insulated against economic maladies, because about 50 percent of revenues come from contractual volume-licensing agreements, which sales increased by 19 percent.

Revenue rose about 8 percent year over year and operating income by 12 percent. The division's rise above Windows & Windows Live is a dramatic turnabout. Even when removing the deferral and Windows 8 presales, revenue was still $141 million more.

According to the 10-Q: "Product revenue increased $215 million or 6 percent, driven primarily by growth in SQL Server, System Center, and Developer Tools, reflecting continued adoption of the Windows platform. Enterprise Services revenue grew $121 million or 13 percent, due to growth in both Premier product support and consulting services".

Business. Revenue and income both fell 2 percent year over year. Like Server & Tools, Business division is largely insulated against sluggish PC sales. Sixty percent of revenue comes from annuity licensing to businesses. Multi-year licensing revenues rose by 8 percent.

According to the 10-Q: "MBD revenue decreased, mainly reflecting $189 million of revenue deferred primarily related to the Office Deferral, offset in part by overall increased sales of the 2010 Microsoft Office system. Business revenue increased $142 million or 3 percent, primarily reflecting growth in multi-year volume licensing revenue and a 6% increase in Microsoft Dynamics revenue. Consumer revenue decreased $275 million or 25% driven by the Office Deferral and a decline in the PC market".

Online Services Business. Revenue rose by 9 percent and the operating loss decreased by 26 percent. Online advertising revenue grew by 15 percent, or $83 million, to $655 million -- growing largely from search.

Entertainment & Devices.  Revenue fell by 1 percent, but operating income decreased by 94 percent year over year. Microsoft shipped 1.7 million Xboxes during the quarter, down from 2.3 million a year earlier. According to the 10-Q: "EDD revenue decreased slightly, mostly due to lower Xbox 360 platform revenue, offset in part by Skype and Windows Phone revenue. Xbox 360 platform revenue decreased $418 million or 24 percent, due mainly to lower volumes of consoles sold and lower video game revenue, offset in part by higher Xbox LIVE revenue".

Xbox Live memberships rose by 15 percent. Skype users made 120 billion minutes of calls, up 58 percent.

Today Google started to deploy an updated version of its Google Play Store app for Android smartphones and tablets, bringing along an interesting new feature -- the ability to remove apps from "My Apps".

Before Google Play Store build version 3.9.16, Android users did not have the options to remove unused apps from their account, which was especially bothersome when dealing with hundreds of them that keep piling up (and resyncing to devices). Also newly introduced is the ability to add apps to "My Wishlist", a feature aimed at users that want to keep track of new apps, but wish to postpone installing or purchasing them.

Google is rolling out the updated Play Store app today, and as a result some users might get it sooner than others.

Two hours before its scheduled quarterly meeting with investors, search giant Google preemptively released its third-quarter 2012 earnings results on Thursday, showing a 20 percent decline in profit for the quarter and falling short of Wall Street expectations.

The company's shares dropped approximately 10 percent following the accidental release of the statement, but trading was halted shortly thereafter.

Google blamed financial printer RR Donnelley for the mistake:

"Earlier this morning RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they had filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorization. We have ceased trading on NASDAQ while we work to finalize the document. Once it's finalized we will release our earnings, resume trading on NASDAQ and hold our earnings call as normal at 1:30 PM PT."

According to the statement, the company's revenue continued its steady increase to $11.33 billion, but net income fell to $3.01 billion, and profit fell to 2.18 billion, or $6.53 per share.

This decline in income and profit is attributed to several losing factors for Google. One of these is the persistent weakness of the online advertising dollar. The average cost per click advertisers pay suffered a 15 percent decrease against last year, and a three percent sequential decrease.

Another problematic drag on Google's earnings came from the still-new Motorola hardware division, which experienced a $527 million operating loss in the third quarter. Motorola took in $2.58 billion in revenue, contributing a significant 22.7 percent of Google's overall revenue. Motorola remains a costly investment for Google, however. Though it made major cutbacks two months ago, reducing Motorola's staff by 20 percent, Motorola hasn't yet returned to profitability.

Motorola, for those keeping track, has lost money in fifteen of the last seventeen quarters.

Photo Credit: argus/Shutterstock

You may often come across on-screen text that you’d like to grab, quote, or otherwise reuse in a document, and it’s annoying if that isn’t possible (the text is contained within an image, for instance).

This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to retype the text manually, though. Just point the free optical character recognition tool Capture2Text at the image, and it’ll quickly grab the text for you and copy it to the clipboard.

And it really can be that simple. There’s no installation here, for instance – just download Capture2Text, unzip it, launch the program and it runs in the background (consuming only around 4MB RAM), ready for use at any time.

Then, when you see an area of text you’d like to capture, you should first move your mouse cursor to its top-left corner.

Press the hotkey (Win+Q by default), move the mouse cursor to the bottom-right corner of the text, and Capture2Text will highlight the block for you.

Finally, click the left mouse button and the program will decode the text, then send it to the clipboard, ready for immediate use.

If any of this doesn’t work quite as you like, then the chances are that it can be tweaked in the program’s extensive Preferences dialog (every hotkey is fully customisable, for instance).

And there’s even a speech recognition feature thrown in for good measure (press a hotkey, talk into your microphone, various transcripts are displayed, and clicking the best will send it to the clipboard).

In practice, this didn’t prove to be quite as good as it sounds. We had intermittent problems launching Capture2Text, for some reason, and the program’s OCR accuracy varied considerably depending on the source.

If you’re interested in the core idea, then, we’d say try the program anyway. It’s lightweight, convenient, and can be easy to use.

Don’t expect too much from the default settings, though. You may have to do a little work before Capture2Text returns results that are accurate enough for your needs.

Photo Credit: Liv friis-larsen/Shutterstock

Google and Samsung are giving Chromeboook a mighty big makeover -- smaller screen, lower price and something unexpected: ARM processor. Say goodbye to x86, baby, and hello to $249 selling price, which is $200 less than Samsung's Series 5 550 model. The architectural change comes as Microsoft and its OEM partners prep ARM-based Windows RT computers for release in just eight days. Like Windows 8 systems, future Chromebooks will have either ARM or x86 processors.

ARM means there's more Samsung in the new model than ever before, which includes the microprocessor. That makes the new Chromebook a lot closer to an end-to-end product that Apple might make. Judging from Google-Samsung success with Galaxy Nexus, which feels integrated all the way -- hardware, services and software -- the new Chrome OS device promises much. Kilogram for kilogram, the device is ready to stand against MacBook Air, which offers same screen size and similar dimensions but starting price is $750 more. Then there are ultrabooks, some of which sell for even more than Apple's laptop.

Remember, I switched from the high-end MacBook Air to Series 5 550 Chromebook about five months ago. Performance is similar all the way, and in many respects better. So it's not unreasonable to place some lofty expectations on the ARM-based model. That said, only testing will tell, and I'll offer a full first impressions report within a couple of days (If not for Google and Microsoft earnings coming later this afternoon, sooner). Architectural change will be the truest test of Google's cloud promise to date. Will web apps run as well, or at all? I'll let you know.

But I'll say this. There's no mistaking the design similarities to MacBook Air, which can't be accidental. Will performance be good enough, by comparison? Testing will tell.

Quick specs: Samsung Exynos 5 dual-core processor; 11.6-inch display, 1366x768 resolution, 200-nit brightness; 2GB RAM; 16GB SSD; SD-card slot; VGA camera; USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports (one each); Bluetooth 3.0 compatible; HDMI port; Chrome OS. Weighs 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg) and is 0.8 inches thick. The new design moves the ports to the back from the side.

I have some reservations about the processor's real power and memory easily could be inadequate. Samsung's newer x86 Chromebook is fast compared to the original's sluggishness, and RAM is a major reason; 2GB in the old, 4GB in the new. So my trepidation runs high, regarding memory. I'm not loving the idea of 200-nit brightness, but, again, only testing will tell. Google states 6.5 hours battery life, which is good but I would expect more from an ARM processor.

Google's tagline for the new Chromebook is "for everyone", which reveals all you need to know about the target market. That starts with the $249 price, which is tough to beat. Plenty of people griped about the current Samsung x86 model costing too much for what they get -- $449 for WiFi-only, $549 with Verizon 3G wireless added. I see $249 as a pretty irresistible price, assuming performance is there. That's for WiFi-only; there is no 3G model at this time. Yesterday, Derrick Wlodarz offered refreshing perspective about Surface and Chromebook prospects in k-12 education, in part because of their easier manageability to say iPad. The new Chrome OS-based mobile cranks up the pricing appeal.

That goes for anyone who embraces the cloud and/or the Google lifestyle. I could outfit my home office with the new Chromebook ($249), Galaxy Nexus smartphone ($349) and Nexus 7 tablet ($199) for $797 -- less than just MacBook Air or most ultrabooks. Sure, there's no Core i processor. But do you need it? Particularly for cash-strapped students, sole-proprietors and small business owners the answer will be no. Then there are home users looking for a new PC but not wanting to spend big bucks.

"Many people use the Chromebook today as the perfect additional computer for their home", Sundar Pichai, Google senior veep, claims. "For families, it’s easy to use and share: for kids doing homework on the couch, parents catching up on emails at the kitchen counter and grandparents staying connected on video chat". That's our household experience.

Google, and also Samsung, make a big value play here -- leveraging the cloud. To facilitate that, the new Chromebook comes with 100GB free Google Drive storage for 2 years.

"Starting today, the new Samsung Chromebook is available for pre-order online from Amazon, Best Buy, PC World and other retailers", Pichai says. "Next week it will be available for sale from these same online retailers as well as the Google Play store. You can also buy them at over 500 Best Buy stores across the U.S and over 30 PC World and Currys stores in the UK".

Pre-orders start at 3 pm EDT. Note that Google will sell direct starting next week.

Who said that pirates don't embrace the future? In a blog post, Swedish BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced that it's moving the entire operation to the cloud. How's that for a change?

The trackers, torrents and servers are "ditched" and the controversial BitTorrent tracker has moved its data, in "deeply" encrypted forms, in "thousands of clouds," according to the announcement made yesterday. There is also a fail-safe system used to reboot the nodes that "transform" the data into a deadlock. So what's the point of all this? Surely it is not to embrace modern data storage solutions. The Pirate Bay has had problems with the law in the not so distant past, and moving sensitive data to the cloud looks like a move designed to protect the men behind it from various allegations.

Changing your email address can be a major pain. You’ve got to tell everyone about it, move your emails from the old account to the new one and so on. I know people who’ve been using Hotmail for the better part of a decade, despite loathing it, just because they don’t want the perceived hassle of switching to another service (or even upgrading to Outlook.com).

AOL’s new cloud-based email tool, Alto, is designed to avoid this problem by working alongside, or rather on top of, the main webmail services, rather than replacing them. You don’t need to sign up for a new email address, you just log in with your existing AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, or iCloud details. Once you’re in, Alto will help manage your inbox and cut back on clutter.

Just as you might sort your real life mail into separate piles for personal letters, bills and junk mail, Alto’s trick is to go through your inbox and create separate stacks for different types of messages, providing some much needed organizational relief.

Personal messages, emails with photos, emails with attachments, retailer mailing lists and social network notifications all get put into their own pile, which you can access from the opening page, and you can create stacks for anything you like based on sender, recipient and keywords.

"We built Alto for people who believe, as we do, that organization is beautiful, who are overloaded with email and aren't happy with the status quo of existing email experiences," Joshua Ramirez, AOL senior director explains. "The way we use email has changed radically over the years, but the core email application experience hasn't. We've taken a deep look at how people use email now, and designed an application around that reality. When you sort through physical mail, you put it into stacks because it's a natural way to decide what's important, what's junk, and what to save for later. We wanted to recreate that experience with Alto, but make it intelligent and automatic, to easily deal with the hundreds of emails we get every day."

Alto is currently only available in limited preview (it’s due to open to the public early next year) but you can register your interest here. From what I’ve seen so far (I’m still waiting for my invite), it looks pretty good, with a clean, intuitive interface that places your inbox on the left and stacks on the right, making it very easy to sort messages.

By taking a visual approach like this, AOL is clearly hoping Alto will prove to be a hit on touch-screen tablets like Microsoft Surface.

Android users running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean can now take advantage of a new standalone version of Google Calendar. The move brings the product/service more in line with Gmail, Google Play and others that have been separate apps for some time now, and the split sees the introduction of some interesting new options that could well be enough to persuade users away from other calendar apps.

The calendar app previously was limited to a number of devices, notably Nexus, but now it is available to anyone running the right version of Google mobile operating system. While the standalone app is nothing groundbreaking, there are a few noteworthy tweaks, starting with the fact that there is now a snooze function for those occasions when you are busy with something else but still want to be reminded of an upcoming appointment.

Talking of reminders, it is very easy to configure multiple reminders for any entry in your calendar -- these can take the form of emails or notifications -- and you can also browse up to a year into the past by default. There is a lovely pinch-to-zoom option in the calendar that enable you to zoom in to see more detail on a particular day and the quick, canned responses to invitations are a great touch.

HTC users might want to hold back on the celebrations for the time being as there are problems with a number of devices at the moment with this release. This is hopefully something that Google will address in future updates, but for now you may find that certain views do not work or notifications may not sound, among a variety of other issues. These niggles aside, anyone without an HTC device is in for a treat and even HTC owners might want to get the app installed so they can be notified when updates are released.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the Google Calendar review page.

Motorola announced the new Droid Razr family of smartphones more than a month ago, and today the 4G LTE-ready Droid Razr HD, Droid Razr Maxx HD, and Droid Razr M are available for purchase at Verizon Wireless.

The cheapest of the bunch is the entry-level 4.3-inch Droid Razr M that comes in two colors, white and black, and will set back customers of the big red $99 on a two-year contract. The 4.7-inch Droid Razr HD is also available in the same palette, and runs for $100 more at $199. The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD is also the most expensive of the three, but comes with the biggest battery, costing a whopping $299 on a two-year contract and is only available in black.

Considering the fact that the previous battery life champion, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx, was Verizon's most popular smartphone it's likely that the high pricing of the Droid Razr Maxx HD to not hinder its potential success.

If you think you read my title wrong, take a second look. You'd think from all the overblown attention that the Modern interface is garnering, that I was going to focus another drab op-ed around that sole feature. Yes, the Modern UI is a radical change and will turn a lot of people off. But let's not forget that with every new Windows release comes features that actually don't get the time of day. I think a few of these deserve a sliver of attention.

We've been down this road before. Let's not forget that the introduction of the Office ribbon menu system was considered shocking back in 2006, and years later a majority of users have accepted and embraced the changes. Apple received similar kickback on its radical iPhone design back in 2007. I truly believe the heat on Windows 8's Modern UI will come and go like the rest of modern tech's evolutionary moments.

As the fog surrounding the UI debate starts to dissipate, it's interesting to see the preliminary support Windows 8 is getting for the enterprise and business in general. In the newest issue of Redmond Magazine, Don Jones pens a timely piece highlighting some of the better aspects of Windows 8. Correcting the misnomer that most pundits pass along, Jones explains how the Modern UI is nothing more than a "dashboard" like the Dashboard feature in OS X. There is still one true desktop in Windows 8, easily accessible in multiple manners at any given time.

I happen to like Windows 8 a lot -- and I don't adore the Modern UI. But then again, it didn't take a complete reawakening for me to understand how to best utilize the user interface. I think positive feelings about Windows 8, while taking into consideration qualms about Modern UI, can be mutually exclusive (unlike some other tech pundits would make you believe.) If you think Windows 7 is fast, 8 is that much faster. In many areas, it happens to be cleaner and offers a value proposition that end users may actually realize. Windows Refresh, anyone?

I was also intrigued to hear about Microsft's own internal transition to Windows 8 at a small tech briefing in Chicago a few months back. If any company has something to prove about enterprise embracing Windows 8, it has to be big M by far. Since mid-July 2012, Microsoft claims to have had 30,000 computers and roughly 30,000 employees moved over to Windows 8 (along with IE10.)

Impressive to say the least. I asked a Microsoft rep present at the aforementioned Chicago tech event how employees were dealing with the transition, and the answer was pretty honest. Smooth for most; rocky for others. Enterprise transitions are never easy, so it's good to see Microsoft eating its own dogfood very early on.

While the early adopters are clearly making strides towards Windows 8, these are some of my arguments for considering passing on Windows 7 in favor of 8.

1. Windows rollouts take 12-18 months; why fall further behind on your upgrade cycle? Most estimates on a business migration from one Windows version to another are pitted at a 12 to 18 month timespan. Think about this purely from a ROI perspective for a second: if you haven't even begun a migration to Windows 7, where will you be time-wise when you finally finish? Keep in mind that Windows 7 came out in mid-2009 which means if you are pondering whether to begin a move to Win 7 just now, you won't be finished until about late 2013 if not well into 2014. Windows 7 will already be an OS that has been on the market for 4-5 years at that point, meaning you will be eyeing your next Windows move in the not-so-distant future.

It's also acute to be mindful of Microsoft's support lifecycles for Windows versions when planning migrations. Windows 7 loses mainstream support by January of 2015, and gets completely cut off by extended support in January of 2020. At best, you're talking about an OS that will see only about 5-6 years of usage max before it's time to get back to the rollout drawing board.

In contrast, if your company made the move to Windows 8, you would enjoy a much healthier lifespan. Mainstream support for 8 ends in January 2018 and extended support runs all the way until January 2023. If I were planning a Windows migration for my FireLogic customers, I would be taking a second (or third) look at skipping 7 entirely.

2. Windows 8 is faster than 7 in every respect. Here's another thing you may have missed in the all FUD surrounding Windows 8: it's a helluva lot faster than Windows 7. And Windows 7 is what I consider the best OS yet from Microsoft! How can it perform better in light of what most people see as bloat from Modern UI?

It's got a few things going for it. First off, Microsoft stripped out a lot of what bloated Windows editions in the past. Things like DVD playback and other extraneous features that can easily be added on via third-party apps were dropped in an effort to slim down the OS. It's not surprising, then, that Windows 8 uses less memory pound-for-pound compared to Win 7. Couple Windows 8 with a decent SSD and you can turn that Vista-era snail of a PC into something almost reborn.

The reduced memory consumption and overall smaller footprint of Windows 8 means that aging corporate desktops can still keep ticking. If you were initially planning on replacing more of your PC fleet than you hoped, Windows 8 may save your company some decent cash. Testers claim that Windows 8 can run with as little as 128MB of RAM. While it's more proof-of-concept than anything, the takeaway from this should be that you may not have to toss that old hardware just yet.

In my testing, Windows 8 starts and shuts down so fast that I don't even bother putting it to sleep anymore. Cold boots are nearly as quick as sleep mode. Don't blink, because you may not even notice the new boot screen!

3. Microsoft's focus on security in Win 8 is readily apparent. If the performance aspects of Windows 8 aren't enough to sway you from 7, then perhaps all of the investment in security features will tickle you nicely. While there are too many to name in here, a few of the most important ones must be mentioned. Secure Boot is a core feature of Windows 8 security that in essence locks down the OS initialization process to the point where rootkits and other popular malware will no longer have a place to hide. Microsoft couples validated secure firmware to help authenticate the boot process and get rid of the "back door" that has existed for so long.

Windows To Go is a new feature that replicates what we have come to know in the Linux world as Live CDs. How does this fit into a business' usage of Windows 8? This enables an IT department to hand out Windows To Go powered flash drives (not all flash drives are compatible though) to contractors and other short-term workers who need access to a standardized instance of Windows 8. In the past, IT had to provide the hardware and software for end users. Not so much anymore.

AppLocker is a feature returning from Windows 7, but improved over its first iteration. This simple blacklist/whitelist technology allows admins to create strict application policies for end users, which extends to Modern UI apps as well in Win 8. For businesses looking to truly lock down a common desktop environment, AppLocker has to be one of the greatest gifts from Microsoft.

4. Sick of managing printer drivers? Windows 8 does away with the old mess. This aspect of Windows 8 hasn't nearly gotten the press it rightfully deserves. But for anyone who has tried to manage a modern print server, it's fairly well known that making end-users' lives easier entails a lengthy process of finding proper drivers, testing them, and deploying them centrally - hoping nothing screws up in the process.

Microsoft realized the mess that we know as printer driver hell and built an entirely new backend for getting Windows 8 and printers to talk.  The technical details are explained in an excellent but lengthy blog post. Toss out everything you know about print drivers to date. Starting in Win 8, printer compatibility is primarily achieved through the use of truly "instant" connections made via a modern "printer class driver framework". This radical shift was sped up due to the arrival of Windows RT, but was properly extended to the entire Windows 8 range.

Printing in Windows, until now, has been literally a 1:1 process behind the scenes, where a specific print driver was matched to a given printer. This had to be specific per edition of Windows, and even further down to the variations between x86 and x64 flavors. This new framework allows a common printing driver to support a near endless array of printers old and new. Microsoft knows that not all printers will work with this new model and built in full compatibility with all previous Windows 7 printer drivers. But going forward, Microsoft aims for what the introduction of USB was supposed to harbor: true plug and play.

5. Multi-monitor support is finally done right. Corporate workers tend to use multiple monitors now to get their work done. It's a simple fact of life. At my previous school district IT job, the mere mention of getting a spare monitor for dual-screen usage caused some very public jealousy. Windows (even Win 7) wasn't perfect with how it handled multiple screens. Initial detection was always spotty; the taskbar never quite figured out how to span across all screens; and moving applications between screens was sometimes a chore when perfect placement was necessary.

Luckily, Microsoft has done a great deal to address the issues with multiple screen usage in Windows 8. Using multiple monitors shouldn't be a chore, and has been simplified in many regards. For example, you can now easily tell Windows 8 to span the common taskbar across all your screens. Customization of the various desktops is vast, with the ability to span large wallpapers or have separate wallpapers for every monitor. You can even move Modern UI apps over to different screens to your liking.

Other nagging issues like losing track of which taskbar items belonged to which instance of an app have been addressed. You can duplicate open items in the primary taskbar, and also have the screen that hosts a unique window to show its respective taskbar item on that same monitor. Bringing up the Start menu can be done on any screen, and likewise can be done with the common Charms bar. Microsoft spared no expense to get multi monitor support down to a T in Windows 8.

Final Thoughts 

If you judge Windows 8 on the introduction of the Modern UI start screen alone, it may tank at first glance. But I challenge those involved with enterprise (or even small to midsize business, for that matter) IT to give Windows 8 a second look. It's polished, speedy and built with security in mind. I've got nothing against Windows 7, but after giving Windows 8 a spin myself, my apprehension with Microsoft's latest desktop release is dwindling quickly.

You can grab the 90 day Windows 8 Enterprise trial over on MSDN and see what you think. Here's hoping you actually find some usefulness in the new Windows -- as I surprisingly did.

Photo Credit: Pete

Derrick Wlodarz is an IT professional who owns Park Ridge, IL (USA) based computer repair company FireLogic. He has over 7+ years of experience in the private and public technology sectors, holds numerous credentials from CompTIA and Microsoft, and is one of a handful of Google Apps Certified Trainers & Deployment Specialists in the States. He is an active member of CompTIA's Subject Matter Expert Technical Advisory Council that shapes the future of CompTIA examinations across the globe. You can reach out to him at info@firelogic.net.

Apple today lost an appeal against the UK ruling that found rival Samsung's Galaxy Tab did not infringe its design rights. The original case, in which Judge Colin Birss declared Samsung’s tablets were not cool enough to be confused with the iPad, found in favor of the South Korean company and ordered Apple to publish a notice on its website and in various print titles (for a minimum of six months), informing visitors and readers that Samsung did not copy the design of Apple’s tablet.

The Court of Appeal’s review of the case upheld this ruling, meaning that Apple must comply with the original order. And just for a little additional salt/wound rubbing, one of the three appeals judges, Lord Justice Kitchin, stated that the typeface used in the notices must be no smaller than 14 point Ariel.

An understandably jubilant Samsung released the following statement:

We welcome the court’s judgment, which reaffirmed our position that our Galaxy Tab products do not infringe Apple’s registered design right. We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples of prior art. Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims in other countries based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited.

Another of the appeal court judges, the iPad owning Sir Robin Jacob, said of the ruling: "Because this case (and parallel cases in other countries) has generated much publicity, it will avoid confusion to say what this case is about and not about. It is not about whether Samsung copied Apple's iPad. Infringement of a registered design does not involve any question of whether there was copying: the issue is simply whether the accused design is too close to the registered design according to the tests laid down in the law. So this case is all about, and only about, Apple's registered design and the Samsung products".

In the United States, Samsung is currently appealing the outcome of the high profile copyright case in which Apple was awarded almost a billion dollars in damages for patent and design infringements against the iPhone.

Photo Credit: Sebastian Duda/Shutterstock

Microsoft Surface is available for pre-order, and to attract future buyers that have yet to be mesmerized by the new Windows device class, the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation released a new video that does quite a good job at showing off some of its key features.

Unlike the previous promo that was more about giving Surface a "coolness" factor, the latest spot titled "Learn more about Surface" takes various people using Microsoft's tablet from the moment it is powered on to finally folding and carrying it, while highlighting some of its distinctive features such as the Touch Cover that is available in five distinct colors.

Microsoft Surface is touted as a sleek, light, durable, and beautiful tablet, with an easy-to-use kickstand that supports it and the "click-in", magnetically attachable, Touch Cover. Microsoft also highlights the optional black Type Cover which runs for $129.99, and is aimed at people seeking a more classic keyboard experience with Surface.

Most importantly of all, the video shows how to use various Windows 8/RT functionality such as the Charms Bar which can be used to share different things or even shut down the device. It's evident that navigating through Microsoft's latest consumer operating system is different using a touchscreen device rather than using it on a traditional one like a laptop.

The Redmond, Wash.-based corporation obviously did not want to forgo showcasing the USB port, HD video out port and microSD card slot, three factors that could certainly justify a consumer's choice of Surface over an iPad.

So, what do you think? After catching a glimpse of Surface in this latest video, has your opinion of the platform changed?

Berlin developer O&O Software has released a brand new version of its drive-imaging and backup tool. O&O DiskImage 7 Professional 32-bit, also available as a 64-bit build, adds full support for Windows 8 and EFI/UEFI systems.

Version 7 also allows users to create an emergency boot CD from directly within the program itself, plus debuts a streamlined interface designed to appeal to less experienced users. It’s also now capable of adapting to third-party energy saving settings, ensuring disk images aren’t compromised.

The latest build debuts a simplified and streamlined user interface, headed by a dashboard-like start screen that provides a clear indication of which drives and partitions have been backed up by the tool. Users can then back up all outstanding partitions via a single button, or access the tool’s other backup and restore options.

The redesign goes further, logically grouping together related tools such as options for creating backup jobs as well as backing up immediately. Previously these were found in separate parts of the program.

O&O DiskImage 7 Professional also integrates the tool for creating a boot CD or USB thumb drive directly into the application itself as opposed to leading users to a separate download over the internet. It also adds capabilities allowing it to adapt to third-party energy settings, ensuring imaging operations don’t fail due to energy saving schemes set by other programs.

Version 7 also updates its standards, adding full support for Windows 8 – already present in version 6.80 and later -- as well as newer EFI/UEFI systems. This is in addition to continued support for traditional BIOS-based systems.

O&O DiskImage 7 Professional 32-bit and O&O DiskImage 7 Professional 64-bit are both available as free 30-day trial downloads for PCs running Windows XP or later. 1GB RAM is recommended, and the full version can be purchased now for a special launch price of $23.96 – 25 per cent off the MSRP – through the Downloadcrew Software Store.

Photo Credit: Balandina G/Shutterstock

Looking to tweak Windows? There are plenty of tools to choose form if you don’t fancy the idea of editing the registry, but you have to sort the wheat from the chaff in order to find something half decent. The world of tweaking tools is divided into two camps: utilities that are free and those that are not. Paying for a program is not necessarily an indication of quality, and with PowerSuite Lite 2013 you have the option of sticking with the free version or paying a bit for a range of extra tools.

Whichever route you decide to go down, the latest build 4.1.4.0 introduces two important new enhancements -- a PC startup manager and PC Resource Optimizer. The free, lite version of the program features the PC Resource Optimizer component and, when enabled, this component of the suite aims to improve the performance and responsiveness of your system by balancing processor and disk resources so demand is never too high at any given time.

This is the sort of claim that is easy to view with suspicion, as you should, and results will vary from one computer to another, but in tests we found that it did seem to make a noticeable improvement to the general feel of the running of Windows. If you’ve parted with the cash for the Pro version of the program you can take advantage of the PC startup manager, and there’s a clue in the name as to what you can expect here.

This, oddly, is a less impressive update to the tweaking suite, but it does, as you have probably guessed, make it possible to manage the programs that start automatically with Windows. In itself this is nothing out of the ordinary, but the ability to view Startup shortcuts, registry autoruns and more all in one place is a helpful timesaver. The program can be used with all versions of Windows from Windows XP all the way up to Windows 8.

The commercial Pro version offers access to many more tools such as the new PC startup manager, registry defragging, system tweaking, junk file removal and much more. You can buy the Pro version from the Downloadcrew Software Store for $29.95.

To test the free Lite version, pay a visit to the Uniblue PowerSuite 2013 download page.

Ubuntu fans, be prepared to upgrade! Canonical, parent company of one of the most popular Linux distros available on Thursday released Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" in desktop and server variants. It's labeled as a suitable alternative to Windows 8, coincidentally just before the October 26 launch of the latest consumer-oriented operating system from Microsoft.

On the desktop forefront, Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" brings integration between cloud and desktop environments and integration with popular web-based applications, which Canonical claims is the next evolutionary step in the transition towards a cloud-based, multi-device world. The server variant includes the Folsom release of OpenStack, as well as deployment and management tools touted as a time-saving solution for developer teams that deploy distributed applications.

Desktop

Canonical CEO Jane Silber described the latest version of the popular open-source operating system as: "the operating system for the multi-device era" and as an "easier, faster alternative to competing desktop operating systems."

Canonical also integrated its cloud service, Ubuntu One, into the latest version of its open-source operating system, and is also available as a native application for Android, iOS, MacOS X (in beta at the moment) and Windows. Users get 5GB of free storage, and with new APIs synchronization features can be implemented by developers into apps.

Searching files in Ubuntu 12.10 Dash now implies that users will get results from local storage as well as from online services from the likes of Google Drive. Dash also allows users to look for free and paid content from Amazon and Ubuntu One Music Store, but as some earlier reports have suggested, the former of the two has stirred some controversy with the inclusion of advertisements in Ubuntu.

Also to be expected is the Web Apps feature that is designed to make web-applications such as eBay, GMail, Facebook and Twitter available offline, without launching the browser, basically allowing said services to be used similar to desktop applications.

There is a new Previews feature that for instance allows to preview an album and receive a track listing with options to click through, download or purchase, as well as take a peek into Dash search results.

Aimed at businesses that want to offer virtualized desktop applications, users can now log into a Citrix, Microsoft or VMware desktop running on a virtualization server.

Server

Cloud builders get access to technologies from both Ubuntu and OpenStack, the latter being featured through Ubuntu Cloud Infrastructure. The two new components, Cinder and Quantum, offer block storage and a virtual networking API, respectively.

For enterprises that want to keep using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Canonical mentions that compatible versions of the latest OpenStack release can be deployed directly from its Cloud Archive.

Intel's Open Attestation (OAT) in the OpenStack environment is supported, and Ubuntu Server 12.04 is labeled as the first of its kind to support it. For security purposes, a crypto key is used to authenticate cloud images, which should bring an extra layer of security to deployments in the cloud.

Ubuntu's service orchestration tool Juju, which has a new graphical interface designed with time-saving in mind, is natively supported on OpenStack clouds running Canonical's own server operating system.

Ubuntu Server 12.10 together with OpenStack is touted to give a faster cloud service deployment and better cost-efficiency. According to Silber, "Ubuntu Server is the reference operating system for OpenStack," and "the fastest and easiest way to take advantage of the latest open cloud technology."

Could the end of October be any more jam-packed? October 29, same day Microsoft launches Windows Phone 8 in San Francisco, Google will hold an event in New York for Android -- presumably for the next Nexus device(s), just about the worst kept tech secret(s) of the month. Microsoft just can't catch a break. This week, Apple sent out media invites for an October 23 shindig, possibly for iPad mini, coming three days before Microsoft launches Windows 8 and Surface tablets.

Yeah, it's a tough month to be Microsoft -- what, with the company's future hanging on the three products and post-PC, connected-device era stumpers Apple and Google looking to dampen Windows' big days. But what a month for gadget geeks -- and the October 26 and 29 events coming on my three sisters' birthdays (twins, in case three on two days puzzles you): Android devices, iPad mini, Surface, Windows 8, RT and Phone. And, hey, what about some of those new smartphones, like LG Optimus G?

Simply Meanness

Google sent out invites to "The playground is already open...Android event" late evening yesterday. I didn't receive one, and must thank Boy Genius Report from which I, ah, borrowed the above graphic. There's meanness behind the timing, with Google, like Apple, stomping on Microsoft's grave long before Windows is dead and buried. There's plenty of breath in the lungs, but you may hear otherwise with bloggers and reporters distracted by post-PC darlings Apple and Google. Need I chronicle exactly how many rumor stories posted this month about iPad mini or new Nexus devices? Make them stop. Please!

I actually feel sorry for Microsoft. The company already has started the ad blitz for Windows 8 and Surface and surely will spend hundreds of millions (billions if you believe the rumors) to promote the new stuff. But bloggers, reporters and other writers are part of that marketing effort, and they will be distracted. Sharks smell blood in the water.

Microsoft needs the launches to be big. PC shipments collapsed during third quarter, in part as smartphones and tablets sap sales. Global PC shipments fell 8.6 percent year over year, according to IDC, surpassing the minus 3.8 percent forecast. Gartner's estimate is a more generous 8.3 percent decline. The United States, a region recently in love with tablets, is in free fall, with shipments down 13.8 percent by Gartner's reckoning and 12.4 percent according to IDC. For the better part of a year, analysts excused declining PC shipments as market anticipation for Windows 8. But the slowdown during back-to-school buying season foreshadows weakness ahead. iPad mini stands to undermine Windows PCs' fourth-quarter recovery.

Windows Phone's situation is dire, to say the least. Combined Windows Mobile and Phone OS share in the strongest cellular mobile market, the United States, is just 3.6 percent on smartphones, according to comScore. That compares to 52.6 percent for Android and 34.3 percent for iOS. Still, there's a glimmer of hope. During second quarter, based on global handset sales, Microsoft mobile OS share rose to 2.7 percent from 1.6 percent a year earlier, according to Gartner. Third-quarter data isn't yet available.

Elephant in the Room

By comparison, Android smokes all other platforms combined. Global market share reached 64.1 percent in Q2, up from 43.4 percent a year earlier, according to Gartner. This summer, cumulative Android device shipments (mostly phones) reached 500 million, surpassing iOS for the first time (400 million). IHS iSuppli predicts that cumulative Android smartphone shipments will reach 1 billion next year -- 2015 for iOS to reach the same number. Currently Android activations now total 1.3 million, up from 900,000 in June, according to Google.

The point: Android is a really big elephant in the room, and Google capitalizes on geography. Those journalists flying into New York for the Windows 8 launch could spend a couple extra days there and attend Google's shingdig (I would if going).

As for what to expect from Google, the prevalent rumor is multiple Nexus devices from different manufacturers, which would be smart. Under the scheme, as rumored, manufacturers would adhere to specific guidelines that, if nothing else, ensure immediate updates to the newest Android versions. Key benefits:

• Diminish Android fragmentation
• Open up market for "pure Google" devices
• Increase access to Google lifesytle services
• Combat OS fracturing from tailored Androids like Amazon's
• Separately, let OEMs continue offering customized skins, such as TouchWiz
• Meet customer demand for unlocked devices that can receive custom bootloaders

In business, there's no such thing as fair play, and Microsoft won't get any this month from Apple or Google. Say, Steve Ballmer, will you return the favor, or what?

Whoa, and I thought BetaNews commenters were a rowdy lot. Today, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 10 would come to Windows 7 next month as a "preview". I would think that would be welcome news, but not to cranky complainers at Microsoft's IE blog.

"We will release a preview of IE10 on Windows 7 in mid-November, with final availability to follow as we collect developer and customer feedback", Rob Mauceri, IE group program manager, posts. "We look forward to getting your feedback on IE10 on Windows 7, and will provide another update when the preview is available".

Among the first comments:

• "Why preview? We want to develop optimized sites now! WTF".
• "Too Little to late, you really drop the ball on the this MS".
• "A preview, really? 100k people and you can't develop anything in time".
• WHAT! i thought IE10 RTM would be out on 26th Oct along with windows 8. Not happy, Microsoft!"
• Wow, just wow! Total Epic Fail! You promised developers a version of IE10 BEFORE Windows 8 went to RTM so that we could provide some feedback to help fix the bugs before you committed to a release!"

By the way, it's unclear from Microsoft's commenting system how many different people these five really represent.

With new Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox versions coming out about every six weeks, Internet Explorer development does lag, by comparison. What? Hasn't it been three years since Microsoft released IE9? Perhaps if rivals didn't rev so fast, Microsoft wouldn't appear to be so slow.

One commenter pleads with Microsoft to do better:

If you could provide more frequent updates on current work being done on IE, and make this blog less of a futile confrontation between Microsoft marketing and angry commenters, and more of a useful, informative and relaxed place, it would be a welcome move. You could start by answering (reasonably civil) comments more often and pressing your management to drop this excessive silence on anything that could cast you in a bad light (slipping schedules, controversial decisions, rival browsers performing better...). Shutting down honest communication in favor of marketing is doing you much more harm than good.

"It's been over a year since the last Preview for Windows 7", writes another commenter. "It's unfathomable that it's taken so long. It's unfortunate there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of feedback (including legitimate issues) on Connect that haven't even been addressed. It really goes to show how mixed up the IE development team's priorities are if IE10 RTM's GA won't be next week.. or even next month".

Are these people being fair to Microsoft? Being the brunt of negative comments myself, Microsoft gets my sympathy.

Photo Credit:  Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock

The cat's out of the bag, and we can all stop guessing as to what the Surface RT will cost. Microsoft confirms many things, namely that Steve Ballmer was spot-on with his estimates on Surface pricing roughly a month ago. The Surface RT is going toe-to-toe with the iPad down to the very last penny. That's a good thing.

One thing I'm curious about is how Surface will change the way K-12 looks at computing devices for the next generation of students. I've already penned my thoughts on why I believe the Surface could very well outshine the iPad in education. A big part of this winning equation has to do with the ecosystem that surrounds a given technology.

And I personally think Microsoft, not Apple, has a definite leg up in this area. Where iPad lacks, Surface intends to pick up; 1:1  education efforts in K-12 focus on providing each student that enters a given primary education level (namely high school) a single device to centralize their education upon. Yes, bid your goodbye to paper textbooks. eTextbooks are becoming the new norm.

iPad is the Forerunner but Largely Due to Lack of Effective Competition

Over the four years spent at a prominent high school district in Illinois, I saw first hand the enthusiasm that iPad received. It almost became a running joke for us IT folks at educational technology conferences, seeing how many lectures on classroom usage focused on the iPad. So much so that those in the IT crowds yearned for something new, fresh, and technologically more sustainable.

I'll fully give iPad credit where it is rightfully due. That credit sits solely in third-party application support and battery life. These are two areas where similar 1:1 trials with competing devices (namely netbooks -- yes, even I cringe at that defunct term) flailed at best. But after hearing about the 1:1 trial efforts of various districts dabbling in iPads, the technical concerns were what I took away from these conferences.

Centralized management. Security. User-level permissions. Ease of updates for apps and core iOS software. The list went on. And while those tasked with taking care of the devices (commonly teachers, as IT folks tended to stay clear of adding onto their already burdened task lists) tried to smile as they showed off their best efforts in classroom device management, it was clearly a love-hate thing at best. While the devices gave students an outlet for modern learning, I could see teachers were quietly wishing for a beacon of hope.

While it has yet to be seen what this potent combination looks like in the wild, it's hard not to realize that Microsoft may be looking to help K-12 fill this void left by the iPad. Sure, Surface will be far from hitting any astronomical app counts in the Windows Store anytime soon, but this doesn't mean development won't pick up when the device's potential becomes more apparent. Keep in mind that the iPad didn't launch with any dizzying array of useful apps, and it took a good year and a half before truly exceptional content started to hit the platform targeted for education.

Surface + Active Directory = Easy Alternative to iPad Management

Up until now, most districts in the USA offered a top-down approach to device usage. "We" provide the device; "We" manage the device; and "We" keep the device in school at the end of the day. That model is being turned on its head in a few important ways.

After numerous years of trials, K-12 is realizing that consistent deployment and usage not only cuts costs in textbooks and shared devices, but also fosters better learning through student buy-in with the technology they use. As more and more learning shifts to the Internet as a primary medium of informational knowledge and sharing, a 1:1 experience for students is becoming ever more integral for the 21st century.

But with decentralization of technology comes a glaring problem: keeping everything updated, in order and secure. As my experienced reflections above show, IT departments at school districts aren't fully sold on the concept of iPad as the de-facto common device. A classroom of iPads is tough to manage -- but a school of 2,000 students bearing the iconic slate is a downright nightmare.

If Microsoft listens to the voices of the educational technology community at large, it will follow through on what is a clear winning combination: Surface in the hands of students and Active Directory in the hands of IT management. Updates could be centrally managed; security policies could be rolled out en-masse; and a bloated iTunes-like application wouldn't ever be needed as an intermediary to handle all of the above. Not to mention this could all be pushed over already-standard 802.11g/n infrastructure, which means no downtime in managing cords, cables and the "octopus headache" that some iPad trials are known for.

Of course, all of my predictions on the Surface are just that: hopeful thinking. Microsoft's Education department has either not realized the potential throng of Surface users in K-12 or is waiting to lay their plans out on the table. Either way, I'm itching to see what happens because I truly think if Microsoft doesn't capitalize on Apple's shortcomings, Google surely will over time with the already released Chromebook.

"All you need is web" (and Chromebook), Google claims

In a way, Google's blog post of the same title is a bit presumptuous and perhaps a tad arrogant. But I happen to agree with it. Over the course of my previous IT career working for a public high school, I have seen the shift in progress with my own eyes. You could say what you will about traditionally installed software, but to the large majority of students I served, Internet access is almost a necessity in one way or another.

One could argue that this may stem from the fact that a large portion of learning and research is shifting to the web. This is true in every respect. But look at all the auxiliary functions that I saw personally supplement (sometimes overtake) traditional software. Students commonly use Google Docs in some form for classroom work. Mind mapping websites such as Bubbl.us are completely free and allow students to work on concepts anywhere and anytime. Even large encyclopedic references that used to be centrally managed by our district are offloaded to new interactive online-only editions -- and this over the course of only four years!

I personally like the proposition that the Chromebook makes. Just as the Surface potentially affords a school district simple management through Active Directory, Google's Chromebook takes this same notion and simplifies it a few degrees. Whereas a traditional IT department usually controls policies through Active Directory, a fleet of Chromebooks can be controlled by people with little technical background like teachers or even school execs. That's because the core management responsibilities for Chromebooks are easily manipulated within the familiar cloud-based Google Apps Control Panel.

And while Microsoft's approach to Surface management is still an educated guess at best, Google's definitely not blowing any hot air with their native Chromebook capabilities. My technology company had the chance to help Dallas County R-1 Schools in Buffalo, Missouri roll out their initial batch of Chromebooks back in December 2011. By the time our 3-day training effort was complete, we had teachers (read: not IT folks) managing default applications, home pages and other settings for their students' Chromebooks. Everything was controlled through a common web interface, with access no matter where teachers were -- home or at school. Yet upper level administrative control was never lost.

Since Chromebooks have been around for about a year and a half now, the true dollars and cents are starting to become clear. Google and IDC co-sponsored a study on Chromebook device management and the results were fairly staggering in comparison to traditional IT management of devices. For a 3-year time span, the Chromebook achieves a TCO of $935 per device. When it comes to installation, Chromebooks require 69 percent less labor. And the biggest eye-opener for educational IT departments has to be the fact that Chromebooks require 92 percent less labor in long term support. With tightening school budgets, these are cost savings that are hard to laugh at.

It must be pointed out that districts that have already invested in the Google Apps for Education path will naturally have the most seamless integration of Chromebooks. Google Apps is the cloud-based email and communications suite that is completely free of charge for any K-12 school district. I personally believe Google Apps is much more mature in comparison to Microsoft's hobbled attempts over the years with its own cloud-based email suite Live@Edu, which has been haphazardly replaced by Office 365 for Education (which is not free, by the way.) My former district was one of the first to move into Google Apps for staff and students, and it paid off nicely with simplified email and document collaboration, which our traditional Microsoft environment alone just didn't provide.

Will a device that considers the "web" its primary start screen succeed? My best guess is as good as yours. Chromebook's price point is definitely attractive for districts, especially when pitted against Surface (note: non-RT pricing on the Surface is still a mystery, which will have the AD tie-ins I predict in this article.) Only the market will unravel the true story of 1:1 device rollouts across districts in the USA. If Microsoft and/or Google can help clarify their advantages over Apple's pothole-filled path towards 1:1, they can easily help steer the debate in their favor.

I love the promise that both Surface and Chromebook have in terms of the ecosystems they offer. Apple may provide a name brand and an established experience, but it doesn't have the understanding of the Enterprise to be taken seriously. Now the underdogs just have to catch up to Apple where end users care: third-party apps.

Derrick Wlodarz is an IT professional who owns Park Ridge, IL (USA) based computer repair company FireLogic. He has over 7+ years of experience in the private and public technology sectors, holds numerous credentials from CompTIA and Microsoft, and is one of a handful of Google Apps Certified Trainers & Deployment Specialists in the States. He is an active member of CompTIA's Subject Matter Expert Technical Advisory Council that shapes the future of CompTIA examinations across the globe. You can reach out to him at info@firelogic.net.

Registration for Microsoft's global Windows 8 hackathon began on Wednesday. The event, called Wowzapp 2012 despite the fact that there's never been another event called "Wowzapp" before, will take place in more than 60 cities across the globe on the weekend of November 9th to the 11th.

The event, previously listed as "Gen Appathon," invites students and aspiring app developers to bring a Windows 8 PC and their rough apps or general app ideas for one-on-one support from Microsoft and community experts, free food and entertainment, and prizes for best Win 8 app, best Windows phone app, and best use of Azure. Attendees will be given Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 and a free Windows Store registration code, and apps will be published straight to the Windows Store.

It's a sort of last mile sprint for Windows 8 apps after the new operating system launches to the public.

To download relevant resources and register for the upcoming event, check out microsoft.com/student.

More Americans are discovering what I did, after buying the original iPad more than two years ago: Reading ebooks, magazines and newspapers on a tablet is an immersive experience and often much more satisfying than print. Today, comScore says that in August, two out of every five US tablet owners read a newspaper or magazine and one in 10 did so almost every day.

The numbers' meaning is greater when taken in context of another. Pew says that during the same month, one in four Americans used a tablet (22 percent as owners, 3 percent borrowing one belonging to another household member). Make no mistake, magazines and newspapers are going digital in ways like nothing seen on the Internet, because of publishers' ability to deliver richer content -- at that, more frequently -- and actually make money doing so.

"Tablets are fundamentally redefining how people consume news and information, with the format more conducive to reading longer form content than PCs or smartphones", Mark Donovan, comScore senior veep, says.

I totally understand. In January 2010, days before iPad's unveiling, I wrote: "The world doesn't need an Apple tablet, or any other". Then unexpectedly, in June 2010: "I was wrong about Apple iPad". What I couldn't understand without using the tablet: How intimate size, shape and touch made content or the immersive experience reading it. Hence, my retraction of the earlier assertion:

I find there are fewer reading distractions, and content is better presented than on a laptop and browser. I'm more focused and retain more of what I read. For reasons not easily explained, I find myself more thoroughly reading iBooks than defaulting to the skimming I sometimes do with physical books. Part of this immersive experience is the technology, but also how iPad is used. Apple's tablet is a sit down and focus device, as much because of size and shape as screen and user interface. The totality -- physical design and software benefits -- is immersion.

The experience isn't exclusive to iPad. I do most of my reading -- that includes Google+ and Feedly (for RSS) -- on Nexus 7. My plan is to let all my print subscriptions (even "Entertainment Weekly", which costs me just $10 a year in print).

Android nudges Ahead

I'm not alone on Android. In comScore's survey 6,000 tablet owners, Android nudged ahead of iPad by nearly every frequency category -- that despite popular convention Apple's platform has better periodical selection. Overall, 12.1 percent of Android tablet owners read newspapers almost every day compared to 12 percent for iPad. But the number is 12.8 percent for Amazon Kindle Fire and 13.4 percent for Barnes & Noble Nook. Similarly, 9.4 percent of iPad owners read a magazine or other periodical almost every day compared to 10.4 percent for all Android tablets and 11.3 percent for Kindle Fire. By the way, the Amazon and B&N tablets both use Android.

iPad only pulls ahead of Android tablets in one frequency category: magazines and other categories read "once to three times throughout the month". Amazon and Barnes & Noble are driving forces behind this trend, as both offer some amazing deals and selection on newspapers and other periodicals. Google Play now also offers wide selection; just yesterday, in a surprising move, the search giant released a magazine web reader for Chrome.

Meanwhile a larger trend looms. In August 2011, Apple had overwhelming US tablet share -- 81 percent, according to Pew. But by August, iPad had dropped to 52 percent share, with Android tablets rising to 48 percent from 15 percent. Thirty-two percent of tablet owners purchased in 2012.

Perhaps neither trend is lost on Apple, which will hold a special media event on October 23, presumably to launch iPad mini. Kindle Fire and Nook are 7-inch tablets on which reading frequency typically exceeds larger iPad and which sales helped dramatically push up Android share among Americans.

Regardless of platform, more tablets, and increase newspaper and other periodical reading on them, is a potential boon to publishers looking to charge for content (via subscriptions rather than free on the web) and to offer more to advertisers (captive audience, better metrics about readers and more interesting -- even interactive -- marketing opportunities).

"In the case of online newspapers, tablets are now driving 7 percent of total pageviews, an impressive figure considering the relative infancy of the tablet space", Donovan says. "Publishers that understand how these devices are shifting consumption dynamics will be best positioned to leverage this platform to not only drive incremental engagement among current subscribers but also attract new readers".

Something else: Readership is highest among a desirable demographic: 25-to-44 year olds: 47.5 percent for newspapers and 49.3 percent for magazines and other periodicals. But younger readers -- 13 to 34 -- is close: 41.5 percent and 48.8, respectively, for the same categories.

IT organizations will spend 28 billion bucks on Big Data this year, Gartner says today. Expect $34 billion next year, if the forecast holds true. But big spending surprisingly doesn't much benefit enterprise software vendors. Most of the money goes into adapting what businesses already have, with the trend generating just $4.3 billion in software sales this year.

"Despite the hype, big data is not a distinct, stand-alone market", Mark Beyer, Gartner research vice president, says, "but represents an industrywide market force which must be addressed in products, practices and solution delivery". Biggest spending, some 45 percent a year, goes into content analytics and social network analysis -- that sounds like "data mining" to me. But, hey, analysts make money coining terms and offering consulting services around them.

"In 2011, Big Data formed a new driver in almost every category of IT spending", Beyer claims. "However, through 2018, Big Data requirements will gradually evolve from differentiation to 'table stakes' in information management practices and technology. By 2020, Big Data features and functionality will be non-differentiating and routinely expected from traditional enterprise vendors and part of their product offerings".

Another change is more immediate, with Gartner predicting that leading-edge IT organizations will incorporate Big Data into their business practices and systems architectures by 2015.

"Big Data will evolve to become a standardized requirement in leading information architectural practices, forcing older practices and technology into early obsolescence", Beyer predicts. "As a result, Big Data will once again become 'just data' by 2020 and architectural approaches, infrastructure and hardware/software that does not adapt to this 'new normal' will be retired. Organizations resisting this change will suffer severe economic impacts".

Although ISO files are a very convenient way to distribute software, then can often be very large, perhaps gigabytes in size. And if you only need maybe one or two files from the image, having to download the whole thing first will probably seem just a little annoying.

There could be an alternative, though. Re7zip is an interesting Java-based tool which can remotely extract files from an http-hosted archive, without having to download the full archive first -- and in some situations that could save you an enormous amount of time.

The program is based around 7zip, as you might guess from the name, and that means it’s not restricted to ISO files. Rather, you’re able to access everything that 7zip can, a very lengthy list of formats: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP, WIM, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z.

What you don’t get here is 7zip’s ease of use, unfortunately. Re7zip has to be run from the command line, and isn’t quite as straightforward as we’d like.

A typical remote extraction might look something like this:

java -java re7zip.jar /t=iso /a=http://www.site.com/folder/file.iso /e=folder\file.txt /o=file.txt

Here the /t switch tells the program the type of your archive; /a points to the archive you’d like to access; /e highlights the file within the archive which you’d like to extract, and /o indicates the output file name you’d like to generate locally.

As command lines go, this isn’t exactly complex, but one problem here is that re7zip is rather strict about its syntax. During testing we omitted the /o switch, for instance, thinking the program would simply keep the original file name when it saved the downloaded copy. But no, it just didn’t work (and there was no clear explanation about why, either).

And of course one major limitation with all this is that you have to know the precise name and location of the file you’d like to extract from your archive. It would be enormously helpful if you could ask Re7zip to display the contents of a specified remote archive, but unfortunately that option isn’t yet available.

For all this, re7zip is still an excellent tool. There’s no hassles with installation (it’s a single file), you get support for a host of archive types, and in some situations it could save you a huge amount of time. There is also plenty of scope to make the program even better, though, and we hope the author will revisit and enhance it in the future.

Photo Credit: Sergej Khakimullin/Shutterstock

Cloud-based asset management platform Panorama9 officially launched support for Linux and Mac OS machines on Wednesday, broadly increasing the amount of hardware covered in the still very young IT management dashboard.

Panorama9, a new player in the enterprise services space, provides IT asset and network management as a non-contract, subscription-based service beginning at $1.50 per user per month. The company claims it can be set up and deployed in as little as five minutes.

Naturally, setup means installing the Panorama9 agent on each machine that will be managed inside of the service. It offers asset tracking and alerts, security updating, compliance management and more.

The agent software Panorama9 launched today supports Mac OS X 10.6 and up, and most of the popular Linux distributions: Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, CentOS, and so forth. Both of these software agents were quietly announced at the beginning of September, but today marks their official inclusion in the subscription offering which was missing when the service launched a little more than six months ago.

Larry Page, Google’s CEO, was forced to cancel all of his public speaking engagements back in June when a mystery ailment caused him to lose his voice. It wasn’t known when (or indeed if) Page would make appearances again, but the question was answered yesterday when he took to the stage at the company's annual Zeitgeist conference in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Still, clearly suffering with a hoarse voice, and taking sips of water in between questions, he discussed various topics, beginning with how he gets really excited about the things that Google can do to seriously change the world, citing Search and Books as prime examples. Page also mentioned Maps: "We said it would be really nice to have a virtual representation of the real world that was accurate. Seven years later we’re kind of almost there, and we’re excited that other people have started to notice that we’ve worked hard on that for seven years". His subtle dig at Apple’s mapping catastrophe raised an appreciative laugh from the audience. When asked if Google was working on an iOS app, he gave an evasive answer and moved on.

Page also discussed self-driving cars, how Google chooses which markets to enter, and the antitrust issues the company currently faces, along with debates about privacy policy changes.

When asked about intellectual property issues he replied: "We see free speech as being really important, we see an Internet that can innovate as being really important and, in general, we should just be working with content industries to solve these problems. I think in general we don’t see regulation as a great source, or legislation, as a great solution for these problems".

He then described himself as being "cautiously optimistic" on the issue, adding "I think it’s important for technology companies to cause people who are making intellectual property to be successful. We’ve done a lot of work on YouTube to let people identify their own content and monetize it, and I think those kind of things are very important".

Other topics Page discussed included payments (specifically Google Wallet), Google’s role in education, and how the search ecosystem can improve by using information from other services like Maps and Google+. "Social data is obviously important and useful for that," he said. "We love to make use of that in every way we can".

Although he was quite cagey at times, and avoided answering certain questions (including a direct one about his illness), Page coped with the 40 minute grilling well, hopefully a sign that he’s now well on the way to recovery.

The Motorola Atrix HD is not the most modder-friendly smartphone available as it comes with a locked bootloader. Now though, there is a root exploit available that might turn things around and help it receive custom Android distributions.

The exploit gives Motorola Atrix HD users the ability to run applications using elevated, or root, rights. The installation is pretty straight forward, and first requires downloading and extracting a zip archive. The newest ADB drivers from Motorola are required before connecting the smartphone to the computer and running the .bat file. Just a button combination more, and the Motorola Atrix HD is rooted, according to the developer.

According to the XDA Developers user djrbliss, who found and made the exploit public, it should work for the new Motorola Razr M, Razr HD, Razr i and Photon Q as well.

I’ve been away. We had a death in the family (my brother-in-law) which turned me into a single parent for a few days -- a paralyzing experience for an old man with three small boys and two large dogs. You never know how much your spouse does until it all falls for awhile on your shoulders. I am both humbled and a bit more wrinkled for the experience.

While I was being a domestic god a reader passed to me this blog post by John Miano, a former software developer, founder of The Programmers Guild, now turned lawyer who works on immigrant worker issues as a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) a supposedly nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC. I don’t know Miano and frankly I hadn’t known about the CIS, but he writes boldly about H-1B visa abuses and I found that very interesting.

Here’s what I found to be the important section of the post:

An American IBM employee sent me an e-mail chain among the employee, IBM hiring managers, and IBM HR that shows how IBM flagrantly violates the law in regard H-1B usage and immigration status discrimination.

First a little background. IBM has a built-in source to import foreign labor. IBM’s Indian subsidiary (IBM Global Services India) is one of the largest importers of foreign workers on H-1B visas.

When IBM is staffing projects in the United States it can hire locally or use imported labor on H-1B visas provided by IBM India.

Now let me set the stage for the e-mail chain. An American IBM employee in the United States had been working on a software development project for a customer that had recently ended. The employee needed to find another project to avoid being laid off, as it is easier to lay off people who are not working on projects.

The American IBM employee was on an internal IBM mailing list for employees who were available for a new project. The IBM employee received a timely mass e-mail through this list from IBM HR with a job description that started out:

We are urgently seeking Business Analyst resources with Test experience for two positions on the Alcatel-Lucent account.

A lengthy job description and instructions on how to apply followed this introduction. (IBM uses the term “resource” throughout to refer to employees.) The job was located in the United States and the American IBM employee lived close to the project.

The American IBM employee responded to the job posting with a cover letter explaining how the employee’s qualifications matched the posted job requirements, the additional information requested in the job posting, and a resume.

This is the IBM hiring manager’s complete response to the American IBM employee’s application (The IBM employee provided translations of acronyms that I have indicated in square brackets.):

Thank you for your interest in the eBusiness Analyst position on the Alcatel-Lucent account. We are in the process of gathering resumes for this position and will send you a follow-up response once we have had an opportunity to review your qualifications.

Please understand the clients first preference is IGSI [IBM Global Services India] landed resource, then local US candidates, then remote, so these candidates will be in the second group to be considered. (sic)

This manager was forcing Americans to get in line for jobs behind “landed resources” from IBM India. In case you are wondering -- yes, this is illegal. See 8 USC § 1324B.

So how can IBM so flagrantly violate the law?

The reason IBM can get away with this disgraceful behavior is that discrimination enforcement requires a complaint. An employee considering a complaint has to weigh the probability of the government prosecuting the case and winning adequate compensation against the risk of retaliation and damage to his or her career. Many companies make severance packages contingent upon employees signing away rights to file such a complaint.

At this point, I am sure the IBM public relations folks reading this posting to formulate their response are thinking to themselves “Rogue hiring manager. IBM does not have a policy of discrimination.” Read on.

The American IBM employee forwarded the e-mails to IBM HR and attached the following complaint:

You included these two positions – below – again into today’s email to “Available”. Per below, they are NOT looking at Americans. Pretty clear.

You would think that IBM HR, upon learning of unlawful discrimination, would disavow the actions of its hiring manager and take decisive corrective action.

Instead, IBM HR actually responded by explaining to the American employee why IBM violates the law:

There are often US Reg [U.S. Regular] seats that also have landed GR [Global Resource] seats open – sometimes the customer will take either as long as they are working onsite –  and the cost difference is too great for the business not to look for landed GRs or to use them if they are a skills match.

There you have it, straight from the IBM HR department. Foreign workers, global resources supplied by IBM India, are so cheap compared to Americans that it is worth violating the law.

This is Bob again, pointing out that the H-1B program specifically does not allow saving money to be an acceptable reason for granting such visas which can only be used, supposedly, for finding workers with skills that are literally unavailable in the domestic work force.

Miano gives half of a good reason why this sort of abuse can happen, that there generally aren’t specific complaints filed against it. I might go further and speculate that there aren’t complaints because IBM’s domestic work force is too intimidated to file them.

What happened to Respect for the Individual?

Here’s what happened: IBM has no fear of the U.S. legal system.

This hearkens back to my last column about regulatory abuse. IBM has the largest internal legal department of any corporation anywhere. IBM has more lawyers on staff than most governments. And IBM’s legal department has been over the years a great profit center, especially through enforcing intellectual property rights. If you decide to sue IBM for violating your patent, you can be sure their first response will be to find half a dozen or more IBM patents that you might have infringed, too. Just the threat of protracted legal action is enough to make most such problems simply go away, IBM is so aggressive.

And so we’ve reached a point where, as this Miano post describes, IBM appears to not even pretend anymore to be in compliance with H-1B immigration law. Why should they?

Reprinted with permission

Ever wondered what the inside of Google’s high-tech data centers look like? Or fancied taking a stroll around the server floor -- a place where only a select group of the company’s employees are allowed to tread? Well, the good news is now you can, virtually at least.

No, Google hasn’t fully unleashed its Street View trikes inside the data centers (more on that in a second), but it has given photographer Connie Zhou unrestricted access to them. The result is a website filled with striking, and surprisingly colorful high-res images of some of the most advanced server networks on the planet.

The Where the Internet lives website lets you explore the technology, meet some of the people who work in the centers, and get the low-down on each of the eight featured places. You can scroll left and right through the photos, zoom in and out, read captions and get additional information.

If you do want to take a virtual stroll around one of the data centers, the facility at Lenoir, North Carolina has obligingly opened its doors to Street View, and will let you explore the inside and outside of the building. There’s also a YouTube video of it.

You can find out more about Google’s data centers and the history and evolution of the company’s infrastructure by reading Steven Levy’s exclusive Google-sanctioned story on Wired.

Changing a successful recipe is often met with skepticism, and judging by the introduction of Timeline in Facebook profiles that holds true as well for social netwoks. The business-oriented LinkedIn decided to launch a revamped Profile page, with improvements touted in three main areas. Will users embrace or reject the change?

Due to its business-oriented nature and purpose to deliver a virtual resume LinkedIn's new Profile page is designed to give its 175 million users an improved tool in marketing their skills and accomplishments. Compared to the current one the redesign gives a more up-to-date look and provides a different experience when viewing people's profiles, by focusing on the activity and connections. The redesign shows insights on companies and people on the network, which LinkedIn says makes easier establishing common ground with and connecting to people outside of one's network.

The social network also touts better engagement by providing the ability to keep an eye on what other people in the network share.

Facebook Timeline comparison aside, the new Profile page is understated, less about major changes and more about rearranging the pieces to deliver a more competitive side and to highlight various parts of one's profile for an improved social networking experience.

In order to sign up for the new LinkedIn Profile page you have to visit this address.

California-based camera company GoPro announced on Wednesday the third generation of its popular ruggedized, wearable video camera, the HD Hero3, and a whole lineup of new hardware for the 2012 holiday season.

GoPro's cameras up until now have been rather boxy, and with the Hero2's accessory to add Wi-Fi connectivity, the little cameras became bulky things indeed. This new generation of cameras, however, is half the size of previous models and has the Wi-Fi capability built in. Functionality has been improved while size has been reduced. It's a great combination for a generational upgrade.

And most importantly, the top-of-the-line new HD Hero3, known as the "Black Edition" can record 4K and 2.7K video resolutions. Previous models topped out at 30fps at 1080p resolution, but also offered 960 and 720p resolutions with varying frame rates. The highest speed imagery the last generation Hero was capable of was 120 frames per second in low-resolution WVGA (800 x 480) mode.

The Hero3 Black Edition can capture 12 megapixel stills, record 1080p video at 60fps, 2.7k at 30fps, or 4k at 12fps. The high speed 120 fps mode has been bumped up to 720p (1280 x 720) resolution as well. It has Wi-Fi built in, and comes with the GoPro Wi-Fi remote and compatibility with the GoPro smartphone app. The Black Edition GoPro Hero3 has an MSRP of $399.99.

There are two other models in the Hero3 lineup with fewer features and lower prices. The Silver edition is capable of the same image resolutions as the top-of-the line Hero2 (1080p/30fps, 960p/48fps, 720p/60fps, WVGA/120fps, 11mp stills) but it has the Wi-Fi capability built in, and costs $299.99. The White Edition features 1080p/30fps, 960p/30fps, 720p/60fps video with 5 megapixel stills and built-in Wi-Fi, and it costs $199.99.

GoPro's website has a big green "add to cart" button for the new cameras, but may not be clickable in your area yet. These cameras are, according to the company, "still pending certification in many countries, and will be available in limited locations through the end of 2012."

Microsoft revealed pricing for its long awaited Surface RT yesterday. Starting at $499 with 32GB of storage and going up to $699 for the 64GB model with Touch cover included, the devices are priced in about the same price range as Apple's new iPad. It feels natural to compare Microsoft's entry into the tablet market with the leading product that is already there, and many have done so. Joe Wilcox, for instance, believes that Microsoft prices Surface RT to go head to head against Apple.

There is certainly some truth to that, but it may be a different truth than what seems obvious.

Surface RT beats Apple's iPad hardware-wise in most areas, the tablet either is $100 cheaper iPad if you get the version without keyboard cover, or priced the same but with the accessory included. On the plus side, Microsoft's slate offers USB 2.0 port, memory expansion slot and several additional connectors that the iPad does not ship with. On the other hand, Apple's tablet offers better screen resolution and, for a price, cellular connectivity.

Other than price, are there indicators that Microsoft is trying to compete with Apple's iPad in the tablet market? To answer that, we need to look at the Surface's target audience.

It is unlikely that many existing iPad owners will switch to the Surface RT. Some will, but many will likely prefer to stay in their ecosystem. Being closed, iPad owners would lose access to free and paid apps and games they have installed on their tablet when switching to the Windows platform. That leaves people who do not own a tablet yet as Microsoft's primary market.

These people have several options when it comes to their next mobile computer. From laptops running Windows or Mac OS X to tablet devices such as the iPad or Android-powered devices.

When you compare the pricing of the Surface to laptops, you will notice that the device is attractively priced. Sure, there are laptops that you can purchase for less than $599, but they are often less powerful and always heavier than the Surface RT, even if you add the 209 grams for the touch pad keyboard to the equation.

For some, Surface RT will be the logical choice. While you won't be able to run desktop software on the tablet, you do get a version of Microsoft Office for free. Surface RT is certainly an attractive option if you primarily work with Office and Internet applications, especially if you need to carry the device around with you all day. Instead of having to lug a laptop in the kilogram range, you get one that weights less than a kilogram with the keyboard included.

Reliance on wireless networking, on the other hand, is a factor that may hold the Surface back, considering that you may not have access to Wi-Fi while on the road. It is possible to resolve that, by buying extra hardware that adds cellular capabilities to Surface RT. You'd have to carry that around with you and it will block the USB port.

Surface RT can't replace a laptop if you need to run legacy software. That, however, is not he purpose the device is designed for, and the main reason Surface Pro exists. With better hardware, a resolution of 1920 x 1080, USB 3.0, more RAM, a faster processor, and Windows 8 Pro, Microsoft's other tablet is designed as an alternative to ultrabooks and medium to high-end laptops.

If you plan to purchase a Surface RT from Microsoft, you may have to wait a while before you get the device as the basic version without keyboard sold out already in the US Microsoft Store.

Search engine DuckDuckGo released a video a few days ago that shows how Google personalizes results for all signed in and signed out users. It asked 131 people to search for the same Election related topics ("abortion", "gun control", and "Obama") on Google at the same time, and most of them received slightly different results.

That Google personalizes results in this way is hardly new information. The company has been doing it since 2009 and Eli Pariser covered the topic in depth in his 2011 book, The Filter Bubble (a great read). He also gave an enlightening Ted Talk on the subject in which he observes that "the Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see."

Filter bubbling is widespread -- it’s far from limited to Google; most big web corporations do it to some degree -- and although for the most part it’s invisible "behind-the-curtain" tinkering, just knowing that it’s going on irritates me at a deep, primal level. I don’t want Google shaping my results any more than I want my ISP shaping my traffic.

I know, based on comments I’ve read and conversations I’ve had, that I’m not alone in wishing there was an option to completely turn off personalization on Google. That there was a way of getting straightforward results to a query without details like where I am, what browser I’m using and who my friends are and what they like, getting in the way. Yes, I’m aware that Google allows signed-out users to opt-out of these personalized searches (all you need to do is go to here and click ‘Disable customizations based on search activity’) but I clear out my browser cookies on a daily basis, and so need to repeat the opt-out process every time, which is annoying.

It’s not just personalization that affects the results being displayed, either. Google recently started adjusting the ranking of pirate sites to please the entertainment companies and while that has zero impact on me, it’s another example of the sort of tampering that goes on behind the scenes to change what information appears when I search for something.

So after thinking about doing it for a while, I finally decided five days ago to switch from Google to DuckDuckGo (I've used the site previously, but never as my main search source). The results have mostly been spot on, so far, but they aren't -- if I’m honest -- always as comprehensive as I’d like. Fortunately, in the rare instances when I can’t find the results I want, the service allows me to run the same search on Google, Bing or another engine. So while I’ve given up Google Search for everyday use, I haven’t yet been able to totally abandon it. I do, however, really like that my results are now the same wherever I search (and whatever devices I search on) so I’m going to keep persevering with it.

Have you tried DuckDuckGo? If so, how have you found it, and what was your reason for making the switch?

Microsoft yesterday opened up pre-ordering for its controversial Surface tablet and before, the President of the Windows and Windows Live Division, Steven Sinofsky decided to literally take it for a spin... as a skateboard.

Even though you and I can't pre-order the Surface as a skateboard, the 10.6-inch tablet was strapped to two pairs of trucks and wheels and turned into one. Why?

As Sinofsky said on his Twitter page, he just "couldn't resist."

With safety in mind Sinofsky decided to wear a pretty large helmet and, to many, did the unthinkable. But there's a method to his madness...The purpose of the exercise was not to exhibit the Surface' versatility, but rather acted as a marketing tool to display the stiffness of the chassis and the strength of the glass protecting the display. The only problem, that is yet left out by Steven Sinofsky, is to find out if it still works after that show.

Unfortunately, we've seen this trick before. A few years ago, Chad Knight, a professional skater, took the iPad and turned it into a skateboard as well. We've embedded the video below.

The end result of the Microsoft Surface skateboard wasn't nearly as entertaining. There also weren't many puns made about it either, so you take the good with the bad.

The prospect of reinstalling Windows is not one that many people relish, particularly if it is something that needs to be done on a regular basis, to numerous machines, or both. Part of the problem is that getting everything set up how you want it to be is that once Windows itself is up and running, there is still a great deal to do in terms of configuring the operating system to your liking as well as installing the applications you need.

Whether you are someone who frequently wipes the hard drive to start afresh, or you are an admin looking after several computers that need to be refreshed from time to time, Windows Post-Install Wizard is a tool that exists to help make your life easier. The seemingly simple task of cleaning up a system by installing the operating system from scratch can very easily turn into a chore that takes up and entire day -- until your create your own custom installation disc that is.

Windows Post-Install Wizard enables you to place your copy of Windows, all of the application you want to install as well as any registry tweaks and scripts all on one disc. This has a few advantages, but the two key bonuses are the fact that you only need to carry a single disc with you rather than a great stack of CDs, and the setup process can be automated so that once Windows has finished installing, your chosen apps will also be installed and your chosen options and settigns will be put in place.

There’s no getting away from the fact that getting Windows Post-Install Wizard configured is a bit of a pain and something of a lengthy process, but this is a small price to pay for the time it will save you in the long run. This is not necessarily a tool that you’ll be able to pick and use straight away, but there is a fairly detailed manual included with the app that should help to get you up and running, and it’s worth spending some time reading through this. You’ll be glad you did as the next time you have to reinstall Windows, it will be done in a fraction of the time.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the Windows Post-Install Wizard review page.

Photo Credit: AISPIX by Image Source/Shutterstock

If you’re worried about the safety of a file on your PC then uploading it to VirusTotal.com is a great way to get some piece of mind. The site will run it through more than 40 of the top antivirus tools -- GData, AVG, Avira, Kaspersky, they’re all here -- and let you know if any of them have raised a red flag.

There could be a lengthy delay while the file is uploaded, of course. But you don’t have to put up with that, because VirusTotal Scanner delivers the same results without having to upload the file at all.

The program is very simple to use. There’s no installation required, just download and unzip it and there’s a portable version you can run right away.

Locate the file of interest, drag and drop it onto the program, and click VirusTotal Scan.

And the key point is that VirusTotal Scanner then calculates a hash (a digital fingerprint) for the file. The hash is then sent to VirusTotal, instead of the file itself, and because it’s just a number this takes almost no time at all.

As an example, we gave the program a 28.7MB executable to check, and within just two seconds it was displaying the usual VirusTotal analysis: its overall detection ratio, the individual verdict for each tool used, and all the other regular site features.

If this is something you want to use regularly, then the program also comes with a handy setup tool. Using this adds a right-click “VirusTotal Scanner” option to Explorer context menus, making it just a little easier to check any suspect file.

The VirusTotal Scanner portable option is good enough for us, though: a simple, straightforward tool which can save a little time whenever you need to check a file for malware.

Photo Credit: Sergii Korolko/Shutterstock

Connecticut-based WinZip International LLC has updated the Windows version of its world-famous compression tool with a plethora of major new features, including cloud integration and sharing. WinZip 17.0 launches with the ability to zip, manage and share files directly from cloud-based services and social media sites.

Version 17 also adds tools for converting Office documents to PDF, resizing images and adding watermarks, plus revamps its interface in a move designed to make the program more intuitive to use.

WinZip 17 adds a number of new cloud-based features, all accessible via the expanded Share tab. Users can now connect directly to Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive direct from the program in addition to FTP, allowing them to zip up, and encrypt, files before they’re uploaded, helping to make more efficient use of available space.

In addition to zipping and uploading, users can also directly open compressed files saved in the cloud, plus choose selected files for zipping and sharing. WinZip 17 also simplifies the task of managing all three services simultaneously, and provides a convenient means of getting links to specific files for sharing via email.

WinZip 17 also integrates with popular social networks Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn via the online ZipShare app, which allows users to select files, add a message and post without requiring additional software.

Away from cloud integration, WinZip 17 also adds three notable new tools, all accessible from a Conversion Settings button on the Create tab of the program’s ribbon interface. The first allows users to quickly resize a group of images to specific share-friendly sizes from 640×480 up to full HD (1,920×1,080) resolution. The existing aspect ratio is preserved, and images that are already smaller than the selected size are left untouched.

Users can also now directly convert Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents to universal PDF files with the program -- converted files can be made editable or converted to an image so they’re read-only. The final option allows users to add a custom text watermark to images, with choice of font, placement and direction all available.

WinZip 17’s final improvement comes in the form of an enhanced user interface, which now provides context-sensitive toolbars displaying appropriate tools for zipping or unzipping.

WinZip 17.0 is available as a free trial download for PCs running Windows XP, Vista or 7. WinZip has confirmed a dedicated Windows 8 version of the app will be released shortly. Also available isWinZip Mac Edition, a less featured version for OS X users. Both WinZip and WinZip Mac Edition cost $29.95 for the Standard edition.

Photo Credit: Arkady/Shutterstock

AT&T's hottest smartphone of the season (well, so far) arrives in 18 days, and it's not iPhone 5. America's second-largest carrier has queued up the LG Optimus G, which will be available for $199.99 on contract -- that means two-year commitment. Optimus G specs impress, particularly that quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor, but the software somewhat disappoints. The device ships with Android 4.0.7, not successor Jelly Bean unveiled in June. Upgrade may be months away.

Older software mars what otherwise is a beauty: 4.7-inch TrueHD IPS+ display, 1280 x 768 resolution, 15:9 aspect ratio; 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor; 2GB RAM; 32GB storage (internal and card, expandable to 80GB); 13-megapixel rear-facing and 1.3MP front-facing cameras, zero-lag shutter; 4G LTE; Wi-Fi; A-GPS; MHL; DLNA; near-field communication; Bluetooth 4.0; and 2,100 mAh battery. Measures 131.9mm x 68.9mm x 8.45mm and weighs 145 grams.

Are you tempted by this beast? I might be if not for LG's skin and (cough, cough) Ice Cream Sandwich. Smartphones like this one perpetuate the Android fragmentation problem, and for what reason? Android 4.1 released to the public in mid-July, but Google announced it weeks earlier. What? Four months isn't enough time to test and deploy the newest version? I know the pesky Federal Communications Commission approval process slows up everything, but c`mon LG! You can do better than that.

Perhaps you're not as fussy as me and are ready to plunk down two C-notes starting tomorrow. Share with the class in comments and why or why not there's an Optimus G in your future.

CyanogenMod team introduced an in-house updater for its CM10 custom Android distribution, and while it may cover important functionality some users might desire a more comprehensive app. Addressed to more demanding modders, Team BBQ offers BBQTools, touted as an all-in-one tool for delivering updates, changelogs and more.

Just like BBQLog, BBQTools comes with the ability to display the changelog between CyanogenMod 10 nightly or stable builds, but can also download the essential Google Apps package needed by the installed CM version to offer access to Google Play store and other essential Android functionality, as well as stable or nightly builds for compatible devices and capability to install or update the CyanogenMod.

Addressed to less experienced users, BBQ Tools also provides a FAG and tutorial section that explains the process of installing and updating CyanogenMod, and for more knowledgeable users that want to review minor and specific changes the package offers access to the Gerrit code.

A number of custom recovery-specific options such as wipe, fix permissions and reboot into recovery are built-in, as well as access to system logs (logcat, kernel and radio logs) for troubleshooting various issues.

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox

Microsoft announces calendar third-quarter earnings in three days, and during the conference call, as usually is the case, some financial analyst almost surely will ask about the percentage of professional to consumer versions sold, since the former typically yields higher margins. But that question may soon be a thing of the past, as Microsoft seeks long-term gains from a little short-term pain. The Redmond, Wash.-based company is quietly, but quite deliberately, trying to put Windows consumer, once called Home, out to pasture (hopefully with a bullet in its bytes).

The signs are everywhere. In April, Microsoft reduced the number of Windows editions to three -- 8, Pro and RT -- or four when looking at volume-licensing-only Enterprise. Most people can't buy Windows 8 Enterprise or RT (which is preloaded only). They also can't buy the consumer edition -- yet -- and Microsoft makes it awfully damn easy to get Pro. Existing users of most any version of Windows going back to XP can, until Jan. 31, 2013, upgrade to 8 Pro for $39.99. That's a helluva bargain, and the lowest launch promotional price for a professional Windows edition ever. Meanwhile, buyers of new Windows 7 PCs starting June 2 get a $14.99 free upgrade -- to Pro 8. Last week, Microsoft and retailers started taking boxed Windows 8 Pro upgrade preorders for $69.99. Windows 8 "consumer" upgrade isn't available. Is the pattern clear enough?

The current Pro push departs from previous launch emphasis on Windows Home. For example, Microsoft offered limited-time promotional three-license Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack at launch three years ago. Additionally, the promotional PC upgrade was for like edition, such as Vista Home Premium to similar Windows 7 product. More broadly, since Windows Vista, Home Premium has been the mass-market version pushed on new systems and at retail. Suddenly, for Windows 8's launch, Pro pushes ahead of consumer -- and that's a welcome development. Something else: Microsoft also removed "Home" from the product name, so the consumer edition is simply Windows 8.

I don't suggest that during this release cycle Microsoft will completely do away with Windows consumer, which debuted with XP in October 2001. Before XP, Microsoft offered a NT-kernel-based OS for businesses and DOS/Windows for consumers -- well, clearly after Windows 95 shipped. Windows XP brought the NT-kernel to the mainstream. Vista added more editions -- and way too many of them. Windows isn't toothpaste, but it is, or was, a monopoly product. Microsoft created choice by arbitrarily pulling out features it chose to make multiple versions. But these editions ultimately didn't reflect the wants of the mass-market, which largely consolidated around Home for consumers and Professional or Enterprise for businesses.

For far too long, Windows Home makes up too much of the install base. Windows 8 marks a feature-push forward. Home edition was never good enough, because it lacks security and networking features that most anyone would want -- not just businesses -- particularly as more people work from home at least some of the time. Encryption, group policies and domain join are among the critical features Pro users get and Home ones don't, and that's for Windows 7 and much as its successor. Apple OS X offers these capabilities out of the box, with one version for everyone. One should be Microsoft's goal, too.

Financial analysts will wince, though. Compared to previous launches, Microsoft practically gives away Windows 8 Pro -- quite literally carving rather than slicing off margins. Windows 7 Professional upgrade, as does its successor, lists for $199.99. But during the launch promotion, upgraders save $130, which is a difference of 65 percent. So there's no confusion, the $39.99 and $69.99 promotional prices are both upgrades. The one is available digitally delivered starting October 26 and the other packaged software comes with DVD and can be preordered now. The $39.99 price is a difference of 80 percent from the packaged list price. Again, never has Microsoft offered Windows Pro for so little to so many during launch. The approach risks margins for market share gains from now until January 31. Surely that will concern anyone watching the company's bottom line.

The OEM market also directionally changes. Last week, CEO Steve Ballmer affirmed Microsoft's transformation into a "devices and services company". As part of "Windows reimagined", the company emphasizes convertibles and tablets -- the latter category running Windows 8 Pro (on x86 processors) and Windows RT (on ARM chips), and neither is based on Home. Shop around today and you'll find the majority of new PCs come with Windows 7 Home Edition, not Professional. Microsoft also wants to lead the OEM market to Pro, too, for which presumably they pay higher licensing fees.

Consumer version isn't going away -- heck, some retailers sell the Windows 8 OEM consumer upgrade for $99.99; preorder, of course. Windows 8 also remains as a lower-cost option for PC manufacturers offering less-costly systems. But broadly, Microsoft wants the mainstream Windows market to go Pro or RT, moving away from differentiation by arbitrary features to one around chip architecture (x86 or ARM).

My hands plunge into a beaten-up cardboard box sitting atop a black flea market chest of drawers, pulling out one rarity after another…Tigervision's "King Kong," Spectravision's "Mangia," a prototype of Spy Hunter for paddle & keypad controllers, it's every rare game that ever existed and a whole lot of ones that have never been seen before. I am elated.

Then, of course, I wake up.

This was the dream that woke me yesterday morning. It's the same one I've been having on a regular basis for the last twenty years. I go to some second-hand shop, flea market, or swap meet, and happen upon a box of impossibly rare video game cartridges that some unfortunate slob is selling for pennies.

It isn't an unattainable fantasy, it's a subconscious recreation of that rush that turns hobbyists into obsessive collectors, exhaustive researchers, and amateur historians. It's the thrill of uncovering a beloved rarity in the wild. I had this dream two nights ago because I was under the impression that yesterday was going to be the Atari 2600's 35th birthday.

And though it was my first love, my first true gear obsession, I could not confirm the Atari 2600's actual launch date was October 14, 1977.

An unsourced date on Wikipedia was the trigger for my dream and likely the reason why Chris Morris and a number of other bloggers chose to write about the birthday event yesterday. But all the trustworthy sources I checked only said "October 1977."

Racing the Beam, Supercade, Ultimate History of Video Games, New York Times, Washington Post archives, and trade magazine archives, nothing had a specific date attached to the launch of the VCS. This is likely attributable to the fact that the launch of the VCS wasn't a fantastic ceremonious event itself. By many accounts, it was just another thing that was shipped out to electronics and department stores. Only 250,000 units were sold in the first year, due in part to production problems. It became a hero after initial availability, not before.

As I write this, I still do not have the source of this date. The first appearance of the VCS being available in a national publication was an ad in the Washington Post on Oct 21, 1977 for a place called "The Math Box," which I've embedded below.

If my point has been a little hazy up to now, I aplogize. Here it is in a nutshell: The Atari VCS and its anniversary are so important to me that I wasted literally the entire day of the anniversary searching for something to prove it actually was the anniversary. Classic Conneally. It's been that kind of obsession for my siblings and I our entire lives. It's one part history, one part love for obscurity, and one heaping part of perpetual juvenility.

Exhibit A: Audio cassette labeled "June 25, 1984," recorded in our family's living room:

"Gary, do you think that you stink at Yar's Revenge?"

(With mouth full of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups) "Pershonally, I haven't tried it yet."

"Oh, well I think you stink anyway."

The Atari VCS flung the United States into the reprogrammable home video game era, and was a fixture in my home long after the video game crash of 1983. As game cartridges dropped precipitously in price, we kept buying more. Then in 1989, after my peers had moved on to the Nintendo Entertainment System, and our household had long since switched to the Commodore 64 and BBSing, Atari VCS (aka 2600) came back around with its "The fun is back for $50!" ad campaign and the local toy stores filled up with new Atari 2600 games that weren't garnering much public interest. We continued to casually stockpile games and hardware, and continue to stockpile to this day.

On a number of occasions, I've written about classic games here on BetaNews. These are some of the easiest articles to write because the reward is the work itself. The obsession, as you can see, has not waned at all. So this is my birthday wish to the Atari: I hope to find a solid, confirmable date which I can attach to your birthday, so we can raise a glass.

Until then, I'm considering it open to interpretation, and I will keep sinking my hands into imaginary troves of lost software.

Anton Gvozdikov / Shutterstock.com

Computing, and I use the term in the widest sense, has always been tribal to an extent. People have loyalties, and there’s nothing wrong with that. This year, tribes are called "ecosystems", but whatever the current label, looking around the Interweb it seems to me that tribalism is becoming more prevalent and more aggressive. It’s as if everyone stood on soapboxes with their fingers in their ears, shouting "LALALALALALALA", while at the same time (a good trick, this) yelling through a megaphone that theirs is the only way and anyone who doesn’t agree is just too stupid to be considered human.

Famously, way back in 1994, the writer and thinker Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) compared computing loyalties to religions: Apple followers were Catholics who believed that they would find salvation through following the One True Path. Conversely, PC users, like Protestants, were obliged to find their own way through the many paths open to them, and not all would be saved. And (I guess) Linux users are the hairy prophets who come out of the desert proclaiming, "It’s really easy. Honestly. And these days you only have to scourge yourself with thorns once a week …"

Tribal Warfare

Divisions like this cannot be a good thing, and we can’t all be right. Why don’t we begin by admitting that there is no best ecosystem. They all have good points, and they all have weaknesses. It all depends on what you want to do. Because nobody and nothing is the best at everything.

It used to be axiomatic that you looked at the problem (or need) first, identified the software solution that best fitted what you had to do and purchased whatever hardware you needed to run it on. Tribal loyalties turn that procedure on its head. If you decide on the platform you’ll use before you even know what’s available the danger is that in the end nobody is really happy.

Multiculturalism Computes

A couple of examples: a little while ago I was involved in setting up a small digital TV channel from scratch. The decision on equipping the edit suites was entirely software (not ecosystem) driven. We needed editing software that was capable of fitting in with broadcast television stations and facility houses, and which experienced freelance editors had also worked with. The obvious choice was Avid; but we felt we’d rather look at more cost-efficient alternatives.

Although I personally have worked with Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows for some time, for the TV channel, we chose Apple Final Cut Pro, on Mac Pros -- because that was right for the problem we had at the time. Final Cut Pro is a great piece of software, but then so is Premiere Pro. (They’re extremely similar, partly because Final Cut was initially developed by one of the guys who had previously written Premiere for Adobe.) Final Cut was the right choice in that situation because there were simply more freelance editors around who had experience using Final Cut Pro than Premiere Pro.

The office desktops, however, were Windows PCs, partly because it was easier to support Microsoft's operating system. But mainly because Windows software was what our employees were used to. In both cases the choice was made to provide the greatest compatibility with the surrounding environment. (And, though I have used PCs and Windows since the 1980s, the experience of trying this combination made me think very seriously about going for a Mac Pro on my own next upgrade cycle. Except now it seems Apple has binned the Mac Pro, and killed Final Cut…)

PC Pluralism

Another example. We started out running coolcucumber.tv, a principally Internet TV channel, using Windows media video on a Windows Media Server. This was because at the time we started (about three years ago) the picture quality for a given bandwidth was demonstrably better on Windows video, than on anything else -- especially when combined with Windows streaming server. The situation has changed since then, and the improved quality and popularity of H.264/MPEG4 has made it the obvious choice for streaming video.

So we have replaced the Windows video with H.264/MPEG4 (re-encoded from the original masters, of course), and moved to a Linux server, because that’s what we need to give the widest accessibility to the video. (In particular, with the software we’re using, streaming to iPads/iPhones only works from a Linux server.)

These are (small-scale) corporate examples, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do this for yourself. Next time you decide to upgrade your desktop, laptop, or other device, you could take a little time to look at what your habits and needs really are, and whether a different device might suit you better.

Although we all have personal preferences, the most important thing is the overall picture, rather than an unthinking "well, it obviously has to be Mac, or Windows, or iPad or Android". In the end you might not change anything, but at least you will have looked with open eyes and an open mind.

And finally… This year’s prize for flexibility of thought goes to the person of my acquaintance who recently, and reluctantly, acquired something that could run Microsoft Word to use alongside his 25-year old RISC OS Acorn machine. He made the decision because he works with so many others who used Word and needed the compatibility. Software-driven, see?

Photo Credit:  myway2studio/Shutterstock

With Softbank's majority stake acquisition of Sprint Nextel Corporation, the amount of foreign interest in the United States wireless market is greatly expanded. On the other side of the coin, wholly-American owned wireless companies look like an endangered species.

The two largest US carriers, Verizon Wireless and AT&T are mostly owned by American companies, but based upon first quarter 2012 market share figures (source: Strategy Analytics) and corporate ownership percentages, we estimate 45.3 percent of the United States' wireless market is controlled by foreign multinational companies.

Verizon Wireless --- USA/England
British multinational Vodafone owns approximately 45% of Verizon Wireless, and has done so since late 1999, when Vodafone's U.S. assets merged with GTE's Bell Atlantic Wireless. 55 percent of Verizon is owned by Verizon Communications. If we were to split Verizon Wireless by corporate ownership and market share, U.S. companies would own 18.7 percent of the US wireless subscriber market, while the British would own 15.3 percent.

AT&T --- USA
SBC Communications and Bellsouth ran Cingular Wireless LLC for most of the 2000's, but in 2006, AT&T acquired BellSouth and thereby acquired Cingular. This evolution of the AT&T and BellSouth Brands tells the story nicely. AT&T commands a 32 percent share of the United States wireless market.

Sprint --- Japan
SoftBank's investment and 70 percent ownership of Sprint Nextel bumps the Japanese company up to the rank of third highest revenue among global telecom operators, and approximately 17 percent of United States wireless subscribers.

T-Mobile USA --- Germany

In 2001, Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG acquired VoiceStream Wireless Inc. and Powertel Inc, and in 2002, VoiceStream was renamed T-Mobile USA, and the company has been a top-tier player ever since. However, the difficulty acquiring wireless spectrum has caused Deutsche Telekom to merge with U.S. carrier MetroPCS. MetroPCS formed out of General Wireless Inc., in 2004 after the company acquired C-Block wireless licenses in an FCC spectrum auction. The combined entity of T-Mobile/MetroPCS accounts for a 13 percent share of United States subscribers.

Leap Wireless --- USA
This parent of Cricket Communications began as a spin-off of Qualcomm, and became the fifth largest wireless carrier with its popular brand Cricket. Like AT&T, this is one of the few national wireless carriers that isn't owned in large part by a foreign investor.

In the last two years, the company has been reported to be looking to merge its way out of the market. Five days ago, Leap closed a $400 million loan secured by Cricket itself. In the terms of the loan, Leap is forbidden to incur additional debt, sell its assets, make certain types of investments, grant liens, or make certain types of payments including dividends. It appears that Leap is going to stay on its current course for now. Currently, the company commands about two percent of the market.

U.S. Cellular --- USA
Consistently the eighth largest carrier in the United States, United States Cellular Corporation serves 5.8 million customers in 26 states. As the other carriers have all announced major plans for future growth, U.S. Cellular has remained somewhat quiet and continued to expand its 4G LTE network. Earlier this year, about 31 percent of the company's wireless footprint included LTE connectivity, and the company expects to close out 2012 with approximately 58 percent LTE coverage. U.S. Cellular is on par with Leap with a two percent market share.

Photo: Oleksii Sagitov/Shutterstock

Running an Android distribution means having a custom recovery installed, with Team Win Recovery Project being one of the most popular solutions. TWRP 2.3 is released, touting a number of speed improvements as well as other fixes.

It's now based on AOSP Jelly Bean source code, and to aid implementing new features and future AOSP recovery updates, TWRP 2.3 has undergone significant under-the-hood changes due to a core rewrite into C++. ADB Sideload, which is a Jelly Bean recovery feature, has been implemented allowing to push and install an Android distribution using a single command from the computer. Also added is the charging indicator that updates every minute. What else?

Fix permissions runs faster than with previous versions, taking "a few seconds instead of a few minutes", with faster boot times claimed as well. According to the announcement, thanks to zip finding in OpenRecoveryScript there should be significantly fewer GooManager automation issues.

IObit has released Advanced SystemCare 6 FREE, a brand new version of its freeware optimization tool. Version 6.0 debuts a new, streamlined interface, and comes with full support for Windows 8.

ASC 6 Free, which is also available in Pro form with additional functionality, also updates its Surfing Protection, Driver Manager and Privacy Sweep databases, adds support for additional languages and provides unspecified general bug fixes.

ASC 6 Free looks visibly different to the previous version thanks to a redesigned and streamlined user interface, particularly in Simplified Mode, which is aimed at less experienced users. Among the interface improvements are smaller icons for the various tools provided under Care and Toolbox tabs, allowing them all to be displayed on one screen. The user then hovers the mouse over a tool to find out more about it before clicking to launch it.

Version 6 also provides updated databases for its Surfing Protection, Driver Manager and Privacy Sweep tools, which should provide better protection and security than previous versions. It’s also the first build to come with full support for Windows 8, just two weeks ahead of its general release.

ASC 6 Free rounds off the update with additional language support, plus a slew of unspecified general bug fixes. The final release comes just over two months after it entered beta.

IObit Advanced SystemCare 6.0.7.160 FREE is a freeware download for PCs running Windows XP or later. A single year’s Pro license with additional features, including deeper scans, automatic updates and anti-malware protection is also available for as little as $9.95 through the Downloadcrew Software Store, a saving of 50 per cent on the MSRP.

Photo Credit: Sergey Mironov/Shutterstock

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner broke a number of records with his breathtaking edge-of-space skydive yesterday -- and not just the highest jump from a platform (128,100 feet), the longest distance free-fall, (119,846 feet) and becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier (with a maximum vertical velocity of 833.9 mph or Mach 1.24). He was also responsible for notching up the most simultaneous live views on YouTube to date.

According to Google, over eight million people (myself included) visited the live stream to watch Baumgartner jump from a capsule attached to a giant helium balloon some 24 miles (39km) above the Earth and land safely around nine minutes later, nonchalantly touching down almost -- as a friend described it -- as if stepping off a bus.

Celebrating his achievements, Google says in a blog post: "We congratulate Felix Baumgartner and the entire Red Bull Stratos team for their successful mission, and for creating a live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube."

If you missed the Red Bull Stratos stunt live you can watch highlights from the mission and other videos relating to it on the official YouTube channel.

Jelly Bean is an elusive update for most high-end Android smartphones today, even though introduced at Google I/O four months ago. Today, LG revealed which devices will receive Android 4.1 in the upcoming months, undoubtedly in a move to catch up to the likes of HTC and Samsung that already have announced smartphones running the software.

The list of smartphones is not extensive, and includes more recent devices, such as the LG Optimus Vu and Optimus G; the latter model comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and made waves in the smartphone market for its incredibly powerful hardware. The South Korean manufacturer's flagship, Qualcomm-powered, device will be updated to Jelly Bean in December.

The LG Optimus Vu as well as its younger sibling the Optimus Vu II won't get Android 4.1 until next year. There is no word yet on the nVidia Tegra 3-powered Optimus 4x HD, but the less-known Optimus LTE II will get Jelly Bean next month.

Adobe has announced the availability of its next generation PDF reading and creation tools, Adobe Reader XI and Adobe Acrobat XI. And this looks like a useful upgrade, with plenty of interesting additions and extensions on offer.

Adobe Reader XI offers more drawing and annotation tools, for instance: sticky notes, stamps, file attachments, audio recordings and more. Form support finally works at it should, too, with you able to fill, sign, send and save PDF forms as necessary.

There are plenty of extra security features. The new Protected View runs the reader in a separate desktop and winstation, for instance, a little low-level trickery, which will help keep it more isolated from the rest of your system.

And Adobe also says their “◦Enhanced Protected Mode now includes data theft prevention capabilities”, intriguingly, though we’re not yet clear on exactly what they are.

Elsewhere, a new online service allows you to store key PDF’s on Acrobat.com for easy access from anywhere. The free account offers 2GB storage space for free, while commercial accounts start from a monthly $14.99, and offer 15GB storage space, more workspaces, the ability to convert unlimited files to PDF, telephone support, and more (the full pricing details are here).

Adobe Reader also offers easy access to an online PDF conversion service, which can convert various file types to PDF (Word, Excel, JPEG, more), export PDF files back to various Office formats, and more. No free options here, unfortunately: prices start from $7.50 a month if you pay annually up-front.

Of course there is also a nod to Windows 8 here (and OS X Mountain Lion), with a new touch mode aiming to make the program just a little more tablet-friendly.

And as you’d expect, Acrobat XI also sees significant improvements in many of the same areas. So a new Edit Text and Images tool simplifies editing; Adobe’s bundled FormsCentral app makes it easier to create and work with forms; it’s now more straightforward to import, create and work with Office documents; and there’s better handling of electronic signatures, improved PDF file protection, Microsoft App-V support, and more.

There’s a vast amount to explore, then, and both Adobe Reader XI and Adobe Acrobat XI are available now.

Whether you think Microsoft wants to be Apple, or not, the company continues to roll out products designed to compete with its major rival. Today’s announcement is for Xbox Music, a digital music service for the Xbox games console, which will also appear as the default music player in Windows 8.

The service, which goes live tomorrow and will be available in 22 countries from launch, is a cross between Spotify and iTunes. Users will be able to listen to songs or full albums for free, create artist-based streaming radio stations, and put together music mixes and playlists. The iTunes element comes in the form of a music store, which will allow users to purchase and download tracks. The store will reportedly offer over 30 million songs, some four million more than Apple's store. There will also be over 70,000 music videos on offer.

Talking about the new service, Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business Marketing and Strategy, says: "There are a lot of individual services that do a good job, but today there isn’t a service which can pull together the benefits of download-to-own, music subscription, or free streaming services. With Xbox Music, what we wanted to do is bring all of that value in one simple, easy-to-use service, then build some additional value on top -- make it really beautiful, and have it work across all of your devices. We’ve been able to simplify the music experience in a really powerful way".

Xbox Music will be available in two flavors -- free, but ad supported, or as an unlimited subscription-based service priced at $9.99 a month. Although it will only be available on Xbox initially, the service will expand to PCs and tablets running Windows 8 when the new OS launches on 26 Oct, and arrive on Windows Phone 8 shortly afterwards. There are also plans to release Android and iOS apps at a later date.

Personally, I'm pretty excited about the new service -- what about you?

Four days ago Sprint Nextel Corporation confirmed acquisition talks with Japan's third-largest carrier, Softbank Corp, with unspecified details surrounding the transaction at the time. Today the operator from the land of the rising sun announced that it will invest $20.1 billion in Sprint, $12.1 billion of which will give SoftBank a dominant stake of 70 percent in the US carrier.

The two operators expect the transaction to close, pending approval of Sprint's shareholders, the Federal Communications Commission and other regulatory agencies, in the second half of 2013. Combined the two carriers will rank as the third largest operator worldwide according to the press release, a strong position that favors both parties. The Japan-based carrier will provide Sprint $8 billion from the total amount for its balance sheet, mobile network and strategic investments.

The investment will allow Sprint to better compete with national carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, permitting the nation's third-largest carrier to transform into a worthy opponent for larger local operators and improve services offered to customers.

Sprint CEO, Dan Hesse, which according to the details provided by SoftBank will maintain his position after the transaction is complete, states: "Our management team is excited to work with Softbank to learn from their successful deployment of LTE in Japan as we build out our advanced LTE network, improve the customer experience and continue the turnaround of our operations".

Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Chairman and CEO reinforcing Sprint's strong-suit in the transaction adds: "Our track record of innovation, combined with Sprint’s strong brand and local leadership, provides a constructive beginning toward creating a more competitive American mobile market".

If Sprint accepts a better offer from a third party or if Softbank does not obtain financing the penalties will be substantial for either side, amounting to $600 million to the other party involved in the agreement.

Photo Credit:  Minerva Studio/Shutterstock

Well, hello, Windows 8 advertising. Microsoft smartly chose tonight's "The Walking Dead" season 3 premiere (and perhaps other programs I didn't watch) to kick off marketing for the new operating system. Considering post-PC advocates treat Windows as something like an undead creature, there's certain appropriateness to using the popular AMC series.

I'm stoked about the first commercial, "Windows 8 is coming soon", which begins with blast-off countdown "10, nine, eight, eight, eight..." I love the exploding laptop, because everything is changed, baby. The spot moves fast, uses jump cuts to bounce around and tells you absolutely nothing specific about Windows 8 other than release date: "10-26-12".

But Microsoft shows off the modern UI over and over and lots of young folks having fun. Eagles of Death Metal track "Only Want You" energizes the emotion and sense of something quite alive going to shake up your life. Bring it on, Microsoft.

Last week's Saturday Night Live Season opener, with Daniel Craig hosting, really disappointed. But last night's show returned to form, with host Christina Applegate. Among the highlights, and somewhat appropriate for a host with "Apple" in her name, is a skit about iPhone 5. SNL is often best when using humor to make social commentary and, whoa, does it in the new episode.

I have embedded the official video from NBC but can't be sure it will be visible to international readers. If you can't view the SNL skit, try this user-posted YouTube video (and hope NBC doesn't demand its removal).

Applegate appears as host of show "Tech Talk", which focuses on "iPhone 5 and its plethora of glitches and design flaws". Three bloggers then go on to complain about the device -- everything from Apple Maps misdirection to iPhone 5 being simply too thin.

"Whoever built these iPhones, I don't know what they were thinking", says the Gizmodo blogger. "Let's ask them", Applegate answers. "Joining us now are three peasant laborers from the factory in China where these iPhones are manufactured". Hilarity follows.

Talk about shock journalism. If only it was real. The skit is American self-deprecation at its funniest. In re-watching the segment this morning, I laughed again and reflect about tech-gadget obsession and priorities that should matter more than the newest Apple rumor or gadget. Please do likewise.

The skit ends with Applegate asking the peasant workers if they have complaints about American products. They can't think of any because America presumably doesn't manufacture anything.

"Does diabetes count as a product?"

I bought my first ebook in 1999 and in recent years stopped purchasing print altogether. My wife is a relative ebook newbie, so I am surprised that she and not me received an email today from Amazon about a forthcoming purchasing credit. Perhaps you got a similar message.

In April, the Justice Department accused Apple and five publishers -- Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster -- of fixing ebook prices. Three publishers settled; MacMillan and Penguin, along with Apple, refused. The three publishers also settled with states attorneys general, agreeing to put $69 million in a fund for consumers. The Amazon purchasing credit is product of the settlement.

There's still a February hearing ahead before the settlement is approved (well, presumably), after which consumers receive anywhere from 30 cents to a buck thirty-two for each ebook purchased between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012.

Antitrust watchdogs accused the six parties of fixing prices by forcing a different selling model on ebook sellers -- one that guaranteed higher pricing. Apple sought the arrangement for iPad, which went on sale April 3, 2010 (hint: start date for the ebook settlement benefit is related).

In December 2010, I asked "Is someone fixing ebook prices?" after observing nearly uniform pricing across ebook stores. The Feds and states later answered that question "Yes".

Text of the email my wife received today:

Dear Kindle Customer,

We have good news. You are entitled to a credit for some of your past ebook purchases as a result of legal settlements between several major ebook publishers and the Attorneys General of most U.S. states and territories, including yours. You do not need to do anything to receive this credit. We will contact you when the credit is applied to your Amazon.com account if the Court approves the settlements in February 2013.

Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster have settled an antitrust lawsuit about ebook prices. Under the proposed settlements, the publishers will provide funds for a credit that will be applied directly to your Amazon.com account. If the Court approves the settlements, the account credit will appear automatically and can be used to purchase Kindle books or print books. While we will not know the amount of your credit until the Court approves the settlements, the Attorneys General estimate that it will range from $0.30 to $1.32 for every eligible Kindle book that you purchased between April 2010 and May 2012.

Alternatively, you may request a check in the amount of your credit by following the instructions included in the formal notice of the settlements, set forth below. You can learn more about the settlements here:
www.amazon.com/help/agencyebooksettlements

In addition to the account credit, the settlements impose limitations on the publishers’ ability to set ebook prices. We think these settlements are a big win for customers and look forward to lowering prices on more Kindle books in the future.

Thank you for being a Kindle customer.

The Amazon Kindle Team

More information about the states attorneys general settlement and benefits to you can be found here.

Little more than a month ago Motorola announced its new Droid Razr smartphone lineup, among which is the 4.3-inch Droid Razr M. The phone ships with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich but, just like with the HTC One X, someone decided that it could use some jelly beans...

On Twitter P3Droid provides a download link for the Razr M Android 4.1 Jelly Bean ROM, with the standard warning regarding the voided warranty if flashed. Named "Blur_Version.77.111.10.XT907.Verizon.en.US.zip", the leaked file comes in at 255MB, and judging by the included files it updates the Verizon Wireless variant to Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and not the latest available.

The leaked ROM does not come with new radios, as the included ones bear a December 2008 time-stamp. According to Android Central the file can be flashed through the stock recovery.

When you’re looking to free up a little hard drive space, then you might start by using something like CCleaner to find and remove logs, leftover temporary files and assorted other junk.

But if that doesn’t help very much, then your next step should be to try and get a better understanding of exactly what is filling up your drive. And the free, Java-based JDiskReport is the ideal tool to help.

The process starts by pointing the program at the folder tree you’d like it to examine, then waiting for a moment as it analyses your files.

And then, the report appears, providing both an Explorer-type view of your system, and a pie chart which immediately highlights which of your top-level folders are consuming the most disk space.

Initially this probably won’t reveal anything too informative. The largest folder on our test system was \Users, for instance, but what does that actually mean?

Fortunately just clicking that folder drills down a level, and once you’ve done that two or three times you’ll have found exactly which user, folder and perhaps file comes top of the space-hogging charts.

But if there’s still a problem, then JDiskReport offers some useful alternative views on your system. Clicking “Top 50″ can display your largest or most recently modified 50 files, for instance. While the “Types” tab reveals the file types which are hogging the most drive space.

The program has the occasional frustration. If you spot an unwanted file on the “50 largest” list, for instance, it would be useful to be able to delete it immediately. But, that isn’t possible: the best the program can do is open an Explorer window and leave you to wipe it manually.

JDiskReport does provide a great deal of useful data on how your hard drive is being used, though, and it’s entirely free of adware, nag screens or other marketing hassles. If you need some help figuring out where all your drive space has gone, then give it a try.

Photo Credit:  Jakub Pavlinec/Shutterstock

I love living on the cutting edge of technology; it's a great place for writing and coming up with important feedback. But nothing can stay new forever, and some things don't necessarily need to be replaced whole-hog. Component upgrades, therefore, can give you that feeling of the new without having to scrap something that still has value to it. An old spinning hard drive in your laptop is a perfect example. When you've still got a lot of life in your machine, replacing the HDD with a solid state drive should be a no-brainer.

For me, it was either do that or buy a whole new laptop that wouldn't serve me any better at doing my job. After some research on reliability and pricing, I concluded that the Intel 330 Series 240GB SSD would fit my specific requirements without going overboard and spending too much on technology that's rapidly depreciating anyway.

Great performance

I have closely followed the recent evolution of SSD drives, and the situation has improved a lot since days of yore. Performance has gone up, with flagship drives from Intel, OCZ, Samsung as well as other manufacturers posting incredibly high benchmark scores as well as amazing real-life performance.

The Intel SSD 330 Series I chose to install is not the top-of-the-line, and it delivers a boot time of less than 20 seconds and transfer speed of more than 100MB/s in its worst shape. That, to me still seems impressive when compared to traditional storage solutions.

I have unusually large archives stored, and my previous hard drive would usually extract them in no time... that is if I could time travel. I could literally stand up and go get a cup of coffee before an 8GB archive finished extracting, and that is no small feat when it also slowed my laptop to a halt. Now, the same operation takes just a fraction of the old time, and I can also use Firefox without bogging down, or even search various files.

Using Windows 8 means that I can no longer use the Intel SSD Toolbox to optimize the SSD since it doesn't yet support the controversial new operating system, but as a stopgap solution, "Defragment and Optimize Drives" from Administrative Tools does essentially the same job.

Increasing value

SSD prices are steadily going down, making them much more approachable than they used to be, but they're still not as cheap as a normal hard drive. My 240 GB Intel SSD 330 Series locally falls quite close to the 180 GB Intel 520 Series, and considering the 60GB storage difference that I need, the former got the upper hand.

Buying a new SSD is confusing even for someone with a constant contact with technology, especially when it comes to pricing, performance and storage. There is a lot of variation in pricing between similar models and too many to chose from, making me place value at the top of the list. The performance differences, while easily spottable in benchmarks and charts, do not tell the whole story.

To buy an expensive SSD today will mean that in the near future it will lose more of its value than a cheaper one. The same can be said about performance, which is why I chose not to overspend. I know I will upgrade before I feel the need for a few extra megabytes per second in transfer speed, or an extra second shaved off of booting. Sure, others might beg to differ, but from my perspective, performance has reached a unilateralism which makes price matter more.

I don't want to go back

My laptop got a new lease on life with the 240GB 330 Series Intel SSD, and while it's just one in a sea of many it serves as a good example on how changing one component can transform a four-year old laptop into something that can be used daily without any performance issues. Most importantly, it can be done without spending a considerable amount of money.

The only problem, like I've previously mentioned, is comparing the price of an SSD with a normal hard drive, but that's like comparing a Ferrari with a Fiat -- similar ideas, but completely different experiences.

Photo: Serg64/Shutterstock

What the frak? Did Microsoft hire the same artist for Windows 8 packaging that Google used for Nexus 7? Because I am absolutely struck by similar color choices and graphic fluidity. You wouldn't confuse the boxes on a store shelf, because the products would be nowhere near one another. But one wonders if Google tapped a new trend in graphic box design, and Microsoft just copied along.

Before posting, and as sanity check, I asked colleague Tim Conneally about the boxes. "The similarity is kind of shocking", he responded. "That gunmetal grey color was nowhere to be seen in tech two years ago".

But the similarity only starts with these boxes. Microsoft has five different Windows 8 box designs, and color choices for three remind of the default background Google uses for Android 4.1.

Is this just concidence, case of Microsoft copying Google or me making something of nothing?

In advance of Windows 8 Day on October 26, the big computer makers are all rolling out incrementally updated models in their different PC lines to support the touch activities central to Windows 8. Friday, long-running Texas PC maker Dell announced it had put up three new touch-enabled PCs for pre-order in the U.S., which will ship on October 26.

The three new PCs fall under the category of "seen it before, but not in this exact way," and they include the XPS 12 convertible notebook with the "spinning target" hinged display we first saw on the Inspiron Duo two years ago; the XPS One 27 All-in-one PC, and the Inspiron One 23 All-in-one, both of which had launched previously, except without the touchscreens.

The standout device is naturally the XPS 12, which revisits the novel hinged flipping screen configuration that took the PC market by surprise two years ago. The launch of Windows 8 is the peak time for this type of device, and the XPS 12 will face competition from hybrids and convertibles from many manufacturers. Asus has its various Windows 8 tablets with keyboard docks, Lenovo has its backward-flipping Yoga IdeaPad and twisting ThinkPad Twist, Sony has its Vaio Duo 11 slider, and Toshiba has its Satellite U920T slider as well.

The XPS 12 is equipped with a 3rd Generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor up to 3.0 GHz in speed with up to 8 GB of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM. Storage comes in the form of either a 128 GB or 256 GB Solid State Drive. All models rely on integrated Intel HD 4000 for graphics and weigh 3.35 pounds.

XPS 12 convertible is available in four configurations between $1,199 and $1,699.

The two all-in-ones provide slightly different variations on the same desktop PC theme. The Inspiron One 23 has a 23" screen (1920x1080) and can be configured with a 2.9 GHz Intel Pentium processor G645 or a 3rd Generation Core i7-3770s processor up to 3.90 GHz and storage is just a hair under a terabyte (1000 GB) with a 7200 RPM SATA HDD. There are two USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0, RJ-45 10/100/1000 Gigabit, and also has VGA, HDMI, and Composite ports. The Inspiron One 23 comes in five configurations costing between $649 and $1,299.

The XPS One 27 is the heavy hitter of the bunch and the model with the most features comes with either an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor up to 3.90 GHz, and up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM. Storage options include 1TB or 2TB 7200RPM HDD and the peak configuration adds a supplemental 32 GB SSD. The entry level model uses Intel's integrated graphics, but the higher-tier models have a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 640M GPU. The XPS One 27 is priced between $1,599 and $2,499.

Looking for a way to better manage the contents of your Android phone or tablet? SnapPea is a free tool, currently in beta, that could meet your needs. Regardless of whether your device was provided with its own management software, which is found wanting in the vast majority of cases, you can use the program to connect to your device to perform backups, transfer data and browse through images and other files.

You’ve probably found that keeping on top of your contacts on your phone can be a pain – with SnapPea you can take advantage of your computer’s mouse and keyboard to make changes, additions and backup more quickly and easily than ever before. Similarly, the program can also be used to browse through your text messages in a simple yet sleek interface, but more importantly it gives you the ability to send text messages from within Windows.

While many mobile phone operators provide a backup tool on various tariffs that can be used to safeguard contacts and other data, SnapPea provides you with a more hands-on option. The program can be used to automatically backup contacts, text messages and photos every time you connect your phone or tablet to your computer so there’s no need to worry about manually transferring data.

You can also use SnapPea to manage your app -- removing those you no long need, moving apps between internal storage and a memory card and even downloading new apps from Google Play and other stores. It’s also possible to mirror the display of your device on your PC monitor – useful for showing of photos on a larger screen – and take screenshots. This is a valuable tol even if only used as a backup utility, but there are plenty more options that make this well worth a look.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the SnapPea review page.

Two weeks to launch, Microsoft's newest operating system is available for preorder -- that's standalone software or preinstalled on new PCs available from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Samsung and Sony. Upgrade price is $69.99 for Windows 8 Pro, which in the United States is available from major retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Microsoft Store, Newegg, Office Depot and Staples.

"Customers outside the US will also have an opportunity to reserve Windows 8 Pro during this promotion, via participating retailers worldwide such as Best Buy in the United States, Future Shop in Canada, Walmart in Mexico, Casas Bahia in Brazil, Dixon’s in the UK, FNAC in France, Yamada in Japan, Suning in China and many more", a Microsoft spokesperson tells BetaNews. "We also recommend checking with local retailers for more information".

Building your own system? Newegg also stocks OEM versions -- $139.99 for Windows 8 Pro 64-bit. That's full product, not upgrade. Those willing to wait and wanting to pay less can upgrade most older Windows versions on October 26 for just $39.99. Update: Reader Brian Fagioli says Newegg will discount the $69.99 upgrade by $10 when using this promo code: EMCJNJH82.

Bargain Basement

Microsoft has never sold Windows for so little. Windows 7 Home Edition upgrade lists for $119.99 and Pro for $199.99, although street prices tend to be $30 and $50 less, respectively. In July, I polled BetaNews readers about the $40 price. Sixty-two percent of respondents who qualify for the discount plan to upgrade.

The upgrade price ends January 31, and I have to wonder about the $69.99 offer, too. Amazon says Windows 8 Pro upgrade list price is $199.99, which is same as the older version. So, if you really want a good deal on the new operating system, don't wait. Microsoft appears ready to sacrifice margins for market share but only during the first three months of sales. Windows 8 will cost more later on.

Preorders start as Office 2013 releases to manufacturing. Businesses and developers can get the software in mid-November. Everyone else waits until next year. Say, could launch be in February, after higher Windows 8 prices kick in?

Grim Reaper

Windows 8 PCs can't come to market fast enough. On Wednesday, Gartner and IDC released third-quarter PC shipment estimates, and, whoa, they are grim.

Global PC shipments fell 8.6 percent year over year, according to IDC, surpassing the minus 3.8 percent forecast. Gartner: 8.3 percent decline. The United States is in free fall, with shipments down 13.8 percent by Gartner's reckoning and 12.4 percent according to IDC.

Gartner and IDC analysts are guardedly optimistic about Windows 8 lifting Q4 numbers, following a year of disappointing shipments. Others warn of continued troubles.

"There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market", Craig Stice, IHS senior principal analyst, says. "Optimism has vanished and turned to doubt, and the industry is now training its sights on 2013 to deliver the hoped-for rebound. All this is setting the PC market up for its first annual decline since the dot-com bust year of 2001".

Last Stand

Windows 8 represents Microsoft's last stand, combined with major desktop and server software upgrades across the line. Never has the company released so many products so close together, so carefully coordinated (that's features as well as logistics) and so optimized for the cloud.

On Tuesday, CEO Steve Ballmer released a letter to customers, partners and shareholders, repositioning Microsoft as a "devices and services company". Contrary to arm-chair punditry about Microsoft trying to become Apple, Ballmer instead articulated where Microsoft has been going for years. The cloud-connected device era is here and Microsoft embraces it to maintain computing relevance.

"A great example of this shift is Windows 8", Ballmer explains, "with beautiful hardware that will light up with our consumer cloud services. Windows 8 unites the light, thin and fun aspects of a tablet with the power of a PC". The productivity suite is part of the experience. "The ultimate experience with the new Office for both consumers and businesses will come when it is paired with a Windows 8 device and delivered as a cloud subscription service with Office 365".

You’ll no doubt be familiar with The Innocence of Muslims, the controversial film that has angered Muslims across the Middle East, sparking riots and leading to several deaths.

It’s unlikely you’ll have actually watched it, although the more curious among you may have caught some of it on YouTube, where the film is still freely available -- provided, of course, you’re not reading this in one of the countries where Google has blocked it, specifically Libya, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Russia recently banned the film, too, which unsurprisingly also is not available to watch in Iran, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, where they’ve chosen to go a step further and block YouTube entirely.

The truth is, pretty much every one of the Muslims up in arms about the film won’t have watched it either (I’ve foolishly sat through the full 74-minute version, by the way, and it’s an atrocious piece of film making), because the movie doesn't so much anger them, as the idea of it. The Quran and other Islamic teachings state expressly that Muhammad is not to be depicted in any way, and The Innocence of Muslims not only has an actor playing him, but shows the prophet as a fool, a fraud, insane, and a sexual deviant. You can understand why Muslims would be rather upset about it all.

Despite mounting pressure, including from the White House itself, Google refused to pull the film because it doesn't violate policies. Robert X. Cringely gave his view on the situation here, but the simple truth is Google is trapped between a rock and a hard place. If YouTube had censored The Innocence of Muslims, given in to the pressure, that would have left the company vulnerable to the "heckler’s veto", leading potentially to a wide range of other content being pulled from the site. What’s harmless to one person, might be highly offensive to another and it’s all very subjective.

Inevitably, Google’s stance didn’t go down at all well it certain countries and according to the Telegraph, the Saudi government recently made a submission to the World Telecommunications Policy Forum, a UN body hosting forthcoming international talks on internet governance, calling for the creation of a new overseer designed to censor offensive content on the Internet.

The submission reportedly states that the incident is "an obvious example" of the need for greater international cooperation to restrict this type of content, and that "any reasonable person would know that this film would foment violence and, indeed, many innocent persons have died and been injured with this film as a root cause".

The submission goes on to add: "This behavior, along with other malicious and criminal activities such as child pornography, identity theft, spam, denial of service attacks, and malware aimed at destroying or crippling businesses, inter alia, must be addressed by states in a collaborative and cooperative environment and strongly underscores the need for enhanced cooperation".

What’s your view on the Saudi government’s submission? Is it a fair and sensible one, or another example of a restrictive nation trying to undermine liberal Western values and freedom of speech on the internet? As always, leave your comments below.

Photo Credit: Matthias Pahl/Shutterstock

A couple of months ago, BetaNews contributor Mihaita Bamburic complained that he couldn't do his engineering work on any tablet, and what he really needed was a tablet with at least a 15-inch touchscreen. Sony appears to have met my colleague's demands with five inches to spare in a new tablet-ish PC of massive size. Sony calls it the Vaio Tap 20 PC...the first "mobile tabletop PC."

Imagine if you took a desktop all-in-one PC and slapped a battery inside its chassis. That's essentially the Vaio Tap 20. It has a 20-inch screen (1600x900) with 10-point multi-touch recognition and it has a built-in stand which allows it to be propped up and used as a traditional all-in-one PC when not being used as a pseudo-laptop-tablet thingy.

Hardware-wise, it can be configured with an Intel Core i7-3517U, Core i5-3317U, or Core i3-3217U Processor and from 4GB to 8GB of DDR3L (1600MHz) SDRAM. Storage can be configured with either a 750GB or 1TB 5400rpm HDD. Graphics is done by the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor. Communications include 802.11 a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.0 + HS; 1000/100/10 Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, Memory Stick Duo/SD memory card slot; and most interestingly of all (at least for a desktop all-in-one) Near Field Communications support. It's also got the requisite 720p webcam for chatting with the family and/or boardroom full of disgruntled executives.

The whole thing weighs 11.46 pounds, so it's no handheld tablet by any stretch of the imagination. For an AIO PC, it's definitely on the lighter end of the spectrum. For example, Asus' EeeTop all-in-one weighs 15 lbs, and Dell and HP all-in-ones range from 14-21 lbs.

The Vaio Tap 20 starts at $879.99 and comes in either black or white chassis design.

Yesterday Google updated factory images for the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus; today Android 4.1.2 is available for the almost two-year old Nexus S smartphone and Ice Cream Sandwich for the US-made Nexus Q.

Nexus Q launched alongside the latest mobile operating system during Google I/O in June, but today marks the first time it makes an appearance on Nexus Factory Images, still available with the Android 4.0 it originally shipped with. In late July, Google suddenly suspended sales and delayed the entertainment device's launch. Release of factory images could foreshadow closer release. If nothing else, developers with the device have more options to experiment.

The international Nexus S is the only one in its family updated to Jelly Bean, leaving other variants behind to use previously posted factory images.

Also updated: the international sibling of the Google Play-sold Galaxy Nexus.

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox

Shoot a video, run a backup, create a virtual machine: there are all kinds of programs and operations that can create truly massive, multi-gigabyte files. And while these monsters remain on your hard drive, there’s no problem.

But if you want to back them up, perhaps share the files with others, then life could become a little more difficult. Unless, that is, you use a tool like Split Byte to separate your files into smaller, more manageable chunks.

The basic operation of the program is much as you’d expect. Point it at your oversized file; choose how many chunks you’d like (or set the maximum chunk size); click “Split”, and Split Byte will divide up the file according to your wishes.

But what makes Split Byte more interesting is its host of extra options and bonus features.

The program can zip up the file before splitting it, for instance, keeping the number of chunks to a minimum.

It can encrypt your data, too, useful if it contains confidential information.

And there are options to give the chunks the same timestamp as the source file, to delete the source file once it’s been divided up, even to then email those chunks to your preferred recipient.

Of course there’s also a Join function, which is just as straightforward (point the program at the first part, and it’ll find and attach all the others itself). And an MD5 Checksum function confirms that the split/ rejoin operations haven’t resulted in any corruption.

There are also some small annoyances here. The program is surprisingly large, for instance (it grabbed nearly 15MB on our test system). And the installer is extremely eager to equip your PC with browser addons and other “extras”, so be sure to pay close attention during the setup process.

Otherwise, though, Split Byte is a capable file splitter with some useful extra features, which could help to make those gigantic files just a little more manageable.

Photo Credit: Yeko Photo Studio/Shutterstock

Three months after offering a public preview, overnight, Microsoft announced that Office 2013 released to manufacturing. Development is complete. The timing isn't surprising, given the software is bundled with Windows RT, which will be available to purchase on new computing devices in two weeks.

However, Windows RT-based devices, and specifically the Surface RT, will come with a preview version of Office 2013 rather than the fully-developed final code, due to the time-frame between the device and the software suite launch.

Most customers will wait until next year to get the software.  Microsoft plans to release Office 2013 in first quarter, rather than alongside the launch of Windows 8. Meantime, starting October 19, customers purchasing Office 2010 will receive its successor "for free upon availability".

Office 2013 is designed to work in conjunction with the newly introduced ecosystem that forms around Windows 8. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the productivity suite now sports a design centered around touch operations and a more up-to-date usage scenario that includes reading, communication and taking notes, among others, which are all significant roles mostly part of the tablet lifestyle.

For professionals and developers, Office 2013 will be available earlier, mid-November, for download via MSDN and TechNet. Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance can get the software around the same time, with pricing to be disclosed on December 1.

Additionally, Microsoft will release new Office 365 Enterprise features, concurrently with the suite's availability to developers and enterprises.

Hot on the heels of Mozilla pulling the latest stable release from its download servers after discovering a security vulnerability, Firefox 16.0.1 FINAL has now been released. Those who had already upgraded to version 16 should upgrade automatically now the updated version is available. Full details about the vulnerability can be found here.

In the meantime, Mozilla has updated all pre-release versions of the popular cross-platform, open-source browser to versions 17 (Beta), 18 (Aurora) and 19 (Nightly/Elm/UX) respectively. Once again, confirmed changes are thin on the ground, although the recent release of the “Elm” branch of Firefox Nightly, previewing the new Modern UI-based version of Firefox for Windows 8, is a noteworthy addition.

Firefox 16.0.1 FINAL

Without a doubt the recommended release for most users, as it’s the most stable build out there -- now the security patch has been implemented, at any rate. Initial desktop support for web apps, VoiceOver accessibility features for OS X, extra developer tools and enhanced garbage collection performance to prevent freezes and performance lags mark out this release.

Firefox 17.0b1 Beta

Despite the intriguing nature of the new features being linked to Firefox 17 Beta(which installs over the top of any final build), you can’t currently preview any of them in this early beta, suggesting the possibility some or all might slip back to Firefox 18.

The most exciting development is “Firefox Social Integration”. This is Firefox’s attempt to better integrate social networking tools into the browser. Planned changes include integrating social notifications and a share/recommend service into the main toolbar, plus developing a dedicated sidebar for news feeds, tickers, buddy lists and so on. Also planned is a docked or floating window for integrating chat -- including video and audio.

Also undergoing development in version 17 is an improved display of Location Bar results as the user types words into it -- some changes have already been implemented, and can be found in version 16 of the browser, namely no separator line and search terms highlighted in grey rather than marked in bold. Features still being developed -- and not yet visible in v17 -- include larger icons, the ability to delete search results by hovering the mouse over them and the removal of the scrollbar.

The final new feature under development in version 17 is the addition of extra features to the HTML Tree Editor, which currently only allows users to delete nodes via the Page Inspector’s HTML pane.

Firefox 18.0a2 Aurora

Firefox’s “alpha” build installs alongside either Firefox Final or Beta, allowing you to test it without affecting day-to-day browsing. Settings are shared between both builds, however, so install and use with caution.

The major development planned for Firefox 18 is the implementation of IonMonkey, a Modern JIT Compiler for JavaScript. In layman’s terms, it means faster performance on JS-based websites, and testers have reported improvements of between 7-26% in Firefox 18 over version 17.

Also allegedly landing in version 18 is the inline PDF viewer. This has actually been present, but switched off, in versions of Firefox 15 and later, but could it finally be ready for primetime with this release? If you’re not willing to wait, follow our guide to switching the default inline PDF viewer on in your current version.

Note that Firefox 18 won’t hit FINAL release until early January, one week later than originally scheduled.

Firefox 19.0a1 Nightly

Firefox’s Nightly channel gives users access to code hot off the press, and again it installs alongside other Firefox builds. It’s incredibly unstable, updated frequently and you’re just as likely to see new features disappear as appear.

The panel-based downloads manager, which is hidden by default in earlier builds of Firefox, can be tested in full in Nightly. It’s still not ready for primetime thanks to continued development, a summary of which can be found here.

The download panel is accompanied by plans to redesign the tab strip at the top of the Firefox window through emphasising the current active tab more and creating what Mozilla developers describe as a “soft, smooth and streamlined” appearance.

Also at the planning stage is an addition to the user interface that makes it clear when a plug-in, such as Adobe Flash, is responsible for the browser appearing to hang. This tweak will also give the user the opportunity to kill the plug-in right away if they wish.

Firefox Metro UI Preview

For more on Mozilla’s project to produce a version of Firefox that will run in the Modern UI portion of Windows 8, check out our news story here.

In Summary

Which version of Firefox should you try? The stable build remains our recommendation for the vast majority of users. The lack of notable new features prior to Firefox 19 confirms once again Mozilla’s stated plan to shift focus away from the desktop platform in the latter half of 2012, but also makes it hard to recommend users try anything but Firefox 16 FINAL…

Recently we took a look at PNGGauntlet, an excellent tool which could compress PNG files by up to 50 percent without any apparent loss of quality.

If you found that program useful, but wished it had more scope, then you might want to take a look at FileOptimizer. This tool can compress images, documents, archives, audio files, executable files, 33 formats in total: AIR, APK, APNG APPX, BMP, CBZ, DOCX, DLL, EPUB, EXE, GIF, GZ, ICO, JAR, JPEG, MNG, MP3, MPP, PNG, PPTX, ODT, OGG, OGV, PDF, PUB, SCR, SWF, TIF, VSD, WEBP, XAP, XLSX, and ZIP.

And of course in every case the aim is for the compressed files to behave exactly like the originals. So if you try to shrink some PDF files, for instance, they should look the same: the only difference will be a reduction in size.

Unsurprisingly, FileOptimizer can’t achieve this magic without a little help. The program is essentially a front end for a host of other tools. Present it with a PDF file, say, and behind the scenes it’ll call up Ghostscript to do the actual optimisation.

This does at least make for very easy operation, though. To use FileOptimizer you just drag and drop your target files onto the program; right-click, select Optimize, and watch as the files are processed, and their “before” and “after” sizes displayed.

Does it work? Sometimes. Our test images shrank by up to 50 percent; even some JPEGs dropped by 20 percent or more; we managed to reduce one PDF file by 54 percent, and most of our test ZIP files could be trimmed by a percentage point or two.

But, on several occasions the process went disastrously wrong, corrupting rather than compressing the source. This only happened a few times, and only ever with the more complex file types -- EXE, PDF -- but that’s obviously still a few times too many.

Worse still, FileOptimizer replaces the source files with its processed versions, while the originals are sent to the Recycle Bin. You can restore these with a click or two, of course, but if you get distracted with some other task then it’s at least possible that you might forget, then empty the Bin and lose them.

Don’t let this put you off entirely. If nothing else, FileOptimizer makes a great image compression tool. We achieved great results with GIFs, JPEGs and PNG files, and had no file corruption issues at all.

Just be careful if you want to compress more complex file types. Always work with copies of your files, rather than the originals, and check the compressed versions carefully to make sure that they behave exactly like the source files.

Photo Credit: Arkady/Shutterstock

First in a series. Thirty years ago, when I worked for a time in Saudi Arabia, I saw a public execution. I didn’t attend an execution, I didn’t witness an execution, I just happened to be there. There was in the center of this town a square and in the square were gathered hundreds of people. I worked in a building next to the square and looked out the window to see what caused all the noise. At that moment a prisoner was brought forward, his arms bound behind him. He was dragged up the steps to a platform and there fell to his knees.

Another man, whom I quickly came to understand was the executioner, climbed to the platform with the prisoner and poked him in the side with a long curved sword. The prisoner involuntarily jerked up just as the sword slashed down and just like that there was a head rolling off the platform, the body falling dead like a sack of flour. The crowd roared. Beginning to end it took less than a minute.

This was Bedouin justice. Nomadic societies have no jails so their justice systems tend to be pretty simple with punishments generally limited to the loss of wealth or body parts. Convicted criminals for certain crimes in Saudi Arabia first lose one hand then two if they repeat the crime. Other crimes go straight for the head. I don’t know what this guy did back in 1982, but I remember he had both hands. It’s a cruel and arbitrary system but you know where you stand in it and convicted criminals are fairly easy to spot.

I bring up this image because this is the first of two or three columns about law and regulation, how systems do and don’t work, and what can be done to make them better. Bedouin justice circa 1982 is our baseline and it works pretty well for simple crimes, though maybe not so well for multinational corporations.

The inspiration for this column is a recent blog post by David Rubens, a security consultant in the United Kingdom. It’s a bit dense but if you fight your way through the post it makes pretty good sense about why business regulation (or any regulation for that matter) doesn’t seem to work very well these days.

Rubens writes of Game Theory and specifically multiple iterations of  The Prisoners’ Dilemma problem, which has to do with how risk decisions are made by organizations involved in dynamic systems like business. Here, with some light editing by me, is the nut paragraph:

...when it comes down to the relationship between regulators and those being regulated… the ability of the regulated organization to maximize personal benefit is based on the ability to predict what the other side (the regulators) will do in response to the two options (which are) cooperate (play nicely) or betray (screw the customer). Given that in almost all cases the regulatory body has less funds, personnel, resources and expertise than the organization it is regulating, then it becomes clear that there is little to be gained in the long run by cooperating or playing nicely, and much to be gained by ignoring the regulator and developing a strategy that focuses purely on maximizing its own personal benefit. This is not an issue of ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ but purely, in its own terms at least (maximization of profit, increased market share, annual bonuses, career prospects), of whether it is ‘effective’ or ‘ineffective.

Rubens’s point, then, and I think it is a good one, is that absent some guiding moral principle usually embodied in a leader, the more powerful an organization the more it will act in its own self interest even if (especially if) that interest is in violation of regulations or laws. You can have a strong leader who says "We’re going to play fair", and that changes the picture. but if the leader (strong or weak, but running a powerful organization) says, "our only job is to maximize shareholder return" then rules and eventually laws will be broken to make that happen.

This makes us look again at the political argument that comes up again and again about whether free markets can be left to themselves or whether they should be regulated. I’m not attempting to answer that question here, by the way, because in practical terms it is the wrong question. The better question is in the business and regulatory structures we have now, does financial regulation even work?

Rubens says "no, regulation doesn’t work", and I agree.

End of argument for some, who would then go on to say that since regulation doesn’t work then we shouldn’t bother with it. “Let business do its job.”

Except there are instances like protecting the old and weak where even those who oppose regulation see some advantage to it. So in order to cope with those instances, we have in recent years come to talk less about deterrents and more about rewards. Most of the regulatory responses to the financial collapse of 2008 were in the form of incentives.  Instead of going to jail, the perps tended to be deemed too big to fail and actually rewarded for most of the bad things they’d already done.

Nearly every violator, even if they paid millions in settlements and fines, ended up financially ahead for having broken the rules.

What’s key here is that there’s a dual system. If you are powerful enough, you are too big to fail. If you are weak enough, you are too small to matter. In the 1980s the popularity of three strikes laws worked to displace petty criminals at immense cost to the system and to society.  Three Strikes worked to some extent, so in that respect it was an effective policy with bad side effects. Yet nobody has proposed applying Three Strikes to these civil crimes.

Why not? Can’t we find organizations that have be caught doing similar offenses three or more times? If we had Three Strikes for big banks, for example, most of them would be out of business.

What would be wrong with that? Hundreds of banks are dissolved by the FDIC every year. There’s nothing sacred about a bank.

You may notice a pervasive theme in public discourse that government is too big and ought to be made smaller, that regulations ought to be simplified or removed altogether.

Trust us.

Yet with a weak government there is only one way to have successful deterrents, which is by making them brutal. Bedouin justice is the answer for efficient financial regulation.

One judge, one sword. Float some mortgage backed securities that you rate AAA but know will fail; manipulate the LIBOR; fix commodity prices; backdate your stock options; lose a hand.

Reprinted with permission

Photo Credit:  ARENA Creative/Shutterstock

Aimed at developers and webmasters, Google introduced the open-source Apache HTTP server module 'mod_pagespeed' in beta form almost two years ago, and now it is finally available as a stable release that is ready to be deployed.

Touting features such as automatic website and asset optimization, more than 40 configurable filters, open-source nature and individual deployment, mod_pagespeed is part of the Mountain View, Calif.-based corporation's efforts to improve the Internet experience by offering performance improvements to web pages. Together with PageSpeed Service, it's part of PageSpeed Optimization Libraries project that is designed to provide best performances practices for Internet pages.

Optimization is the keyword, but what does it do exactly? According to Google, mod_pagespeed tackles latency and bandwidth usage by changing resources on the web page, with improvements implemented as a custom filter in the module. It can be deployed and customized for individual websites and is used by the likes of DreamHost, GoDaddy and EdgeCast.

The search giant is on the forefront of improving cloud-related performance, with its own Google Chrome web browser making visible efforts in delivering a speedy browsing experience and their latest announcement is just confirming its commitment.

Photo Credit: T. L. Furrer/Shutterstock

Rarely since I started reporting tech legal cases 15 years ago is an appellate order so clear: "We hold that the district court abused its discretion in enjoining the sales of the Galaxy Nexus". More: "Reversed and remanded". Ouch.

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected the preliminary injunction that US District Judge Lucy Koh imposed against Samsung Galaxy Nexus and sent the case back to her. Matters are worse for Koh and Apple, if this 18-page order foreshadows anything about the recent jury verdict against Samsung.

That's because the ruling questions Koh's judgment about fundamental matters regarding "irreparable harm", and the appeals court chides her for accepting Apple's arguments. Koh sided with Apple throughout the recent jury trial, which appeal will go to the same judges that slapped her around good today. She still can vacate the jury verdict, and I'm on record demanding that she should.

So, there's no confusion, I refer to separate patent cases before Judge Koh. One went to trial, and a nine-member jury found for Apple and against Samsung on August 24. The other case is still pending, and it's for that one she issued the preliminary injunction barring Galaxy Nexus sales. Separate the cases may be, they're still about patents and eventually headed to the Federal Circuit court of appeals. Koh's lack of good judgment in one could easily be issue in the other before the same judges. Perhaps they sent her a warning.

This is no trivial matter, with Samsung claiming jury misconduct with none other than the foreman and release of court documents showing Apple lawyers played loose with the facts. If the appellate judges so chastise Koh here, surely matters could be a whole lot worse in a jury case with questionable record.

Galaxy Nexus

Let's look at today's ruling, then I'll put it in context of the other case.

Apple contends that the Samsung smartphone, which Google helped develop, violates a search patent and that sales of the offending device would prevent people from buying iPhone. Koh agreed and imposed a preliminary injunction. Samsung appealed and was granted a stay.

Today, the appellate court found that Koh applied flawed reasoning presented by Apple and overstepped her authority: "We hold that the district court abused its discretion. To begin with, to the extent the district court endorsed Apple’s articulation of the causal nexus test, it erred as a matter of law". But the court went further in five-page section "Likelihood of Success":

Having held that the district court’s irreparable harm determination was an abuse of discretion, we would ordinarily refrain from addressing other issues. Here, however, it is in the interest of judicial economy that we address a limited aspect of the district court’s likelihood of success analysis that may become important on remand -- claim construction.

The judges then go on to present a grim analysis that puts the case's future in jeopardy and again questions Apple's arguments and Koh's accepting them.

Jury Trial

The Galaxy Nexus patent case really has little to do with the jury trial recently finished. The players are the same, but the appeals court must rule based on each case record not between them. That said, mistakes Judge Koh makes in one she easily could make in the other. As more information is revealed post-verdict, Samsung's chances of a successful appeal look better and the jury proceeding appears more like a kangaroo court.

In early September, I presented numerous reasons why "Judge Koh should vacate the Apple-Samsung verdict". For starters, foreman Vel Hogan, a 67 year-old engineer, convinced other jurors to accept his wrong interpretation about prior art. Samsung nearly built its entire defense around the idea that Apple patents are invalid because other products predated them.

Since my post, Samsung filed a motion arguing misconduct by Hogan and alleging that he sought revenge against the company. (I think the former allegation has more merit than the other.) Two issues standout:

• Hogan failed to disclose a prior legal proceeding during jury selection.
• That proceeding involved Seagate, in which Samsung is major stakeholder, that led Hogan to file for bankruptcy.

Samsung raises reasonable doubt about Hogan, not just as juror but foreman, and his influence over the jury.

Meanwhile, Judge Koh has been unsealing documents in the case, and some offer a startlingly different story than Apple presented at trial.

Groklaw's Pamela Jones has done a remarkable job combing through the unsealed documents and comparing them to the court record. For example, Apple painted Samsung out to be a copycat, which was central to several areas of the case -- particularly "trade dress", referring to a product's look and feel, that Apple contends Samsung copied from iPhone and applied to devices like Galaxy S II.

But in context, Samsung's internal communications were about applying good design principles, observing how iPhone exhausted some and transcending the device and its user interface. For example, the head of Samsung's mobile division encouraged his team to view iPhone as impetuous to change. Some points:

• "In regards to exteriors, do your best not to create a plastic feeling and instead create a metallic feel". At the time, iPhone had plastic feel.
• "As for UX, see to it that it is a UX that is easy to use regardless of age, occupation, and level of education, that it’s a UX that’s not like a UX, that, just like the flow of water, its alarm rings when you wake in the morning then out comes the news while you’re getting ready to leave for work, see to it that you’re able to come up with that kind of UX". This aptly describes TouchWiz UI's widget/live content approach. The newest version is called "Nature".
• "Our biggest asset is our Screen. It is very important that we make Screen Size bigger, and in the future mobile phones will absorb even the Function of ebooks". Samsung went larger (5.5 inches with Galaxy Note 2), while Apple kept smaller screen size.

Jones' assessment (which I concur with):

To my reading, Apple is distorting what this exhibit was really about. It was not about copying. It was about learning and being inspired and then doing something better. If they wanted to copy, they'd have made the screen smaller to match the iPhone. Instead, they correctly saw that the trend would be toward larger screens, and they were already doing that and saw it as superior to the iPhone. So, they analyzed where they were strong and where they were weak, and the pep talk spoke to both.

The point: The jury verdict looks increasingly vulnerable, and one could interpret the appeals court of sending Judge Koh a subtle but directed message today. She can still do justice by throwing out the verdict and ordering a new trial.

Photo Credit: JustASC/Shutterstock

Back in June, computer maker Acer launched its Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 line of Windows 7 Ultrabooks which came with a clause for $15 Windows 8 upgrade. Today, four months later and just a couple of weeks ahead of the official launch of Windows 8, Acer has debuted new Aspire M5 Ultrabooks equipped with a 10-point multitouch display to go with the new OS.

Like the M5 models unveiled last June, the new M5s come with either 14" or 15" displays, third generation Intel Core i3 or i5 processors, 500GB HDD/20GB SSD storage configuration plus optical drives, and a promised 8 hours of battery life. In case the same "M5" name didn't give it away, I'll make it clear, these are practically the same notebook spec-wise, just with the added touchscreen, Windows 8 installed out of the box, and no "Timeline" in the name.

That being said, the touch-enabled Acer Aspire M5 Series of Ultrabooks are a Best Buy exclusive, launching in stores and on the Best Buy site on Oct. 26. Machines under the M5-481PT model begin at $799.99, and the 15.6-inch M5-581T configurations start at $699.99.

September was crazy month for new software. Whether this was the rush to get new products on-sale before the Windows 8 launch or the traditional Q3 pre-Christmas release schedule, or a combination of both, you may have missed one of these important releases.

Creating PDF files used to be an incredibly expensive operation but this is no longer the case. Nitro Pro 8 is an advanced PDF creation and editing tool which is available at a 20-percent discount -- just $95.99. For a limited period of time, you can get the previous Nitro Pro 7 for only $59.99, saving 50 percent from MSRP. There are also multi-user versions of Nitro Pro 8, so you can buy for your business and save further.

Digital Content Creation

There are some great savings to be made on music creation and video editing software, with the latest versions of MAGIX software available at an impressive discount. MAGIX Music Maker 2013 could be yours for just $44.99 -- saving you 25 percent off the MSRP and bringing you the app’s all-new interface. Also from MAGIX, is the powerful video editor, MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 2013, available for $48.99, saving 30 percent from MSRP and receive a free bundled copy of Video Sound Cleaning Lab worth $59.99, for FREE!

MAGIX is not the only company with video editing software available; you’ll also find various titles from Cyberlink, such as PowerDirector 11 Deluxe, a professional level editing package that is available for $59.99, saving you 14 percent off the MSRP. If you want to take your video editing even further, there is also CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultra, which is available for 20 percent off the MSRP -- just $79.95. The next step up takes you to CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultimate, which, at 15 percent off, costs just $109.99.

For the most demanding of user, there is also the most feature-packed version -- CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultimate Suite. This edition includes ColorDirector and AudioDirector and could be your for just $219 -- 12 percent off the MSRP. There are also discounts available on upgrade versions of the software. CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultra UPGRADE costs just $53.99 -- or 10 percent off the MSRP -- while CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultimate UPGRADE costs $69.99, also saving you 10 percent . Exclusive to the Downloadcrew Software Store, PowerDirector 11 Ultra (or higher) is bundled with CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5, worth $39.95, for FREE!

There are also a number of other programs available from Cyberlink that are not concerned with video editing. PhotoDirector 4 is the latest version of the impressive photo editing and organizational tool and you could own a copy for the bargain price of $89.99, representing a 10 percent saving off the MSRP. To help to you take control of colors within your videos, CyberLink ColorDirector 1.0 could be what you need. Replacing and adjusting colors is made easy in this tool which is available for $112.99 -- or 13 percent off the MSRP. Also available is Cyberlink AudioDirector 3 -- $112.99, or 13 percent off the MSRP -- and this can be used to work with your video soundtrack. If there are a number of Cyberlink products that you are interested in buying, you should take a look at Cyberlink Director Suite. This suite includes PowerDirector, PhotoDirector, ColorDirector, AudioDirector and more, and is available at a 13-percent discount for just $259.99.

PC Protection

In the store you’ll also find the latest 2013 versions of the most popular security tools, including AVG Anti-Virus 2013. This industry standard antivirus tool is available for the massively discounted price of $9.95 which saves you a colossal 75 percent off the MSRP. For a more complete security solution, take a look at AVG Internet Security 2013, which includes an added firewall, spam filter and more -- all for just $17.99 or a 67-percent discount. The most complete security package comes in the form of AVG Premium Security 2013 Complete Bundle, which includes four separate applications worth a total of $130 but you can buy the collection for a 69-percent discount for just $39.95.

Another discounted product from AVG is PC TuneUp 2013, which helps you to eek extra performance from your machine. This great utility costs as mere $12.99, or a saving of 68 percent off the MSRP. Returning to the security theme, BullGuard Internet Seurity 2013 can be used to protect up to three computer for just $19.95 -- saving you an impressive 67 percent. Virus protection is available from the same company in the form of BullGuard Antivirus 2013, and you can save 50 percent off the MSRP when you buy the software for $15. More security software is available at half price -- Avira Internet Security 2013 costs just $30, while the 3-PC version features an even better 56 percent saving at just $39.99.

Bringing this roundup to a close are a series of tools that enables you to protect and optimize your computer to keep things running smoothly, and as you would expect, these are all tool that are compatible with Windows 8. If you’re looking for a solid, reliable backup tool, look no further than True Image 2013 by Acronis, which costs just $37.49, saving your 25 percent from the MSRP. If you want to take care of your hard drive rather than just securing its contents, take a look at O&O Defrag 16 Professional, which costs just $23.95.

One final tool that we’d like to draw your attention to is TuneUp Utilities 2013, which enables you to boost the performance of your computer for just $22, saving you 55 percent off the MSRP.

Of course, all these recent new releases can be found in the Downloadcrew Software Store along with a host of other offers -- take a look and see what else you can find.

Photo Credit:  Michael C. Gray/Shutterstock

Cloud storage service Box is changing with a fresh, new look and introduction of document editing and connections. Editing capabilities follow a recent trend, as Google and Microsoft add similar functionality to their online "Drive" services.

The cloud storage service has reached 14 million users and 140,000 businesses, and with the latest update promises a completely new experience with emphasis on collaborations and content.

Brandon Savage, group product manager, says the success of Box Edit beta determined the company to integrate the feature into the cloud storage service and will allow content creation and editing straight from Box. Microsoft Office users will no longer have to use dedicated office software to create content and can also block/allow a document from being modified, which can be particularly useful in a multi-user scenario.

"You can use Box Edit to create new Word, Excel or PowerPoint files without leaving Box, and our enhanced lock/unlock functionality lets you lock a document you’re editing so no one else can make conflicting changes", Savage explains.

For corporate users searching for coworkers and connecting with them is implemented, with a new feature that allows to "like" a file to complement the latest added functionality.

Feedback on files can be provided by users via "like," which was added on top of existing features such as assigning tasks, comment via email and tagging colleagues, placing the focus on business users that should find the revamped Box more productive than before.

As a bonus for drafters, CAD files along with images, as well as other formats, can be edited from the preview page using programs already installed.

With the latest update, Box is clearly looking to expand its user-base that at the moment considerably lags behind Dropbox, which claims 50 million users.

Photo Credit: Tom Wang/Shutterstock

It's no iPad Mini, but it is a mini alternative to one of the more popular smartphones on the market today, Samsung's Galaxy S III. The Galaxy S III Mini is smaller in size and specs than its older brother, and is clearly gunning for the entry-level smartphone consumer. Unfortunately, because of its modest bag of tricks, putting it next to the Galaxy S III is kind of an unrealistic comparison and this device could easily fall behind last year's Galaxy S2.

The Galaxy S III Mini has a 4" WVGA Super AMOLED touchscreen, which is more than three quarters of an inch smaller than the screen on the full-sized Galaxy S III. This reduced screen size helps shrink the overall footprint of the device by two tenths of a square inch (.6" smaller length x .3" smaller width.) It's not a tremendous reduction in size, but it defies the general trend of smartphones going bigger.

Instead of a quad-core, the Galaxy S III Mini is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor, instead of offering 4G LTE connectivity, the radios are 3G HSPA/EDGE/GPRS. The cameras, 5 Megapixel back and VGA front, are also knocked down in power from the Galaxy S III, which has 8 MP and 1.9 MP sensors respectively. It will be available with either 8 GB or 16 GB of onboard storage.

Despite being lighter than its predecessor in the hardware department, the Galaxy S III Mini will still ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Samsung's TouchWiz, and in the non-cellular wireless communications department, it's got all the trimmings: 802.11 a/b/g/n and HT40 channel bonding mode, GPS/GLONASS, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and an FM Radio.

Samsung did not announce pricing or market availability for the Galaxy S III Mini, but the specs could potentially be damning to the success of this device if it is not free or extremely cheap on contract. This is because the specs are even more modest than those of the Galaxy S2 which debuted last year.

The Galaxy S2 featured a similar dual-core apps processor, but offered an 8MP/2MP camera configuration, 16/32GB memory options, 3.5G HSPA+ and LTE radio configurations, and a slightly more meaty 1650 mAh battery...

Were it not for the addition of NFC and the modern Android OS, this device could have easily been called the Galaxy S2 Mini.

If you can't figure out why CEO Steve Ballmer talks about reinventing Microsoft as a "devices and services company", Jay Chou, IDC senior research analyst, has an answer. "PCs are going through a severe slump". That's being polite in mixed company, when the F-word is so much more appropriate. Third-quarter PC shipments accentuate an already dreadful trend. Analysts expected slowing shipments as the market prepares for Windows 8, but nothing quite like this. The seasonal back-to-school lift collapsed, with even Mac shipments slowing.

Global PC shipments fell 8.6 percent year over year, according to IDC, surpassing the minus 3.8 percent forecast. Gartner's estimate is a more generous 8.3 percent decline. The United States, a region recently in love with tablets, is in free fall, with shipments down 13.8 percent by Gartner's reckoning and 12.4 percent according to IDC. For the better part of a year, analysts excused declining PC shipments as market anticipation for Windows 8. But the slowdown during back-to-school buying season foreshadows weakness ahead.

Back-to-School Bust

"There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market", Craig Stice, IHS senior principal analyst, says. "Now three quarters through the year, the usual boost from the back-to-school season appears to be a bust, and both AMD and Intel’s third-quarter outlooks appear to be flat to down".

Declines aren't just global. "The third quarter has historically been driven by back-to-school sales, but US PC shipments did not increase, not even sequentially, from the second quarter of 2012", Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, says.

In earlier quarters, even when other manufacturers saw declines, Apple continued a hearty growth track. Q3 is typically one of Apple's best, given the Mac's popularity among schools. But shipments fell 6.1 percent or 7 percent, respectively, according to Gartner or IDC. Apple is the bird in the coal mine, and it just croaked.

"Retailers were conservative in placing orders as they responded to weak back-to-school sales", Kitagawa observes. "By the end of September, retailers were focused on clearing out inventory in advance of the Windows 8 launch later this month".

Schools typically buy new tech when needed, not when released. Apple launched OS X Mountain Lion near the start of back-to-school buying, while Microsoft guaranteed free upgrades to Windows 8, which goes on sale in 15 days. From perspective of need and timing, there's no reason to wait -- unless perhaps if education bought something else.

Canary in Coalmine

Declining Mac shipments foreshadow much. Apple doesn't announce calendar third-quarter results for two weeks, but Q2 shows an important trend -- at least in the education market. Recent iPad sales wins include 11,000 to Mansfield Texas Independent School District and 25,000 to the San Diego Unified School District. "We sold more than twice as many iPads as Macs to US education institutions", Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said about calendar second quarter, in July.

The point: iPad takes away some Mac sales and Gartner and IDC analysts have acknowledged similar tablet trend for Windows PCs.

Once again, tablets lift their screens and raspberry PCs. Despite continued computer manufacturer or trade analyst denials, tablets offer so much at a time when personal computers offer so much less. "While the industry has been focused on shaving excess inventory and preparing to launch a new generation of products, consumers have been looking at alternative devices like tablets", David Daoud, IDC research director, concedes.

The big, new Windows PC designs are all fourth-quarter gambles, but consumers and even some businesses aren't waiting around for them. Twenty-five percent of US adults have access to a tablet, according to Pew (22 percent as owners, 3 percent sharing with someone else in the household). Sixty-eight percent got their tablet within the last year, and 32 percent during 2012. Considering selling prices for 10-inch tablets are about the same, or even more, than laptops, each pad purchase is potentially one taken from PCs.

Keeping Faith

"The hard question of what is the 'it' product for PCs remain unanswered", Chou says. "While ultrabook prices have come down a little, there are still some significant challenges that will greet Windows 8 in the coming quarter". Microsoft and its OEM partners bank much on Windows 8 tablets, which may be the only hope.

But Windows 8 is a leap of faith, because businesses aren't buying either. "Professional PC shipments in the US began slowing in the second quarter of this year, and they continued the trend in the third quarter", Kitagawa says. "The results indicate that the replacement peak may have passed in the professional sector".

Daoud remains a Windows 8 believer. "As vendors line up innovative new products and designs, consumers are likely to respond positively during the tail-end of 4Q12, and that means a potential return to positive growth at the end of this year". But how can he not be, given IDC's client base?

Other analysts can't keep the faith. "Optimism has vanished and turned to doubt, and the industry is now training its sights on 2013 to deliver the hoped-for rebound", Stice says. "All this is setting the PC market up for its first annual decline since the dot-com bust year of 2001".

Modding is a very popular activity among Android users, which sometimes is a relatively cumbersome process. To make tweaking your green robot-based smartphone or tablet easier Pimp My Rom comes into play by promising to suit any Android distribution and device, while delivering an impressive number of customization possibilities. Pretty neat, isn't it?

Pimp My Rom, besides having a "naughty" connotation, is a script based on AROMA Installer that is designed to customize Android distributions and brings a number of features, mods and tweaks that can be selected and applied from a touchscreen interface. According to the developer, it can run on any device using Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.0 Honeycomb, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or 4.1 Jelly Bean, basically covering more than 75 percent of all Android smartphones and tablets that run today.

The project is still in a very early development stage, meaning it's not yet feature-complete and may contain a number of bugs that can be associated with its infancy. That said, it does have a rather huge number of customization possibilities included, so let's dive in and highlight some of them.

Using int.d scripts CPU as well as GPU values can be tuned for increased responsiveness or battery life, external SD card I/O performance can be improved, GPU rendering on 2D operations can be forced for a smoother operation, the Android logger can be disabled, ondemand governor can be tweaked as well as multitasking by tweaking the system's task-killer function. Even network performance can be improved by adjusting the TCP buffers.

By applying build.prop tweaks Pimp My Rom touts smoother video streaming, smoothness improvements, which modders always crave, faster Wi-Fi connect/disconnect times, a deeper sleep for improved battery life, faster scrolling, battery savings, better .jpg image quality and the ability to lock the launcher into memory.

Features can be enabled and disabled as well, such as hardware video acceleration, GPU user interface rendering, HSUPA (High-Speed Uplink Packet Access), boot animation, which if disabled can decrease booting times, ADB notification icon which pops up when selecting "Android debugging" in Developer options, 16bit transparency, as well as other options.

If you miss Adobe Flash Player on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Pimp My Rom can add it. If the default launcher feels insufficient, then Apex or Nova launchers can be used instead. Even Hulu+ can be "hacked" to work on any advice in both portrait and landscape mode.

Support for OpenVPN connections, Beats Audio DSP manager, Sony Walkman suite, S-Voice and TouchWiz Launcher and widgets from the popular Samsung Galaxy S III can also be added to any supported Android device.

For CyanogenMod 10 users it can install the MIUI v4 theme and Holo in white, blue, cyan and tangerine, and for CyanogenMod 9 users Blue and Black Infinitum can also be installed to change the stock appearance of the operating system.

If you're sold on these capabilities, in order to flash Pimp My Rom a custom recovery such as ClockworkMod or Team Win Recovery Project is required to be installed beforehand.

Being relatively easy to install on Android devices, Pimp My Rom looks like a very capable package designed to make modding a breeze. The comprehensive collection of tweaks should make it number one on every Android modder's list looking for one app to do it all.

Yesterday's Steve Ballmer "devices and services company" letter unleashes a torrent of idiot punditry. I can only laugh at the sheer stupidity of writers infatuated with the idea Microsoft wants to be Apple, or putting forth such lunacy to sack pageviews.

Read Ballmer's 1,300-word missive again. Microsoft's focus on devices and services has little to nothing to do with Apple. The cloud-connected device era is here and Microsoft embraces it to maintain computing relevance. The company has been on this course for years. Research and development takes time, and the good ship Microsoft is too large to change course in a few months -- or even a few years. The sheer number of carefully coordinated new (and largely changed) products shipping simultaneously (or soon after) clearly indicates a massive undertaking long planned.

Twisted Tongues

But tongues will wag, and I bear the knife to cut them out. Among the nonsense "Microsoft wants to be Apple" posts:

• "Microsoft admits that is copying Apple"
• "Microsoft: We want to be more like Apple"
• "Microsoft more like Apple? The CEO thinks so!"
• "Steve Ballmer's plan to make Microsoft just like Apple"
• "Microsoft CEO sees company becoming more like Apple"
• "Steve Ballmer admits Microsoft more inclined to follow the Apple Way"

The list could go on and on. Sadly, colleague Wayne Williams joins it, with twisted missive: "Microsoft wants to become Apple, but can't". But he can keep his tongue.

A few things are true about today's journalism: Lots of writers are clueless, and conflict sells. Then there's the longstanding Apple-Microsoft competition that pumps pageviews. Too bad in this generation of "write every rumor, don't sweat the facts" journalism everything is subject to interpretation and twisted meaning. Seriously, read Ballmer's letter and compare it to these "being like Apple" stories, then ponder what that means for every new gadget rumor story you read. If bloggers, journalists and other writers can't get the clear facts straight, how can they hearsay?

Microsoft's Makeover

I'll explain. Nowhere in the letter does Ballmer mention Apple or remotely allude to the company. He writes about Microsoft and plans to reinvent his company, and this isn't for the first time.

Reinvention really started with Azure's introduction four years ago this month. The cloud operating system, which opened to the public in February 2010, marked the start of a long trek leading to central focus on devices and services, and supporting anytime, anywhere, on-anything computing.

Microsoft's cloud path had a destination: Windows and supporting products in 2012 and Office System in 2013. The strategy around them isn't about Apple. Microsoft has several immediate objectives:

• Preserve the relevance of the Office-Windows-Windows Server apps stack
• Extend that apps stack to the new one emerging around the connected cloud
• Broaden the older Office-Windows ecosystem for developers and other partners
• Provide customers with more device choices and access to their stuff anytime, anywhere, on anything
• Give enterprises better tools to manage devices they provide workers or those that employees bring to the office

I have written lots about this ongoing transition over the years. More recently: "I'll tell you something about Windows", in July 2011: "Microsoft may not be talking concretely about a future beyond Windows, but the company is clearly preparing for one -- or at least a different one. Hence, the emphasis on ARM processors, which will make Windows available on more devices than PCs...The future of Windows is a utility supporting applications and services".

What's different now, Ballmer is finally talking about the future beyond Windows, or better stated Windows PCs. As I expressed yesterday, under Bill Gates, Microsoft sought to put a PC on every desktop, with software innovation driving that effort. Ballmer describes post-PC Microsoft as the aforementioned "devices and services company", which aptly spotlights the fundamental shift in progress. Again, it's a change long-time coming and is about changing computing eras -- PC to connected devices -- not Apple.

Correct Context

The "Microsoft wants to be Apple brigade" is largely caught up in one section of Ballmer's letter: "There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface". Now read that same sentence in context:

We will continue to work with a vast ecosystem of partners to deliver a broad spectrum of Windows PCs, tablets and phones. We do this because our customers want great choices and we believe there is no way one size suits over 1.3 billion Windows users around the world. There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface. In all our work with partners and on our own devices, we will focus relentlessly on delivering delightful, seamless experiences across hardware, software and services. This means as we, with our partners, develop new Windows devices we'll build in services people want.

Ballmer frames Microsoft devices around partners and makes it clear that both will provide devices -- not only the software giant, which is the Apple way, by the way. There's no way in hell that Microsoft will just suddenly drop its OEM partners and go all end-to-end hardware, software and services. That's simply not Microsoft's DNA. When Ballmer talks about devices and services, he refers to a larger ecosystem that includes Microsoft, 640,000 partners and 8 million developers. That's quite different from Apple, which licenses its platforms to nobody.

But there's other context here. Sometimes partners aren't enough. That's why Microsoft developed Surface, which too many numbskulls hold up as proof the future is the Apple Way. Get a life!

As I explained in June, "Surface is Project Origami's revenge, against Apple and Microsoft's hardware partners". Four years before iPad, Microsoft sought to bring a touchscreen tablet to market, selling for $500. It's no coincidence iPad's starting price is the same. But Windows OEMs couldn't deliver a product for that price. I explained:

You have to understand something about Ultra-Mobile PC. This was Microsoft's baby, although it was presented as a partnership with hardware manufacturers at launch. Microsoft developed the concept...Six years later, Microsoft makes another attempt at bringing the concept, now vastly evolved, to market. Only this time, the company won't rely on OEM partners. Microsoft isn't so much competing with OEMs, but pushing around them.

That's context for understanding what Ballmer really means. The focus now is more connected devices and cloud services than PCs. Microsoft's business model is still very much about providing platforms and development tools. That's a business Apple could do more to copy, not the other way around.

Photo Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft has a long history of copying Apple. Back in the early 90s, Bill Gates' company introduced features found in the Macintosh GUI into Windows 2.0, sparking a copyright infringement lawsuit (Apple's taste for litigation is nothing new). Microsoft arguably has pilfered ideas from its rival's OS ever since -- Windows’ taskbar and Aero Peek certainly share clear similarities with OS X's Dock and Exposé. When the iPod became a massive hit, Microsoft introduced the Zune. Apple stores are hugely popular, which is why we’re now seeing Microsoft Stores popping up everywhere. Surface, in a way, copies the iPad, although of course Microsoft has tried (and failed) to popularize tablets since 2002.

And yes, before I go too far into this article, I’m aware the above paragraph could be seen as troll bait, so I’ll point out that Microsoft copies from other companies too -- Google being a major example -- and Apple, in turn, has lifted ideas from Microsoft, particularly from its operating system. Big companies copy from one another, it’s a fact of life. My point, however, is when Apple does something exceptionally well, Microsoft is keen to try and follow suit.

Windows 8 is Microsoft’s attempt to break into the post-PC market, and while it’s a clear gamble, it’s also a necessary one. But in going down this route, the company has to change what it is and how it operates. Microsoft has to become more like Apple. CEO Steve Ballmer released the annual shareholder letter yesterday, which my colleague Joe Wilcox reported on here, and in it he describes Microsoft as transforming into a "devices and services company", meaning its focus will be on end-to-end hardware, software and services products -- like Apple.

This is, as Ballmer says, a "significant shift" for Microsoft. The Windows Store, the firm’s digital distribution platform, is designed to ape Apple’s iTunes Store, giving the company a new revenue stream -- an approach that could, potentially, subsidize future versions of Windows.

In taking this new direction, Microsoft will doubtless also have to change how it rolls out OS updates. Windows RT is the company’s tablet operating system, and while Microsoft could just release a new version every three or four years, as has been its strategy previously with the desktop version, I think we’re likely to see much more regular refreshes as we do with Apple iOS and Google Android.

RT is so close to Windows 8 that any changes made to the tablet OS will need to be carried over into the desktop version too. That Microsoft has already released a cumulative update for Windows 8, instead of dropping a service pack on us a few months down the line, shows this more rapid release schedule is already in effect.

See Joe Wilcox's rebuttal: "Microsoft isn't trying to be Apple"

But getting back to the point; the problem I have with this new direction for Microsoft is in transforming itself into an Apple clone, the company risks losing its identity. The Windows Store isn't iTunes, it’s Google Play but with less choice. Surface is the iPad, with less mainstream appeal. Windows Phone 8 is a less popular alternative to the iPhone and all those Android handsets. Microsoft Stores are horrible Apple Store knock-offs.

Microsoft wants to make money, it wants to be relevant and popular, but in trying to reinvent itself and catch up to rivals, it seems to have lost all sense of what it is. Microsoft can’t be Apple, and it can’t be bigger and better than Apple by stealing from its rival’s playbook.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs said of the company in Triumph of the Nerds: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products."

Although that quote comes from 1996, it seems even more relevant today.

Photo Credit: YuanDen/Shutterstock

As a CyanogenMod 10 user I religiously check for nightly builds, and today I received a bonus. Yesterday my colleague Joe Wilcox wrote "Google updates Nexus 7 to Android 4.1.2" and, while it will take some time for the update to push throughout the Nexus lineup, Android 4.1.2 is already incorporated into the latest CyanogenMod 10 nightly.

CyanogenMod 10 nightly, October 10 build, is based on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and sports the JZO54K build number, from the previous nightly that used Android 4.1.1 build number JRO03R. Upon a bit of research, for my Samsung Galaxy Nexus the popular Android distribution has undergone massive changes to include the "jb-mr0-release", similar to other devices such as the popular Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X or Google Nexus 7. Upon a bit further research it seems that apart from allowing launcher rotation, the build also includes a significant number of improvements from the previous build.

Launcher rotation might be an unnecessary feature for CyanogenMod 10 users thanks to the included Trebuchet launcher that implemented the feature long before Android 4.1.2, but using the latest Android version as a base is also reported to correct a number of bugs, and to add one finger collapsing/expanding of notifications.

My only real complaint with the Nexus 7 is the way apps are displayed. Many times developers have not compensated for a screen larger than 4 inches, and the resulting app looks terrible. Nexus 7 does a decent job of covering this up in some places due to the size of the screen, but when you come across an app that has clearly been designed for many screen sizes, you notice the difference.

Google encourages developers to design their apps to suit the operating system instead of the screen size through a variety of mechanisms, the most recent being a checklist to ensure higher quality design practices are being used when developing apps. In my opinion, this checklist should be much more than a friendly suggestion.

The majority of the items on the checklist are common-sense -- things like making sure your icons and notifications are the correct size so they look good on any screen, or ensuring you don't have lines of text that stretch across the entire device when in landscape orientation. Don't enable support for hardware that isn't needed, like making phone calls and GPS. For the most part, these are things that would come up in quality control if the app was being designed and tested by anyone using Android since version 3.0. Google's "fragments" UI system has been designed to adjust the flow of an app to look nice in a variety of situations.

By far the most useful part of the checklist comes near the end, with the best practices for publishing an app to Google Play. Discovery is a problem for many apps in the store, and the guidelines are thorough for how to make them searchable and offer tips on how to better target tablet consumers.

The biggest suggestion is to not upload a phone version and a tablet version of an app, but rather to offer a single one with optimizations that function in both environments. Two apps with largely overlapping functions cause rankings per single unit to go down, since all downloads and purchases are separate.

At the end of the day, the biggest reason that every app developer doesn't follow the suggestions is fragmentation. The majority of Android users are still using some version of 2.3, which was never designed for tablets. The Android versions that support tablet sizing are just over 25 percent of devices accessing Google Play, and not all of them are tablets. The need to optimize for tablets has been incredibly low from the perspective of developers who optimize for the greatest number of Android users. Unfortunately, the early adopters and users of Android 3.0 and higher are stuck with the result.

Google is unlikely to enforce these design issues, due largely to the open nature of Android app development. These suggestions are being heavily encouraged through the Android Developers page on Google+, which includes Hangouts like the App Clinic where apps are critiqued for design and best practices. Google is clearly doing everything it can in order to move the ecosystem forward without forcing anyone's hand. It's not going to be a guaranteed fix for every app, but it is more than a step in the right direction.

I did something quite shocking yesterday -- talk to my boss on the phone. Yes, we both occasionally get sentimental about such old-fashion communications. Among the topics: iPad mini, which is perennial rumor topic recently. Neither of us could quite fathom why or for what price a smaller Apple tablet makes sense. A new survey makes iPad mini all the more perplexing, and all the less a good idea.

According to an August TechBargains.com survey of 1,332 shoppers, 50 percent wouldn't buy iPad mini, while 45 percent would purchase iPhone 5. Meaningful context: The shopping comparison site conducted the survey before either product was announced, equally gauging sentiment based on rumors. Only 18 percent of respondents would buy the tablet. But that low number only hints at the deep level of disinterest.

"Given Apple’s recent success it would be easy to assume that all new Apple products will be wildly popular. Our survey results indicate that theory is no longer the case", Yung Trang, TechBargains.com president, says. "According to our survey respondents, the so called iPad Mini will not be highly coveted because consumers are questioning the necessity of a smaller iPad, especially if they own an iPad or an iPhone".

Calling Cannibals

That's my problem, too. A 7-inch or 8-inch iPad doesn't fit right in the lexicon of Apple mobiles. iPhone 5, with its 4-inch screen, ranges in price from $199 to $399, while iPad goes from $499 to $829. Surely Apple wouldn't price the device any lower than $299, and $199 or less is where the device needs to be given Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7. But even at $299, iPad mini risks cannibalizing larger Apple tablet sales, which the company has far from exhausted.

That's the key point. The tablet is still a huge growth market. Apple hasn't yet fully capitalized sales. IDC predicts 1.2 billion smart device -- connected PC, tablet and smartphone -- shipments this year and 1.4 billion in 2013. Shipments should top 2 billion by 2016, when tablet share will be 13 percent, up from 10 percent this year and reduce PC share to 24 percent from 31 percent. Meaning: The market has lots of headroom yet to grow.

Under Steve Jobs' leadership, Apple methodically nursed iPod revenues by introducing lower-priced models only after maximizing revenues among costlier tiers. iPad mini would break that proven pattern. I think it's way too soon for Apple, which has shown with Macs lots of people will pay more, to introduce a smaller, lower-cost model. There's too much risk iPad mini will cannibalize the larger model's sales, while offering little market share benefits.

The TechBargains.com survey bears this out. Existing Apple device owners are most likely to purchase iPad mini (27 percent), while those owning Kindle Fire or no tablet at all equally plan to buy (16 percent). These are not encouraging numbers and granted only represent a small sample from a shopping comparison site.

Shifting Strategy

When Jobs assumed control of Apple in early 1997, he almost immediately cut product lines. That approach proved a sensible strategy. By offering less, Apple could do more for customers and shareholders by reducing manufacturing and distribution costs and decreasing shopping complexity. iPad mini would add unnecessary complexity to the product lineup, increase manufacturing and distribution costs and quite likely cannibalize sales of a successful, high-margin product.

Something else: Jobs tended to make decisions that defied competitive concerns, whereas iPad mini could only be in response to them. If successor Tim Cook takes such a "look at what the competition is doing" approach, it would mark a fundamental change in Apple's longstanding business model. I can see why he might look at competition and worry.

According to Pew, the US tablet has fundamentally changed in just one year. Twenty-five percent of Americans regularly use a tablet -- 22 percent owners, 3 percent sharing another in the household -- based on a summer survey. A year earlier, Apple had overwhelming tablet share -- 81 percent. But by August, iPad had dropped to 52 percent share, with Android tablets rising to 48 percent from 15 percent year over year. Thirty-two percent of tablet owners purchased in 2012.

Apple's dilemma, at least in the United States: Market dynamics are rapidly changing and time to lock in customers is early on, before they purchase apps and peripherals and commit their personal stuff to tablet platform or cloud service. But is that reason enough to do a smaller Apple tablet now? I don't think so, and the TechBargains.com survey strongly suggests iPad mini is a foolhardy endeavor.

Photo Credit: catwalker/Shutterstock

Launched with Android 2.1 Eclair in January 2010 the HTC-built Google Nexus One is more than two years old, but that is not stopping NASA from re-launching the smartphone... into space this time around.

Part of the PhoneSat program designed to create "small, low-cost, and easy-to-buid nano-satellites", in 2013 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will launch Google's former Android flagship smartphone into space. According to HTC, NASA will not unbox the Google Nexus One and strap it on a rocket, as it was already put through thorough testing. The smartphone's first contact with space was in 2010, when it was attached to a rocket and launched to the edge of space, while also recording every step of the trip.

"Why the Google Nexus One?" you may ask. According to HTC its two-year old device has 100 times more processing power than the run-of-the-mill satellite that is orbiting overhead today and incorporates the majority of features that a satellite needs such as GPS module, flexible operating system, multi-band radios, gyroscope, accelerometer and camera among other features.

The Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer also made a Jupiter reference to the recently introduced One X+, though it's less likely to be sent into space for the next two years if the Nexus One is of any indication.

This is an interesting event, which marketing-wise looks to benefit both HTC and Google. Even more impressive is that basically what is almost three-year old smartphone technology is perfectly adequate for NASA.

If you need to figure out the differences between two files on a PC then you’ve always been able to use the COMP command. And we do mean always: it’s been around for 30 years, since the days of DOS 1.0. COMP isn’t exactly the most intuitive of tools, though, so if you just want to compare a couple of HTML files, say, then we’d recommend something a little more up-to-date, in the shape of the free ExamDiff.

Launch the program and you must first point it at the files you’d like to compare. Only text files are supported (the commercial Pro versions can compare binary files, directories and add many other features: see the author’s website for details). Click OK, and both documents are displayed, side-by-side, with added, deleted or changed files highlighted.

And you can then scroll manually through your files, jump directly from one difference to the next, or even display only the differences (perhaps the best approach with very lengthy files).

Sometimes you might spot a problem, and realise that one of the files needs to be tweaked. Either of these can be edited with a click, at which point ExamDiff will recognise they’re changed, and prompt you to re-compare, so that you can see the results immediately.

You also get a useful set of configuration options, which cover everything from your preferred colors for highlighting particular changes, to how the comparison process works itself (you might choose to ignore case, ignore trailing white space, and more).

There’s even a command line interface which makes it easy to automate particular comparison operations.

And all of this comes from a program which is portable, ultra-lightweight (a 575KB executable), and runs just about anywhere (the authors say it works on anything from Windows 95 upwards).

Okay, it’s true, there’s still a place for the humble COMP command, as that also works with binary files. But if you’re looking to compare text-based documents, then ExamDiff delivers plenty of power while remaining lightweight and extremely easy to use.

Photo Credit: Liv friis-larsen/Shutterstock

If you use, or have ever used, a multi-monitor computer, you’ll know just how useful a setup it can be. Have the extra space afforded you by double the usual number of monitor enables you to see more at once, work more quickly and be more productive -- but it can also be expensive and requires you to have a desk large enough to hold two monitors comfortably. If you have a mobile device, however, you can use iDisplay to gain an extra monitor from your existing hardware.

The name of the software might imply that this is something that will only be of interest to Apple hardware owners, but in fact it can be used in conjunction with an iOS or Android phone or tablet. Your mobile device does no need to be physically connected to your computer -- the desktop version of the client software is available for both Mac and PC -- which opens up new opportunities.

This is an app that would seem to be more useful for tablet owners, particularly when used in conjunction with a vertical stand, but there is a also great scope for using with a phone. While the smaller screen of a phone means that you’re unlikely to want to use it to display complex spreadsheets from your desktop computer, it can be used to house program panels and controls to help free up space -- for example, in an image editor, you could move some of the controls to your phone’s screen to gain a larger work area on your monitor.

If you ever find yourself needing to give a presentation, iDisplay can also be used in mirror mode. This means that you can share the display of your PC or Mac with a number of iOS or Android devices so your audience can get a great view of whatever you are doing. When used In regular mode, you can easily switch between portrait and landscspe mode, and app can bemoved between displays with a quick shortcut.

You can find out more by paying a visit to the iDisplay review pages – iDisplay for PC, iDisplay for Mac, iDisplay for iOS and iDisplay for Android.

Photo Credit:  CLIPAREA l Custom media/Shutterstock

One thing is certain -- it's raining Windows 8-based devices ahead of the October 26 launch of Microsoft's latest consumer operating system. After a number of manufacturers, like Acer, ASUS and Samsung announced Windows 8-based devices, Chinese PC maker Lenovo introduced four convertibles sporting Windows RT/8 aimed at consumers and business users.

For consumers, Lenovo announced the IdeaPad Yoga 13 Windows 8-based "multi-mode" ultrabook, its smaller Windows RT-powered brother IdeaPad Yoga 11, touted as the "world's slimmest multi-mode PC," and the IdeaTab Lynx that will be launched with the recently announced Intel Atom Z2760 "Clover Trail" processor. Lenovo has not forgotten business users and added the ThinkPad Twist to the Windows 8 lineup, sporting fully-fledged 3rd generation Intel Core processors up to Core i7, and up to Windows 8 Pro operating system. Let's take them one by one and see what's what...

Even though it targets business users, the ThinkPad Twist, that can be used in different modes such as "Stand" for "work collaboration via the multi-touch screen," is marketed as a general purpose notebook. On top of the previously mentioned specifications, it comes with a 12.5-inch 350NIT IPS display, optional 3G connectivity, 500GB HDD of 128GB SSD for storage and the ThinkPad-branded keyboard. Lenovo touts a nearly all-day battery life which is rather unusual for a device powered by Intel Core processors, but fails to provide exact numbers. Dolby Home Theatre audio, mini-HDMI and DisplayPort are also mentioned as part of the multimedia experience. Lenovo-branded software such as Solutions for Small Business and Lenovo Cloud Storage are also thrown-in into the mix. Pricing will start at $849, and will be available via retailers, business partners and Lenovo starting October 26.

"These designs fueled with powerful Intel 3rd generation Core processors will deliver the key attributes of the PC and tablet into a single system—essentially people are getting ‘two for one’." is what Kirk Skaugen, corporate vice president and general manager, PC Client Group, Intel said in relation to the Yoga 13 and ThinkPad Twist that strongly hint at being a viable PC-replacement solution for both consumers and business users.

The consumer-oriented IdeaPad Yoga 13 comes with a hinge that allows 360 degree movement, and is able to fold from laptop to tablet in a single motion. A 13.3-inch high definition IPS display, 3rd generation Intel Core processors, a 16.9mm thick frame and a decent eight hours of battery life complete the package, running on Windows 8. It can be reserved from Best Buy starting on October 12, where it will also be available for purchase, as well as directly from Lenovo starting from $1,099 on October 26.

Its smaller sibling, the IdeaPad Yoga 11, comes with an 11.6-inch screen and is powered by a quad-core nVidia Tegra 3 processor, it should provide 13 hours of battery life. Just like the IdeaPad Yoga 13, the IdeaPad Yoga 11 can be converted into a "Stand" by flipping the keyboard behind the screen, or a "Tent" by bending them upright. It will be available beginning in December, starting at $799.

Using the recently-introduced x86 app-compatible Intel Z2760 "Clover Trail" processor, the IdeaTab Lynx tablet comes with an 11.6-inch display and can be connected to a keyboard for increased productivity. It should deliver an impressive 16-hour battery life with the "optional base," and comes with Dolby Home Theatre for a cinema-quality like sound. An optional second year of warranty coverage will be available. Pricing will start at $599 for the tablet and the keyboard dock will be available for $149, with availability to start in December.

The usual array of Lenovo services including In-Home Warranty upgrades and Accidental Damage Protection on select products will also be available.

The previously announced ThinkPad Tablet 2, that is priced starting at $649, comes with a 10-hour battery life, an 1.3lbs weight and optional keyboard dock, will also debut, according to the press release, alongside the newly introduced convertibles this month, though it will be available starting in November.

Lenovo's Windows 8 lineup covers a wide price range from $599 to $1,099, and provides adequate solutions for different types of users. At the moment, Lenovo is clearly differentiating its products price-wise as well as feature-wise from one another, which will undoubtedly make the purchase process easier for future customers interested in buying a Windows 8-based device.

With the newest incarnation of Windows fast approaching, Microsoft has released a 102MB cumulative update for the "gold", or final, versions of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, designed to make the new operating system ready for general availability. According to Steven Sinofsky’s Building Windows 8 blog post, the update improves the OS’s "performance, power management and battery efficiency, media playback, and compatibility."

You can install the 'Update for Windows 8' through the control panel and see exactly what’s been addressed in the accompanying Knowledge Base article.

The list of improvements is as follows:

• Increased power efficiency to extend battery life
• Performance improvements in Windows 8 applications and Start screen
• Improved audio and video playback in many scenarios
• Improved application and driver compatibility with Windows 8

According to Sinofsky, "During the final months of Windows 8, we challenged ourselves to create the tools and processes to be able to deliver these “post-RTM” updates sooner than a service pack. By developing better test automation and test coverage tools we are happy to say that Windows 8 will be totally up to date for all customers starting at general availability. If you are an MSDN or enterprise customer, these updates will be available for your Windows 8 PCs via Windows Update as of today (October 9), following our standard cadence for Windows Updates on the second Tuesday of each month at about 10:00am".

Australian software developer Nitro PDF Pty Ltd has released Nitro Reader 3.0, the latest version of its free PDF viewer and creator that also includes tools for filling forms and annotating PDF documents.

Version 3.0 -- also available in 64-bit form includes three major improvements first seen in Nitro Pro 8, the company’s commercial tool for creating, editing and converting PDF files, namely auto-save and recovery, smart alignment for improved static form filling and smaller PDF files sizes.

Nitro Reader 3, which is billed as “the only free PDF viewer and creator that enables users to easily create, read, sign, secure, and collaborate with digital documents”, adds auto-save and recovery features to this latest build, with open documents automatically saved every 10 minutes in the background to minimise the possibilities of data loss. Upon recovering from a crash or power outage, Nitro Reader automatically recovers the latest version. Users can tweak the auto-save interval via the program’s preferences.

Version 3 also introduces “Smart Alignment for Type Text”. The feature is aimed at helping fill out forms where interactive form fields aren’t provided by ensuring all typed text is aligned neatly using an invisible grid.

Nitro has also taken steps to alleviate the effects of what it describes as “one of the biggest headaches with the PDF format”. These days, the annotation layer of a PDF contains all kinds of different information, from digital signatures using Nitro’s popular QuickSign tool to form fields and comments. With little in the way of encoding or compression available on this layer, file sizes can quickly blow up out of all proportion.

With Nitro Reader 3, Nitro has taken the opportunity to rewrite its annotation compression engine to ensure the size of annotated files in Nitro Reader 3 are significantly smaller than those produced in the previous version, with potential savings of up to 75 percent.

Other changes also mirror those previously revealed in Nitro Pro 8, including support for 15 more languages, including various right-to-left and vertical languages such as Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. Nitro also includes a number of unspecified bug fixes that it claims makes Nitro Reader 3 quicker to load, faster when opening documents and better at handling larger documents.

Nitro Reader 3.0 32-bit and Nitro Reader 3.0 64-bit are both available as a freeware downloads for PCs running Windows XP or later. Nitro Pro 8 is also available as a trial download -- check out our in-depth review here.

Photo Credit: cybrain/Shutterstock

U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile on Wednesday announced that it will bring the Samsung Galaxy Note II to its product lineup, but unlike the previous model this one does not have to make due with underpowered hardware compared to its international sibling.

Just like the international model, the T-Mobile variant of the Samsung Galaxy Note II comes with a 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display sporting a 1280 by 720 resolution, and is powered by the same 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor and 3100mAh battery with a quoted talk time of up to 15 hours. It will run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz, and it will be available in two color options, Titanium Gray and Marble White.

Where it differs from the international model is in its cellular connectivity: the T-Mobile variant will be compatible with the US carrier's HSPA+ 4G network, and includes exclusive features such as a new racing game that will be optimized to interact with a MOGA Mobile Gaming System, which T-Mobile is supporting in retail. AllShare Cast and the AllShare Cast Wireless Hub accessory, available for $99, will allow the device to wirelessly share content to any HDMI-capable TV. Wi-Fi Calling is included as well, allowing T-Mobile customers to make and receive calls as long as there is a data connection present.

The T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S III will also come with the Premium Suite, improved S-Pen stylus and even SAFE (Samsung Approved for Enterprise) rating which, according to the press release, will allow to securely sync corporate calendars, contacts, email and sensitive information.

T-Mobile has yet to announce pricing and provide an exact availability date, giving just a rough estimate of "in the coming weeks," but still "this fall."

AM Software has released UltraSearch 1.7, a major update of its super-speedy MFT search tool.

As with many similar tools, the program doesn’t waste resources maintaining an index on your hard drive. Instead it accesses the NTFS Master File Table directly, which allows UltraSearch to retrieve its results at very high speed, typically just a second or two.

The headline addition in this release is probably the new support for regular expressions. The ability to find matches for your /Pattern/ provides considerably more flexibility.

And UltraSearch 1.7 is now able to locate NTFS hardlinks, too, although by default this is only enabled on the system drive (check Options > NTFS Hardlinks for various configuration options).

The new build isn’t just for geeks, though. Small practical improvements include a switch to easily launch the program when Windows boots (Options > Launch at Windows Startup); command line options can start the program minimized, or in your system tray; and there’s easier sorting of your results.

An old irritation has been resolved. You no longer have to manually refresh UltraSearch’s index to detect files which have been added since the program was launched: the changes are detected and it updates itself automatically.

Memory use has been cut, and search speeds increased.

And a number of irritating bugs have been squashed.

As with all of these MFT tools, the program has its limitations. You can only search on file and folder names, for instance, not contents. And you can only search NTFS drives.

But if that’s not a concern, then UltraSearch 1.7 will serve you well. It’s a fast and capable update which extends an already excellent program with several useful enhancements and improvements.

Photo Credit: Angela Waye/Shutterstock

Today, Microsoft's CEO released his annual shareholder letter, which also is meant for customers, employees and partners. Steve Ballmer's looking back-peering ahead missive comes as the company stands on a precipice between the PC and cloud-connected device eras and seeks reinvention through an unusually strong late-year release cycle that includes Surface tablets, Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Server 2012.

Under Bill Gates, Microsoft sought to put a PC on every desktop, with software innovation driving that effort. Ballmer describes post-PC Microsoft as a "devices and services company", which aptly describes the fundamental shift in progress. Services focus reminds of IBM, which dominated the mainframe era the PC displaced. This devices and services ambition "impacts how we run the company, how we develop new experiences, and how we take products to market for both consumers and businesses".

Ballmer spends much of the 1,300-word letter rationalizing the importance of devices, new form factors and Microsoft's capability to help businesses "realize the benefits of the cloud". He boasts about these benefits around the two flagship products: "The ultimate experience with the new Office for both consumers and businesses will come when it is paired with a Windows 8 device and delivered as a cloud subscription service with Office 365".

While explaining that Microsoft will continue to work with partners on Windows PCs, tablets and phones, Ballmer states "there will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface". From that perspective, "devices and services company" alludes to more end-to-end hardware, software and services products, much like what Apple does today. That said, he calls the "new era at Microsoft" an opportunity for the "8 million developers building apps for our devices" and "for the more than 640,000 partners worldwide". Meaning: Microsoft isn't going into the build-its-own devices business.

During fiscal 2012, which ended June 30, Microsoft generated $73.7 billion in revenue, Ballmer observes. By comparison, Apple generated more during the first six months of this year -- $74.2 billion. My how times have changed.

I can't emphasize enough what the next product release cycle means to Microsoft, and that includes Office System 2013 software coming next year. The Redmond, Wash.-based company is attempting to preserve and recover computing relevance during a massive move to anytime, anywhere, on-anything computing that threatens the longevity of the Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack. That understanding is important context for reading Ballmer's letter. He's not just blowing marketing smoke -- kissing up to the parties he writes to. He means every word.

Full text of Ballmer's letter:

Last year was a big year -- we delivered strong results, launched fantastic new products and services, and positioned Microsoft for an incredible future.

For fiscal year 2012, revenue grew to a record $73.7 billion. We also maintained strong cost discipline resulting in cash flow from operations of $31.6 billion, an increase of 17 percent from the prior year. In addition, we returned $10.7 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends.

We delivered these results while preparing a pipeline of new and updated products that will launch in the year ahead. To best understand what we are about to deliver and what we're building toward, it's important to recognize a fundamental shift underway in our business and the areas of technology that we believe will drive the greatest opportunity in the future.

Our Business: Devices and Services

Last year in this letter I said that over time, the full value of our software will be seen and felt in how people use devices and services at work and in their personal lives. This is a significant shift, both in what we do and how we see ourselves -- as a devices and services company. It impacts how we run the company, how we develop new experiences, and how we take products to market for both consumers and businesses. The work we have accomplished in the past year and the roadmap in front of us brings this to life.

Devices With End-User Services

We will continue to work with a vast ecosystem of partners to deliver a broad spectrum of Windows PCs, tablets and phones. We do this because our customers want great choices and we believe there is no way one size suits over 1.3 billion Windows users around the world. There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface. In all our work with partners and on our own devices, we will focus relentlessly on delivering delightful, seamless experiences across hardware, software and services. This means as we, with our partners, develop new Windows devices we'll build in services people want.

Further, as we develop and update our consumer services, we'll do so in ways that take full advantage of hardware advances, that complement one another and that unify all the devices people use daily. So right out of the box, a customer will get a stunning device that is connected to unique communications, productivity and entertainment services from Microsoft as well as access to great services and applications from our partners and developers around the world.

A great example of this shift is Windows 8. Windows 8 will come to market Oct. 26, 2012, with beautiful hardware that will light up with our consumer cloud services. Windows 8 unites the light, thin and fun aspects of a tablet with the power of a PC. It's beautiful, it's functional, and it's perfect for both personal and professional use. Xbox Music, Video, Games and SmartGlass apps make it possible to select a movie from a PC, start playing it on the TV, and finish watching it on a phone. SkyDrive, our cloud storage solution, effortlessly connects content across a user's devices. Bing's powerful search technologies in Windows 8 will help customers get more done. Skype has a beautiful new Windows 8 app and connects directly into the new Office.

Office, too, is taking a major leap forward. The new Office was designed from the ground up for Windows 8 and takes full advantage of new mobile form factors with touch and pen capabilities. It unlocks new experiences for reading, note taking, meetings and communications and brings social directly into productivity and collaboration scenarios. The combination of a Windows 8 tablet with OneNote and SkyDrive has truly revolutionized how to take notes, annotate documents and share information. The ultimate experience with the new Office for both consumers and businesses will come when it is paired with a Windows 8 device and delivered as a cloud subscription service with Office 365.

Services for the Enterprise

Fantastic devices and services for end users will drive our enterprise businesses forward given the increasing influence employees have in the technology they use at work -- a trend commonly referred to as the Consumerization of IT. It's one more reason Microsoft is committed to delivering devices and services that people love and businesses need.

Today, businesses face a number of important opportunities and challenges. Enterprise IT departments are tasked with deploying technology that drives the business strategy forward. They decide what solutions will make employees more productive, collaborative and satisfied. They work to unlock business insights from a world of data. At the same time they must manage and secure corporate information that employees access across a growing number of personal and corporate devices.

To address these opportunities, businesses turn to Microsoft. They count on our world-class business applications like Microsoft Dynamics, Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and our business intelligence solutions. They rely on our technology to manage employee corporate identity and to protect their corporate data. And, increasingly, businesses of all sizes are looking to Microsoft to realize the benefits of the cloud.

Helping businesses move to the cloud is one of our largest opportunities. All the online services people use today -- both from Microsoft and other companies -- run on servers in datacenters around the globe. The volume of Internet services used will continue to grow as people connect to the Internet from more devices for more purposes -- fueling incredible opportunity in our server business. Unique to Microsoft, we continue to design and deliver world-class cloud solutions that allow our customers to move to the cloud on their terms.

For example, a company can choose to deploy Office or Microsoft Dynamics on premises, as a cloud service or a combination of both. With Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure and System Center infrastructure, businesses can deploy applications in their own datacenter, a partner's datacenter or in Microsoft's datacenter with common security, management and administration across all environments, with ultimate flexibility and scale. Our business customers tell us these capabilities are critical to harnessing the power of the cloud so they can reach new levels of efficiency and tap new areas of growth.

Our Future: Big Opportunity

There's a remarkable amount of opportunity ahead for Microsoft in both the next year and the next decade. As we enter this new era, there are several distinct areas of technology that we are focused on driving forward -- all of which start to show up in the devices and services launching this year. Leading the industry in these areas over the long term will translate to sustained growth well into the future. These focus areas include:

• Developing new form factors that have increasingly natural ways to use them including touch, gestures and speech.
• Making technology more intuitive and able to act on our behalf instead of at our command with machine learning.
• Building and running cloud services in ways that unleash incredible new experiences and opportunities for businesses and individuals.
• Firmly establishing one platform, Windows, across the PC, tablet, phone, server and cloud to drive a thriving ecosystem of developers, unify the cross-device user experience, and increase agility when bringing new advancements to market.
• Delivering new scenarios with life-changing improvements in how people learn, work, play and interact with one another.

We are uniquely positioned to lead in these areas given the breadth of our devices and services portfolio, as well as our large, global partner and customer base and the growing Windows ecosystem.

It truly is a new era at Microsoft -- an era of incredible opportunity for us, for the 8 million developers building apps for our devices, for the more than 640,000 partners worldwide and, most important, for the people and businesses using our products to reach their full potential.

We see an unprecedented amount of opportunity for both this year and the long term. Although we still have a lot of hard work ahead, our products are generating excitement. And when I pause to reflect on how far we've come over the past few years and how much further we'll go in the next one, I couldn't be more excited and optimistic.

As always, thank you for your support.

Do you believe him?

Photo Credit: Microsoft

Today, Google updated its enterprise search product, upping the number of supported languages to 60, better improving Big Data capabilities, increasing scalability and providing document previews with search results.

"Administrators can easily add content sources from secure storage, cloud services or the public web and social networking sites", Matthew Eichner, general manager of Google enterprise search, says. "GSA 7.0 also provides Google-quality search for SharePoint 2010, making for a more simple and intuitive, all-in-one search experience".

Google's enterprise search competitors include Autonomy, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, among others. New SharePoint capabilities specifically target Microsoft, which stands between Google and any meaningful success in the enterprise.

GSA 7.0 targets Microsoft FAST Search Server for SharePoint, which is available in three editions. Google's timing presumably isn't coincidental, as Microsoft extends SharePoint capabilities to Office 365 and ramps up v2013.

Eichner highlights key GSA 7.0 benefits:

• Document preview -- view thumbnails and flip through full-screen document previews right alongside search results.
• Google Translate -- secure and automatic translations display in search results, in more than 60 languages.
• Updated language capabilities -- including parsing the complex morphology of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean to improve results. Expert search -- tap into your organization’s knowledge graph, and instantly collaborate with colleagues who have answers.
• New interface - a more beautiful search experience rolling out with the GSA 7 series.
• Improved scale - a single rack of GSAs could now fit the equivalent of the entire Google.com index in 2000 -- 1 billion pages.

Google Search Appliance 7.0 is available now. Like earlier versions, price varies depending on number of documents indexed -- last I checked around $15,000 for a half million of them.

Windows Server 2012 launched a little more than a month ago and packs quite the toolset. To further complete the package, Microsoft announced the arrival of Windows Azure Services to its cloud-oriented server operating system, though only in beta for the moment.

Microsoft's cloud computing platform services are designed for hosting service providers, which was until recently exclusive to Windows Azure but in July was showcased on Windows Server and System Center. According to the company, Windows Azure Services on Windows Server is now a feature-complete beta release that focuses on delivering a considerable number of improvements over the previous versions.

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 promises to deliver the implemented technologies that are part of the solution when deploying it along with Windows Server 2012. Among the enhancements:

• Service Management Portal & API that delivers a distributed install with datacenter readiness and multiple plan user signup
• Distributed installation, Generic FastCGI and custom stack support and HTTPS/SSL support for web sites
• The ability to custom create a virtual machine from the VM Template, using hardware profile to create virtual machines from VHD and the ability for tenants, which are now VMM Tenant Admins, to use the new VMM On-behalf Of features

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 is scheduled for early 2013, but the newly announced Windows Azure Services for Windows Server 2012 is available as a free download right now.

Photo Credit:  Novelo/Shutterstock

I typically don't post about minor Android updates, but Nexus 7 is popular among some BetaNews readers and this release reportedly comes with something many users have pined for: Desktop/launcher in landscape mode.

Jean-Baptiste Queru, technical lead for the Android Open Source Project, explains in a post on the Android Building Google group: "We're releasing Android 4.1.2 to AOSP today, which is a minor update on top of 4.1.1. As a note to maintainers of community builds running on Nexus 7: please update to 4.1.2 at the first opportunity. Future variants of the grouper hardware will have a minor change in one of the components (the power management chip) that will not be compatible with 4.1.1. The build number is JZO54K, and the tag is android-4.1.2_r1".

He wouldn't say when or even if the update would be available for Galaxy Nexus -- Google's other stock Android device.

Nexus 7 owners should be able to get v4.1.2 over the air -- not that I've been offered it yet. If you can't wait, try this. Thanks to Derek Ross for the download link.

Landscape launcher/home screen isn't top of my feature list. You?

For those of you still pining for Small Business Server, you'll have to settle for its successor, which is available now for evaluation following its RTM. Microsoft expects the software to be available in "all channels" by November 1 -- or after Windows 8 launches in 17 days. However, preloaded systems will likely come later, but before year's end, while server manufacturers conduct final testing and create system images.

Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 Essentials adds more cloud utility around a straightforward concept: Provide small businesses or sole proprietors with access to their important information anytime, anywhere and on anything.

Sinead O'Donovan, Windows Server Essentials director of program management identifies some benefits:

• Enable a dynamic, modern work style with access from your devices by using Remote Web Access (RWA), and take advantage of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices for a superior experience with rich modern "My Server" apps.
• Enjoy peace of mind knowing that your data is well-protected by complementing your on-site backups with Windows Azure Online Backup, as well as utilizing integrated support for the new Windows 8 File History feature.
• Choose the email and collaboration option that’s right for you, whether that’s in the cloud with Office 365 or a hosted service provider, or running on a local server.
• Quickly and easily respond to increasing data capacity needs with support for Storage Spaces, which allows you to create elastic, resilient storage for your files and folders.
• Run the line-of-business applications that you depend on by leveraging our greatly improved application compatibility, now with a single logo certification for all Windows Server 2012 editions.
• Purchase with confidence knowing that your technology investment can easily grow to Windows Server 2012 Standard if the needs of your business grow.
• Deploy today with full support for 19 languages, all releasing simultaneously.

Microsoft claims 23,000 downloads for the pre-release Preview version over eight weeks. Final evaluation software is available for download here. This code -- HHRHF-YMNJW-RPGCC-VV68W-BWMVY -- activates the software, which is 64-bit and can be purchased and converted to perpetual license.

Photo Credit:  Sergej Khakimullin/Shutterstock

Targeting enterprise clients, after PureFlex and PureApplication Systems, IBM has introduced the third member in its PureSystems family. Named IBM PureData System, it is purposefully designed for big data cloud appliances by providing data services to various applications.

The new PureData System family is comprised of two major platforms. PureData System for Transactions, which is aimed at improving data management costs, and PureData System for Analytics, which is designed to analyze large volumes of data.

PureData System for Transaction is a scalable database platform designed with easy deployment, optimization and management of transactional database workloads. Touted as an expert integrated system, it focuses on allowing the system to automatically complete ongoing administration tasks which is designed to ease the workload for database staff, promises factory-optimized systems that are designed out-of-the-box for scalability and reliability for a more streamlined system integration and a reduced total cost of operation.

It comes with support for existing DB2 applications, built-in database compatibility features allowing to migrate Oracle Databases to IBM PureData System with minimal application change according to IBM.

PureData System for Analytics comes in two versions: PureData System for Analytics and Operational Anaylitics, with the former incorporating more than 200 in-database analytics functions, built-in PMML 4 (Predictive Model Markup Language) support, in-database geospatial analytics, data filtering with programmable hardware, asymmetric and parallel processing architecture supporting petabyte scale, single integrated management console and line of support as well as other features.

PureData System for Operational Analyticsis designed to deploy, manage and optimize data-intensive workloads for operational analytics, coming as an out-of-the-box solution and is capable of handling more than 1000 concurrent operational queries.

Photo: Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock

Months after releasing the Wi-Fi controller pack for its Hero2 action sports cameras, GoPro on Tuesday finally released the first version of the mobile app to go along with it.

The GoPro App gives users full control of all camera settings, a live video preview window, and access to GoPro's "social-ish" Photo and Video of the Day site. The app is free and compatible with iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S (iOS 4.3 & 5), iPod Touch 4 (iOS 4.3 & 5), and iPad 1, 2 & 3 (iOS 4.3 & 5). It is available in the iTunes app store right now.

Unfortunately, some of the features that really showed off the amazing possibilities a smartphone opens up to the camera are not present. First, the ability to share content stored on the camera’s SD card using your smartphone or tablet is not yet available, meaning instant recording and sharing on the go is not yet possible. Secondly, the simultaneous multi-camera control that the company first showed off in a video last June is not present. The video, which features pro skateboarder Ryan Sheckler using FIFTY GoPros is embedded below to get a feel for what we're still missing.

What's more, there is still no Android support present, though the company says it's coming soon. One has to wonder if the app for Android will launch containing the features missing from the iOS app.

They say the best things in life are free. There's another saying about when stealing, you get what you deserve. When it comes to software, that's more than what you bargained for. Or so claims Microsoft, which warns malware writers increasingly exploit people's desire to get for free something they should pay for.

Yesterday, the Redmond, Wash.-based company released its first-half 2012 "Security Intelligence Report" -- 134 pages for your reading pleasure. Today, Microsoft's Joe Blackbird highlights one of this volume's findings: bargain-hunting exploits for movies, music and software.

Microsoft identifies three trends, none new but all increasing:

• Free or fake software or content loaded with malware
• Activation key generators used to steal content
• Poisoned search engine results

"The typical situation starts with users looking for some software or media such as movies or music for free, or for a reduced price", Blackbird explains. "They surf the web looking for the file and perhaps also a crack or license key generator (Keygen) so that they don't have to purchase it. This is where the malware distributors step in and attempt to get between these users and the software or media that they are looking for".

In the first scenario, users download what they think is legit software that contains malware. For example, colleague Mihaita Bamburic identifies an exploit using a fake game from Google's Chrome Web Store. Users may also download what they think is legit software that has been cracked, meaning activation thwarted, but also is loaded with malware.

The second scenario probably applies to more than a few BetaNews readers. Surely some of you use key generations to activate software or access content you didn't pay for. Microsoft specifically highlights Win32/Keygen, which technically isn't malicious but often leads to malware.

Tim Rains, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, explains: "In the first six months of 2012, the threat family Win32/Keygen, representing software activation key generators, was detected nearly five million times. Keygen detections have increased by a factor of 26 since the first half of 2010 and today Keygen is the number one consumer threat family worldwide, rising above other prevalent threat families like Pornpop, Blacole, Conficker and FakePAV".

The bigger problem: "More than 76 percent -- that’s approximately 3.8 million of the 5 million aforementioned Keygen detections -- of computers reporting Keygen detections in the first half of 2012 also reported detections of other malware families". China's rate is highest, by far. But the chart above also shows surprisingly high Keygen infection rate in the United States.

Of course, Microsoft's calling out this problem is self-interested, since key generators are used to pirate its software. But there's another area of self-interest, regarding the third scenario: Searching for bargains, free software or key generators.

"In that method of infection, malware distributors hide exploits in webpages that attempt to take advantage of unpatched software vulnerabilities to compromise these bargain hunter's computers", Blackbird says. "In other words, it's not just downloading license key generators, cracked software or free media files that expose users to malware; the act of visiting web pages of unknown origin, claiming to provide this type of free software download, is risky activity".

He observes the use of Blackhole to poison searched pages with malware. Interestingly, and coincidentally, Sophos warns that Bing searches are highly susceptible to Blackhole poisoning, particularly images. Based on a field test: 65 percent, compared to 30 percent for Google.

Credits: maraga/Shutterstock (photo); Microsoft (chart)

Video game accessory company PowerA on Tuesday announced the retail availability of Moga, the company's dual analog game controller for Android 2.3+ handsets. The device will be available for $49.99 through major retailers and national wireless carrier T-Mobile beginning on October 21.

Last year, I said the time was right for an Android-based video game console, but not much has been done to bring my assertion into reality. Moga doesn't bring us any closer to a traditional video game console powered by Android.

However, PowerA considers Moga a game system of its own.

This is because Moga is a console-style dual-analog bluetooth controller compatible with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and up which actually requires additional controller support from app developers. For this reason, there is both a Moga SDK and a Moga-compatible game catalog available in an app called Moga Pivot, where you sync both the bluetooth controller and your onboard game catalog. It's a bit different from other peripherals in that you can't just plug it in and expect a good experience in all your existent games.

Instead, Moga has its own games and its own experience, not unlike the one provided by Sony with the Xperia Play two years ago. The seriously bad news right now is that the catalog of 100 percent Moga-optimized games includes just nine titles. Other titles will work with the controller, just not in an optimized fashion. Any game you already have installed on your device that partially supports Moga will show up in the list of available games in the Pivot app.

Even though a weak catalog is a strike against Moga, it has two good things going for it: It's priced affordably, and it will be available in the biggest toy retail outlets in the United States, including Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, and Amazon.com. Since it is not guaranteed to provide an optimal experience without broader support from software developers, it is guaranteeing developers a broad base of potential users as a trade-off.

MegaCloud is a new, free-to-use cloud storage and backup service (compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, and Mobile) that lets you store, sync and share all your documents, photos, music, videos and more across all of your devices. Unlike some similar services, having a free account doesn’t mean being restricted in any way -- all free users get 16GB of space, divided into 8GB for storage and 8GB for backups.

Well, that’s how much ordinary, everyday free users get. But obviously, as a BetaNews reader you deserve a little extra, so MegaCloud has kindly upped the free storage on offer to 21GB (13GB for storage, plus 8GB for backups) exclusively for us, and all you need to do is click on the link below and sign up for a free account. And if that’s still not enough free space for you, you can get yet more gratis storage simply by installing a mobile app or referring friends to the service.

MegaCloud might be the new kid on the block, but it offers lots of impressive features. You can use it to:

• Share photos, videos and more across Twitter and Facebook in a single click.
• Access and manage your files on the go with MegaCloud for Mobile (supports all iOS and Android devices).
• Create Shareable links with a passcode to securely share your files with friends.
• Revisit and restore earlier versions of your files.
• Browse, edit, view and even delete your files online (including audio and video).
• Review and retrieve deleted files.
• Effortlessly protect your social media and email data with Social Media Backup.
• Discuss individual files with others whom you’ve granted access to.

Its fully-featured backup service lets you choose exactly what you want to copy over, as well as creating schedules for automatic and regular backups of your hard drive. All backups created with MegaCloud can be restored at the click of a button which makes the process of moving your data from one PC to another a simple and very convenient endeavor.

To sign up just click here. You will need to use that link and install the software to get your 5GB bonus.

"Bad Piggies", a mobile game that was quietly launched by software company Rovio Mobile, is one of the most popular games to be launched in the late period. Unfortunately, it's also a security risk if installed via third-party, free, extensions from the Chrome Web Store that claim to be the original app.

Security experts from Barracuda Networks have analyzed the number of free apps that turn up after searching for the popular game title in the Chrome Web Store. The company has found that these extensions, while obviously being a far cry from the actual Bad Piggies game, require elevated permissions. To profit from misleading the user, they also install a plug-in that delivers advertisements on popular websites. The severity of this security risk might be overlooked by users seeking to play the popular title.

Aside from trying to profit by delivering advertisements which are injected into popular websites such as Yahoo!, MSN, IMDB, eBay, Angrybirds, etc., the biggest issue is the requirement for elevated permissions, which allows the extension to access data on all websites, even though the game should only be related to a single website on which it is hosted.

Users are likely mislead by the "Bad Piggies" game description, even though the first warning sign should be the title that doesn't match that of the original.

According to Barracuda Networks, more than 82,000 Google Chrome users have one of these fake apps installed, and that was only a few days ago. Numbers rose significantly between October first and second when the bad apps were being tracked.

In this case, it's only safe to download the game from appropriate mobile sources such as the iTunes App Store and Google Play for Android smartphones and tablets, and to avoid apps claiming to be Rovio games that aren't published by Rovio itself.

The question that rises from the report is whether Google adequately checks out a submitted app before allowing it into the Chrome Web Store. Bad Piggies serves as an example that maybe there isn't enough oversight.

This weekend I got a curious text message from my mother: "I’m watching a presentation of Windows 8 on HSN".

I quickly tuned into the Home Shopping Network channel and to my surprise they were actually doing a pretty decent job of explaining Windows 8 (and offering PCs for preorder). They demoed various benefits of the new OS from the apps to the fact that if users are confused by the new interface, the old legacy desktop is a button press away (the windows key).

What shocked me the most was the demo of the Skype app. We knew it was coming but it raises questions: This app is not yet available in the Windows Store so how were they able to access it? Do OEMs have early access to release-day apps? Also, notice the presence of the Netflix app. We also knew this was coming, I just think it’s interesting to see these apps running on devices weeks before general availability.

I’m excited to see a working version of the app, and I think it is solid execution on the part of Microsoft to get this app ready for the launch of Windows 8. Giving consumers the ability to communicate across devices is an essential element of a consumer strategy.

Photo Credit: Robert Johnson

If the colors of your latest digital photos are less than accurate, then most photo editors will allow you to try and resolve this manually. Tweak RGB here, maybe HSV there, and with a little work there’s a good chance you can improve the situation. If that sounds too much like hard work, though, you might prefer a tool like CastCor, which aims to correct color problems almost entirely automatically.

There’s nothing too special about this, of course -- most photo editors include at least some automated correction tools -- but CastCor delivers more than most: “White Point Auto”, “Grey Point Auto”, “Contrast Auto”, “Auto Color Enhance”, “Highlight-Shadow Enhance”, “Adaptive Equalisation”, “Luminance Correction”, and more.

And these really are automated, too. So unlike some of the competition, you don’t choose an option and then have to navigate a complicated dialog box, setting a host of other parameters. It’s just a matter of clicking Tools, and viewing the right-hand preview window to see the results. If you like it, click Save; otherwise, click Undo and try again.

Does it work? Like most similar tools, the best we can say is “sometimes”. CastCor did make a real improvement to some of our test images, but as usual with this kind of tool, it made others considerably worse. (Although you can always fall back to the usual manual slider adjustments as a last resort.)

And the program’s slightly unconventional interface didn’t help, either. Expect to spend a couple of minutes exploring before you figure out how everything works.

The sheer number of automated color correction tools on offer here does make CastCor stand out from the crowd, though. If you’re not happy with your current photo editor’s color adjustment options, then the program could be a welcome addition to your system.

Photo Credit: Laborant/Shutterstock

On a number of levels, AMD and Intel are in similar predicaments. Both are major players on the desktop chip market, but have an abysmal presence on the mobile tablet market. To correct the latter Intel recently announced its new tablet processor codenamed Clover Trail and AMD promptly followed by announcing the company's Z-60 accelerated processing unit (APU). The two will yet again battle, but for a different market on which neither has a commanding presence nor the recognition as a fearful competitor.

Just like Intel's Atom Z2760 system on a chip, AMD has a recipe that involves tackling the Windows 8 Pro tablet market instead of feature-stripped Windows RT tablets. Yet again, the two companies take the familiar approach by using x86 processors to make a splash on the diverse tablet market. The dual-core AMD Z-60 touts features such as AMD "Start Now" which is designed to deliver fast boot and resume from sleep times, six hours of HD video playback and up to eight hours of browsing battery life, all in a tablet as thin as 10mm.

AMD Radeon takes care of the graphics part, and delivers support for 1080p resolutions, HDMI output and DirectX11 capability, and it looks only to deliver a matching effort with comparable solutions rumored or already released.

Two variants have been announced, both featuring a dual-core 1.0 GHz CPU, with a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 5.9W and 4.5W respectively, 1MB of L2 cache, 80 Radeon cores on die, a GPU clock speed of 276 and 275 MHz respectively, and 1066 MHz DDR3/DDR3L speed.

Steve Belt, corporate vice president of Ultra-Low Power Products at AMD stated:

We see a large gap between the lower performance and high-price competitive offerings that allow AMD to be in tablet designs that will please our customers and end users alike.

A competitive price will indeed allow AMD to make its way on the tablet market, but it also poses a few issues for the Windows 8 ecosystem.

Judging by various prices and offerings, they might turn out to confuse shoppers looking for a Windows 8 tablet, because AMD is entering the market right in the middle ground between price and performance. The Windows tablet market looks like it could be over-saturated in the middle, and weak in the extremes.

Then there is the issue of Intel Atom Z2760 vs. AMD Z-60 APU. The first looks as a more portable solution, while also delivering more impressive video playback times and cellular connectivity, while the latter looks unable to provide differentiating factors straight from the announcement. The newly introduced Samsung Smart PC will ship with Clover Trail, and it will come with a competitive price tag of $649 which coincidentally fits right in the middle ground that AMD purposefully is willing to go after.

AMD announced that the newly introduced Z-60 APU is shipping today, with tablets expected to launch later this year.

Sounds promising, but not impressive yet.

Ahead of its official unveiling, Mozilla has made Firefox 16 FINAL available for download. The latest version provides little in the way of major new features, and in some ways is more noteworthy for the features missing from this release, including the long-awaited inline PDF viewer (click here to find out how to switch it on manually) as well as a number of OS X Lion/Mountain Lion enhancements.

What is present in version 16 is initial desktop support for web apps, VoiceOver accessibility features for OS X, extra developer tools and enhanced garbage collection performance to prevent freezes and performance lags.

Firefox 16 FINAL’s headline new feature is its implementation of web app support for all desktop platforms. This feature has already been implemented in rival browser Google Chrome, and will allow users to install web apps directly to the desktop, allowing them to be run independently of Firefox itself. While initial support has been implemented, users will have to wait until the launch of the Mozilla Marketplace, currently under development.

The only performance tweak in Firefox 16 is the implementation of incremental garbage collection. This should make the browser more responsive by running the garbage collector for shorter, faster bursts and should resolve issues where users complained of performance lag while the garbage collector was cleaning up in the background.

Version 16 also includes a number of developer enhancements, including a new Developer Toolbar. This provides quick access to developer tools, a graphical command line interface for convenient keyboard access and an error count for the Web Console.

Other improvements for developers include the implementation of a recently opened files list in the Scratchpad, plus the unprefixing of several stable CSS3 features, namely animations, transitions, transforms and gradients.

Mac users with accessibility needs will be pleased to learn that preliminary support for VoiceOver is now turned on by default, Firefox providing audio prompts for menus and the Address bar among other page elements.

Sadly, other planned OS X Lion/Mountain Lion enhancements appear to have missed the cut for version 16, which has led to some criticism from frustrated Firefox users. Another omission is the inline PDF viewer, which still hasn’t been switched on by default -- you can do this manually by following our guide.

Firefox 16 FINAL is a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Once the Beta, Aurora and Nightly channels are updated – with promised improvements such as a panel-based downloads manager and redesigned tabs on the horizon -- we’ll reveal what to look out for in future releases.

If you're a fan of British Broadcasting Corporation radio programs then you're going to love this. Today, BBC announced the new iPlayer Radio for "PC, mobile and tablet" devices.

BBC iPlayer Radio promises to act as a dedicated radio platform that focuses on making it easier to listen to live, catch-up and archived content across all three types of devices on which it runs on. According to the BBC, the feature set will expand in the coming months, but at the moment includes downloads, clips, live radio alongside videos and social media feeds as well as other features. The spotlight is the new iPlayer Radio app for smartphones, which momentarily is only available for iOS with Android support to follow soon according to the announcement.

Using the smartphone app users can:

• Set up alarms to listen to favorite DJs or radio programs
• Discover what tracks are playing and share them with friends
• Set a reminder to know when a specific show is playing
• Reveal on-demand catch-up content on every station by swiping
• Lsten the entire range of BBC Radio stations live by spinning through the dial

Daniel Danker, BBC general manager for online content, says that iPlayer Radio targets "an audience that expects to access our content anywhere" as well as one "that wants greater choice and control" over the program.

The mobile availability is determined by growing demand that, according to BBC, has increased year over year by 300 percent to 1.2 million iPlayer requests for tablet users, and 56 percent to 2.8 million requests for mobile/smartphone users.

There is no appropriate way to express how aggressive will be Microsoft's retail blitz to support the launches of Surface, Windows 8 and Windows RT (on October 26) and Windows Phone 8 (on October 29). In 18 days, the software giant will have retail shops open in 27 states and three Canadian provinces. Many of the locations will be what Microsoft calls "holiday stores", which are more kiosks than shops but retail presence nevertheless. The company announced the pop-up shops about a month ago, but as important product launches approach the sudden retail blitz takes on looming significance.

The stores' importance cannot be understated, and their value is much bigger than selling new products. The shops will create big brand presence during the holidays and give many shoppers reasons to buy something with a Microsoft logo rather than the bitten fruit. (Say, if there's a bite out of the Apple, shouldn't that make it forbidden fruit in the classical biblical/literature sense or used goods from a purely commerce perspective. I certainly wouldn't pick a bitten apple from the grocery store. Funny that Apple's partially eaten logo doesn't put off more people.)

Combined, new corporate and Windows logos, redesigned operating system user interfaces, Windows 8/RT tablets or convertibles, Surface and Windows Phone 8 devices relaunch the Microsoft brand in a big way. The company will use holiday 2012 as major first step to reinvent the brand and its overall image -- that's with investors as much as existing or potential customers. Retail -- particularly Microsoft Store, where the company controls customer experience -- is the glue binding bigger branding efforts together.

Microsoft Store is where shoppers will see value at its finest, and that's sure to be a big emphasis. The shop here in San Diego offers some of the best deals on hardware or software anywhere. I do mean low prices or big discounts. Apple Store is located just four doors down, and as I observed Christmas Eve two years ago the experience contrasts sharply with Microsoft's shop. The one pulls wealthier, individual shoppers and the latter families, while emphasizing value.

Stretching for the Goal

Currently, Microsoft operates 27 permanent stores, with another opening in Toronto, Ontario November 16. Shops are also planned in Ohio and Puerto Rico, but dates aren't officially disclosed. Thirty-two holiday stores will open October 26. The question: How many of them might become permanent fixtures. If I were a mall manager, Microsoft is one tenant that would be top of list to keep, by offering an enticing deal on prime space. For the holidays, Microsoft will have open nearly 80 retail shops, which number is a long leap from where it started.

The first two Microsoft stores, in Arizona and California (and a café in France), opened in October 2009. I visited the Mission Viejo, Calif. shop on Black Friday, the following month.

Microsoft Store San Diego opened June 24, 2010, on the same day Apple launched iPhone 4 to huge crowds, bringing the number to just four. Thirteen months later, Microsoft had opened just 11 stores, suggesting weakening retail commitment. In Spring 2011, several idiot-pundit posts asserted the retail expansion was over. I strongly disagreed.

Then, during the annual partner conference in July 2011, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner boomed: "We're going to open up to 75 more stores over the next 2 to 3 years and continue to bring our stores outside the US as well".

The 32 holiday stores achieves that goal, if only temporarily, and it's unfortunate Microsoft couldn't expand faster -- and that means beyond North America. Apple operates nearly five times more shops in 14 countries. The stores provide a focal point for the Apple lifestyle, around digital activities like listening to music and watching, making or sharing videos. That lifestyle is now largely mobile, driven by iPad and iPhone.

Digital Lifestyle

Branded Microsoft stores aren't about generating profits. Making money is merely a bonus. The goal should be selling a Microsoft lifestyle and engaging customers, which are particularly important given the new product launches and the company's attempt to establish more mobile lifestyle around its stuff or that from partners.

Microsoft's inability to achieve 75 permanent stores undermines the broader branding and corporate reinvention. I regard the need to lean on temp shops as a failure to achieve the stated goal, and even 75 is too few considering Microsoft's larger brand and image ambitions. Changing tech retailing is another consideration.

In June 2010, I explained how "Apple and Microsoft stores are the future of technology retailing". Here in San Diego, the two companies and Sony operate tech boutiques in the same mall. All three sell products through other retailers, too, but the qualitative difference in consumer buying experience differentiates the company operations from larger stores like Best Buy or Walmart. While they also offer sales, service and customer support, the experience isn't as specialized.

For Microsoft, which pitches new lifestyle messaging starting October 26, larger retailers won't be enough. Its own retail shops will matter much more. For example, Best Buy or Walmart won't educate consumers about the benefits of the new Microsoft lifestyle -- not when staff has so much else to sell and lacks specialized sales training.

For many Americans, Microsoft Store will be everywhere this holiday, although nowhere like Apple shops. My question: Will Microsoft Store be anywhere when the holidays end and pop-up stores close?

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox

Windows 8 launches on October 26. Why wait that long? If the idea of purchasing a new laptop or even an all-in-one desktop PC with Windows 8 pre-installed has a nice ring to it then you're in luck -- the Home Shopping Network has just the thing for you.

Three Windows 8 laptops and two all-in-one desktop PCs are available for pre-order from the HSN website. They range from a relatively inexpensive $699.95 to a more daring $1,199.95.

The cheapest of the bunch is a 17.3-inch Gateway laptop, which starts at $699.95 and runs on an Intel Core i5 CPU and packs 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD, among the highlights. The most expensive is the 23-inch touchscreen display, Gateway all-in-one desktop PC with an Intel Core i5 CPU, 6GB of RAM and a larger 1TB HDD.

Acer just announced the Iconia W700 tablet sporting Windows 8 Pro and the latest Intel Z2760 Clover Trail mobile processor in a combination that costs $799 and is undoubtedly more portable, so if you'd have to choose between preordering one of the above laptops and the Acer Iconia W700 which one would it be?

Update: HSN has stopped selling the computers.

Photo Credit: Robert Johnson

Monday, Google's Android Developer Relations team published the Tablet App Quality Checklist so that developers can "make sure that [their] app meets the basic expectations of tablet users."

This checklist serves as a best practices guide, and includes ten key items for developers to acknowledge in their development process: Core app quality, tablet-optimized layout, full screen utilization, full asset utilization, font and touch target accuracy, homescreen widget correctness, one single version for all devices, no required hardware features, declaring tablet screen support, and following Google Play publishing best practices.

Android tablet apps have historically had a bad reputation among the tech press. They "suck" according to at least a couple of publications because they do not live up to the example set by the iPad.

In fact, until Android profitability could be proven, some prominent app developers shied away from building tablet-specific Android apps. Google has made a point of showing that Android tablets are a viable app platform by publishing several developer case studies with their own statistics about Android tablet engagement.

So by setting up these guidelines, Google is hoping to tighten up the appearance of Android tablet apps, so they can make the platform shine a little more brightly.

This is my promised update on bufferbloat, the problem I write about occasionally involving networks and applications that try to improve the flow of streaming data, especially video data, over the Internet but actually do the opposite, defeating TCP/IP’s own flow control code that would do the job much better if only it were allowed to. I first mentioned bufferbloat in January 2011 and it is still with us but the prognosis is improving, though it will probably take years to be fully resolved.

If you read my last column on LagBuster, you know it’s a hardware-based workaround for some aspects of bufferbloat aimed especially at gamers. LagBuster is a coping strategy for one type of bufferbloat that afflicts a population of people who aren’t willing to wait for a systemic cure. LagBuster works for gamers and might be a workaround for other kinds of low-latency data, but that’s still to be determined.

Where is the Problem?

One thing we learned from that column was that bufferbloat isn’t peculiar to routers: where there are separate broadband modems those are affected too. Here’s a very telling response from LagBuster co-inventor Ed DeWath:

The problem isn’t the router. The problem is in the modem.

Let’s use your example -- you have a fantastic router with DD-WRT and the best QoS in the world. Your router detects a high #1 priority packet and places it at the top of the egress queue so that the high priority packet immediately exits the router at the "front of the line". Wonderful! Next, the high priority packet immediately enters the "end of the line" of the modem’s single adaptive rate buffer (ARB). Well, modems have no idea about QoS or prioritization, so your high priority packet must wait in queue behind ALL the previous packets before it exits to the Internet. All packets must wait for their turn -- there is no jumping to the front of the line in a modem! Put another way, modems remove any semblance of "prioritization" from packets -- all packets are equal in a modem. Democracy in action!

That said, the LagBuster solves the modem lag problem by precisely matching the ingress and egress flow rates, and limiting the modem to only one packet in the ARB at any time. Further, with LagBuster’s dual buffer, the high packet priority status is retained. With no other packets in the ARB to cause queuing delays, the LagBuster can always send high priority packets from the high priority buffer at maximum speed.

Lastly, the dwell time ("lag") in the modem is basically proportional to the modem’s buffer size and upstream bandwidth. A consumer grade modem may add up to hundreds of milliseconds of delay to the packet stream. For example, a typical modem buffer is about 300KByte, and a typical upstream speed is about 5Mbps, which can result in as much as 500ms delay for a packet flow. QoS routers cannot ever solve that delay. LagBuster does.

A lot of information there that the smartypants contingent in this audience can argue about all day ("But my modem is combined with my router" -- Really? Is it logically integrated or just living in the same plastic box? How do we even know?) but it is very significant to me that there are bufferbloat issues peculiar to broadband modems. I talk with the best bufferbloat experts in the world and some of them hadn’t devoted a single neuron to the modem buffer, yet from what Ed says, above, ignoring the modem could hobble an overall bufferbloat solution.

Open-Source Answers

I’ll detail below what’s happening to cure bufferbloat, especially in the Linux community, but first I’d like to do something uncharacteristic, which is to make a call to action to a couple specific vendors.

The golden age of the music business (note my italics, I’m not calling it the golden age of music, but a great time to make a lot of money) was in the 1980s and 1990s when we all converted our vinyl record collections to CDs, paying anew for music we already owned. People who sell stuff love it when a technical change requires we get all new stuff. The advent of digital television, for example, sparked a boom in flat screen TVs that is only now turning into a busted bubble, but not until a lot of money was made.

Bufferbloat offers just such an advantage quite specifically to Cisco Systems and to the Motorola Mobility division of Google. Both companies make cable and DSL modems as well as routers. Other companies make these, too, but Cisco and Google can claim bigger network infrastructure shadows than any of those other companies. Cisco dominates the service provider end of the business while Motorola and Google have the most influence on the consumer side, even more than Microsoft or Apple.

Each of these companies should love to sell us all over again a hardware/software solution that eliminates bufferbloat and makes our networks sing. There is no reason why every broadband connection in America can’t have 100 millisecond latency or less. There is no good reason why this can’t be implemented in a year or two rather than 5-10 if these companies will make doing so their marketing priorities.

Everybody wants this and everyone who understands the issues seems willing to pay a bit to make bufferbloat go away. That means it is a terrific commercial opportunity, yet I don’t see much action. Some of this comes down to proprietary vendors not wanting to expose what they are doing, but much of it comes down to misplaced priorities or simple ignorance on the part of industry executives. I wonder if John Chambers at Cisco or Larry Page at Google have even heard of bufferbloat?

This is not to say that Google is doing nothing about bufferbloat. Current state of the art in defeating bufferbloat is an Open Source project called the CoDel AQM algorithm originally by Kathie Nichols and Van Jacobson, but the lead developer (with at least five others) Eric Dumazet has just joined Google. Dumazet, who is French, is responsible for codel, fq_codel, and TCP Small Queues if you want to go poking around.

CoDel is now an official part of Linux.

Commercial Response

Linksys, after a long period of stagnation and outsourcing, is in the process of being more brought in-house. Cisco has contributed toward analyzing the behavior of several revisions of the codel algorithm, I’m told, but is apparently still unconvinced that codel is the bufferbloat solution.

Apple is reportedly well along in its own bufferbloat solution but, as usual, there is no real news escaping from Infinite Loop.

For those who want to reflash their routers and experiment, Cerowrt 3.3.8-27 "sugarland" runs some advanced forms of codel on all interfaces including WiFi, which is the area where the most work still has to be done.

In the oddest yet also most encouraging bit of news, codel over WiFi is right now being tested on a special network built where no other WiFi networks impinged -- in this case at a clothing-optional resort in Northern California, of course.

"Still, tons of work do remain on everything" reports one of the guys in the thick of it, whose name I am witholding to protect his innocence. "Head ends and cable modems are particularly dark to us, the home gateway vendors are asleep at the switch, ISPs clueless, pipelines long, and the biggest problem is that ALL the chipset vendors for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) have moved the fast path for IP into hardware, rather than software, so it’s going to be hard to change course in the next three years unless some disruptive CPE maker shows up and leverages an ARM chip…"

Hint. Hint.

Photo Credit: nmedia/Shutterstock

This week one of my colleagues posted to group chat: "The CD player turns 30". To which I asked: "What's a CD?" And someone else took the question seriously: "Compact Disc". Duh, I know that. But does anyone younger than 10? It's a serious question given a prediction Nielsen makes.

The analyst firm expects record-breaking digital music tracks sales in 2012 -- that means in excess of last year's 1.3 billion. The number already exceeds 1 billion, and Nielsen forecasts digital album sales will grow 15 percent year over year. My, how times have changed.

Let me ask. When was the last time you bought a CD? I can't even remember. My last five digital purchases, all albums: "Soft Universe", pnau; "Pack Up The Plantation: Tom Petty & the Hearbreakers Live!"; "Ghost Notes", Matthew Barber; "Layla and Other Love Songs", Derek & the Dominoes (on sale for $2.99); and "A Night at the Opera", Queen (also on sale for $2.99). I purchased all from Google Play, where I still can't buy ($@%#^!) Green Day albums.

"As we look ahead, it’s clear that digital music purchases -- and consumption through streaming sources -- will continue to grow, and that consumers’ appetites for digital music will change at the speed of technology", David Bakula, Nielsen senior veep, says. These trends will no doubt continue to shape the way that music is discovered, marketed, consumed and sold".

Funny, how convenience suckered us all into buying up billions of digital tracks that audio fidelity and bit-rate are so much less than those on CDs.

If you're old enough -- or perhaps with new trends young enough -- to remember vinyl, yes, the headline is a pun (and violation of BetaNews editorial style).

I must take a moment to share the love -- the exact same given me by the Windows Phone team offered in return. Nothing! Bwhahahaha. Microsoft sent out invitations to a Windows Phone 8 event -- hey, you know it's the launch -- for October 29. Not that I received one. (Yes, I checked spam messages.) Apologies to the good editors at Wired. I lifted the invite image from you. It reads "save the date" -- well, I guess not.

The phone OS event comes just three days after Microsoft launches Windows 8 and Surface tablets in New York City. I have three sisters, and their birthdays are October 26 and 29. Should I regard these product launches as presents or distractions, since Microsoft will have me too busy writing about the new stuff to celebrate with them? Well, girls, there's always Google+ Hangout or, maybe, just maybe, Skype. :)

Windows Phone 8 OEM partners aren't waiting around to unveil new devices, such as the Samsung ATIV or Nokia 920 and 820 -- both of which are now confirmed for AT&T here in the United States.

By comparison, Windows 8 manufacturers out new products or prices, too. For example: Acer Iconia W700 and HP ElitePad 900, just this week.

The lyric to that awful, sappy song goes: "Your the wind beneath my wings", which surely Microsoft hopes Windows 8 will be for the phone OS. These launches so close together aren't coincidental. Both are huge undertakings, and one is more than enough for any company. Given the sorry state of Windows Phone adoption, there can't be lift enough.

Combined Windows Mobile and Phone OS share in the strongest cellular mobile market, the United States, is just 3.6 percent on smartphones, according to comScore. That compares to 52.6 percent for Android and 34.3 percent for iOS. Still, there's a glimmer of hope. During second quarter, based on sales, Microsoft mobile OS share rose to 2.7 percent from 1.6 percent a year earlier, according to Gartner.

Looks like Windows Phone has the potential to go somewhere, which surely is anywhere up with market share so low. As for me, playing off another song lyric, "if you're going to San Francisco", I'm not.

Halfway through its short appearance on Kickstarter, the little white device known as Hiku is just under halfway to its goal of $80,000. Led by former Palm product manager Rob Katcher, this deceptively simple device carves out a niche of its own by making an everyday task easier than even a smartphone could.

The world of consumer technology is dominated by Swiss Army Knives; moderately powerful computers that handle dozens of different tasks ranging from communications to productivity to the creative arts. But, as the age-old colonial American saying goes, the jack of all trades is the master of none.

Sometimes it requires a specialized tool to really get a job done.

E-readers are a great example of this. Though users can very easily utilize their PCs, tablets, and smartphones to read e-books, the dedicated e-reader provides an experience customized for the person who wants to read and only read.

For the task of note-taking, there is no shortage of software to help us quickly take a note on our mobile devices. But because these multi-purpose devices are all dominated by a screen, the way we take notes is distinctly visual. At some point, we are going to have to look at the screen of our smartphone or tablet even if we are using speech-to-text dictation apps like Siri, Google Now, Dragon Dictation, or Evernote.

This is where Hiku reveals its brilliance. It is a Wi-Fi device that has been designed to replace the old fashioned pen-and-paper shopping list, and more currently, the screen-based taking of notes.

"Can you scan things with your mobile phone now? Can you record your voice now with your mobile phone? Sure you can!" Katcher told BetaNews. "But I can tell you there are so many people across the country that would never, ever do that when they're trying to get dinner ready for their family and they just ran out of something. My wife would look at me like I was crazy if I told her to pull our her mobile phone, pull up an app, hit 'add' and type out something. That's just something she's not going to do. With Hiku, it's dead simple, and it's very single-purpose."

Hiku lives in your kitchen. Specifically, it lives on the surface of your refrigerator with a magnet. The simple Wi-Fi device is used to create shopping lists. The only way to input information into the device is by either scanning a product barcode, or by speaking into it for a dictated note. There is just one stainless steel button, and no screen.

The list Hiku creates in the cloud is then pushed to whatever device you want, be it your smartphone, your tablet, your PC, your printer, whatever. By giving consumers a simple, straightforward way to collect their own data, they are actually more likely to use a linked app like Astrid Tasks, Evernote or Remember the Milk.

"Going back to the first few industrial designs for the device, there was one that we were really intrigued by," Katcher said. "It was this triangle shape…but it was a little more futuristic, a little more technology-forward, and that wasn't the vibe we were going for. We wanted friendly and iconic, so people could look at it and recognize it as Hiku. We wanted it to be something that even children could take it in their hands and use it."

If the Hiku Kickstarter goal is met, a whole host of other features will be unveiled. The device, for example, will ship with comparison shopping functionality, which will tell users the cheapest or closest places to get what they added to their list. Other features of the device will be revealed at a later date, specifically the Wi-Fi pairing process, and the ways to set up a multi-device household (one Hiku on the fridge, one in the bathroom, one in the garage, etc.) There will also be an API launch as the device launch approaches, to let developers tap into the barcode scans and voice data that Hiku collects, and build apps that capitalize on it.

The Hiku device has a suggested cost of $99, and Kickstarter funders can grab one at that price, or can get two for $189. In terms of Wi-Fi appliances, it really can't get much more simple than Hiku, and its purpose is crystal clear.

For the second time in a week -- once being a rarity -- I write about new Android device rumors. There's renewed buzz about five Nexus branded devices coming within the month. Talk of five, instead of the typical one, started in May from Wall Street Journal. Soon after, writing for Talk Android, Robert Nazarian claimed that five new Nexus devices would come on November 5, which is the fifth anniversary of Android's release -- well, in beta. The OS wasn't officially available for public consumption until the T-Mobile G1 launched about 10 months later.