A lot of people have complained about the discrepancy between the two modes on Windows 8. As you may know, Windows 8 will ship with the new Metro UI as well as a standard desktop mode for legacy apps. While the Metro side of the OS looks modern and fresh, the desktop version looks almost similar to older versions of Windows and the two couldn’t be more different.

Microsoft has heard your complaints and although they won’t be redesigning the desktop side in Metro they have made some changes to the existing UI to be more in sync with the Metro design language. Read more »

Apple has released two new updates today, one for OS X Lion and the other for the desktop Safari browser. The OS X update brings Lion to 10.7.4 and includes some crucial security fixes.

Recently OS X came under fire when the OS would display FileVault passwords in plain text file for users who upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion and kept their FileVault settings. The issue has now been patched in the latest update. Read more »

Amazon has launched a desktop application for Windows and Mac OS X to accompany its Cloud Drive service.

Unveiled last year, the Cloud Drive service from Amazon was only accessible through a web browser on a desktop computer, but now the desktop app will let you directly access your cloud-stored files. Read more »

Gmail Labs released two new features to the popular mail client – Automatic Message Translation and Smart Mute. It also tweaked the Gmail titles to highlight the number of unread messages.

The most important addition is Auto Translate – it basically incorporates Google’s translate feature into your email, which is something many have demanded for a long time now. Read more »

Obviously feeling the heat of Google Drive, Dropbox has brought an update for its service, featuring a new Photos page for its web interface.

And that’s not all, if you update now and use the auto upload feature for pictures and videos you can get up to 3 GB of free storage. Read more »

It’s that time of the year when we get a new version of the popular Linux distro, Ubuntu. The newest version, 12.04, dubbed as ‘Precise Pangolin’ in their usual alliterative theme comes with some new features but mostly just refinements to those added in the previous version.

There is now a new HUD that allows the user to simply type what they want to do and then the OS suggests them applications based on the text they enter. So if you were to type “browse the Internet” the OS would display the browser among the results. The HUD can be evoked with a click of the Alt key on your keyboard. Read more »

In the time it took you to install Firefox 11, Mozilla has released Firefox 12 for Windows, OS X and Linux. As usual, it doesn’t bring a host of new features but there is one that makes the process of upgrading that much more painless, which is good considering how often Mozilla has started releasing new updates.

Firefox 12 brings the ability to silently upgrade in the background. What this means is that when a new update is available, the browser will automatically download it (configurable, of course) and then install the update without you ever knowing about it. You won’t even get the Windows UAC warning message asking for your permission to install it. This is exactly how Chrome has been updating itself all this time and it’s good to see this functionality carried over to Firefox as well. Read more »

The cloud storage market is now more crowded than ever and the latest player is no other than the mighty Google. Having just launched its Drive cloud storage service, Google is already aiming at the top spot in the business.

Not so fast, Google – things just don’t work this way. There’s plenty of services to choose from already, so Drive will have to outdo them all to gain victory. And to help you get a better idea of the new service starting position, we have put four of the biggest names in the game side by side in a neat table. Read more »

After being rumored for the better part of the last year, Google officially just announced its own cloud storage solution – Drive.

Google Drive gives you 5GB of storage the second you sign in to use the service. No questions asked. The interface is based on Google Docs and you can collaborate with other people on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The sharing and collaboration system is enhanced by comments, which you get notified for if they are new. Read more »

The countdown to the Windows 8 launch is slowly ticking (although we are not sure which date it is ticking down to) but while we wait for the final version to go on sale Microsoft is going to keep us busy with another beta version of the desktop OS.

Microsoft announced at the Windows 8 Developer Days conference that the Windows 8 Release Preview (previously known as Release Candidate) will be released in the first week of June. There was no further mention about the exact date or what changes this new version might bring. Read more »

Dropbox has updated the desktop version of its app, introducing the option to get direct links to any of your files.

Previously, you could only give public link to files put from your Public folder, but now the Dropbox boffins have put an end to this, making the cloud sharing service a whole lot easier to use. Read more »

Adobe will officially announce all of its latest products part of the Creative Suite 6 today at a dedicated event in San Francisco. Expected to arrive on May 7, the design and video editing products can be had in a variety of suites.

In fact, as we told you earlier, the company is also introducing its new monthly subscription plans, which will allow customers to use the products by paying smaller monthly fees, as opposed to spending a large chunk of cash upfront buying them . Read more »

If you had any form of doubt after all the leaks, rumors and reports of Google Drive being real and launching next week, this video should put them to rest.

It’s from the latest Android Developers hangout on Google+ and shows Google Drive listed as a sharing option on one of the developer’s phones. Read more »

Rumors about Google’s own cloud file sharing service dubbed Drive have been roaming the Internet for quite a while now. There are strong indications the launch is imminent and, now we hear it will be happening as early as next week.

The guys from TechCrunch got their hands on the Google Drive app for Mac OS X, proving the search giant’s intention of launching its newest service in the nearest future. Read more »

Microsoft has released the list of editions that Windows 8 will be sold in. As of now, there will be four editions, Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows RT.

The first three will be available for PCs and tablet users running x86/64 processors and will be on sale whereas Windows RT will be exclusively for PCs and tablets running on the ARM platform and will not be sold but would rather ship built into the devices. According to Microsoft, all editions of Windows 8 offer a no-compromise experience, which has sort of become their slogan with Windows 8. Read more »