It’s been one and a half year since Microsoft acquired Skype and we are finally starting to see the fruits of the acquisition. After releasing the new Skype client for Windows 8, Microsoft has released a new Skype Preview for Windows Phone 8 devices.

This new version brings some much needed features over the Windows Phone 7 version. The biggest feature is that Skype can now run in the background and always stay on, just like the new Windows 8 app. This allows you to get messages like any other instant messaging service and calls come in like regular phone calls. Read more »

Skype launched pre-paid cards in Mexico in early August and they are now bringing them to the UK. The cards come in £10 and £20 denominations and will be available for purchase from some of the UK’s biggest retail store chains – Asda, Currys, PC World, Sainsburys’ and WHSmith, 1,400 stores in total.

The cards will be available in the gift card sections of these stores and are a quick and easy gift you can pick up if you or your friends will be traveling abroad. Read more »

Amazon has just launched the Cloud Drive Photos app in the Google Play Store. It’s free and can be installed on any device running Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread or higher.

With this app you can easily upload photos from your Android devices and computers to the Amazon cloud. You can also easily share those photos to various social services, via email, etc. Read more »

The Wireless Association (CTIA) has announced the US database for stolen phones is now up and running. In case a phone gets in there it won’t be allowed to connect to any of the US networks.

The participating carriers in the database are AT&T, Cellcom, Nex-Tech Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, and Verizon Wireless. They already deployed their IMEI databases of stolen phones and the merge should be completed within a year. Read more »

Alongside the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean announcement, Google has also revealed that parts of Europe will be getting access to the Google Play Music store.

The countries in question are France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Read more »

Today Microsoft stepped on stage and released its Windows 8 and Windows RT to the tech world in what was largely conceived as the biggest Windows release ever. Availability starts today and active Windows 7 customers can upgrade starting from $39.99.

Microsoft talked OS features, integration along a wide variety of devices, the services that are launching alongside the OS and demoed all of them. Read more »

Last night (in Europe) an outage in Amazon Web Services on the US East Coast caused disruption of some major online services that we all use and love. Websites and apps such as Reddit, Airbnb, Flipboard, and Viber have all been non-responsive. The outage has been felt the worst by users in Asia and the US, where the downtime was actually running through the day.

A member of the collective hacker group called Anonymous went public on Twitter to claim responsibility. Later on, an Amazon spokesperson stated this is not the case and Amazon servers had not been under attack. Read more »

Since the next generation Lumia announcement lots of people have been wondering on the pricing of those shiny wireless charging accessories. Well, the good news is that it has now been revealed, but the bad news is that you probably won’t like it.

Clove UK is already taking pre-orders for the wireless charging shell, plate, stand and pillow. The accessories will be released alongside the Lumia 820 and 920, whenever the two smartphones launch. Read more »

14 years ago a small but effective search engine came to prominence on the domain www.google.com. The rest is history.

Today marks the 14th year of existence for the tech giant, and it’s celebrating with one of its trademark homepage doodles. Read more »

Google has released an updated version of the Google Play Books application for Android. Some of the biggest complaints with this application were the lack of dictionary, note taking and highlighting abilities and Google has addressed all of them in this update.

As you can guess, you can now add highlights to the text and take notes while reading books. There is also a built-in dictionary now, so you can quickly look up a word. Read more »

This should hardly catch you by surprise, given that the company is under Google ownership. Motorola has followed Nokia’s example, and released an ad, which pokes fun at Apple’s far from perfect Maps service.

The ad, released by Motorola in Twitter and Google+ put the Apple iPhone 5 next to the company’s latest DROID RAZR M. Both devices have the same search query entered with Apple’s handset returning a rather questionable result. Read more »

Hot on the heels of the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 launch, Nokia has also taken the fight to the competition in the location based services field. The Finnish company has released a table, comparing its own Maps application to the likes of Google Maps and Apple’s own brand new Maps service.

Nokia’s graphic sees the Maps experience compared on the likes of the Lumia 920, the Samsung Galaxy S III, and the Apple iPhone 5. Read more »

Apple has just released its iOS 6 to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and probably the most talked about feature is the new Maps app.

It sheds Google’s mapping technology and moves to a TomTom partnership with a pinch of Siri navigation – but some think that this was the unfavorable move. Read on to get the scoop. Read more »

Chris Weber, Nokia’s Head of Marketing, has a few things to say about HTC’s new Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S smartphones that were just unveiled.

Although Mr. Weber referred to the HTC unveiling as “more than good news for the Windows Phone ecosystem”, he also took a dig a the Taiwanese manufacturer. Read more »

As you may or may not recall from the recent iPhone 5 announcement from Apple, the new iPhone was claimed to support FaceTime video calling over cellular networks, although it wasn’t clear for which networks.

Verizon has since confirmed that FaceTime on the iPhone 5 will be available to customers on any of their data plans. Read more »