The first major update to Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system is on the way, and a leaked video of its beta has shown off some of the planned improvements.

And while those of us hoping against hope that a Start button could once again make an appearance will be left out in the cold, there are a few improvements here and there that are worth taking a look at. Read more »

Good news, Windows 8 users. Whether you are using the latest Microsoft OS by choice or because you simply bought new hardware with it, you are probably frustrated by the Start screen at boot.

As it turns out the latest leaked build of Windows 8.1 codenamed Blue includes a boot do desktop option. It seems our prayers have been finally heard. Read more »

We have reported in the past that Microsoft is allegedly working on a 7-inch gaming tablet under the Xbox brand. It seems, though, there will be another 7-inch tablet from Microsoft in the near future.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is working on a 7-inch version of the Surface tablet. There are no other details available about this product at this time, including which version of Windows it would be running and what would be the specifications, pricing and release date. WSJ does say, however, that the tablet will go into mass production later this year. Read more »

After the ATIV series of Windows-based tablets and smartphone, Samsung is now launching a series of notebooks under the same brand name. The first of the lot is the ATIV Book 6 note book, which will be releasing in the US shortly.

The ATIV Book 6 runs Windows 8 and has a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 resolution touchscreen. Inside it has a quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU, AMD Radeon HD8770M GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. Read more »

Nokia has released a new desktop application for their Nokia Music service on Windows 8, which can be downloaded from the Windows Store and takes advantage of the new Modern UI.

The Nokia Music app, as you might know, let you stream music from Nokia’s vast library and even download them to play them offline. Nokia also offers features such as curated mixes, which are essentially ready-made playlists spanning across different genres and artists, and provides suggestions based on the music you listen to. Read more »

Alleged images of a mysterious Nokia slate have emerged on the web, thus revealing what could be the company’s upcoming entry into the tablet race. The images we quickly taken down from its original source link, thus suggesting that the pictured device is indeed the real deal.

The images reveal the tablet, running an unannounced, soccer themed Adidas micoach app. Read more »

We have been hearing about this Windows Blue for quite some time now. The newest build of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, Windows Blue, as it has been known until now, features some significant improvements, most of which are under the hood, that promise improved performance and user experience over Windows 8.

Now, according to the sources at The Verge, it has come to light that Windows Blue will be known officially as Windows 8.1 when it releases later this year. This won’t be like your run-of-the-mill service pack and will feature more significant upgrades. As such, it could be a paid upgrade for existing Windows 8 users, although that is yet to be officially confirmed. Read more »

During the last several years, ASUS has steadily developed into a quality ultrabook manufacturer, and with the new S6 series it’s raising the bar even further.

The “Extra-Thin” S6 series offers a redesigned aluminum build that’s 35% thinner and 10% lighter than the S5 series. Join us as we take a look at the new S56 series from ASUS. Read more »

Skype, the most popular instant messenger, has updated its application for the Windows 8 machines. The latest version of the Skype for Windows 8 now comes with contact blocking and few other tweaks to improve the overall performance.

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The all new contact blocking option allows you to control over who can contact you and gives you the ability to block contacts. Furthermore, you can also choose to remove or report a contact request as spam. Read more »

A new build of the next update to Windows 8, codenamed Windows Blue, has been leaked on the internet. Build 9364 introduces quite a few changes and improvements to the existing Windows 8 and would make living with Microsoft’s newest operating system that much more easier.

One of the changes in Blue is addition of two new sizes for the live tiles. You can now have tiny, icon sized tiles, similar to the ones introduced in Windows Phone 8, as well as a giant new square tile that is twice the size of the previous largest tile. The theme settings have also been updated, with finer control over the color of the desktop background. Read more »

Microsoft has reached an important milestone – the Windows Store now touts more than 50,000 apps available for Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT.

The achievement was reached yesterday, according to the MetroStore Scanner, which at the time of writing counts 50,341 apps. Read more »

A new trojan virus by the name of Trojan.Yontoo.1 has been discovered and has been confirmed to be harmful to both OS X and Windows machines. The virus prompts you to install an adware plugin on Mac, which injects unwanted ads into Safari, Firefox and Chrome.

Symantec also found the Yontoo virus to be effective on Windows machines targeting pretty much every version of the Microsoft OS, except for Windows 8. The virus issues ads on Windows which pretend to be coming from Facebook. Read more »

According to a survey by Strategy Analytics which was gathered by data collected last fall Apple’s iCloud is the most popular cloud service in the US.

27% of those surveyed who use a cloud service have tried iCloud in US with Dropbox and Amazon Cloud Drive in second and third with 17& and 15% respectively. Read more »

The latest ThinkPad from Lenovo, the T431s, reflects a slightly more modern design strategy which still meets the company’s standards for ruggedness and durability.

The 14-inch ultrabook sports a thinner profile, with a 1600 x 900 pixel resolution display, as well as the usual array of connectivity features. Read more »

We are no strangers to ridiculously large tablets. We saw a few at CES, including a particularly enormous 20-inch Panasonic tablet. Although one would assume this is just some quirky thing that would go away if you don’t pay attention to it, it seems OEMs aren’t quite willing to let go of it.

Dell is the latest to join the ranks of these comically large tablets (at this point they are more tables than tablets). Unlike others, however, Dell has made slightly more effort to justify the size of this device, by making it turn into an All-in-One at a pinch. Read more »