Microsoft has announced the newest version of their office suite of application, Office 2013, or as they call it, the new Office. The new Office comes with a host of new improvements, including changes to the UI as well as under the hood.

The most noticeable change is the new set of icons for all the apps within the suite. Just like the Windows 8 icon, Office icons feature a monochrome icon with a tilted perspective. The user interface of the applications has also been slightly modified to fit into the new Metro UI on Windows 8. However, the application isn’t designed entirely with the Metro UI because at the end of the day it will be running within the desktop mode in Windows 8. Read more »

Microsoft has announced today that the Windows 8 development goes according to schedule and shed some more details on the actual market availability of the platform.

Windows 8 will reach the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) stage in the first week of August. This means the OS will be ready by then and Microsoft will seed it to its OEM partners. Read more »

So far we have learnt a lot about Windows 8 since Microsoft announced it last year but the one thing we did not know so far was the price. Now Windows has been historically been a fairly expensive piece of software so people were worried that Microsoft might overshoot it again this time. Thankfully, that does not seem to be the case.

Microsoft has announced on its Windows blog that those who are already running a legitimate version of Windows on their current PC, whether it is Windows 7, Vista or even XP, are eligible to a Windows 8 Pro upgrade for only $39.99. Read more »

The popular VLC media player for Windows and OS X has received another update, which brings it to version 2.0.2. Among the chief changes in this version is support for the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro. This means that the application interface will be displayed at native resolution instead of being upscaled as before.

Another important change is that VLC will no longer ask users on OS X to wait while updating the font cache. As users of this player will know, you had to wait for a lengthy loading animation as the player built the font cache after every update, but that stops with 2.0.2. Of course it will still build the font cache, just that you won’t have to stare at a dialogue box for ages. Read more »

Bing Maps has received a huge update, amassing a total of 165 terabytes of information and imagery. This is the largest update to the mapping service ever and it’s larger than all of the past Aerial releases combined! To give you a little perspective the prior existing Aerial coverage of Bing Maps was 129 terabytes in total.

The update brings high-quality aerial photos of North America, South America, Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia with the total covered area being around 38 million square kilometers or roughly Russia’s land area multiplied by two plus the whole of India. Pretty impressive stuff. Read more »

You all remember the sleek hardware that Microsoft presented last week. Called Surface, the tablet has two versions – one with a Tegra 3 chipset, running Windows 8 RT, and another one with a proper x64 processor by Intel – that one running regular Windows 8 Pro. We’ve all been wondering what sort of pricing would the new tablets have.

Well, know we sorta know. According to “a close source to Microsoft”, the Tegra version will have a price tag of $599 and the Surface Pro will go for $999. Read more »

Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the Surface and Surface Pro tablets at its event in Los Angeles and now the full keynote has been uploaded online for your viewing pleasure.

The event goes on for about 48 minutes and demonstrates the cool Touch Cover and Type Cover and how they function on the Surface and Surface Pro. Read more »

Microsoft just announced its own tablet, named Surface, which blurs the line between tablets and ultrabooks. The 10.6″ slate features simplistic design and compact measures, while offering a full-blown Windows 8 experience.

Microsoft’s latest creation will be offered in two flavors. The entry level one will run Windows RT for ARM based chips, while the fully tricked out version will be running Windows 8 Pro. The screen size on both versions will be 10.6″, but the Windows 8 Pro units will offer full HD resolution. Read more »

Microsoft has sent out invites to the press for an event that they are holding in Los Angeles on Monday, June 18, just a couple of days before the Windows Phone Summit. Although the subject of the event has not been officially announced, AllThingsD believes that it will be about Windows RT.

According to sources outside the company, AllThingsD found out Microsoft will be showcasing some of the devices that will be running Windows RT, presumably devices that were announced at Computex last week, and also talk about some of the programs and services that will run on these devices. Read more »

Adobe has updated the Flash Player for the desktop and Android. On the desktop, the Flash Player 11.3 now supports keyboard input even in fullscreen mode and low latency audio support for streaming audio and Sound API. Other features include sandboxing which is available for Firefox users on Windows. On the Mac, you now get the ability to upgrade the Flash Player in the background. It also comes signed with the Apple Developer ID so it can work with the Gatekeeper feature in the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion.

On the mobile front, 11.3 update adds stylus support for Android 4.0 devices. Read more »

Just in case you are wondering why is HTC not one of the manufacturers currently showing off a Windows RT tablet at Computex, the reason is because Microsoft denied them access.

Bloomberg is reporting that HTC showed interest in making a Windows RT tablet but Microsoft denied them the license, over concerns “that HTC doesn’t sell enough devices or have ample experience making tablets”. Read more »

Just days after Microsoft launched the Release Candidate of Windows 8, the company proudly announced another great achievement – Windows 7 has been sold in more than 600 million copies.

Steven Guggenheimer, CVP of the OEM team at Microsoft made the announcement at Computex adding that more than 75 million licenses were sold in the past four months alone. Read more »

Asus just made quite a few announcements at the eve of Computex – the TAICHI dual-screen notebook series, the Transformer Book lineup with detachable screens, two Transformer-like tablets, and the all-in-one PC Transformer AiO.

All new devices run on Windows 8, and the Transformer AiO does Android as well. Read more »

Computex will officially starting tomorrow on June 5 but Acer has already kicked things off with a whole slew of Windows 8 based products.

First of all are the two Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabooks. Available in two sizes, 13.3-inch and 11.6-inch, these are the thinnest and smallest, respectively, Full HD touch Ultrabooks in the world. Both models feature an aluminum unibody design but the 13.3-inch model also uses a glass top. The 13.3-inch model also has a display that tilts all the way back so you can use the touchscreen more comfortably. Read more »

LG has announced the new X Note Z350 Ultrabook with a 13.3-inch display, which is the successor to the older Z330 model. It is based on Intel’s third generation Core i-series platform (Ivy Bridge) and boasts of a boot up time of only nine seconds.

Another feather in its sleek silver body is a Red Dot Design Award, even though it does sort of look like every other Ultrabook we have seen recently. LG also claims that it is the thinnest Ultrabook in the world, with a thickness of just 14.7mm. And at 1.2kg, it’s also very light. Read more »