Windows 8 Release Preview Arriving First Week Of June

Microsoft has announced today that you can expect a new version of its Windows 8 development to roll out in the first week of June. Microsoft announced the arrival of their new Windows 8 Release Preview, the next major preview of their new operating systems, via their Build Windows 8 Twitter account.

Windows 8 is expected to be officially launched in October, three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows 7. Microsoft has already revealed that there are three packages in the line-up, Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT, you can find out more information about the new packages .

Windows 8 features the new Metro style interface and has been “reimagined from the chipset to the user experience” say Microsoft. You can view the current Windows 8 Consumer Preview over on the Microsoft website now.

“It’s Windows reimagined and reinvented from a solid core of Windows 7 speed and reliability. It’s an all-new touch interface. It’s a new Windows for new devices. And it’s your chance to be one of the first to try it out.”

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Samsung Releases New Galaxy S III Teaser (Video)

Samsung is expected to unveil its new Galaxy S III smartphone early next month on the 3rd of May, and the company has now released a new teaser video, unfortunately it doesn’t actually feature the handset.

You can see the new Galaxy S III teaser from Samsung below, which Samsung says “With technology that fits in this easily, you can now stand out from everyone else” , in the video which also features some sheep.

So we presume Samsung are having another dig at Apple in their video, like they have done in previous offerings, we should have some more details on the actual handset on the 3rd of May, and we are looking forward to seeing what the new Galaxy S III is like.

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Facebook Now Has More Than 900 Million Users

The last time we had some information from Facebook, the company reported they had over 800 million users, and it looks like that has jumped more than 100 million, as Facebook has revealed that they now have a total of 901 million active monthly users.

The company also revealed some more financial information, the details were provided in Facebook’s updated Form S-1, and their first quarter revenue is up to $1.06 billion this compares to $731 million for the same period in the previous year.

Their net income is down slightly to $205 million, as opposed to $233 million for the same period in the previous year, and we also got some more details on their recent $1 billion deal with Instagram.

Facebook will pay $300 million in cash for Instagram, the remaining $700 million will be paid in Facebook shares, also if the deal doesn’t go through for any reason, Facebook will pay Instagram a total of $200 million.

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Intel launches Next Generation Ivy Bridge Processors

As expected Intel has now officially launched its new next generation Ivy Bridge processors this week. Which are equipped with a 22 nanometer transistor design, in contrast to Intel’s older Sandy Bridge processor, which has 32 nanometer transistors.

The new higher density Ivy Bridge processors have been designed to be faster and be able to handle a multitude of multimedia functions than previous processors.

As well as being faster both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 support is now fully integrated into the Ivy Bridge processors, providing faster transfers from smartphones, external hard drives and cameras

The new Ivy Bridge processors also have an integrated graphics processing unit, that has been added to help make editing videos faster and game play sharper. Intel corporate vice president Kirk Skaugen explained at a press conference in San Francisco:

“[Ivy Bridge is] 20 percent better performance on multithreaded applications, two times better 3D graphics, and twice as fast media processing, compared to the previous generation,”

Manufacturers are now planning to equip over 270 new desktop, all-in-one and laptops equipped with the new Intel Ivy Bridge processors, and due to the Ivy Bridge processors being a similar price to the previous Sandy Bridge processor consumers shouldn’t see much of an increase in price for the new Ivy Bridge equipped systems.

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Skype 1.0 For Windows Phone Released

Microsoft has released a new version of Skype for Windows Phone and this is the first non beta version that has been released for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, Skype 1.0.

Skype 1.0 for Windows Phone will work on Windows Phone devices running Windows Phone 7.5 or higher, although according to the guys over at The Verge it will only run on devices with more than 512MB of RAM and not on the latest Tango devices with 256MB of RAM.

Imagine talking to friends, family, and colleagues anywhere in the world, and seeing them as if they’re in the same room. That’s Skype.

Call, video call and instant message anyone else on Skype for free with Skype for your Windows Phone.

You can find out more details about Skype 1.0 for Windows Phone over at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

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Microsoft Sells 650 AOL Patents To Facebook For $550 Million

It has been revealed this week that Microsoft has sold a majority of its AOL patent portfolio to Facebook for $550 Million. The deal included 650 patents in total, but in its initial AOL Auction Microsoft secured around 925 U.S. patents and patent applications plus a license to AOL’s remaining patent portfolio.

The remaining patents in AOL’s portfolio, contains around 300 additional patents that were not for sale. As a result of today’s agreement, Facebook will obtain ownership of approximately 650 AOL patents and patent applications, plus a license to the AOL patents and applications that Microsoft will purchase and own. Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft explains:

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,”-“As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

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Samsung Galaxy S III Confirmed By Samsung Unpacked 2012 App

Samsung has be teasing us with details of their new Galaxy smartphone, which the company has been calling the ‘next Galaxy’, and now we have some confirmation that the device will be called the Galaxy S III.

Samsung has released a new app on Google Play, called the Samsung mobile Unpacked 2012 app, and as you can see from the screenshot below, the description of the app has a reference to the ‘galaxy s3′.

We are expecting the device to be officially announced by Samsung on the 3rd of May, so we don’t have much longer to wait to see what Samsung’s new flagship Android handset is like.

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Skype For Windows Phone Working On Lower End Devices Like Nokia Lumia 610

Microsoft recently released Skype 1.0 for Windows Phone, and along with the release came the news that the app would only support devices with 512MB of RAM or more, this ruled out some of the newer budget handsets which come with 256 MB of RAM like the Nokia Lumia 610.

According to Nokia, the latest version of Skype will work with the Nokia Lumia 610 even though the device only comes with 256MB of RAM, and the app is available for the Lumia 610 in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

The guys from The Verge spoke to Nokia, and Nokia said that they has been testing the Skype for Windows Phone app on the Lumia 610 internally, and the app is working well.

We wonder if Microsoft will update the app in the future to support other devices which have 256MB of RAM, as soon as we get some more information we will let you guys know.

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Google Drive To Offer Up To 100GB Of Online Storage

We are expecting to hear something official from Google on their new cloud based Google Drive service some time today, and now it looks like we may have some more information on the service.

According to the guys over at Reuters, Google Drive will offer up to 100GB of online storage, of course this 100GB of storage will cost you some sort of monthly or annual fee, we have no idea how much as yet.

Google Drive will apparently come with 5GB of storage free for everyone, and then you will be able to pay a fee for more storage, with the maximum available storage being 100GB.

The 5GB of storage ties in with the recently increased 5GB of storage that is free from Google Doc’s, this was increased recently from 1GB, hopefully we should have some more information on Google Drive later today.

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Mozilla Removes Favicons From Firefox URL’s

Within the latest nightly build released by Mozilla for their Firefox browser, the age-old favicon used by many sites in their URL’s has been removed and will no longer be supported in the URL address bar within Firefox. The favicon has long been used to provide an extra enhancement to websites allowing them to add a small image to the left side of their website URL.

The reason for the removal of the favicon after all this time, is due to a security issue says Mozilla. After unscrupulous websites have published the favicon as a padlock, making the site look secure to visitors, at first glance. However being far from secure in reality. Mozilla explains:

“Websites that use SSL certificates with Extended Validation will now have a green padlock next to the certificate owner’s organisation name.

Websites that use SSL certificates without Extended Validation will now have a grey padlock. The effective hostname will no longer appear next to the padlock. This information is redundant with our darkening of the effective hostname in the website address.

Websites that do not use SSL certificates or have mixed-content will fallback to a globe icon.”

The favicon is also used in bookmark lists to help users differentiate between different websites. Google removed the favicons from their Chrome browser some time back, but still allows them still to be used in bookmark lists and in the tabs used to separating pages within their browser. Lets hope that Mozilla follows a similar line with Firefox.

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Google Increases Google Docs Storage To 5GB Before Google Drive Launch

Yesterday we saw a leaked photo of Google Drive running on an Android developers device, and now we have some more evidence that Google are getting ready to launch their new Google Drive cloud service.

Google has increased to storage on their Google Docs to 5GB, the service previously offered 1GB of storage, and this is apparently been increased ahead of the launch of Google Drive.

There is even a rumor that Google may launch their Google Drive service some time today, and with more and more details on Google Drive being revealed over the last week we suspect we are pretty close to the launch.

As soon as we get some more details on when Google intends to launch their new cloud based Google Drive service we will let you guys know.

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