It may have its detractors in both the PC and Mac world, but Windows 8 certainly has its good points. It seems that we're not the only ones to think that either, with the news coming out of Microsoft today that the controversial Windows 8 can now boast 200 million licenses sold.
JoinedJanuary 21, 2011
Articles20,349
Oliver Haslam has written about technology for over a decade. His work has been published in print at Macworld and online pretty much everywhere else. If it plugs in or has a battery, it's fair game.
It took far too long in the eyes of many, but when BlackBerry first brought BBM to both Android and iOS, the app and associated service was met with a tepid response at best. While it's true that BBM has, or at least had a core user base that was propping BlackBerry up despite its many failings, alternatives like WhatsApp left Android and iOS users wondering what all the fuss was about. It didn't help that the apps weren't great, either.
Samsung's Galaxy S5 is very much at the center of attention right now, with leaks and speculation rife. We were recently shown a teaser for Samsung's Unpacked 2014 event which featured some rather fetching, distinctly flat icons, leading many to suggest that this may be a nod towards a newly redesigned TouchWiz interface for Samsung's Android line of smartphones. Those playing devil's advocate suggested that it may instead be based on icons from Tizen, but now it seems clear that it is in fact a teaser of what we may all be looking at when using a Galaxy S5.
Now that the PlayStation 4 has its feet under the gaming world's table, attention is beginning to turn towards PlayStation Now. The game streaming service which aims to bring popular titles from the PlayStation 3 and 2 library to PlayStation 4 consoles via the magic of the internet is touted for a release in the United States this Summer, but details are generally scarce beyond that.
It's been a big couple of weeks for Flappy Bird gamers. Almost from nowhere, Flappy Bird popped up at the top of the App Store and Play Store free app charts and since then it's been a real rollercoaster ride. First we had the discussion about just how much the free game is raking in through in-game ads, with some claiming the figure to be around the $50,000 mark per day. Then we were treated to the drama that followed news that the game's developer actually disliked the attention his work was receiving.
It's all kicking off in the world of mobile gaming today, with the news that runaway success Flappy Bird is on the verge of being pulled from the App Store and Google Play Store after its developer took to Twitter to announce the news.
While Apple is still very much trying to stabilize iOS 7 into a platform on which it can build, attention is already turning towards what could be part of the iOS 8 experience that is due to land later this year. With the iOS 7 redesign being somewhat on the radical side, all eyes are one where Apple takes its mobile operating system during the next few months.
Apparently buoyed by Google's success selling the Chromecast HDMI dongle, the folks over at Dell have decided that they'd like a piece of the action. To that end, the PC maker has launched its very own HDMI dongle, but unfortunately it's not quite as cheap as Google's offering, with the Dell Wyse Cloud Connect dongle costing early adopters $130 at launch.
It’s news that seems to have come completely out of the blue. Google is selling Motorola’s mobile division to Lenovo for just $2.91 billion less than three years after picking it up.
In this day and age, we're always connected. If we're not using our smartphones to communicate with each other, then we're using our tablets. If it's not our tablets, then it's our computers. One byproduct of all this is that we need ubiquitous messaging. We want our messages, our conversations and settings to move between devices seamlessly, meaning we can start a conversation on our iPhones and finish it on our computers.

