With the launch of Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 8, nearing ever closer, it looks as though the Redmond company is looking to provide a platform which could prove to be a lot friendlier to developers and small software publishers.
Dropbox is amongst the most popular file-hosting and file-syncing services and for good reason: it syncs files seamlessly, works on a bunch of platforms and, in addition to the free 2GB space, the company gives away free space to users every once in a while.
The last four of five weeks have brought about quite a bit of news and speculation surrounding Microsoft's Kinect motion detecting hardware. When Microsoft took to the stage during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at the beginning of this month, they announced that the original Kinect hardware had amassed more than 18 million sales during its first year.
Sometimes someone comes up with a beautiful piece of tinkering that results in a thing of beauty. Something that either creates a need that we didn't know existed deep within our hearts or plugs a hole we've been trying to fill for years. Something magic.
The success of the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox 360 has obviously set the minds of the men and women in Redmond wandering. The motion detecting sensor was launched for the Xbox 360 in November 2010 and has so far shifted approximately eighteen million units. The estimated sales total paint an impressive picture by themselves, but when you take into account the 360 console itself has shipped around the sixty six million units, the fact that for every 3.6 consoles sold a Kinect has also been sold is very impressive indeed.
There were undoubtedly good times and bad times shared between the two rivaling tech-gurus Steve Jobs and Bill Gates over the years.
Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will be remembered as two of the biggest tech luminaries of their time, long after both have passed on. Anyone who has seen Pirates of Silicon Valley will know how both Apple and Microsoft's histories are deeply intertwined, and how closely - and often not - Jobs and Gates worked together.
This year's CES has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that 2012 is going to be the year that the computer market at large is going to catch up with Apple. At least, it will in the world of ultra-light, ultra-portable notebooks like the MacBook Air.
To coincide nicely with the impressive educational announcements made today in New York, Apple have also released iTunes 10.5.3 which adds synchronization support for the newly announced interactive books.
Remember netbooks? Those cheap, or at least cheap-ish little computers that were supposed to be the death of all 'real' notebooks just a few short years ago? What happened to them?
