With E3 just around the corner, the rumor mill on the technology front is in sixth gear, with much speculation (often conflicting), trying to surmise just what we - as consumers and lovers of all things gadgety - can expect to be revealed once the event commences.
With Microsoft pushing the Release Preview of Windows 8 and a Release Candidate build of Windows Server 2012 today, it seems that the download fun doesn't end there, with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 RC also being available for users to download. Users can now start preparing for what Microsoft call the "next generation of development", claiming that developers can't predict the future, but they can get there first.
Well, it's officially here: The last pre-release build drop before Windows 8 is released to manufacturing has arrived. Dubbed the Release Preview, the build sports quite a few noteworthy changes and improvements over the Consumer Preview.
When it comes to the purchase of devices like smartphones and other consumer tech gadgets, consumers tend to to make impulse purchases based on things like aesthetics and word of mouth rather than actually looking into what has been deemed the best by various surveys and opinion polls. When it comes to customer satisfaction, it has been revealed that Windows Phone powered devices are the best devices to get your hands on.
As well as taking a great photo or video, today's smartphone devices can also - thanks to a sleuth of accommodating apps - take 360 degree (or panoramic) shots, enabling entire rooms or landscapes to be covered.
Some detective work by a popular online gaming blog has turned up some potential evidence that a new Avalanche game, Just Cause 3, is on for a release alongside Microsoft's next Xbox console, with a PlayStation 4 versions also to begin development.
The tech world was in a state of shock last year when Microsoft confirmed it had purchased VoIP telecommunications outfit Skype. The move for the software and technology wasn't too surprising in itself, but the $8.5 billion price tag certainly was, especially given the company - which was once under the control of internet auction site eBay - wasn't exactly making much money.
The benefits of gaining root access to your Android device are huge, and although much of the news over the last couple of days has circulated around iOS exploits, the Android community is also very active, and root access is gained on new devices weekly.
Although Apple's iPad appears to have the untouchable magic formula that Android vendors have thus far failed miserably to replicate, there's certainly a feeling of optimism regarding future Windows 8 tablets. Given that the Metro interface of Microsoft's much-lauded universal OS seems to be the perfect suitor to the post-PC devices, the Redmond-based software outfit is regarded by many as a major threat to Apple's dominance in the market it started only two years back.
Whew, that took a long time! It was always inevitable that Microsoft was going to bring its famed Office Suite to mobile devices, since it's too lucrative a market to miss. Still, the Redmond-based Windows maker is now said to be finally working on ports for tablets on both iOS and Android, a foreshadowing - we presume - to a Metro iteration in a future Windows 8 tablet.
