Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on when it comes to the battle of the desktop and mobile operating systems, everyone wants to experience the right blend of form and function. Gone are the days when a powerful OS was enough, and with the birth of mobile software like iOS and Android, users have come to expect a certain amount of glitz and glamour to be built right in to newer versions of things like Windows and Apple's OS X.
In order to reassure buyers that they aren't purchasing a PC in vain - with Windows 8 on the horizon and all - Microsoft will be conducting a special promotion (as Mary-Jo Foley revealed last week) during which they will provide Windows 8 Pro to buyers of Windows 7-based PCs (on or after June 2) for a low cost. But how low? Today, Paul Thurrott reported that he's hearing word from his sources that this promotional offer will be priced at $14.99.
Although there tends to be a gap of several years between each new iteration of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Apple runs a much more regular release cycle, and despite releasing OS X Lion only last year, its successor Mountain Lion looks geared up for a late summer release.
One thing game makers know only too well is just how beneficial the cinematic aspect of some titles can be just as awe-inspiring as the game itself, and Blizzard, the team behind the upcoming Diablo III, certainly have the balance down to a fine art.
Just days after the final version of Firefox 12 was released to the public, developer Mozilla as already taken the wraps off Firefox 13 Beta, which, as we've come to expect from these short interval releases, doesn't bring much of significance to the table.
Wolfram Alpha, the knowledge and computation service that can be found on the web, or on smartphones - you may know it as the service which feeds Siri with data to return to you - will be coming to the desktop, but in a rather unconventional way. When I read the headline that this was going to happen, I initially thought that they were developing an app for either the Windows 8 or OS X app stores.
Following much rumor and speculation, Microsoft has just announced the final Windows 8 SKUs, as well as reaffirm that Windows 8 is the official, final name of the upcoming OS. Prior to clicking on the link to the announcement post on the Windows Team Blog, I was slightly nervous; Microsoft is notorious among the tech community for their unnecessarily complicated product branding. Expecting the worst, I was actually quite delighted to see that Microsoft… actually simplified the number of editions in Windows 8!
Windows 8's lock screen is easy on the eye, but - as with many of the features within the Consumer Preview - just doesn't really work on a desktop or notebook.
Microsoft has today released a new piece of beta software, and this time it's search-based. Called the Bing Desktop Beta, the software is, predictably, a beta release of a desktop-based search tool that Microsoft is hoping will give people a reason to make the switch to its search engine, and leave Google behind once and for all.
If you've not yet gotten around to downloading and installing the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the Windows X guys have compiled an update to its Windows 8 Transformation Pack.
