by Samuel Gibbs on April 4, 2011 at 03:45 AM

Jailbreakers, your iOS 4.3.1 time has come -- the iPhone Dev-Team has updated their redsn0w and PwnageTool utilities to enable an untethered jailbreak of the latest and greatest iOS version. Redsn0w 0.9.6rc6 and PwnageTool 4.3 both use an exploit discovered by Stefan Esser, a German security researcher, best know to the jailbreak community as the man behind the antid0te framework, which ...
by Lee Mathews on April 3, 2011 at 08:10 AM

Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott have posted a second look at some of the early changes which have surface in Windows 8 milestone 3. First there was the restyled Welcome Screen, and now it appears that Microsoft is toying with bringing the Ribbon UI to Explorer.
The Ribbon, like in Microsoft Word and Excel, is context-aware, adding tabs for specific tasks which apply to the folder you're ...
by Lee Mathews on April 1, 2011 at 04:30 PM

It's not really a secret the Microsoft had planned on bringing bits of Windows Phone 7's Metro UI to Windows 8, but we haven't seen a lot of really telling evidence. However, with the Windows 8 milestone 3 build now available to Microsoft Connect partners, it was really just a matter of time before we started to get a peek.
Thanks to Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, we've now had a glimpse ...
by Vlad Bobleanta on April 1, 2011 at 01:30 PM

RockMelt, the Chromium-based social Web browser has reached a new milestone today. Following its first public beta that was released in early March, RockMelt Beta 2 has started being pushed to the browser's users. The new version brings many new features, alongside the usual bug fixes, performance enhancements, and a new base for the browser -- Chromium 10, which also powers Google Chrome's ...
by Erez Zukerman on April 1, 2011 at 01:00 PM

I have a thing for full-screen text editing. I use WriteMonkey for my creative writing needs, and VIM in a full-screen PuTTY session for my Web development work. That being the case, I'm all over the monospace, dark-background, focused editing scene.
OmmWriter attempts to take that aesthetic and make it somehow more spiritual, with three picturesque backgrounds and ambient background audio ...
by Lee Mathews on April 1, 2011 at 12:00 PM

We've been looking at some pretty cool Kinect and Windows interactions for a while now, but we were hoping that the release of an official SDK would lead to even more coolness. Evoluce has stepped up, and is now offering Win&I -- a full-featured gesture control system for Windows 7.
The company claims that a range of up to four meters is supported, which should be perfect for just ...
by Lee Mathews on April 1, 2011 at 09:00 AM

Microsoft has shared some news about the state of its most and least loved Web browsers -- Internet Explorer 9 and 6, respectively. Even with IE9 only recently exiting beta, Microsoft reports that 3.6% of Windows 7 users are now running the new browser (no mention of Vista... what's with that?). The post also reveals that the adoption rate is almost five times what IE8 garnered in the early ...
by Samuel Gibbs on April 1, 2011 at 06:30 AM

Adobe's just let fly its latest beta of Flash Player bringing it to 10.3 beta 2. The update brings stability increases and bug fixes, as well as all the new features from the beta 1 release earlier this month. Adobe has also brought its AIR runtime up to speed with the latest developments in Flash, releasing Adobe AIR 2.7 beta for your downloading pleasure.
AIR 2.7 adds support for Adobe ...
by Vlad Bobleanta on March 31, 2011 at 04:00 PM

Microsoft has announced that people who use both Hotmail and Internet Explorer 9 are now able to see a desktop notification of how many messages have arrived since they last checked their Inbox. Unlike Chrome's desktop notifications, these won't be pop-up bubbles. In fact, the pinned Hotmail icon will simply change to display a number next to it -- that shows how many messages have arrived ...
by Matthew Rogers on March 31, 2011 at 03:00 PM

Today's the day, folks! In case you haven't heard, today is the not-quite-official-but-still-a-good-idea World Backup Day 2011, which is all about awareness -- awareness that your hard drive and all its data are vulnerable to the harsh realities of this world we live in today.
The idea may have started as a simple post on Reddit, but it's bloomed into a full-blown initiative, and it's a ...
by Lee Mathews on March 31, 2011 at 10:45 AM

With Windows 8 milestone 3 now up for grabs for select Microsoft Connect partners, it's inevitable that leaked bits and pieces will start popping up around the Web. In fact, the first "official" wallpaper image from the still-brewing OS is already making the rounds.
As you can see, it's got a similar feel to the good ol' Windows 7 default background, but features a more subdued smattering of ...
by Lee Mathews on March 31, 2011 at 08:30 AM

Select Microsoft Connect partners -- major players like HP -- have been given their first taste of Windows 8. According to various sources, the build string currently sits at 7971.0.110324-1900, which is the third milestone build of the successor to Windows 7.
So far, there haven't been many details revealed about Windows 8. An actual System Restore -- which is being referred to as History ...
by Lee Mathews on March 30, 2011 at 08:30 AM

Just a little under two months after its release candidate went live, Windows Home Server (WHS) 2011 has been finalized and released into the wild. The new version of Microsoft's slick, do-it-all server OS is a big step forward from its predecessor.
Built on the Windows Server 2008 R2 base, Home Server 2011 features a simpler dashboard, a better backup solution, dead simple remote access to ...
by Lee Mathews on March 30, 2011 at 07:30 AM

Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery.
A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a ...
by Lee Mathews on March 28, 2011 at 11:35 AM

Trustware BufferZone is a great way to add an additional layer of security to your Windows computer. It's a sandboxing application, which means it helps isolate programs so they can't directly interfere with your Windows installation. Sandboxing is a terrific way to defend against malware infections.
Unfortunately, BufferZone had one serious shortfall. When Windows 7 arrived and the push to ...