Alan Buckingham

Microsoft's Scroogled campaign, an attack on rival Google, is still in full-swing, despite taking turns between entertaining and ridiculous. My colleague Wayne Williams described it as "sad and embarrassing", but I am not so sure I would go quite that far, though neither will I defend the software maker in this battle.

Now Microsoft launches its latest attack -- again going after Gmail. This time around, the company goes after the new tabbed design in Gmail, though it focuses on treating the email service on the whole as a trojan horse for advertising -- not a new claim, only a new video for an old accusation. The video, of course, ends with the plea to use Outlook.com.

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With the lead-up to Xbox One, there was initial controversy, mostly surrounding the "always-on" feature, or potential for it. After the official announcement detailing the console, the company did an about-face, resulting in the "Xbox 180" nickname. The problem was, this not only took away potential DRM concerns, but also some rather cool features that many were looking forward to.

Today Major Nelson laid out the plans to fix this for the many customers who wish to have this service. Thanks to the vocal few, the features will now come at a price.

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Privacy has been a red hot topic for the past couple of months -- ever since the whole PRISM story hit the news, or shall I say slammed into the news. Nobody likely denies the government the right to attempt to keep citizens safe. In fact, we expect this from it. However the revelations made many uncomfortable thanks to the extremes that were being taken, and resulted in the conversation over whether Edward Snowden was a hero or enemy of the state.

Since the news broke, speculation about the form of communication used between Snowden and writer Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian has been running around the internet, but today those rumors came to an end when Greenwald tweeted this: "Amazing: Lavabit -- the email service used by Snowden -- shuts down rather than comply with US orders".

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Baseball season may be entering the final stretch, but there are still many games left to be played and Windows Phone 8 customers can keep up with all of the action going on in the run up to playoff time. Regardless of how your team is faring, you can still follow the action from your mobile handset.

At Bat 13 today debuted in the Windows Phone store, bringing features such as live scoreboards, standings, schedules, and pinning your favorite team to Start for quick access to the team's page. In addition, you can watch the free MLB.TV Game of the Day or pick up an MLB.TV Premium subscription (learn more) to see every out-of-market game, hear radio broadcasts, and access the 2013 season's archives on-demand.

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Microsoft's next-generation console...ahh...living room entertainment hub will not ship until this November, but still promises to light up the holiday shopping season. The company already showed it off and announced games, plus my colleague Derrick Wlodarz recently laid out very good reasons why he expects this war to be won by Xbox, as opposed to Sony and its PS4, which is expected around the same time.

Now potential customers can get one more sneak peak at what to expect. In a new video from Xbox Live chief Larry Hryb, better known as MajorNelson, the new console is unboxed -- something many a person likely hopes to be doing themselves this holiday season.

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In June of 2012 Apple officially shut down MobileMe, migrating customers to iCloud. With storage space now being downgraded, the market apparently seems right to Microsoft to take advantage of cloud customers by offering its own alternative, in the form of SkyDrive -- or the service soon to be formerly known as SkyDrive.

The only official announcement came from the service's official Twitter account, simply asking a question and offering a solution -- "did Apple cancel your extra MobileMe storage? Fwd the downgrade email to [email protected] for an extra 15GB of SkyDrive for 1 year".

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Microsoft Office 365, and its business social platform Yammer, have been steadily finding their way into corporations and government offices in a battle with Google Apps. Now the software giant takes wing across the Atlantic with its latest conquest -- the friendly skies of the United Kingdom.

Today the company announces a deal that brings the applications to International Airline Group (IAG), the parent company of British Airways, Iberia and Vueling.

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HTML5 has become one of the buzzwords for the modern web, with the seeming demise of Flash -- the Adobe app, one of many, that has been under serious attack in recent times. Now Amazon is opening up its App Store to the HTML5 world, allowing for easier development for those wishing to take advantage of the platform.

"Amazon today launched web app support in the Mobile App Distribution Program", the retail giant said in an announcement. "Developers can now submit URLs for their HTML5 web apps and mobile websites and have Amazon offer that content to millions of Kindle Fire and Amazon Appstore customers in the same, convenient way as native apps. Developers can submit and distribute mobile web content without using third party software or doing any native app development, and they can take advantage of Amazon’s In-App Purchasing API for JavaScript, which provides them the option to build sales of digital goods into their apps".

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On the heels of what is a minor kerfuffle, where Feedly announced a Pro version that involves paying for search (and a bit more), another service comes along to trump the new darling of RSS. "We are starting with 4 features: search in my feeds, one-click Evernote integration, premium support and HTTPS", Feedly announced late yesterday.

Today, rival MultiPLX began rolling out emails assuring users that its new search feature was free -- "today we are glad to announce the launch of 'search within your RSS feeds' feature and it is free for all our users. Please check out www.multiplx.com for 30 seconds to experience. There is no need to signup".

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500px is a famous app for photographers -- but there are other reasons for its renown, most notably its temporary ban by Apple from the App Store on the grounds that it provided easy access to pornographic material. Regardless of that seemingly bad publicity, the service has signed a new a photography deal with Microsoft.

Bing has an iconic home screen that features a new image every day, showing off spectacular photography from around the globe. The company brags that "by following a simple, consistent theme of one beautiful image per day to show a unique perspective on the world our homepage has become synonymous with great photography".

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Amazon sells many things -- customers can shop for everything from electronics to grocery store items. With a Prime membership you can even receive free two-day shipping. But I doubt customers think of the retail giant in the same breath as an art gallery -- the Louvre certainly does not come to mind.

To be fair, the famous Paris museum is not selling off its collection on Amazon, or anywhere else, but art galleries now have a home on Amazon. Today the retailer announces Amazon Art, "a marketplace that gives customers direct access to more than 40,000 works of fine art from over 150 galleries and dealers".

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Roku customers have no shortage of viewing material, and the list continuously grows, most recently adding Demand 5 for customers in the UK. That only adds to features such as the numerous channels and premium services like Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix. But now, the little set-top box grows by one more option.

Today the company announces the launch of Redbox Instant, giving users one more choice for movie watching, popcorn munching fun. Again, this adds a minor fee to the monthly bill for customers, though it is still likely still less demanding, even with all features, than your cable or satellite tab.

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"I have a good weather app. It's called...looking out the window". That is what my colleague Brian Fagioli told me when I said I was testing Minutely, a new mobile weather service. Still, despite that rather true comment, we all still want to look up those possibly inaccurate forecasts, and this latest offering provides a better way to do it -- or at least a better looking way.

The name is derived from the app's promise to provide real time details right down to the minute - the rain slider feature allows you to travel in time and watch the rain move across your location. Minutely will let you know if it will be raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting in any location you choose down to the minute for the next 2 hours.

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I once worked with a manager who, as a joke, sent a nasty reply to an email from the training department -- the trainer was her friend and would get the joke. The problem was, she accidentally clicked "reply all", sending the message to 5,000 people company-wide. Its an error we make from time to time, and it can be something that makes us wish to crawl beneath the desk and hide.

Microsoft aims to help prevent this embarrassment, but takes a slightly different approach with its new NoReplyAll add-on for Outlook. The twist? The sender has to enable it.

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Office 365 has become a bit of a strange concept -- there is the original web-based version, as well as the newer desktop Home Premium iteration that functions as standard Office 2013, though with added benefits. Now the software maker is introducing Message Center to its web version of the suite.

The latest update is described by Microsoft's Jake Zborowski as "a new admin feature for communications. Message Center will help inform Office 365 admins about new features and actions they need to take to keep their Office 365 service running smoothly".

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