Wayne Williams

The full release of Kodi 18 is still likely a couple of weeks away, but today the kodi Foundation releases the fifth and (what should be) final release candidate.

RC5 comes with a number of important fixes.

We’re only nine days into 2019, and Microsoft is rolling out the second 19H1 build of the new year to Insiders on the Fast ring.

Build 18312 gives users access to the new 'reserved storage' feature which we covered yesterday. This reserves around 7GB of storage on Windows 10 systems to guarantee day-to-day smooth running, and also to ensure that large updates don't fail on systems with limited free space. To try it out though, you will need to run through this quest which will give you access to it in the next flight. If you run the quest before upgrading to this new build, you will get access to the feature when you do upgrade.

Previous feature updates for Windows 10 tended to fail if you didn’t have enough free storage for the task. The onus was on users to free up the required space manually before the update could go ahead, but that’s about to change.

In the next big feature update, version 1903 (codenamed 19H1), due out in the spring, Windows 10 will automatically reserve enough space to ensure the update can complete without problems. This might be 7GB, but it could be more, "based on how you use your device".

Yubico offers a selection of security keys that can protect your data and which work with a growing number of popular apps and websites. They can replace passwords, or provide easy -- and strong -- two-factor authentication (2FA).

Today at CES, Yubico revealed a private preview of YubiKey for Lightning, bringing the company’s physical token authentication to iPhones for the first time

The next big feature update for Windows 10 will offer tweaked visuals, but most people probably won’t notice the difference. It’s all about evolution rather than revolution with Microsoft these days.

If you are hoping for a more modern Start menu then you’re going to have to look beyond Redmond for that, and a brand new concept shows us just what the tiled menu could look like.

According to AdDuplex, the problematic October 2018 Update is currently on just 6.6 percent of all Windows 10 PCs. It’s doubled its share since November, but still pales in comparison to the April 2018 Update which is on 83.6 percent of systems.

Despite this, Microsoft is hard at work on the next big feature update, expected this spring, and has just rolled out the first build of 2019 for Insiders on the Fast ring.

Python is a great programming language. It’s powerful, yet easy to learn, and comes preinstalled on most Linux distributions.

It’s more of a pain to get it on Windows though, as Microsoft’s OS doesn’t include a native Python installation. However, Windows 10 users can now download an official Python package from the Microsoft Store.

It’s been a long time coming. While other analyst firms, such as StatCounter, have shown Windows 10 overtaking Windows 7 sometime ago, NetMarketShare has consistently shown the new OS to be lagging way behind the aging fan favorite.

In December though, NetMarketShare finally has Windows 10 taking pole position.

If you were expecting the full and final release of Kodi 18 to arrive before the end of 2018, you’re going to be disappointed as it's now scheduled for very early 2019.

However, the Kodi Foundation has rolled out the fourth and final release candidate today which should tide you over nicely until then.

If you’re not all spent out for Christmas, and fancy treating yourself to a great product with a substantial discount, then Wellbots has put together not one, but two deals especially for BetaNews readers.

As you might expect, both products will ship after Christmas now, but should arrive before the holiday period ends.

It’s a fair bet that we’d never have heard of Facebook, Instagram, Google and WhatsApp if the internet hadn’t been invented, but London-based graphic designer Thomas Ollivier has put his skills into re-imagining how some of today’s top tech brands might have looked in the pre-internet days of the 1980s.

The collection of images, which he’s titled Re:Birth, provides a fun glimpse into how technology has changed in the past 30 years. And boy has it changed.

It’s nearly Christmas, and Microsoft has rolled out a brand new build of Windows 10 19H1, the last of 2018, with plenty of exciting treats for users to try out.

Build 18305 for Fast ring insiders, introduces a number of improvements and new features, including a simplified Start layout and Windows Sandbox.

Although there are plenty of office suites available, including lots of free choices, Microsoft Office remains the one that most people use. Today, Microsoft rolls out a new app for Windows 10 called, simply, Office, which is designed to replace the existing My Office app.

The app itself is free and can be used with any Office 365 subscription, Office 2019, Office 2016, and Office Online -- the free web-based version of Office for consumers.

The many problems relating to the Windows 10 October 2018 Update are well known. Shortly after it was originally released, back in October, reports started to filter through that the OS update was deleting user files. Microsoft pulled the update, and then re-released a fixed version six weeks later, but additional problems surfaced.

Microsoft suggested at the time -- as it always does -- that users wait until offered the update before installing it, but now says that it is fully available to advanced users. But what is an 'advanced user' in this context?

We are edging ever closer to the full and final release of the next major version of Kodi, codenamed Leia.

Coming two weeks after RC2 arrived, the third release candidate drops today. Work is now underway on RC4, which does mean the full release likely won’t occur until January.