Wayne Williams

I own an Apple Watch, and I like it, but like so many Watch owners I appreciate that this is a device whose future is coming, but isn’t quite here yet. In my first impressions review I said "What it can do right now is great, but what it will be able to do in the future will be amazing", and it seems as if the future might be coming sooner than I expected.

At the WWDC 2015 keynote Apple revealed watchOS 2, and to say it’s impressive is an understatement. With the upgrade Apple is seriously improving the usefulness of its wearable.

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The App Store is unquestionably one of the main reasons for Apple’s continuing success. It certainly revolutionized the smartphone, and despite a serious challenge from Android it remains the top store for apps across the world.

At WWDC 2015, CEO Tim Cook revealed a couple of major numbers -- the biggest being that over 100 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store since it opened.

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As expected at this year’s WWDC, Apple has revealed that the Apple Pay payment system is coming to the UK in July. As revealed by Jennifer Bailey, Apple Pay chief (and a woman!), it will be accepted at over 250,000 UK merchant locations including Marks and Spender, Costa, Waitrose, Boots, and MacDonald’s.

That’s quite a bit shy of the million plus locations now accepted in the US, but it’s still a good start.

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All sorts of reversible USB Type-C devices are beginning to arrive now, and Kingston Digital has just announced the launch of its DataTraveler microDuo 3C USB Flash drive.

This device has a dual interface that works with both standard USB Type-A (3.1, 3.0, 2.0) and USB Type-C ports and comes in three capacities -- 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.

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MaxCDN, a content delivery network based in Los Angeles, has launched a new partner program for web hosting providers, digital agencies, and other companies that create and/or deliver web content on behalf of their customers.

The highlight of this new program is the redesigned CDN management system for resellers. According to a MaxCDN announcement, the new reseller platform offers:

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Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference kicks off today, Monday 8 June, in San Francisco, with the big keynote speech scheduled for 10am PST/6pm BST.

As WWDC is for software developers, Apple doesn’t usually reveal major new hardware -- typically it’s just updated versions of existing products. You can certainly expect news on iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, as well as Apple Watch.

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Microsoft has just released ISO files for Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10130. This build is currently only available to Insiders on the Fast ring due to the presence of a couple of major bugs that Microsoft is looking to squash before making the release available to testers on the Slow ring. The ISOs have been released to allow people who are having problems upgrading through the usual Windows Update route to install the build.

As with the previous releases, Build 10130 is still an early version of the OS, so you wouldn’t be advised to run it as your main operating system, especially with those unresolved bugs, and while you could set it to dual boot, running it in a virtualized environment is a much more sensible idea.

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The web-based version of Skype first debuted last year, but as an invite-only service. Today however, Skype is opening it up to new and existing users in the US and UK.

To use the service just go to web.skype.com and sign in (or sign up) and you can send instant messages, and make Skype or video calls directly in your browser.

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Windows Insiders on the Fast ring were able to update to Build 10130 last Friday, and in my experience it’s a solid, and reliable release. Microsoft is mostly focusing on tweaking and stabilizing the OS now, but the new build comes with some noteworthy improvements, including new icons, new taskbar animations, and other general UI enhancements.

The Build is good, and stable enough that Microsoft is getting ready to release it to the Slow ring. This will be the first release there since Build 10074 back at the end of April, and its arrival on that ring will also herald the release of new ISO files.

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Storing your personal data in the cloud makes a lot of sense. It provides a handy backup, and you can access your content from anywhere. I write about a lot of cloud storage services, but I only really use established ones from the likes of Google and Microsoft.

I would consider, and use, storage services from other companies, but the problem is they can’t be trusted. So many of the sites I sign up to -- usually purely to write about -- shut down within a year or so. These aren’t storage services from firms you’ve never heard of either. Today’s discontinued service is Younited by F-Secure.

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As well as showing off a load of new Windows 10 compatible hardware during its keynote at Computex 2015, Microsoft also revealed some interesting numbers relating to the new OS, and the PC market in general.

While PC shipments and sales have definitely fallen a lot over the past few years, it’s far from game over for Windows powered devices, and things have started looking up.

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Tiny, portable Windows 10 PCs seem to be all the rage at the moment. During a Computex 2015 keynote, Microsoft’s Nick Parker revealed not only the Quanta Compute Plug, a mini-PC in a power adapter, but also FoxConn’s Kangaroo.

This is a petite, battery-powered PC in a box that boasts the latest Intel Cherry Trail processor and connects to your TV or monitor via HDMI.

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Computex 2015 is well underway, and at a keynote earlier today at the Taipei International Convention Center, Nick Parker, corporate vice president of Microsoft's OEM Division, talked up the benefits of Windows 10, and also introduced various new devices designed specifically with the new operating system in mind.

One of the most interesting was the Quanta Compute Plug. This is a mini-PC housed not in a stick, but inside a power adapter.

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Last week it was discovered that all it takes to crash an iPhone is a text message. Send the string of characters to an iPhone-owning friend (or foe) and boom, instant restart for them.

Skype users are beginning to discover that they’re the victims of a similar bug. As originally reported by VentureBeat, and confirmed by ourselves, sending a certain 8-character message causes Skype to crash, and receiving it results in the app crashing every time you try to sign in.

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Microsoft wants you to use Windows 10. I mean, really, really, really wants you to use it. To this end it is pulling out all the stops, and removing as many barriers to adoption as possible.

The OS will be free to users of Windows 7 and 8.1 in the first year (check out the requirements here), but the process of upgrading has also been made as easy as possible. You just need to click the icon that pops up in the system tray to reserve your upgrade. But if you’re still unsure how simple upgrading will be, Microsoft has put together a video in which a bunch of 10 year-olds explain the process.

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