Wayne Williams

I say "shocker", but with all the cards stacked in its favor -- XP users forced to look for a new OS, Windows 7 being pretty hard to get hold of, and an update designed to make Windows 8.1 more appealing to keyboard and mouse users -- if Windows 8.1 hadn’t grown market share in April then it would have been pretty much game over for the tiled OS.

Even with all that in its favor, according to NetMarketShare’s monthly Desktop OS sampling, Windows 8.x still had some stiff competition from Windows 7 which also packed on market share, taking the shine off the new OS’s achievements.

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One of the things I like best about Windows 8.1 is the Smart Search feature. Powered by Bing, it lets you look for anything -- a program or app installed on your computer, a file stored on your hard drive or in the cloud, or a website. You open up the Start or Apps screen, and just start typing (or you can use the new Search button which was introduced with Windows 8.1 Update) and then choose the relevant result.

I have no complaints about it (although I still use Google for most of my web searches), but today Microsoft is making the Smart Search feature a whole lot more powerful with natural language understanding so you can search for something, even if you’re not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for.

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Since launch, Sony’s PlayStation 4 has easily outsold Microsoft’s rival console, and even beat Sony’s own sales projections. That the Japanese console is available in more territories than its American rival is one important part of the reason for this success.

Now Microsoft is hoping to fight back by bringing the Xbox One to China in September. The all-in-one games and entertainment system will be the first of its kind to launch in the country, and the first foreign games console since China lifted a 14-year old ban on such devices in January.

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Microsoft’s new Office for iPad apps are very good, and hugely popular. A month after release and Word is still the number one free app in the App Store, with Excel sitting at number 8, and PowerPoint at number 16. If you own an iPad, and are an Office 365 subscriber, they’re pretty much essential downloads.

At launch we were promised additional features were on their way, and today Microsoft introduces the most requested one –- the ability to print Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.

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Wearable technology has yet to really make an impact, but its time is coming. There are more and more products being released by many of the world's top tech firms, and shows focusing on wearables are popping up across the globe.

Amazon today joins in the wearables craze by launching a one-stop shop where customers can find and buy the latest in wearable technology, including activity trackers, smart watches, and wearable cameras. There are products on offer from the likes of Samsung, Jawbone, GoPro, Basis, and Misfit.

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In a security alert released over the weekend, Microsoft warns of a serious vulnerability in Internet Explorer that could allow hackers to remotely take over a computer.

The vulnerability makes it possible to execute code remotely and affects Internet Explorer 6 through 11, which is around a quarter of the web browser market. XP users, who no longer receive security updates from Microsoft, are going to be the most at risk from this flaw. If you know someone still on the aging OS, now is the time to give them another nudge to switch to a newer, and safer, choice.

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Sixteenth in a series. Apple reported its second quarter results this week, and they beat analyst expectations with the iPhone doing especially well. Apple shipped 4.14 million Macs, 16.35 million iPads and 43.72 million iPhones during the quarter. iPhone sales grew by 16.8 percent while iPad sales declined by 15.9 percent. Although the iPad’s slump looks very bad in the quarter you have to remember Apple struggled to meet holiday demand the previous year, leading to an inflated number of shipments in the March 2013 quarter.

New and updated apps worthy of your attention this week include a Sonic racing game, a "ridiculous animal simulator", an activity tracker, a travel app for iPad, a world-time clock, and an alternative to Fruit Ninja with better graphics.

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Using a mobile device to mine for Bitcoin is hugely impractical. A recent experiment involving 600 quadcore servers managed to create just 0.4 Bitcoins over the course of a year, which makes mining with a mobile a lot like digging in a mostly-spent goldmine with a spoon.

But, in theory, if you could harness the power of enough mobile devices -- hundreds of thousands, or maybe millions -- you might be able to start generating Bitcoins. BadLepricon, a new piece of malware, takes that view and uses your phone’s processing power to mine for new coins. It’s disguised as a harmless wallpaper app, and several instances of it have already been found on Google Play.

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I enjoy running, but require motivation to get started and keep going. Thankfully there are plenty of apps which can help here. I’m a big fan of Zombies, Run! and the similar BattleSuit Runner, both of which offer episodic stories that unfold in between tracks from your playlist as you run.

Occasionally though I just like to put on some running music, and for that I have a new favorite app -- RockMyRun. This is essentially a large collection of mixes from various DJs, covering a wide range of genres -- 80s, 90s, Rock, House, Pop, Hip-Hop, Dubstep, Christian Rock, Oldies, and so on -- that have been designed specifically for listening to when running (the last 15 minutes are higher energy, to encourage you to keep going). Mixes can be streamed on 3G/4G, or downloaded to your device via Wi-Fi.

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Fifteenth in a series. Featured apps this week include the latest installment in the excellent post-apocalyptic fitness app Zombies, Run!, a Heroes of Warcraft card game, a full iPhone video editor from Pinnacle, a piano tutor, a new MediaFire app for iPad, and a DJ mixing tool for iTunes and Spotify.

As always, if I miss an app that you think should definitely have been included, let me know in the comments below, or drop me an email.

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Microsoft’s tiled operating system is best viewed as a work in progress. The tech giant made major changes from Windows 8 to 8.1, and has just released the mandatory Update, which adds tweaks and new features aimed primarily at keyboard and mouse users.

The downside of these changes is that if you ever have to reinstall Windows you’ll need to update your computer with the Update and other security patches and so on afterwards. Fortunately, you can create a new, more up to date installer by slipstreaming (integrating) the Update with the original disc files.

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I’ve been asked by a couple of people in the past week how to download the Windows 8.1 ISO file from Microsoft. Downloading the ISO file necessary to install the OS at a later date, or on another system, is very straightforward, although it’s far from obvious. I covered this six months ago, but things have changed and less trickery is involved now.

At the moment the provided ISO file doesn’t contain the recently released Update, so you’ll need to update Windows straight after installation has finished to guarantee you have the latest version.

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Fourteenth in a series. While catastrophic bug Heartbleed can potentially affect some versions of Android, iPhone users are safe. Apple has confirmed that "iOS and OS X never incorporated the vulnerable OpenSSL software and key web-based services were not affected". So that's some good news.

Featured apps this week include Adobe Lightroom for iPad, RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, Carousel (a photo and video sharing app from Dropbox), Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, Drync for iPad (a wine cataloguing and ordering app) and Warhammer Quest (a hack 'n' slash RPG).

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IDC and Gartner have released their worldwide PC shipment estimates for the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14), and as expected they once again show a year on year decline, but the severity of the drop has eased compared with the past seven quarters -- thanks, in part, to XP users upgrading their aging systems.

"The end of XP support by Microsoft on April 8 has played a role in the easing decline of PC shipments," says Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "All regions indicated a positive effect since the end of XP support stimulated the PC refresh of XP systems. Professional desktops, in particular, showed strength in the quarter. Among key countries, Japan was greatly affected by the end of XP support, registering a 35 percent year-over-year increase in PC shipments. The growth was also boosted by sales tax change. We expect the impact of XP migration worldwide to continue throughout 2014".

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Heartbleed is a critical bug in OpenSSL that allows for the stealing of information that would normally be protected by SSL/TLS encryption. Essentially anyone on the internet can read the memory of systems protected by vulnerable versions of the popular cryptographic software library. The bug affects two-thirds of the Internet and while Google has patched its services, Android remains affected.

If you have an Android phone you can quickly check to see what version of OpenSSL it’s running, and whether the vulnerable feature, called Heartbeats, is enabled.

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