When Yahoo announced plans to recycle inactive email addresses, concerns were raised about the possibility of the new address owner getting emails intended for the previous occupant. It turned out to be a valid fear as my own experience shows.

But Yahoo is not alone in recycling email addresses. According to a report from PC World, Microsoft is quietly doing the exact same thing with Outlook.com email accounts. A spokesman for the software giant told Webwereld, a Dutch IDG publication, "the email account is automatically queued for deletion from our servers. Then, after a total of 360 days, the email account name is made available again".

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According to a new report by Bloomberg, Microsoft last month reached out to HTC to see if the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer would be interested in adding Windows Phone as a second OS to its Android handsets.

The story claims Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s operating systems unit, suggested "cutting or eliminating the [Windows Phone] license fee to make the idea more attractive" to HTC. The Taiwanese firm makes the Windows Phone 8X and 8S, but reportedly has no plans for further devices running the tiled OS.

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While we don’t have any accurate sales figures regarding the original Surface Pro, we do know that the slate’s cut down sibling, Surface RT, tanked badly on launch, forcing Microsoft to slash the price in an effort to shift at least some of the huge amounts of stock it was left sitting on.

But rather than give up on Surface, last Monday Microsoft announced new versions of its RT and Windows 8 Pro devices and, according to the tech giant, these new models are doing much better, with pre-order stock of the Surface 2 (64GB) and Surface Pro 2 (256 GB and 512GB) "close to selling out".

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The British Film Institute (BFI) today announces plans to launch its own online movie-streaming service, offering a mix of free and paid-for viewing, all presented in HD quality.

BFI Chair Greg Dyke unveiled the BFI Player at a London press event earlier today, saying: "The launch of the BFI Player is a defining moment in the BFI’s 80 year history -- it will unlock the past, present and future of British film and, most importantly, offers a new deal for UK audiences to get great films out to as many people as possible across the UK. I’m really excited about the BFI Player’s potential. The BFI is pivotal to identifying great films and nurturing and giving a voice to great filmmakers in the UK and now offers a platform to take these stories out to whole new audiences".

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There’s not long to go now until Microsoft unleashes Windows 8.1 upon the world. In my view the operating system refresh is Windows 8 done properly, but whether it does enough to win over the masses remains to be seen.

Certainly Microsoft will be hoping for a change in fortunes because the tiled operating system's market share is currently pretty poor -- at least when you factor in how much of a push the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant has put behind it.

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All of the major antivirus firms -- big names like Symantec, McAfee, AVG and Kaspersky -- offer mobile security apps for Android which can help protect against malware and theft. There are offerings from lesser known companies available too.

BlueSprig is a newcomer in this field, but its AirCover Security Android app is a comprehensive offering which can protect against malware and theft, help boost your privacy, block unwanted calls and SMS messages, and safeguard you on the web, as well as optimize your system.

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What, you were expecting dancers and clicking covers? No, it turns out having tried and failed to sell the original Surface in that way, Microsoft has decided to take a different tack for the follow ups, with an advert that actually highlights -- at speed -- some of the reasons why you might want to consider buying the updated tablet.

The 30-second spot, titled "Surface 2: Thinner. Lighter. Faster" focuses on (can you guess?) the tablet’s dimensions, weight and speed, but also very briefly shows the revised kickstand’s two angles and Surface’s choice of clickable covers, including a backlit one.

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Three months ago, Yahoo announced plans to recycle email addresses. The addresses, which the tech giant said had all been inactive for 12 months or longer, were to be offered on a first come first served basis. In covering the story, my colleague Brian Fagioli pointed out some worrying privacy flaws, but Yahoo said it was confident its plans would not compromise user security.

Despite the fact I already have five email addresses I use on a regular basis, and a couple more I dip into occasionally, I applied for one of these recycled addresses, and at the end of August Yahoo emailed me to say "Great news! The username you wanted is yours". I was surprised and delighted, then promptly forgot all about it until yesterday when I logged into my new email account for the first time and… OMG!

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It’s all about tablets this week as following on from Microsoft’s Surface reveal, Amazon today announces three new Kindle Fires -- the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, and the Kindle Fire HDX, in 7 and 8.9-inch sizes. The new devices offer a slimmer design, better screens, faster hardware and an updated OS.

The $139 Kindle Fire HD has a high-definition display with 1280 by 800 resolution and 216ppi -- 66 percent more pixels than the previous generation Kindle Fire. It’s powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, and has dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio.

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11 months ago my colleague Joe Wilcox asked BetaNews readers if they intended to buy Surface RT. Then a month later he posed the same question for Surface Pro. Out of the 2,753 responses to the first question, a sizable 61.75 percent said they would buy the tablet at some point. Which, judging from the poor sales Surface RT experienced, may have been over optimistic. Unless a large portion of the RT tablets Microsoft sold were snapped up by BetaNews readers…

The positive response was echoed in the Surface Pro poll, with a whopping 73.4 percent of 2,165 responders saying they would buy the flagship tablet, and just 16 percent giving a definite no (10.67 percent were uncertain). Clearly this shows people like the idea of Surface, and are enthusiastic about it, but just not enthusiastic enough to get their wallets out.

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Microsoft chose not to live stream its Surface 2 reveal earlier today, but fortunately our own Brian Fagioli was in New York to cover the unfolding events in an excellent live blog. Now that the event is over Microsoft has made the full on-demand video of the proceedings available for anyone to watch.

During the one hour (and a bit) event Microsoft unveiled the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets as well as a whole load of accessories, including "Blades", a new type of touch cover which can be customized for different uses. Brian described it as a "potential game-changer" and hasn’t stopped raving about it ever since.

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With queues stretching around Apple stores and talk about stock sell-outs dominating the tech news, it comes as no surprise that the iPhone 5s and 5c enjoyed brisk sales this launch weekend. The only question was exactly how many units the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant would shift of its new devices.

While Apple predictably doesn’t break the number down into 5s and 5c sales, we now know thanks to an official announcement that combined the devices sold some 9 million units worldwide in the three days since they launched on 20 September. This beats the previous record for first weekend iPhone sales, which was 5 million for the iPhone 5 last year.

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Despite being the cheaper -- or rather more affordable -- of the two new iPhones, and available in a choice of bright pastel colors, the iPhone 5c was always going to struggle to win the hearts and minds of the Apple faithful, especially with the iPhone 5s grabbing most of the attention with its own new colors, 64-bit processor and fingerprint scanner.

So it should come as no surprise that the plastic 5c is currently getting trounced in the sales department by its metallic sibling, although both appear to be selling very well.

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If you own a smartphone it’s likely you download apps for it, and given the proliferation of mobile devices, it’s not surprising that the volume of app downloads is continuing to rocket.

According to Gartner, mobile app stores will see annual downloads reach 102 billion in 2013, up from 64 billion in 2012, with free apps accounting for a whopping 91 percent of the total downloads this year.

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A new white paper compares Android and Windows devices for use in the public sector and education. It looks at four areas it considers critical -- ease of use, security, productivity and lifecycle -- and finds Windows devices to be the "superior choice".

The paper says there are "significant challenges and issues with Android" and that Windows devices "offer better security and utility, enabling new usage models AND more productive users, while giving IT flexible deployment options to evolve the existing infrastructure and in some cases even produce savings as no new processes need to be developed". But since the white paper comes from Microsoft, those findings are unsurprising.

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