Canonical has partnered up with online retailer Ebuyer to sell a range of AMD-powered HP laptops that run Ubuntu.

There are three different 15.6in laptops available, the HP 255, 355 and ProBook 455, which are priced at £200, £250 and £300 respectively.

Dropbox is one of the most popular services for storing and sharing files online. Combine that with Google's Gmail, a widely used email service, and you serve up a recipe for success. Or at least the storage service thinks and hopes so.

Dropbox is now arriving with improvements for that Gmail account you have, bringing easy storage sharing right to your desktop. This isn't entirely new -- an extension for Chrome has been available for a while now, but this update improves on things.

Countless Android users are still waiting for Lollipop to roll out to their handsets, but already there is talk of the successor -- Android M. Coming up at the end of this month, Google I/O is a developer conference hosted by the search giant in San Francisco and today the full schedule for the event appeared online.

An event on May 28 with the title Android for Work update is of particular interest as there is a strong hint that details of Android M will be revealed. Although it seems that Google may have let something slip a little early -- the session that refers to the next version of Android has since vanished from the schedule, but the description is interesting nonetheless.

Alongside Euro-zone cell phone data, U.S. first-quarter 2015 phablet shipments are out from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Depending on how the numbers are cut, fanboys can rally for their platform.

Spurred by iPhone 6 Plus, iOS showed strong performance, representing 44 percent of phablet sales. However, the number of iOS smartphone switchers from Android fell -- to 11.4 percent from 14.6 percent year over year -- supporting early anecdotal evidence that existing Apple customers are the most-likely 6 Plus buyers. Also confirming: Android smartphone conversions from iOS fell from 9.8 percent to 5.9 percent.

While the internet is supposed to be an open-access resource, there is a great deal of content which can only be accessed in certain parts of the world. To comply with licensing rules, broadcasters in particular will often restrict access to their services to specific countries, but in Europe there are plans to bring such geo-blocking to an end.

Described as "a discriminatory practice used for commercial reasons" geo-blocking is derided by the European Commission as little more than a money-making venture. The aim is to create what has been dubbed a Digital Single Market, breaking down barriers and simplifying regulation.

Dual-core? Quad-core? Octa-core? Yesterday's news (I kid, I kid...). Why do I say this? Intel, one of the top processor manufacturers (arguably the best) has released some new Xeon processors with up to 18 dual-threaded cores. Yes, you are reading that correctly -- 18! While Xeon processors are not meant for consumers, they can be used by them, although pricing usually prevents that.

The cost of these new Xeon E7 v3 processors start at $1,224 and go all the way up to $7,175. While this is likely -- OK, definitely -- way too expensive for people like you and I, for the Enterprise, this may be acceptable for workstations and server environments.

Lenovo seems to be having a bad year. It hasn’t been long since the largest PC vendor was caught shipping its laptops with "Superfish" adware, and now we’re learning about some new vulnerabilities found in its computers. But before you slam your fist on your computer desk in dismay, the good news is that Lenovo has the patch ready, and you can download it right away.

Security firm IOActive reports vulnerabilities in Lenovo’s system update file. In a report titled "Lenovo’s System Update Uses a Predictable Security Token", the firm notes (PDF) that these vulnerabilities could allow hackers to bypass validation checks, and replace legitimate Lenovo applications with malicious programs and allow hackers to remotely run programs.

Sunshine is a free app for sharing files directly between any Android, iOS, Windows or OS X device. No upload/ download hassles, no concerns about who else can access your files, just quickly transfer whatever you need from one system to another.

The process starts by creating a Sunshine account. Oddly, you can only do this from iOS or Android apps, but it’s simple enough -- just the usual "email, password" dialog -- and you’re ready to go.

Apple's latest iPhones continue to be in high-demand in Europe half a year after their launch, leading up to a market share boost on the old continent according to a new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. And it is happening at the expense of Android, which, while still the most-popular smartphone operating system in Europe, is seeing part of its local users fleeing to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

In Q1 2015, iPhones claimed 20.3 percent of the European smartphone market, a 1.8 percentage points increase over Q1 2014. During the first quarter of the year, 32.4 percent of new customers were Android defectors.

Talk to mathematicians and they’ll do their best to explain how beautiful their chosen field can be, but it probably won’t make any difference: if you’re not quite so expert, you won’t have the faintest idea what they’re talking about.

3D Fractals have the power to change all that. Some will appreciate the way they shift the geometrical properties of the complex plane and shift them into 3D space. But the rest of us can enjoy spectacular fractal art which is a mix of H R Giger’s sketchpad, old sci-fi novel cover art, and the weirdest dreams Terry Gilliam has ever had.

Do you feel more stressed at work? If your job is in IT then the answer is probably yes, according to a new survey from security and email specialist GFI Software.

The study of over 200 IT administrators in the US finds that 78 percent of those surveyed experience workplace stress, while almost 82 percent of respondents are actively considering leaving their current IT job due to workplace stress and dissatisfaction with working conditions, up from 78.5 percent in 2014.

There's now less than a year until people will be able to get their hands on Facebook's virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift. Writing on Twitter, Oculus VR's vice president of product Nate Mitchell confirmed that the device will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2016.

The announcement was echoed on the official Oculus Twitter feed as well as in an official blog post. While the launch is slightly later than many people had hoped -- initial plans had the release pegged for some time in the latter half of 2015 -- it brings to an end months of guessing.

Dropbox has unveiled Dropbox for iOS 3.9.0, a significant update to its client for iPhone and iPad. The new build debuts three new features and improvements.

There’s a new Recents tab option added to the home screen to provide an alternative way of browsing documents, while users can now add comments to documents from directly within the app. The app also segues in with existing Microsoft Office iOS apps for easy access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The French government has voted in favor of greater powers of surveillance, giving it intelligence-gathering capabilities on a par with the NSA. The move came in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack which led to the deaths of 12 people and prompted the Je Suis Charlie support campaign.

The new laws allow for NSA-style mass collection of metadata online as well as setting up the National Commission for Control of Intelligence Techniques (CNCTR) to oversee data collection. It has been criticized by some as being the French equivalent of the Patriot Act and the ruling Socialist Party is accused of prying too far into the private lives of normal people in the name of counter-terrorism.

All advertisers are keen to use the power of the Internet to deliver the right message at the right time. From today IBM and Facebook will be collaborating on the delivery of tailored marketing to help with that process.

IBM's marketing cloud clients will be able to utilize Facebook's powerful ad capabilities such as Custom Audiences, along with IBM's deep analytics and design features, to target their customers across applications, devices and time.