Buy even the most basic consumer scanner and you’ll probably get some very capable scanning software with a pile of image processing features. But while that’s great if you’re looking to scan a photo, it might not be so useful if you just need to quickly scan a document and send it somewhere else.

NAPS2 (Not Another PDF Scanner 2) is a straightforward alternative, an open source tool which is designed to scan documents to PDF, TIFF and other file types "as simply as possible".

With Microsoft’s recent unveiling of the Hololens, Windows 10, and the new Spartan browser, many commentators are suggesting that the software giant is finally getting back to a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to the market. Some would even go as far as to suggest Microsoft are now attempting to be 'cool' akin to their trendy rivals. Microsoft’s entrance into the Smartphone arena, however, was anything but proactive or cool.

Lagging behind the innovations of rivals, it’s fair to say Microsoft’s attempts to establish themselves have previously been somewhat overshadowed by the likes of Apple and Android’s continued dominance. The Lumia 535 certainly isn’t as revolutionary as the Hololens, but neither is it necessarily a reactive creation by Microsoft. Rather, Microsoft’s attempts to develop an affordable smartphone is a proactive approach and there’s much to be admired about the Lumia 535; given its $132 price tag. It’s certainly progress on its predecessor, the 530, and its sleek design is pretty cool. Granted, the phone has its flaws and it isn’t ground-breaking in any way, but it is refreshing for the other thing it won’t break, namely, your bank account.

Martin Scorsese is a damn good director. He is behind such classic films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino, and Goodfellas. As a New Yorker of Italian heritage, I pretty much have to like the guy. Not all of his work is gold though. Bringing Out the Dead is a personal favorite, though not a classic. I downright hated Gangs of New York and The Departed, but people seemed to enjoy those, so what do I know?

What I do know is that Apple has tapped the man for its latest iPad advertisement. Titled "Make a film with iPad". The one minute video is narrated by Scorsese, although he is never seen. This is probably for the best, as his signature unwieldy eyebrows might scare Apple's hip demographic.

Microsoft and Minecraft are two of the biggest entities in their respective fields -- software and gaming. While the former captures most desktop users, the latter has become an almost obsessive fascination for kids and even many adults. Logic dictated the two should team up, and that's exactly what happened when Microsoft bought Mojang and Minecraft last year.

As a testament to the partnership, two kids -- Alec Baron and Alessio Tosolini -- are using Minecraft in a cool and geeky way. The work, according to the boys, took more than 100 hours of collaboration. When they were finished, they had recreated the Microsoft Production Studios in Minecraft.

Kaspersky Software Updater is a free stand-alone tool which regularly checks for updates to critical software, alerts you when any are discovered, then downloads and installs them with a click.

It’s not entirely clear which software is supported, but from our tests it seems to cover the main internet-facing applications and components: browsers, Java, Flash, Adobe Air and so on.

It might come as something of a surprise, but Windows is more secure than not only Apple's iOS and OS X, but also Linux. I'll just let that sink in for a moment...

Windows, the operating system ridiculed for its vulnerabilities and susceptibility to viruses is actually more secure than the supposedly Fort Knox-like Linux and OS X. This startling fact comes from the National Vulnerability Database (described as the "US government repository of standards based vulnerability management data") which details security issues detected in different operating systems and software titles.

The idea of online censorship is nothing new, particularly when it comes to content of questionable legality. Just last week it transpired that Valve was blocking talk about Kickass Torrents in Steam chat and now Tumblr is engaged in similar activity.

Rather than blocking bloggers from posting about torrents, or stopping people from reading such posts, Tumblr now classifies torrent-related content as 'adult'. This means that many people will not be able to see posts that make reference to torrents unless they change their account settings.

Wearables are awesome, the next big thing. Smartwatches in particular are very functional extensions of the smartphones, which have become ubiquitous nowadays. True, many tech pundits were dubious of the smartwatch's utility; including myself. I came around after actually using a smartwatch -- the Android Wear-based Samsung Gear Live -- for an extended period and loving it. My colleague Joe Wilcox is a recently converted proponent.

As great as Android Wear is, there are problems. While the most glaring is the fairly short battery life of devices, its lack of cross-platform support is a bigger issue. In other words, it can be harmful to consumers to have a product that only works with a certain platform, as it limits their freedom. An Android user with Android Wear that wants to move to an iPhone for instance, will be left with a useless smartwatch. Thanks to a developer named Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh, this may no longer be an issue. This impressive dev has gotten Android Wear to work with iOS. The best part? No jailbreak needed!

Send a set of photos to someone and they might sometimes want to see when they were taken. This might be possible by checking their properties or otherwise displaying EXIF/ IPTC data (if they're tagged correctly, anyway), but that's not exactly convenient.

Photo Date Stamper simplifies the process by watermarking a batch of images with their "taken" date.

This morning, as I do most mornings, I started my day by firing up my phone and browsing the news headlines in bed. One story caught my attention -- and the reaction to the story in particular. As you'll have discerned from the headline, there were comments that questioned the value of using Twitter as a source of serious news.

The subject of the story doesn't really matter, but for the sake of completeness, it was this one in the Guardian. It's about the backlash that followed a Telegraph article which suggested suicides in newspaper journalists could be attributed to stress stemming from trying to hit commercial targets. This is a story that's not without irony.

A San Francisco judge has dismissed a class action against Google's alleged monopolizing of searches on Android devices. Gary Feitelson and Daniel McKee brought a case against Google saying that the search giant was being anticompetitive by forging agreements with handset makers that made Google search the default search engine.

The company faces similar charges in Russia where the country's leading search engine, Yandex, has made a similar complaint to the Federal Antimonopoly Service. In Europe Google has just agreed to regular audits to ensure it complies with Data Protection Authority measures in Italy, and Friday's ruling in its favor in the Northern District of California will come as some welcome good news.

The growth of the Internet of Things spreads, and Canonical wants to ensure that Ubuntu is involved. To help with this, the company behind one of the most popular Linux distributions has announced partnerships with Microsoft and Amazon to help facilitate secure cloud infrastructures.

The two companies are to publish their IoT developer APIs on Ubuntu Core so they can be used by Snappy developers in services and apps. The aim is to avoid a market fragmentation, and the new partnerships lay the groundwork to help Ubuntu Core's development deeper into the IoT.

When I was a young man, around the age of 8 or 9, a friend of mine got a NES and Super Mario Brothers. I went to his house almost every day to watch him play. Yes, he would give me turns, but you know how that goes -- you play for maybe 5 minutes while your friend plays for 3 hours. After a while, this became unbearable -- watching someone else play was torturous. I begged my dad for my own, so I could play as much as I wanted. My pops came through for me after a while, coming home with a NES, Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. I had to play it on a black and white TV, but I didn't care; no more watching people play.

Fast forward to 2015 and I don't have the time to play video games; it is tragic. With that said, I do find time to watch others play. I know this sounds crazy, as I used to hate never getting a turn to play, and having to watch watch my friend, but now I watch Pewdiepie on YouTube, and many others on Twitch, playing video games. Why is this enjoyable? I have no idea. I'm not alone, however, as Twitch is massively popular. In fact, it is so popular that the first-ever TwitchCon has been announced. Will you be going?

While much is made about Gmail from Google and Outlook.com and Hotmail from Microsoft (now pretty much combined), Yahoo Mail quietly flies along getting little attention, but huge numbers of customers. Many people likely have accounts without even knowing it -- if you register for a Yahoo service you get an email address, and the company has several popular arms, such as Flickr. Now it is looking to improve its email offering.

First off, there is now an easier folder search. Customers can select any of their folders from a list and then type a word or phrase to zero in on the targeted email. A dropdown menu on the right allows for the folder selection.

What do you do when you are facing scrutiny in the media? Damage control. You see it all the time with celebrities. A famous actor or musician does something wacky or stupid and ends up crying to Oprah, or going to rehab.

If you are a respected computer manufacturer, what do you do to fix a tarnished image? Open source. Nothing makes computer nerds more giddy than hearing that software is open source and the source code is available to investigate. Today, Lenovo releases an official open source Superfish removal tool under the Mozilla Public License.