Let's get one basic thing out of the way -- incidents are sometimes used for political maneuvering. That's not always the case and I'll be making no accusations, as the information simply cannot confirm nor deny anything about the recent Sony hack, or North Korea's possible role in it. We can, however, defer to more expert opinion.

As for background, if you could possibly have missed this story, Sony was hacked rather badly and the big thing that came out of it was the movie The Interview, which ends with the death of Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea. The US government, in turn, accused the nation of perpetrating the act. That seems an odd thing, given that those responsible released the ending of the movie, which would be detrimental to North Korea.

There are around six weeks to go until the 87th Oscars, and the nominations are due to be announced very soon. TorrentFreak reports that over the last 24 hours there has been a huge jump in the number of big name movies leaked to torrent sites. In the run-up to the movie ceremony preview discs are sent out to critics, reviewers and industry insiders, and it's all-too easy for these to fall into the wrong hands.

We're not talking about dodgy torrents of movies shot on shaky camcorders or mobile phones -- these are DVD quality copies known as screeners. Near perfect copies of the likes of The Hobbit, The Imitation Game, and Birdman, in spite of security and watermarking put in place by movie studios.

Human beings are bombarded with too many options nowadays. Whenever I hear someone say they are bored, I just want to shake them; we live in an exciting time where there is essentially an infinite amount of multimedia at our fingertips. Between TV, movies, music and books, not a second of your day should be empty.

Unfortunately, the problem with having so many options, is actually narrowing them down to one. Whenever I decide to buy a new book, I fire up my Kindle and explore. You know what happens? I can't decide on what to download! An easy way to stay on top of the most popular and relevant books is to check the New York Times Best Seller List. Today, Microsoft announces that Bing can now help you search for best-sellers.

Kickstarter projects are ten a penny these days, as startup after startup vies for attention and financing. While many projects fall by the wayside, just a handful come to fruition and one of the latest is a handy USB dongle that allows for secure, anonymous web browsing. In just 45 days the campaign reached its target of $60,000, meaning that larger scale production can now go ahead on the line of security-focused USB sticks.

Webcloak is designed as an alternative to the likes of Tor, offering users a secure, self-contained browsing environment. This not only helps to keep browsing anonymous, but also protects against the threat of viruses, and its blend of hardware, encryption and "secure access" software has been designed with ease of use in mind.

The year 2014 proved wonderful for Linux; however, it was not the fabled 'Year of the Linux Desktop". Quite frankly, that year may never come, but that is OK. The open-source kernel is dominating the mobile space with Android, and that is arguably more important anyway.

Linux Mint in particular shone brightly last year, with wonderful releases and updates. Today, the distribution is continuing that trend in 2015 with the all-new Linux Mint 17.1 'Rebecca' KDE Edition. If you are a fan of KDE, your time is now -- get downloading!

We're only eight days into 2015, and Apple is already celebrating bumper sales in the App Store. Buoyed by impressive pre-Christmas hardware purchases, New Year's Day proved to be the biggest day ever for App Store sales. And in the first week of January, Apple enthusiasts spent almost half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases.

Sales and income are very much on the rise. Last year was a record-breaker for developers who managed to pull in more than $10 billion in revenue. iPad, iPod and iPhone owners have already helped to earn developers $25 billion, and spending shows no sign of slowing down.

Keeping your Windows software up-to-date is almost always a good idea, bringing new features, perhaps improving security and fixing bugs.

The benefits of updating your device drivers aren’t quite as clear-cut: it may be worthwhile, but if the new driver is buggy -- or you just make a mistake during the update process -- then you could seriously mess up your PC. It can still be worth checking for updates, though, especially if you’re currently having any hardware-related problems, and DriveTheLife is a free tool which automates the process for you.

Solid state drives are commonly used nowadays in premium ultrabooks, laptops and desktop PCs, mainly because they are faster and more energy-efficient, and run cooler than traditional hard drives. They are also favored by those who build their own PCs, and as aftermarket upgrades for older devices. SSDs are commonly connected using SATA, but, for the best results, PCIe is the better option.

So, naturally, Samsung has chosen to use PCIe with its latest SSD for ultra-thin laptops and workstations. Dubbed SM951, it promises lighting-fast performance, with speeds over 1000 MB/s, and excellent energy-efficiency, consuming less than 2mW in standby. It will be offered in 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB storage options.

Information security company High-Tech Bridge has uncovered a flaw in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM package that could allow the insertion of malicious code.

The self-XSS issue isn't currently recognised by Microsoft itself as a flaw but could trick a logged in user into putting malicious HTML and script code into the 'newUsers_ledit' input field on vulnerable websites that are thought to be secure.

There are a number of companies offering enterprise collaboration products, but Clarizen is among the first to be awarded a patent for its technology.

The patent relates to the company's InterAct email engine which lets users trigger specific project-related actions like approval processes, generating reports, creating new projects and other workflows through their email.

The most important players in the wireless charging industry are fighting a cold war. On one side we have Wireless Power Consortium, backing Qi, while on the other side we have Power Matters Alliance, representing PMA. Each side has its influential supporters, like major device manufacturers and carriers, making it difficult to predict a winner. However, WPA just scored a major win against PMA, just days after the latter announced its merger with Alliance for Wireless Power.

McDonald's will add 600 wireless charging hotspots, featuring WPA's Qi standard, at more than 50 of its UK locations. This move is part of a partnership with Aircharge, the company which is responsible for said hotspots. So, while you're checking Facebook or Instagram and eating that Big Mac, you'll also be able to charge your phone or tablet. (I'm kinda jealous of my UK-based colleagues now.)

When, in 2013, Apple announced the iPhone 5s would be available in a gold color there were a few raised eyebrows and snarky comments. However, as is often the case, where Apple leads, others follow, and it wasn’t long before gold versions of other smartphones started to arrive. Handsets given the Midas touch include the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One (M8), LG G3, Huawei Ascend Mate 7, and Sony Xperia Z3.

And now Microsoft has decided to add a little bling to its Windows Phones with gold editions of the Lumia 830 and Lumia 930 -- and they look good. Really good.

Digital rights campaigner Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched its own EFF mobile app with the aim of alerting users to issues and campaigns.

Users will get a notification and be able to one-click connect to the EFF action center to help fight for freedom online. Unless they happen to be iPhone users.

Two months after unveiling Advanced SystemCare Free 8.0, IObit has released Advanced SystemCare Ultimate 8.0.1, a major new update for its top-of-the-line system optimization, maintenance and security tool.

Ultimate users gain the same improvements and new features as found in the Free and Pro versions of the software, but also benefit from enhanced real-time protection from worms, Trojans and other malware, as well as new and improved browser security tools.

WorldWide Telescope is the best free astronomy program around, and comes packed with detailed views of the universe and tons of interactive educational content, including tours narrated by astronomers and experts. It’s used in schools, universities, and planetariums around the world. If you’ve never tried it, and have an interest in the stars, then it’s well worth a download.

Although WorldWide Telescope has always been free, today Microsoft takes the giant leap of making it open source, which is fantastic news and will make an already great program even better. As Microsoft explains: