For many consumers, when they buy a desktop, they use whatever keyboard the manufacturer thew in. Sometimes though, the keyboard will break or the user just wants better quality for something like gaming. When selecting one, that consumer has several decisions to make; wired or wireless? number-pad or not? membrane or mechanical? Wait, what?

That third one is not something consumers have had to consider in a while. Mechanical keyboards have fallen out of favor for cheaper membrane variants, largely because of cost. Inexpensive, spongey, creaky keyboards are "good enough" for many. Sadly, consumers just don't know what they are missing. Luckily, mechanical variants are making a comeback in a big way. I have been testing the Feenix Autore for a couple of weeks and I would like to share my experience with you.

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Samsung and Apple don’t have to worry about users defecting to each other after a new survey suggested that other manufacturers like HTC and Huawei could take advantage of the gap.

Qriously, a London-based startup, surveyed a sample of 2,440 existing iPhone owners and the same number that own Samsung smartphones in order to ascertain how loyal the two sets of consumers are to the respective brands.

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The "internet of things" is one of those catch-all terms that has become one of the latest buzzwords to be bandied about hither and thither. It is often used to conjure up images of an online oven, connected kettles and web-enabled waffle makers, and is referred to as something that is yet to be. So used is this term, that it's easy to forget that it's something that already exists -- just ignore the absurd name and you simply have a collection of devices that connect to the internet for a variety of reasons. But having any device connected to the internet has advantages and disadvantages, and this is something that security experts AVG recognize only too well.

Take cars for instance. Things have advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years, to the point that the traditional key is no longer needed, and apps can be used to check vehicle stats -- who needs dials and in-car displays, eh? Just as owning a car has changed dramatically in the past couple of decades, so has the problem of car security. Numbered are the days of a brick through the window, a screwdriver or coat hanger slipped down the side of the window, and touching together a couple of wires to make a getaway in just a few minutes.

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PC shipments have been boosted by the demise of Windows XP with shipments up by five percent compared to the previous year.

Figures from Canalys showed that 123.7 million PCs were shipped worldwide in Q1 2014 and Lenovo was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this growth as its PC shipments totaled 15 million and increased its market share from 10 percent to 12 percent.

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What's that? It's the end of the week already? How did that happen?! Things got off to a slightly slow start, but it ended up being another jam-packed seven days. Microsoft was criticized for continuing to patch Windows XP after support was supposed to have ended, but it does seem as though usage is starting to decline. Interestingly, it is Windows 7 that suffered from a higher malware infection rate according to Microsoft's Security Intelligence Report. Windows 8.x is still struggling to gain a large audience and Wayne looked at why this is the case -- maybe a smartwatch would be a smart move.

The effects of Heartbleed are still being felt, and ExtraHop Networks had some advice during a Q&A session. Symantec unveiled its security roadmap for Advanced Threat Protection, and Dropbox discovered a vulnerability that led to the company pulling access to hyperlinked files. Many big names came together to try to make passwords more exciting -- give it up for World Password Day!

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Less than a year after the launch of the Ascend P6, Huawei has revealed its latest flagship, the Ascend P7. The Chinese company, which is a massive force in the telecommunications sector, is desperate to make a similar impact in the smartphone arena.

Many in the industry had already written off Huawei's attempts well before the P7's launch, simply because they feel that the competition is far too strong. One of these rivals is the Apple iPhone 5s. So how do the devices measure up to each other?

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As an American, it was quite the culture-shock when I visited Italy. Where I live, most buildings are relatively new -- strip malls and such. So when I took a trip to the Colosseum in Rome, it was mind-boggling to imagine how much history had taken place in its confines. At the same time, the people who currently live in Rome are modern -- they obsessed over smartphones like Americans!

In other words, Italy is a blend of old and new; a mix of modern and ancient. Something similar is happening with books. A paper book is old, while a Kindle is modern, but people still use both. Today, Amazon partners with Italian bookstore chain Giunti al Punto to mix digital and physical reading with a new bookstore concept.

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Hitachi Data Systems has just revealed the results of its "Information Innovation Index," which is a study that aimed to measure how businesses are able to tap into and make good use of big data. And the short answer is that many feel they're not making best use of the swathes of data they're sat on.

The study was conducted by Vanson Bourne across 200 Chief Information Officers and IT decision makers in the UK, and almost half (46 percent) of respondents felt that their current IT setup was hindering their ability to effectively crunch big data for valuable insights.

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Microsoft has released the first customer preview of Office Mix, a free PowerPoint 2013/Office 365 add-in which makes it easier to create and share your presentations.

There are new tools to record you giving your presentations, draw on slides as though they were a whiteboard, add audio or video, take screenshots or record what’s happening on the desktop, all available from the Mix tab on the PowerPoint ribbon.

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Nintendo Entertainment System vs. Sega Master System. Super Nintendo vs. Sega Genesis. PlayStation 2 vs. Dreamcast. For whatever reason, people are very passionate about the video game consoles that they buy. Apparently, it matters which console "wins" each generation.

The current battle is between Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. Let's be honest, they are both great and their prices are virtually identical when Sony's camera accessory is factored in. You really can't go wrong buying either -- the exclusive titles should be the deciding factor. However, one of them has to win and according to IDC, the PlayStation 4 will be champion.

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We've known for a while now that Netflix was planning a price increase, though the company hadn't specified the amount it would up the cost to customers. That changes today and, while the increase is minor, the company has thrown in a bit of confusion to keep folks on their toes.

The actual change in cost for the streaming movie and TV service is $1, upping the fee from $7.99 to $8.99 per month. However, it is not all just that simple.

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Steganography tools can be a quick and easy way to send a secret message to someone, typically embedding your words inside a digital photo. If anyone intercepts the message then they’ll see what looks like a normal image, and never realize that it contains some hidden content.

The catch? You’ll often need to protect that content with a password. And that makes life more complicated, as you must first find a way of exchanging the password with the recipient, and then you’ll both have to remember it.

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Traditional retailing models have come under pressure from the internet, in particular the habit of 'showrooming' which involves browsing in store and buying online.

But according to point of sale specialist Merchant Warehouse there's a reverse effect called 'webrooming' which sees consumers browsing online but actually buying in bricks-and-mortar stores.

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It's now a month since support for Windows XP came to an end, and we've already had our first exciting little post-XP incident. When a security flaw was discovered in Internet Explorer, an out-of-band patch was released for XP users despite Microsoft's previous claims that no more such updates would be issued. A month on seems like a good time to assess the lay of the land for the operating system, and that's precisely what security firm Secunia has done.

Looking at the install base for Windows XP, Secunia found that there has been an extremely steady decline in usage from the beginning of the year. According to Secunia's numbers, XP could be found on 22 percent of US PCs between January and December of 2013, but this dropped to 18 percent in the period January to February this year. It is possible that this marked drop could be attributed to people finally coming to terms with the idea that XP was no longer being supported and deciding to move on. But things start to slide further as we move into April.

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Screen to Gif is a free portable tool which allows you to record desktop activity, edit it, then share the results.

As you’ll guess from the name, the program saves its recordings as animated GIFs, which means they’re limited to 256 colors and can’t include audio. That’s just fine for simple animations, though -- software tutorials, problem reports -- and Screen to Gif has more than enough interesting extras to justify the download.

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