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Two months after the initial alpha release, dotPDN LLC has released a brand new build of Paint.NET 4.0 Alpha, its free image-editing tool for Windows. Build 5105 of this pre-release software includes a number of tweaks, improvements as well as the usual flurry of bug fixes associated with pre-release software.

Only one new feature is added to build 5105: a Bezier curve can now be applied using Paint.NET’s Shapes tool. Users should also find both line and curved shapes now work when the rounded line cap styles is applied.

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Dr Alan Turing, the mathematician who helped to crack the Enigma code during the second world war, has been granted a royal pardon 59 years after he took his own life. His crime? Homosexuality. In spite of his role in code cracking -- which is widely regarded as having helped to shorten the war -- he was convicted for engaging in homosexual activity, and underwent experimental chemical castration as "cure" and punishment in 1952. Two years later he killed himself aged just 41.

It was the illegality of homosexuality that meant Turing's relationship with a man led to a criminal record, and this in turn meant that he was no longer permitted to continue his work at GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters). The UK's justice secretary, Chris Grayling requested the pardon which was then granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Grayling said:

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The PC market might still be in the doldrums, but there’s good news in the screen department at least. After three quarters of solid decline, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker finally reports some growth.

Although year-over-year growth was down -8.6 percent in 3Q13, due to the ongoing decline in PC sales, monitor shipments topped more than 35 million units, 1.2 million over the forecast, and showed an increase of 4.5 percent compared to the previous quarter.

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Many PC users need to access the Windows command prompt occasionally, but its awkward interface means this is rarely a happy experience. Line editing works differently, you can’t use the clipboard as normal, even the window won’t resize properly: it’s no great surprise that most people avoid the console just as much as they can.

You don’t have to put up with the standard Command Prompt, though. There are plenty of applications which can make your console life very much easier, and cmder is the perfect way to start trying them out.

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You likely realize that a rather big holiday is fast approaching, and the children are growing antsy. It's only a matter of time before the old guy in the red suit takes to the sky to pay a visit to each and every home. You've also perhaps heard that both Microsoft and Google have trackers up and running to keep you informed of reindeer progress.

The NORAD version, which could be thought of as the "official" one, as the organization has handled Santa duty since 1955, is now run by Microsoft. Thanks to time zones, it's also just about to go live.

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Since the beginning of 2013 and until late-December, countless new tech products have tried to outdo their predecessors and the competition, and woo potential buyers, with more features than before (some of them gimmicky, some of them useful), distinct form factors, lower price-tags, wider ranges of color options (like the Lumia series and, later in 2013, the iPhone 5c) and any differentiating factor that can make you say "I'll buy it".

Needless to say, there have been quite a few disappointing new products launched throughout 2013. Going back to CES, we can take a look at some of the best examples of "what were they thinking", starting with a potty that tries to leverage iPad apps to teach your young child how to use one properly. But, at the same time, there are some tech products that were also launched in 2013, and have managed to stand out (in a good way). In this article I will walk you through my favorite ones.

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Android is Linux; it utilizes Linus Torvald's kernel. However, for many, it is looked at as a bastardization of Linux -- not a true distribution. I get that; after all, Google's own Android apps are closed-sourced and many of the devices have locked bootloaders. These hindrances, whether the fault of Android or not, are not exactly in the spirit of the free and open Linux community.

Many users crave more -- to have a full-fledged Linux distribution on their mobile device. And so, Canonical, owner of one of the most popular distributions, Ubuntu has been trying to answer the prayers of those dissatisfied with Android, with Ubuntu Touch. While the software has been promising, it is not yet ready to replace Android. Today, Canonical announces an interim solution -- the Ubuntu and Android dual boot developer preview.

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Today, Apple and China Mobile finally announce a distribution partnership that had been heavily rumored for months. While the deal to sell iPhones through China Mobile isn't surprising, the wild variation in analyst estimates is. Let's take a look at a few wrinkles that may be playing havoc with these estimates.

The easiest numbers to find on Chinese carriers are usually subscriber details. The chart above shows the 2G/3G subscriber mix on the three major Chinese carriers. Therefore, the details that analysts typically use to base sales estimates are -- subscriber base, 3G subscriber base and number of unlocked iPhones (2G) on the network. For China Mobile, these figures are 759 million, 176 million and 45 million respectively. Bernstein Research's survey also shows that some China Mobile subscribers use smaller carriers for data service, so these subscribers may have been excluded from these estimates. Analysts are also aware that China Mobile does not offer mobile number portability -- given the status granted by specific blocks of numbers, some analysts may have assumed a major sales impact.

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Good commercials can do several things. They can entertain you, endear you to the brand, and make you covet the product they are trying to sell. The new Samsung Galaxy Gear video does none of those things.

My colleague Alan Buckingham watched the video and declared Samsung Galaxy Gear wants to improve your social life. My impression is slightly different. The guy wearing the watch is a major creep with stalker tendencies. He gets the girl at the end of the video, sure, but to be honest, I fear for her safety. Here’s how the sinister events unfold.

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Right off the bat, I should mention that this pertains to our friends up in the Great White North. With that out of the way, online retailer Amazon has come up with yet one more way to push sales over the holiday season, a run it began before Black Friday had even dawned, and when other merchants were only planning Cyber Monday deals.

Much like the other deals, the company isn't waiting for the official day, which arrives December 26th. Instead, Amazon kicks off a week of deals, and it begins today.

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Bing is a decent search engine, and the daily images that adorn its homepage are always worth a look. Late last week the Bing team announced the ten most popular homepage images for 2013, which includes an aerial view of Gardens by the Bay and the Super Trees in Singapore City, a night shot of Mount Shasta in California, a mangrove seen from underwater in the Seychelles, and Lulworth Cove along the Jurassic Coast, in England. As well as showing off the pictures, the Bing team provides a link so you can download them for use as desktop wallpaper.

If you’d prefer to have the images cycling in a screensaver, the Bing team has now made that possible too, in the form of a new 13MB "Wallpaper & Screensaver" Pack.

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One of the problems with big data is its sheer size. This leads to problems when it comes to moving files around and can lead to a loss of competitiveness if companies aren't able to process files in a timely manner. The issue can be magnified if it involves transferring files to and from cloud platforms.

IBM has recognized this problem and in response has swallowed up California-based Aspera, a specialist in high speed transfer techniques. The company's patented "fasp" technology can reduce the transmission times for large files or data sets by up to 99.9 percent. It overcomes bottlenecks in broadband wide area networks that slow the transfer of extremely large files, such as high-definition video or scientific research data, over long distances.

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It’s been a long time coming, but finally Apple announces it has entered into a multi-year agreement to bring the iPhone to China Mobile, the world's largest mobile network.

As part of the agreement, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available from China Mobile's extensive network of retail stores, as well as Apple’s own retail locations across mainland China, beginning on Friday, January 17, 2014. Pre-registration to get a handset will begin 25 December.

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The other day I chronicled the strange journey of The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent site that is notorious for finding less-than-legal software, movies, TV shows, music…you name it. Sure, it’s wrong to steal content, no matter how you justify it -- people deserve to be paid for their work. After all, I don’t work for free, I fully expect to be compensated for my efforts. I have a wife and kids to provide for. I would guess you also do not labor for free.

However, that piece about the many domains the service has recently occupied, combined with something my colleague Mark Wilson brought up about the ridiculous porn filtering in the UK, got me thinking.

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There was a time when "activist investor" Carl Icahn actually owned and ran businesses, one of which was TransWorld Airlines (TWA), eventually sold to American Airlines. In an attempt to cut costs, TWA under Icahn outsourced reservation service to a call center built in a prison with prisoners on the phone. When you called to book travel you were giving your credit card number to a felon and telling him when you’d be away from home. Smart move, Carl, and very akin to what may have caused the post-Thanksgiving theft of 40 million credit card numbers from Target, the U.S. discount retailer.

Target used to do its IT all in the USA, then to save costs they moved IT to a subsidiary in India. Care to guess where the Target data breach came from? I’m guessing India. I’m also guessing that there will never be any arrests in the case.

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