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Most fractal programs are entertaining for a while, and capable of producing some amazing abstract pictures. But the constant focus on 2D Mandelbrot imagery means that boredom will inevitably set in, and sooner rather than later. What you really need is something more interesting – and we have the ideal candidate.

Mandelbulber is a fractal program with a difference. Forget the usual 2D pictures, this brings you amazing ray-traced 3D images, with complex shading, full lighting and camera control, even the ability to create custom animations where the camera flies around and into your chosen view.

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There is no shortage of variety in today's Android tablet market. Devices come in a range of functionality and price, and from a host of makers. Two prominent tablets on the market are from a couple of the web's biggest sites, and both Amazon and Google are hoping their devices will land under your tree this holiday season.

The second generation of the Nexus 7, manufactured by Asus and sold by Google, has been on the market for some time, but now Amazon is pushing the third version of the Kindle Fire tablet. This latest iteration is, of course, purported to be the best, but is it? Can the HDX really be better than the 2012 HD?

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Sony PlayStation 4 hit the stores and Brian not only took a look at the brand new console, but also cracked open the case and slipped a larger hard drive inside. Brian wasn't alone in his love of the PS4, more than a million people also bought a console on the day of launch. But not everyone was happy as many units were found to suffer from a Blue Light of Death problem that rendered them unusable. Raspberry Pi was also celebrating its sales figures as more than two million were shifted since its launch last year.

In a rare show of unity, Microsoft and Google joined forces to help tackle the problem of online child pornography. At the same time, Microsoft took its Scroogled campaign to a new level by releasing merchandise (although Joe was impressed). Elsewhere online, Twitter introduced Twitter alerts to the UK and Ireland to help provide people with critical information in an emergency.

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It's been a big day for Microsoft. The Xbox One hit store shelves and took over the daily tech news, overshadowing all competition, including that of it's own Nokia devices arm. While reviews, unboxing videos and a few tales of hard drive woes have highlighted the news, there were other announcements surrounding the console launch.

One such piece of news came from an unexpected source. Logitech, known for its cases, keyboards and mice, is also in possession of all-in-one remote company Harmony. The darling of the home theater crowd, or at least those who don't wish to pay for Crestron, has thrown its support behind the new gaming console.

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If there is one thing I hate, it is paying for subscriptions. As new services come out and I subscribe, it feels like money is just being siphoned from my wallet. Entertainment services alone are bleeding me dry -- Netflix, Hulu Plus and Google Play Music All Access to name a few. Even though I detest subscriptions, there is one that I am happy to pay for -- Amazon Prime.

Now, I do not want to sound like a commercial for Amazon, but it is truly a service that delivers exponential value. You see, besides offering a plethora of TV shows and movies for free, it also enables free two-day shipping for physical products. I shop at the website so much, that the paltry $79 annual fee pays for itself rather quickly. As a computer nerd, getting something like a 120mm fan or PCI card in two days at no cost is awesome. Today, the company announces that you can now send a Prime subscription as a gift.

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The repercussions of the recent Adobe hack continue to echo around the internet. The attack exposed the user information for a huge number of customers, and data leaked online displayed email addresses, passwords and hints. The final tally of affected users ended up at 150 million, and the dump has since been parsed by security researchers, such as those at Sophos.

Now Evernote is the latest to warn customers of the far-reaching possibilities that could result from Adobe's misfortune. The note-taking service has been checking the database of email addresses and comparing it to its own customer list. When a matching email address is discovered, a message is generated to warn the potential victim.

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For most people customer relationship management conjures up the idea of a massive database of sales information. But for smaller, especially one person, businesses who may spend only a small amount of their time in front of a computer, traditional CRM isn't a practical proposition and doesn't lend itself to mobile use.

Step forward ONDiGO which is designed to provide CRM on the go -- see what they did there? It's built to be easy to use and to start working immediately so that you can begin improving business contacts with customers from day one.

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The little gaming console that could. Ouya, the Android-based Kickstarter darling, is on the market, and getting less attention than it did when everything was shiny and new. But the console continues to innovate and bring new games and features to the platform, in an effort to carve its own niche in a Sony/Microsoft-dominated world.

Now the console-maker has pushed a new update, which is perhaps the biggest since the little device debuted. The number one feature included here is external storage, in case you're running out of space for your games. Customers can now plug in an external drive, and the console will work with FAT32, NTFS, and ext4. A word of warning, though, don't take your drive to your friend's house, as the games won't work on another Ouya.

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Cloud storage locker MediaFire has announced the availability of its desktop sync clients for Windows PCs and Macs. The new apps, currently in beta, arrive alongside a revamped web interface that is designed to make editing, sharing and viewing files much easier. The service is currently offering both free (10 GB of storage) and paid plans (Pro and Business), which can take advantage of the new round of changes.

The base MediaFire Pro account includes 100 GB of cloud storage, and currently costs $24.99 per year (50 percent off from the usual $49.99). The company has given us 15 MediaFire Pro account redemption codes to give away to BetaNews readers, providing each winner with 100 GB of cloud storage for a year.

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Online backup and sharing provider Dropbox has released Dropbox for iOS 3.0, a major update to its app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. Version 3.0 debuts a new design, AirDrop support and streamlines the iPad user experience.

It also comes with improved sharing and exporting tools, promises faster performance and squashes a number of bugs, hopefully reducing the number of times the app crashes.

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As the use of smartphones and tablets becomes mainstream in enterprises, organizations need to address some fundamental security concerns. While we have yet to see these devices succumb to malware threats in the way that previous endpoints have, there are legitimate data protection issues associated with their use. Between June 2012 and June 2013, travelers lost more than 10,000 electronic devices, including laptops, mobile phones, and tablets, in just the world’s seven largest airports, according to Airport Lost and Found, a global database.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) products gained early traction in the enterprise as a means to address some of the security and management issues associated with the use of consumer mobile devices on corporate networks. While MDM can solve some problems, in spite of being a fairly heavy-handed approach, it does not allow for the fine-grained security controls that many enterprises require.

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According to a new survey from Strategy Analytics, Windows Phone development is expected to ramp up significantly in 2014. Of the 1,600 interviewed devs, 32 percent plan to support the tiled smartphone operating system next year, a number that is twice as large compared to the current statistics for 2013. Android and iOS continue to rank as the top two picks, followed by HTML5 in third place and Windows Phone in fourth.

This is certainly good news for both Microsoft and Windows Phone users. The platform should receive more quality apps, an area where it is sorely lacking in numbers, and, as a result, gain more followers in the coming years. The third ecosystem dream, as Strategy Analytics says, is becoming real. The only thing that stands in the way is the developers' commitment.

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One of the great British icons, Doctor Who, is celebrating a milestone birthday this weekend -- it’s 50 years since the eccentric Time Lord first took television viewers across space and time in his battered blue police box.

To mark the Doctor’s half a century of adventures, Google has created a special playable homepage doodle which will keep you busy for a while. To begin with it was only available on the New Zealand search page, but has since materialized (with a wheezing sound) everywhere.

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When it comes to Office 365, some people think I'm too soft on Microsoft because I'm always writing about the good things I see in the service. And don't get me wrong, I think the platform is leagues better now than it was just a year ago. Just peruse some of the brutal honesty I wrote about Office 365 in the head to head piece I did against Google Apps back in mid 2012, and you may be shocked about my current viewpoint on the product.

Microsoft has indeed come a long way with the service as a whole. Before the 2013 edition of the suite, I found 365 to be a cluttered "me too" offering that did nothing to differentiate against Google Apps. My biggest gripe was that Microsoft was working too hard to cram desktop-first software into a cloud experience that felt half baked in the end. That notion got turned on its head earlier this year, and my feelings about the latest Office 365 for Business ecosystem are pretty positive overall.

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One year ago, Apple was awarded a whopping $1.05 billion in damages from Samsung after the South Korean company was found guilty in a US court of copying elements from the iPhone and using them in some of its own handsets. Infringed features included how the devices displayed text and icons, the bounce-back response found in iOS, and the tap-to-zoom, one-finger-to-scroll, two-to-pinch, and zoom navigation features. The award was so high because the jury found that Samsung had willfully stolen design elements from Apple.

Earlier this year the US District Judge who presided over the trial, Lucy Koh, upheld close to $640 million of the damages that Apple had been awarded, but said that calculations made by the original jury had errors in it and ordered a retrial for the remaining amount.

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