Celebrate good times, come on! Microsoft recently celebrated the 13th birthday of the original Xbox, but now it is time to celebrate yet another birthday. You see, the newest console from the company, the Xbox One, will be turning a year old this Saturday.

Normally, people give gifts to the person celebrating a birthday, but today Microsoft is going in a different direction. If you are an Xbox One owner, it is time to get very excited -- Microsoft will be giving all of you gifts! However, the fun does not stop there; the company will also randomly be giving away games to owners too.

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Many people consider open source to be the future. It is hard to argue with this, as it allows software to be adapted to different environments. Most importantly, it allows users to view the code, and prevents malicious aspects, such as backdoors. In other words, you never know what is hiding in closed source software.

Today, Google embraces open source in an effort to highlight multiplayer-gaming on Android TV. How? Well, the search giant releases a free open source game called "Pie Moon". It is available now in the Google Play Store.

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Windows 10 Technical Preview is very much an early work in progress. Microsoft is releasing new builds on a fairly regular basis (although the next one isn’t expected until the New Year), and implementing changes based on user feedback. Personally I’m liking what I’m seeing so far.

Although Microsoft discusses the major new features and changes in each build, there’s still some hidden functionality that you may not be aware of. Case in point is the little known System Compression option tucked away in Disk Cleanup.

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It has been a long time coming, but the web is slowly transitioning away from HTTP to HTTPS. Google has done it with Gmail, and Yahoo did the same with its webmail service, and security advocates would like other websites to follow suit. The problem, for smaller sites at least, is the cost involved. But a new venture between Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Mozilla, Cisco, the University of Michigan and IdenTrust will eliminate the cost obstacle when it launches next summer.

The partnership has brought about the creation of Let's Encrypt, a new certificate authority that will provide free security certificates to those who need them. It is hoped that handing out cost-free certificates will encourage more sites to adopt the HTTPS protocol. But Let's Encrypt does not just eliminate the financial hurdle.

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How do you define the success of a technology implementation? Should it be judged by how it helps to add short-term value in certain individual areas of business? Or should the yardstick be its ability to enable your entire organization to take a giant leap forward?

Clearly, it’s not possible for every piece of hardware or software introduced within a business to have a revolutionary, transformative impact. However, perhaps it’s worth considering whether or not you are at least maximizing the impact of the tools you have at your disposal and using them to drive as much value as you can. It’s important to remember that the elephant in the room in every technology purchase, is the question of 'why?'

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Mobile device management (MDM) solutions have been an enterprise mainstay for years, enabling IT to manage enterprise-owned smartphones and tablets in a way similar to how PCs and laptops are managed -- by taking complete control of them. But when it comes to personal mobile devices entering the IT environment via bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs, MDM solutions struggle to provide the flexibility that IT now requires.

As the name states, MDM is focused on managing devices. It allows IT to control the entire environment of a smart device: provisioning, tracking usage and location, enforcing policies, ensuring security encryption, pushing approved enterprise apps to the device, and locking the device down or wiping it if necessary. It is a heavy-handed but very useful approach to managing corporate-owned smartphones and tablets. When it comes to personally owned devices, however, IT cannot take the same approach. Users don’t want to give IT complete control over their device. They don’t want their usage and location tracked when they aren’t at work. They don’t want to be limited in the kinds of apps they download and use. And they don’t want to give IT the power to access or wipe personal information, such as photos and text messages.

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The iPad is a wonderful tablet that people love the world over. Sure, Apple has its detractors, and people tend to focus on the deficiencies of the iPad, but its continued popularity is no fluke; it is enjoyable and useful with a ton of great apps. Unfortunately, the tablet's power is limited by its form factor. In other words, other than Microsoft's Surface line, the average tablet cannot stand on its own or be positioned for comfortable desk typing.

Case manufacturers have enabled some brilliant solutions for making the iPad more versatile, and Logitech has been on the forefront in that regard. In fact, Logitech has garnered quite the praise and respect from the iPad community for its cases and keyboards. Today, Logitech continues this tradition, with the attractive Logitech AnyAngle case. It is compatible with the iPad Air 2 and all models of the iPad mini.

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The app-gap is still not a thing of the past for Windows Phone Store, but, fortunately, things are getting better. There already are lots of third-party alternatives -- some of which are quite good -- to many prominent apps. And, thanks to the functionality enabled by Windows Phone 8.1, it is possible for more types of apps to launch, like Fitbit and Microsoft Remote Desktop.

The biggest progress, however, is made when well-known developers launch their apps on the platform. This week Windows Phone scores big, as both language-learning app Duolingo and computational engine WolframAlpha make their appearance in Store.

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Acer is one of my favorite computer manufacturers, because it knows how to build a machine with a focus on value. In other words, when money is tight, you can look to the company to meet your budget with a quality machine. I have used countless low-cost machines over the years, and Acer has yet to disappoint.

Today, the company delivers value once again, as it announces the Acer TravelMate B115. Not only is this 11.6 inch touchscreen laptop small and portable at an inch thin and 3 pounds, but it is extremely affordable too. How affordable? Only $379!

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The growth of mobile is considered to be the biggest shift in technology since the arrival of the internet. IDC’s mobile phone forecast predicts that total sales of smartphones will reach 1.2 billion units before the end of the year, a 23.1 percent increase over 2013. With the use of mobile devices now intrinsically linked to everyday life, it’s easy to see why British companies busy building apps for smartphones and tablets are forecast to generate £4bn in revenues this year.

The launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus on September 9 created great commotion. Choose any major city, anywhere in the world and the scenes outside of Apple Stores on 9 September were the same. Hordes of consumers of all ages, social standings and demographics spent hours, and in some cases days, queuing as they waited to get their hands on the latest offering. In Australia Jack Cooksey, the first person to buy the iPhone 6, inadvertently crash tested it live on national television -- which has since gone viral. If we put the initial consumer excitement and hype to one side, the introduction of Apple’s largest ever handsets does present some very positive features. You have a larger screen, which obviously means more display space. The larger screen also means bigger virtual buttons within apps which (from a marketing perspective) enables organizations to drive more types of engagement on screen without cluttering the display. However, all of these new features and opportunities in the new handsets also inevitably complicate things for mobile app developers.

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Up to now cyber security has generally taken a defensive approach to protecting data and intellectual property.

That’s set to change as a team of industry experts has got together to create a system that's aimed at dramatically improving the reliability and security of enterprise data and applications running in both cloud and conventional environments.

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US technology companies are setting a benchmark for those in other sectors to reach for when it comes to LGBT equality in the workplace. These are the findings reported in the thirteenth edition of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index. The HRC rates workplaces on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inclusion and equality, and this year's report shows that there is now greater awareness and understanding of the transgender community.

The index rates companies using a variety of factors including the presence of non-discriminatory policies, the existence of transgender-inclusion healthcare, and whether or not there are guidelines in place to encourage transgender inclusion. This year there are a record number of businesses attaining a 100 percent rating, and 14 of these fall into the hardware, software and data services areas of the tech sector.

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Databases are important to enterprises of all sizes, but building applications to exploit data effectively can be time consuming and expensive.

Now Splice Machine, maker of the only Hadoop RDBMS (relational database management system), is making its product publicly available for the first time. It will allow database architects and app developers to build real-time, scalable applications without the burden or cost of a traditional RDBMS.

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A bill that could have curtailed the surveillance activities of the NSA has been rejected by the US Senate. The USA Freedom Act was blocked as a bloc of Republican senators voted against the Obama-backed bill. After the Edward Snowden revelations, there have been many vocal calls for the powers of the NSA to be reined in. This was the bill that was supposed to deliver, but right wing opponents referred to it as a "gift to terrorists".

The bill passed the House of Representatives in May and had the backing of many of the biggest technology companies. One of the main aims of the USA Freedom Act was to stop the collection of domestic phone records, but there were also implications for the agency's online dragnet-style data trawling. Now it seems that the fight for privacy starts afresh.

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Enterprises continue to struggle with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) as employees continue to demand the freedom that comes with mobility in accordance with new trends. Security has long been discussed as the primary challenge when it comes to BYOD. Yet, other reasons such as network access is fast becoming a key concern for IT departments but also the key frustration for employees.

When it comes to connectivity, employee expectation is that it just works and as such this expectation must not be overlooked when implementing a BYOD roll-out.

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