For a significant number of users a computer session starts, and ends with Chrome. Google continued to reinforce this with Chrome Apps, which are apps that run on the desktop, outside of the browser and can be pinned to your taskbar.

You will soon be able to open files from the Windows file explorer directly in Chrome Apps. Chrome apps will be able to specify the file types they handle, and for those file types, you will see the Chrome App listed in 'open with' when you right click a file. If the Chrome App is the only app installed which handles that file type, it will be set to default (so simply double clicking will open the file in the Chrome App). This will essentially remove all distinction of Chrome apps and desktop programs you have installed on Windows.

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Another day, another iPhone scandal. It seems like we can’t go through one news cycle without something to blame Apple for. While yes, the iPhone is nowhere near perfect, at times the level of negative press has bordered on ridiculousness.

My patience with these iScandals reached its breaking point this weekend. Here on BetaNews we covered the latest media-created iPhone flaw, which apparently is called "dyegate". The gist is this: a small minority of users complain that their iPhones are being stained by the dye from their jeans. That’s right: it is Apple’s fault that the consumer purchased a cheap pair of jeans that weren’t correctly pre-washed at the factory to prevent these dye bleeding issues.

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Microsoft just stoked the fires of the cloud storage wars once again. There have been various updates to OneDrive in recent months. Microsoft lifted the 2GB file size limit all the way up to 10GB, and we showed you how to up your free storage to 15GB. But if you’re an Office 365 subscriber, things just kicked off -- storage limitations are a thing of the past.

Starting today, Office 365 Home, Personal and University plan subscribers have unlimited OneDrive storage. Store as much as you like in the cloud for free. Well, free if you ignore the subscription you've paid, or continue to pay each month. The roll out to the consumer level subscriptions starts today, but you'll need to take action if you're interested.

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The problem with email and text messaging is that context can be lost in transmission. In other words, even if your intentions are good, the recipient may misinterpret the overall tone. This can cause the communication to break down quickly and lead to hurt feelings. Believe it or not, in business, it can even lead to review by Human Resources, as employee relations are harmed.

Emojis are often criticized as being stupid and silly -- something teens use for talking about nonsense. I disagree, as they can help establish the proper tone of your message. A smiley face or picture of a jack-o-lantern can liven up your text message or tweet so it cannot be misconstrued as being angry. Today, Bing learns how to speak the language.

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The number of people living in cities is expected to double by 2050, meaning congestion and pollution will increasingly be a problem for city dwellers. As a result the cities of the future will demand smarter traffic management solutions and more intelligent vehicles.

Experts say that car industry will develop more in the next decade than it has in the last fifty years due to the rise in connectivity and mobile technology. The industry is gearing itself up for the age of the 'connected car' but how will this manifest itself? What will cars look like five, ten even twenty years from now?

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There is currently no shortage in the market when it comes to streaming devices. Quite frankly, there are so many available, that it can be very hard to choose; Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku -- it is dizzying.

Today, Amazon further complicates the decision with the all-new Fire TV Stick. Yes, the company already offers the Fire TV box, so the Fire TV Stick, in some ways, competes with its existing offering. However, the big selling point of the Fire TV Stick is the price -- $39. But wait, you may be eligible to get it cheaper!

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Silicon Valley startup Magic Leap is valued at over $1 billion. It just announced the close of its $542 million (£338 million) Series B, featuring investors led by Google, Inc., and including KPCB, Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, Qualcomm and Legendary Entertainment. But there's a catch: no one quite knows what it is.

We love a good "mysterious startup" story, and Magic Leap has set our mystery senses tingling. The website for the startup is suitably vague, featuring only a beautiful animation of a tiny pint-sized elephant rearing and trumpeting out of a person's cupped hands. And a trippy picture of a whale flying over a beach.

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More than 70 percent of executives think their organization only partly understands the risks it could be exposed to as a result of a data breach. This is among the results of a study from technology giant HP into the importance of executive involvement in breach responses.

In addition less than half of board-level executives are kept informed about the breach response process and only 45 percent believe they are accountable for the incident response process.

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In the last year 94 percent of organizations have encountered at least one cyber security incident, with 12 percent indicating that they’d been on the receiving end of a targeted attack.

These are among the findings of a survey of worldwide IT professionals by security company Kaspersky Lab and research specialist B2B International. Damages from one successful targeted attack could cost a company as much as $2.54 million for enterprises and $84,000 for small businesses.

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Who doesn't like free stuff? Not many people, but there are various definitions of free. Free as in beer, free as in speech, and so on. The open source software movement combines these two ideas, and many more, by making software freely available to anyone who wants to use it, and also affording them the right to tinker with the code and change it in whatever way they want. It's one of the foundations of Linux, and it's a philosophy that -- in increasingly cash-strapped times -- is gaining momentum.

The Document Foundation, creator of the LibreOffice variant of the free OpenOffice suite, today announces that it is joining the Open Source Business Alliance. The aim is to help with the deployment of the free office suite on larger scales within companies and organizations.

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Microsoft has struggled a bit recently with Xbox One sales, at least in comparison to rival Sony's PS4, though strides are being made. So what to do to combat this problem? For starters the company recently began selling a cheaper model that comes without the Kinect. But things will heat up even more this holiday shopping season, which is fast approaching.

Beginning November 2nd, the Xbox One will be available for $349 -- $50 off the regular non-Kinect price. That price will only be available in the US. And it's not the only discounted offer coming to the gaming platform next month.

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OnePlus One has attracted lots of attention from the media and consumers without even being generally available, as virtually every other flagship smartphone is today. Many have chosen to play by the company's rules, asking and waiting for the invites which give them the option to purchase the device. It's a pretty unusual way of selling and buying smartphones, but it seems to have only boosted One's appeal.

If you have not yet had the chance to buy One, you should know that today OnePlus is making it generally available to pre-order, as it temporarily drops its invite-only system to get One in the hands of more consumers.

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At the moment, when you want to charge your smartphone or tablet you have to either plug it in, or (if it supports the technology) place it on a wireless charging mat. That's all set to change though, as soon you’ll be able to charge your electrical equipment simply by being near a fridge or washing machine.

It sounds like crazy science fiction, but it’s just very clever science. Energous today announces a partnership with Haier Wireless, the world's largest appliance manufacturer, that will see its WattUp wire-free charging transmitters embedded in a wide range of home appliances including refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, microwaves, stoves and more.

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You might think that you've already paid enough to get online. You bought your computer (or phone, tablet, whatever...), you pay line rental to your phone provider, you pay your monthly broadband charges, you pay the bill for electricity all of this requires. How does the idea of an extra charge on top of this sound? No? That's the general feeling in Hungary where an "internet tax" has been proposed by Viktor Orban's right wing government.

The Prime Minister proposes taxing internet usage in a similar way to mobile phone companies -- by tracking traffic levels. How much could this end up costing? Well, it could very quickly add up. The draft law suggests a fee of 150 forints (around $0.60) per gigabyte. To put that in perspective, it would cost more than $2 to download the Windows 10 Technical Preview, and around the same amount to upgrade to the latest build 9860.

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I've been in the market long enough to have lived the glorious years when as a salesperson, you would join a new company primarily because of the salary and benefits it offered above any other consideration.

At that time, one of the important benefits was the company car, and once you had it, the next question was; how flexible would the company be around its use?

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