Believe it or not, I am not the life of the party. Sure, I may seem like a really happening guy, but the truth is, I am quite boring. At a social gathering, I don't really talk or interact, and more often than not, I find myself staring at my smartphone screen in the corner alone. However, there is one thing that gets me going -- karaoke!

Yes, me and many other folks love singing like a fool in front of both strangers and friends. However, unlike many people, I don't drink alcohol before doing it. I even love signing alone at home; if you stand outside my bathroom door, you will hear quite the riveting renditions of Man! I Feel Like a Woman! by Shania Twain or Do You Really Want to Hurt Me by Culture Club when I'm in the shower. Today, Microsoft makes my love for singing easier, by bringing full song lyrics to Bing results.

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With the release of Windows 10 Technical Preview you would think that the time would be to look forward rather than backwards. It's a time to embrace the new and exciting, but it's hard not to look back and draw comparisons.

With Windows 10, initial impressions suggest that there may not really have been a need to skip over Windows 9 -- there are no massive surprises to be found. But there are some interesting changes to be discovered in the most surprising of places. In looking backwards, it's hard not to bring MS-DOS to mind, along with its slightly more modern version, the Command Prompt. Forget the redesigned Start menu, virtual desktops and everything else, the Command Prompt is where it's all happening, kids!

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A new piece of research from SafeNet has pointed out some worrying aspects regarding business security, including the fact that the majority of organizations -- some 60 percent of them -- are not confident that their data would be secure if a hacker was to get past their network's perimeter security.

While 74 percent of the thousand IT decision makers questioned said they believed their perimeter security was effective at keeping threats at bay, 41 percent believed that unauthorized users are able to access their networks, figures which don't quite marry up.

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Bombich Software has unveiled Carbon Copy Cloner 4.0 for Mac, which it describes as "our biggest update ever". The new build now requires OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or later.

After 18 months of development, in which Bombich "tore CCC down to studs and completely rebuilt it on top of modern OS X facilities", the new version boasts a brand new user interface, plus a host of new features, including the ability to edit scheduled tasks and a menu bar app.

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Ancient Roman glassware housed in the British Museum is at the heart of new research into expanding the storage capabilities of optical storage devices.

The Lycurgus cup, a goblet made in the 4th century during the Roman Empire, incorporates gold-silver alloyed nanoparticles into glass and changes color from green to red when light passes through it.

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Since the arrival of Windows 8 there has been a lot of huffing and puffing about the Start screen. Some people love it, but a lot of people yearn for the return of the Start menu. With Windows 10, this is now a reality. If you grab yourself a copy of the Technical Preview you can experience the all-new Start menu for yourself, but you may find that it's not for you.

If you find that you actually miss the Start screen from Windows 8, it's very easy to get it back -- you just need to know where to look.

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Wireless mice are a dime-a-dozen these days, with new ones from all sorts of manufacturers coming along all the time. But when Logitech releases one then notice must be taken, as it and Microsoft are two of the premiere mouse makers on the market.

Today the company announces its latest offering, the M320 wireless mouse, which it touts as both comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. The new peripheral has a lot to be excited about, even if it's just a mouse, or at least that's what the company promises.

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The BlackBerry Passport is huge by phone standards at 128 x 90mm and 9.3mm thick. It really is the same size as a passport -- and BlackBerry says it was inspired by the passport, which it calls the 'universal symbol of mobility'. Bless. Are there stranger reasons for naming a handset? Did BlackBerry fiddle with the sizing to make it so? Answers on a postcard please...

Design-wise, the BlackBerry Passport looks and feels like a quality piece of kit. It is solidly made, and both its size and robust shell help explain its weight -- 196 grams doesn't sit lightly in the pocket.

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It's now just over a week since news of the Shellshock bug broke and analysts are still trying to work out just how much of an impact it could have.

Security specialist Incapsula has been tracking the vulnerability to get an idea of its magnitude, looking at the number of sites attacked and the damage caused.

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When Microsoft took the wraps off Windows 10, the software giant informed us that its latest operating system, which officially launches next year, will run on all sorts of devices, including PCs, smartphones and tablets, and feature a unified app store. Both are firsts, as, so far, there was a Windows to suit everything: one for ARM tablets, one for PCs, one for embedded devices, one for smartphones and so on. Of course, the Server editions will not go away, but that's to be expected.

As a Windows Phone user and watcher, I am particularly interested in seeing Windows 10 in action on smartphones. Microsoft has talked quite a lot about what the new operating system brings on PCs and tablets -- it even released a Technical Preview build for x86 devices -- but kept quiet about its plans for smartphones. Well, that has changed, thanks to Joe Belfiore, the software giant's Operating Systems Group corporate vice president (better known as the head of Windows Phone).

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There are always plenty of security concerns causing furrowed brows of IT professionals, but a survey shows that it is ransomware that is causing the biggest headaches at the moment. A survey carried out by Spiceworks and published by Webroot found that 88 percent of professionals had concerns about ransomware, while one third of those questioned had dealt with a ransomware attack first hand. By far the most common strategy for dealing with a device that has been maliciously encrypted is to simply wipe it.

Two-thirds expect the number of attacks to increase in the next year which is particularly concerning when you consider that two thirds of IT professionals know someone who has been affected by ransomware. Despite the threat and attempts to thwart the flow of ransomware with filtering, firewalls, and email scanning, just 44 percent believe their current security setup is "somewhat effective".

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While most people will be talking about the return of the Start menu in the next version of Microsoft’s operating system -- and with good reason -- it’s not the only big change in Windows 10.

Windows 8 proved to be something of a productivity killer for many people, but Microsoft is once again catering to the needs of power users, and has finally introduced a feature that has been offered in Linux for many years -- the virtual desktop.

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Apple has done a ton of defensive work to put out the fires of bendgate, the latest (compulsory) scandal which arrived with the iPhone 6, but Cupertino is still feeling the heat over the issue despite its best efforts.

Once mud has been slung, it tends to stick, even though Apple has done everything from giving journalists a grand tour around its phone stress testing lab and the rigorous procedures therein, through to releasing figures that point to only nine complaints over bent iPhone 6 models, and highlighting independent testing that shows the HTC One M8 (with its aluminum body) bends just as much as Apple's smartphone.

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The red telephone booth is one of the most enduring icons of the UK; but as delightful as their housings may be, the humble payphone has had its day. Coin and card-fed phones are on the verge of being consigned to the history books, while the mobile phone goes from strength to strength. But mobile phones, for all their strength in portability, coverage, and flexibility, have their kryptonite: battery life. In keeping with the environmentally-friendly preference for recycling and reusing rather than trashing, unused phone boxes are being given a new lease on life.

Should you find yourself wandering down London's Tottenham Court Road and notice that your battery is getting a little low, there's a green solution popping up. Phone booths that would have otherwise be left to rack and ruin are being converted into solar-powered charging stations that can be used completely free of charge.

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Facebook is no stranger to controversy, nor is the social network unfamiliar with upsetting its users. It seems as though Zuckerberg's baby has been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, and it's not all that long since users vented their fury after it was revealed that their newsfeeds had been manipulated in the name of research. Now the social network says that it was "unprepared for the reaction the paper received when it was published and have taken to heart the comments and criticism" and is now implementing new user research guidelines.

"There are things we should have done differently" may seem like something of a half-hearted admission that mistakes were made, but it's the second semi-apology from Facebook this week. Research into how people use the social network will still continue, but Facebook now says "we want to do it in the most responsible way." So what does this actually mean?

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