The latest upgrade to Honda's Asimo has given the robot enhanced intelligence, the ability to run 5.6mph and enabled it to perform complex sign language.

Asimo was first introduced in 2000 and is seen as one of the leading attempts at creating a humanoid robot.

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In all the furor over super-slim Ultrabooks and magically transforming hybrids, it's sometimes easy to forget that some people just need a basic portable. The Dell Latitude E5540 is aimed at those people. It's not a fundamentally exciting notebook by any stretch of the imagination, but it could be just what your company needs as a standard-issue everyday workhorse.

The design of the E5540 is decidedly inconspicuous, with matte black plastic the order of the day all round. This is very much a sober corporate notebook that won't cause any commotion in the meeting room. The full width of the 15in chassis has been used to provide a separate keypad alongside the keyboard, as well as discrete volume control buttons at the top. The keys are full-sized and have a comfortably firm action, making touch typing for long durations very pleasant. However, the keyboard isn't backlit, which is an unusual omission for a work-oriented laptop.

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If you live in Europe and don't like the fact that Binging yourself throws up results you'd rather didn’t appear, Microsoft has created a form you can use to request removal of these links from searches. (Yeah, ok…Bing doesn't really work as a verb in the same way as Google. Lesson learned.) Not all that long ago, Google was forced to consider censoring search results that people considered to be out of date, incorrect or irrelevant -- it's a ruling that has been dubbed the right to be forgotten. A form was set up to make it easier for people with complaints to get in touch, and now Microsoft has followed suit and created a Request to Block Bing Search Results In Europe form.

Filling in the form is absolutely no guarantee that a search result will be removed -- and it is important to remember that this is only about removing links from search results, not removing actual content. Or, as Microsoft puts it in the form:

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When Microsoft introduced SkyDrive, it provided every customer with 25GB of storage space for free. The company later reduced this to only 7GB, but existing users were grandfathered into their plans and allowed to retain the old amount of cloud space.

Now the company has quietly reduced that down to only 15GB -- sort of. No official announcement was made regarding this move -- users simply learn of it by checking available storage within their accounts. But all is not what it appears to be at first.

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CyberLink has announced the release of CyberLink Media Suite 12, its vast and comprehensive collection of playback, editing and convent creation tools.

Highlights include new support for creating and playing back UltraHD 4K Video. The suite can now also play and convert H.265 content, and CyberLink claims new 64-bit video and photo editing engines deliver 3x faster rendering speed over the 32-bit versions.

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It's hard to believe it's already that time, but NFL training camps begin opening over the next couple of weeks. It's also the time when, traditionally, DirecTV subscribers grab Sunday Ticket, as there are usually early-bird prices.

This year, though, you may just be able to snag a subscription to the Ticket, without being a customer of the satellite provider. Stipulations for this abound.

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The large number of devices out there means that Android is becoming an increasingly popular target for malware writers. Ransomware which has previously been a mainly Windows problem is becoming an issue too.

The latest piece of malware discovered by mobile security specialist Lookout attempts to extort money with a scary message claiming to be from the FBI. It claims the user has broken the law by visiting pornography and child abuse websites.

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Google has unveiled Chrome 36 FINAL for Windows, Mac and Linux, with Chrome for Android 36 rolling out shortly. The desktop update adds a couple of user interface tweaks under the label "rich notifications improvements".

It also updates the incognito browsing page, adds a browser crash recovery bubble that could help prevent data loss and extends the Chrome App Launcher to Linux, plus adds various under-the-hood tweaks.

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Today, as part of an expected restructuring plan, Microsoft announces that it will cut 18,000 jobs within a year. The company claims this move will "simplify its organization and align the recently acquired Nokia Devices and Services business with the company's overall strategy". Yes, basically, Microsoft wants to get rid of excess employees, and the software giant is doing so following Satya Nadella's last memo to employees.

Of the 18,000 jobs to be cut, 12,500 positions are to be eliminated as a direct result of its deal with Nokia. The job cuts are not expected to be carried out completely until the end of June, 2015, and will cost Microsoft between $1.1 and $1.6 billion, which includes between $750 and $800 million in severance packages. The writing has been on the wall since the Devices and Services purchase was finalized earlier this year.

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Microsoft has introduced Preview for Developers to give Windows Phone users early access to new releases, specifically betas, of the tiled operating mobile system. The program is also supposed to ensure a seamless upgrade path to the official firmware, once it is available.

While I have had no issues upgrading to an official firmware ever since I started using Preview for Developers in late-2013, it looks like there might be a problem in upgrading to Lumia Cyan for those of us who have relied on the program to install Windows Phone 8.1.

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Microsoft is the master of product placement. Watch almost any American-made TV show and at some point it’s likely one of the characters will whip out their Windows Phone, fire up their Surface, or use Windows 8.x. No one in those shows ever seems to own an iPad or an Android phone, which is odd considering that in the real world, most people do.

I caught up with the latest episode of CBS show Under the Dome last night, and for a brief moment thought I was watching an advert for Surface, so prevalent was Microsoft’s slate. The problem was… [spoilers ahead]

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PassMark Software has announced the release of OSForensics 3.0, a major update for its excellent PC investigation suite.

A stack of new viewers tell you more about your target system. The Prefetch viewer reveals when (and how frequently) applications have been run; the ThumbCache viewer displays thumbnails cached by Explorer, and the ESE Database viewer gives access to a host of low-level Windows information.

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Top Android manufacturers have made a habit of releasing smaller versions of their flagship smartphones. Samsung is doing it. HTC is doing it as well. And LG is no exception. But, unlike its fellow vendors, it is not calling it a "mini". Meet G3 Beat.

Also unlike Samsung and HTC, which give their mini-flagships small displays, LG opts for a 5-inch panel; it is as large as what One (M8) offers and not that much smaller than what Galaxy S5 comes with. Let us take a look at what G3 Beat has to offer.

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As businesses face new challenges from employees use of public cloud services along with demands to allow BYOD use, they're increasingly looking for ways to monitor and control the activity of staff on the web.

We spoke to Brian Azzopardi, founder and CEO of web filtering specialist Rawstream about how enterprises can meet these new demands and why existing products aren’t always up to the task.

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French developer David Thoirin has released FotoSketcher 2.90, an update to his freeware Windows program for transforming digital photos into works of art.

The major new feature is a second watercolor effect (Edit > Drawing Parameters > Painting 9), which Thoirin has described as using "a loose style (with transparency)… based on a new segmentation algorithm".

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