When I boarded the train earlier this morning to go to the Surface Event in NYC, I had small expectations. Let me clarify -- small but not low. In other words, I was expecting a Surface Mini. Truth be told, I wasn't overly excited about yet another small tablet (manufacturers are already doing a good job with them). However, despite my trepidation about a small tablet, I was excited because it would have been a Surface, which is known for high quality. Plus, there were rumors about a new Surface Pro 3, and that had me giddy.

Imagine my surprise, when internet rumors about the Surface Pro turned out to be true and the Surface Mini was vaporware. I was front row today while watching Satya Nadella and Panos Panay unveil the Surface Pro 3 and I was smiling ear to ear the entire time. Not only was the tablet amazing, but so too was the presentation. It was very Steve Jobs-esque, which is rather appropriate. Today, Microsoft is finally a step ahead of Apple with devices. The magic has left California and gone to Washington. Here are some of my first impressions of the game-changing laptop/tablet PC hybrid.

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Cisco's head has called on President Barack Obama to stop bugging his company's networking equipment.

John Chambers was reacting to the emergence of pictures showing National Security Agency (NSA) workers breaking open Cisco networking equipment in order to install surveillance tools in them. These devices would subsequently be resealed and sent out to customers, including Internet service providers and other major tech companies.

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Google has acquired Quest Visual and its top translator app Word Lens, according to a statement on the Quest Visual site.

One immediate benefit for everyone is that the app -- and its language packs -- are now free to download, although apparently "for a limited time" only.

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Google yn dod i ysgolion Cymru. Google continues to battle Windows and Office 365, trying to get its own products adopted in the market, focusing on education, business and governments. And Chromebooks have made inroads in this area.

Now the search giant announces it has scored a victory in Wales, bringing its platform to schools within the nation. "Around the world, schools are finding innovative ways to use technology to break down the traditional walls of the classroom, while overcoming the challenges of higher academic standards and tighter budgets. Today, we’re pleased to share the stories from two schools in Wales who’ve gone Google to help them meet the demands of a modern-day education system" says Liz Sproat, head of education at Google.

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Goldilocks knocks on Apple's door looking for the right mobile device. She first picks up iPad Air, which with 9.7-inch screen is too big. Then she tries 4-inch iPhone 5s, but it's too small. Finally she grabs iPad mini, thinking the 7.9-inch display is just right. But unlike the fairy tale, Goldilocks is disappointed. She drops the tablet, goes next door to Samsung's house, and takes the Galaxy Note 3, which at 5.7 inches -- and with stylus -- is just right.

There's a gaping hole in Apple's product line -- and one CEO Tim Cook better quickly fix. Through it sales leak to competitors, but into a category where Apple doesn't compete. Tech-Thoughts analyst Sameer Singh observes about first calendar quarter global handsets: "As of now, we can assume that ~20 percent of all smartphones shipped have screen sizes large enough to become acceptable substitutes for tablet computing tasks".

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After Edward Snowden’s many (and on-going) revelations, it’s easy to think there’s not much you can really do to avoid being spied upon or prevent your communications potentially being monitored. Of course you probably don’t have much to hide, and therefore what you say isn’t likely to be of major interest to the NSA or other snoopers, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least try to maintain a degree of privacy where possible.

SRD Wireless has today announced the launch of PQChat, a free app for iOS based on SRD’s own Never-The-Same (NTS) encryption which protects data using the McEliece cryptosystem, the strongest currently known, and which has never been broken (as far as anyone is aware, at least).

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Anyone who regularly reads my handset reviews will know how important the Motorola Moto G has been. Since last November it has overshadowed every phone aiming at the £150 price range, and quite a lot priced a fair bit higher. Now Motorola wants the Moto E to achieve the same kind of dominance -- this time at the entry-level end of the phone market. The Moto E can be yours for £89 SIM-free.

By modern standards this is a small handset -- its screen is only 4.3-inches. It is amazing how much the landscape has changed over the last few years, so that a 4.3-inch phone seems small and 5-inch feels like the optimum size.

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Romanian developer IcoFX Software has released IcoFX 2.7 and IcoFX Portable 2.7, a minor update to its commercial icon-editing tool for Windows.

Version 2.7 adds three new tools to the Adjustment menu, plus refines the existing crop tool. It also introduces two new options, a shortcut key for quickly deleting sections and fixes a number of known bugs.

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Although there's greater awareness of the risks that insiders pose to information security, many companies still struggle with how to control them.

The findings of a new report by defense systems and cyber security company Raytheon, show that people with access to privileged data such as health care records, sensitive company information, intellectual property or personal records frequently put that information at risk.

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Rdio is one of the fastest growing music streaming services on the market these days. The company is trying to keep pace with a number of rivals in the increasingly competitive field of internet and mobile entertainment.

Today Rdio is announcing that it's expanding to a staggering 60 nations. This is an additional nine countries being added to the existing regions, and puts the service on six different continents.

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Self-Destructing Cookies is a Firefox add-on which does a great job of controlling cookie use, without any of the complexity you’ll see in other tools.

Install the add-on and it takes immediate effect, automatically deleting a site’s regular cookies -- and its LocalStorage data -- just as soon as you close its tab.

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After Microsoft finally unveiled the highly-anticipated Windows Phone 8.1 in early-April, Nokia announced three new smartphones running the new version of the tiled operating system. Two of them, the Lumia 630 and Lumia 635, are affordable offerings meant to conquer the entry-level market, while the Lumia 930 is much more expensive, competing against other flagships like the Apple iPhone 5s and Samsung Galaxy S5.

Of the three, the Lumia 930 interests me the most as a Lumia 920 owner looking to upgrade to a new, up-to-date Windows Phone. Unlike the Lumia 630, which went on sale last week, it will hit store shelves later down the road, starting in June. But, in Europe the flagship is already available to pre-order.

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Businesses increasingly rely not just on PCs but on smartphones and other devices to access information and carry out transactions.

But this also means that they face ever more complex security threats and for smaller organizations that can be a big problem. To help protect businesses with fewer than 20 employees Symantec is launching Norton Small Business aimed at simplifying security for smaller enterprises.

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You probably already know, but Microsoft is set to announce a new Surface product today at an event in New York City. The initial rumors suggested we would be seeing a mini version of the company’s flagship Windows slate (a conclusion jumped to because the invites mentioned a "small gathering"), but latest rumblings suggest the exact opposite -- with a 12-inch Surface Pro 3 now tipped to be the product revealed on stage.

While I personally would like to see a Surface Mini, a larger Surface Pro makes a lot of sense, and will appeal to power users. At the moment no one outside of Microsoft knows for definite what to expect, but it should be very interesting nonetheless.

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As a yearly event geared towards my neck of the woods, the IT pro community (non-developers!), TechEd is the sort of Microsoft-focused conference that resonates with me. It's the one large event solely dedicated to the products and technologies I am knee deep in consulting customers on.

While most Microsoft watchers may not have caught it outright, did anyone notice the subliminal theme that arose? All of the major product announcements at the conference were planted in some facet of Microsoft's growing cloud landscape. Before anyone jumps on me for being technically inaccurate, yes, they did announce a few news items based around their traditional on-prem products.

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