Whether you like poetry or not, you've probably seen or heard about Gary Turk's "Look Up" -- a video that laments Generation Y's constant lust for information from Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and other social media on mobile devices.

Since being uploaded to YouTube on 25 April, Look Up has racked up over 29 million views and divided opinion across the net as to whether we're drowning ourselves in a pool of useless notifications, or actually an empowered and more socialized society due to our circles of Internet friends.

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Microsoft officially announced Windows Phone 8.1 at the Build conference in early-April, and later released a preview build to developers and early adopters. The new iteration of the tiled smartphone operating system comes with important new features and improvements over its aging predecessor, among which being the much-awaited notification center and the Cortana personal assistant. The upgrade has yet to be rolled out to Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

As it is gearing up for the public availability of the OS, Microsoft has detailed some of the most important changes it introduced in Internet Explorer 11 for Windows Phone 8.1. By the looks of it, the browser is finally able to rival what the likes of Chrome offer on competing platforms.

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Google acquired smart hardware company Nest Labs at the beginning of the year as part of its move into the home. The Internet of Things is set to be big in the coming years, and Google inevitably wants a slice of that pie.

A new site, Google Nest, has been launched that showcases a number of new Google products created off the back of that purchase, and which are "for living life on the web with ease and comfort" while at the same time restoring "confidence in the opportunities the internet offers". The new products are Google Trust, Google Hug, Google Bee and Google Bye. It all looks very convincing, but it’s actually a parody site set up to take a well-aimed shot at Google’s sometimes questionable policies and practices.

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Nokia XL is part of a highly-anticipated Android lineup the Finnish company unveiled in late-February, before the sale of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft. It is targeted at the entry-level smartphone market, and sports a look similar to more upscale Lumia handsets.

Stephen Elop, former Nokia CEO and current head of Microsoft's Devices and Studios division, has said the software giant would remain committed to the X lineup (despite the role it plays in the Windows Phone market), following the sale's completion. That makes Microsoft an Android vendor (one of many). And with the availability of the Android device in the two extra regions, the software giant is not hindering the smartphone's chances of success.

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WiggleGif is a $0.99 Windows 8 app which can give your images a fun animated 3D effect (look right for an example).

While this can look quite sophisticated, the underlying principles are very basic. There’s no clever combining of multiple images here, WiggleGif generates the different views itself and exports the results as an animated GIF.

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Microsoft's timing on a blog post released today, provocatively titled "Outlook Web App provides more efficient calendar delegation and management than Gmail," is rather ironic. That's because I was gathering some thoughts on the areas in which this tool still needs improvement and is lacking. So while Microsoft is busy tooting it's own horn, I'm going to turn up the heat a bit for a reality check on the part of 365 I spend the most time in daily, which is OWA.

Don't get me wrong -- I absolutely love OWA in Office 365 and have been using it primetime since my IT company ditched Google Apps late last year. But it's not without its rough edges.

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Apple's iWatch is becoming more strongly rumored as the months pass, but Microsoft could also enter the smartwatch arena -- we've previously heard plenty of speculation on this front, and now a patent for such a watch has been spotted.

The watch has fitness and health capabilities -- heart rate monitoring and all the usual gubbins such as calories burned -- and there's a twist to the design whereby the watch body can be detached from the strap, and then used with other hardware. For example, it could be docked with other fitness-related devices to share data.

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If you've just crawled from beneath a rock then you may not be aware that Chairman Wheeler, head of the Federal Communications Commission, is proposing new rules regarding net neutrality. The current chairman is a former lobbyist and certainly can expect to land a posh position when his tenure ends. While that is Washington DC politics in a nutshell, it doesn't mean things must remain status quo.

Before getting to the open letter in question, a bit of background is in order. First, you can find the organization's "open internet" guidelines here. However, it is not all what it appears to be on the surface. The proposal from Tom Wheeler gives service providers, the likes of 600 pound gorilla Comcast, the right to prioritize traffic. This is something the cable/ISP companies have been doing for sometime in a successful effort to get money from places like Netflix.

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Besides being stable and versatile, Linux-based operating systems are very customizable too. You see, most distributions allow you to customize the UI by selecting different environments. While GNOME, KDE and Unity are a few of the popular environments, there are many others as well.

Two such less-known, but well-respected environments are LXDE and Razor-qt. Surprisingly, last year, the projects decided to merge. It makes sense, as they  both share the focus of being lightweight and functional. Today, the fruition of their merger goes public -- LXQt 0.7.0.

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Your mom is a lovely lady, I'm sure. Let us not forget that she carried you in her womb for nine or so months. She went through the pain of birth for you. If you are reading BetaNews, there is a good chance that you are really smart and have a huge cranium. Imagine the agony she endured!

So, what are you buying her for Mother's Day this year? I hope you didn't forget -- it is this upcoming Sunday. Hell, if you have kids you need to buy your wife or baby-mama a gift too. This year, you could get the moms in your life a gift card to Walmart or a massaging foot-bath, but come on, that is just weak. This year, man-up and get the lady an HTC One M8. Tomorrow, HTC will be selling it for half off.

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Heartbleed was a security nightmare that caught the technology world unaware and unprepared. There was a good deal of panicking in the immediate aftermath, but looking back a month down the line there is a lot to learn from what happened. But perhaps the most important thing is what happens moving forward.

Post-Heartbleed, Joe Siegrist, CEO for LastPass has a series of tips for companies to help protect data and improve privacy.

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There’s a peering crisis apparently happening right now among American Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and backbone providers according to a blog post this week from backbone company Level3 that I am sure many of you have read. The gist of it is that six major ISPs of the 51 that peer with Level3 have maxed-out their interconnections and are refusing to do the hardware upgrades required to support the current level of traffic. The result is that packets are being dropped, porn videos are stuttering, and customers are being ill-served. I know exactly what’s going on here and also how to fix it, pronto.

The problem is real and Level3′s explanation is pretty much on target. It’s about money and American business, because this is a peculiarly American problem. Five of the six unnamed ISPs are American and -- given that Level3 also said they are the ones that typically get the lowest scores for customer service (no surprise there, eh?) we can guess at least some of the names. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s 2013 report (the latest available with a new one due any day now) the worst ISPs in America are -- from worst to less bad but still lousy -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, AT&T U-verse, Cox Communications, and Verizon FiOS. That’s seven companies and since Level3 says only five are creating this peering problem then two in there are off-the-hook but still not the best at what they do.

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Robots are pretty darn cool. For many years, humans have dreamed of a future where robots can do their work and chores, leaving more time for leisure. Unfortunately, many science-fiction books and movies predict that robots will eventually become self aware and kill us all. I don't believe in such ominous predictions, however. No, I think those fictional stories are simply the byproduct of fear of change.

Instead, robots should be a fun use of science and engineering. With that said, Microsoft recently tapped the Xbox Team for the Build for Good LEGO MINDSTORMS Robo Competition. Using three LEGO Mindstorm robots, five Windows Phones, and a Surface Pro, they created a rather epic Zoo Tycoon presentation.

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A new campaign called "Reset the Net" has been gaining ground in recent days, with major privacy pressure groups coming out in full support of its mission.

More than 30 of the groups, including Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, Reddit, Free Press and the Libertarian Party, have set June 5 as the day to "Reset the Net" by deploying new privacy tools and enhanced security solutions.

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PC manufacturers' priorities baffle me. For years I bitched about OEMs shipping laptops with low-resolution screens -- even Apple. Sony is, or was, the exception but offering the feature for a price premium. My first 13.3-inch notebook with HD resolution (1600 by 900) was a VAIO. In 2006! Apple only followed the Japanese company six years later. The screen is the gateway to your computer, so why do so many OEMs ship cheap displays? For Macs and many Windows PCs, panels are brighter, if not higher-res, today. But not Chromebooks, even as prices push against the $299 threshold and pop above it.

Yesterday's Intel-Google event was an eye opener, or perhaps eye-strainer for anyone looking for Chromebooks with better screens. During the Q&A, PC execs dodged a couple questions about the displays, the majority of which are 1366 x 768 resolution and dim 200-nit brightness. Resolution matters less when panels are bright and deliver consistent color and contrast from wide viewing angles. Chromebooks consistently ship with the best keyboards on any laptop for any price, and the trackpads are exceptional, too. The displays suck. Only two models are good enough. Most newer models change nothing.

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