It's been a scant few days since US Justice Department relented, somewhat, on the restrictions placed upon companies in regards to the secret court order to hand over the data of customers. The ruling opened things up a bit, but in the opinion of some, it failed to go far enough.

Now Twitter is standing up to the powers that be and speaking its mind. "[...] we think it is essential for companies to be able to disclose numbers of national security requests of all kinds -- including national security letters and different types of FISA court orders -- separately from reporting on all other requests", says Jeremy Kesel, the manager of Global Legal Policy for the social network.

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For someone looking to begin a Linux journey, quite often, the first leg of it involves Ubuntu. Sure, there are many other distributions, but none can match it in popularity or ease of use. While my personal preference is Fedora, I concede that Ubuntu is probably more suitable for the majority of desktop users.

Last year, despite its failed crowd funding campaign, Canonical managed to make waves by introducing the concept for an Ubuntu smartphone. Of course, no matter how great the device is on paper, if carriers don't support it, it is pretty much dead in the water. Today, the Ubuntu phone project gains an important ally in Vodafone.

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At first glance DriveInfo looks like another very ordinary system monitoring gadget, this time listing every drive on your system, with its free and total space. Not exactly impressive, especially as it didn’t even get all these figures right for us (a 3TB network drive was reported as -1346.80GB).

It seems the developer has realized that users need more from their gadgets, though, and in response he’s equipped DriveInfo with a host of additional features and tools.

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Unbelievably it’s been a year since Microsoft launched modern.IE, a collection of free tools designed to help reduce the amount of time web developers spend on testing their creations. modern.IE offers over 90 virtual machines, a code scanner, three months of BrowserStack, tech teardowns of Microsoft’s Rethink experiences (including NORAD Tracks Santa, Hover, Contre Jour) and more.

To coincide with its first anniversary, Microsoft announces that it has saved developers over a million hours. In case you’re wondering how the tech giant arrived at this rather massive figure, Jason McConnell, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, explains:

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While some people simply live in a country, others actually love it too. Love of one's country is a noble thing and there are many ways to express it -- waving flags, singing songs and so on. The impending Olympics will likely produce an increase in patriotic gestures, as people root for their country in the games.

Logitech announces a new way to express patriotism -- with a mouse. No, the company doesn't want you to dress up a furry critter to look like Ben Franklin -- we are talking computer mice. The manufacturer unveils some flag-designed input devices that allow you to represent your country.

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Hot on the heels of the underwhelming appearance of Firefox 27.0 FINAL, Mozilla has released Firefox 28.0 Beta 1 and Firefox Aurora 29.0a2, both of which come with the promise of significant new features and changes.

First up is the debut of Firefox for Windows 8 touch, which has migrated across to the beta channel for the first time, while Aurora ships with a brand new user interface (Australis) and revamped tool for syncing settings between multiple computers and devices.

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Mobile development specialist raw engineering saw its built.io backend as a service product come out of beta in November.

It's now announced a partnership with front end developer tool Xamarin to give users a complete development solution whilst making built.io’s functions available to existing Xamarin clients.

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The struggling musician is an almost iconic figure in today's culture. For every one that makes it, thousands sadly fail. Having talent is obviously the biggest key to success, but even that sometimes isn't enough. It needs to be combined with a bit of luck to get noticed.

Pandora wants to try and help open doors for these folks by getting their music out into the world and into the ears of potential fans. Today the streaming service unveils its new Open Music Submission Process. "Our goal is to enable every talented artist to reach the audience they deserve, without regard to the style of their music or their popularity", says Pandora founder Tim Westegren.

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In tech, subscriptions are all the rage today. This business practice allows companies to have a steadier flow of revenue, as opposed to the traditional (in this field, anyway) one-time payment model. At the same time, consumers can pay less at once in exchange for upscale services and products. Just take a look at Microsoft Office 365. It costs $99.99 per year for a suite that consumers would have to pay at least twice as much to buy outright (not to mention that the former can be installed on four more devices, and it offers exceedingly more features).

US retailer Newegg has decided that it too wants a piece of the subscription revenue pie, as it just launched Premier. The $49.99 per year service is similar to Amazon Prime, albeit cheaper compared to the $79 charged by its rival. It is also currently in beta, most likely for Newegg to gauge customer feedback and adoption before labeling it as ready for prime time (or, maybe, pulling the plug).

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BT has introduced a 3.5-inch touchscreen smartphone that runs on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, but it's designed to be used in the home.

The Home SmartPhone S comes with 2GB expandable memory for storing music and photos, a front-facing camera and Wi-Fi connectivity. Facebook and Twitter are pre-installed and you can download further apps via Google Play and Opera mobile store.

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Many businesses are still unsure of the benefits of allowing BYOD despite the fact that it's reckoned 59 percent of people using BYOD get more work done on their own device. So what are the main factors involved?

BYOD implementation expert Moka5 has put together an infographic showing the top three drivers and barriers to companies investing in the technology.

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Google Glass is about to end its prototype phase, yet popular opinion and the device’s app ecosystem are struggling.

This coming spring will see widespread consumer access to the much-hyped wearable computer, which will hopefully lead to an increase of intuitive apps. Analysts have stated that such technology will have trouble in the consumer space due to the lack of selection at the moment. Surprisingly, counter to the common progression of technology from consumers to the enterprise, wearable technology will potentially be more successful as a business tool than a consumer gadget.

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Boris Eyrich Software has updated its popular paint tool Artweaver to version 4.5.

The new build improves integration with ArtweaverTeam.com, the companion site where several Artweaver users can collaborate on projects. The Uploader plugin is now installed by default, making it easier to get started, while team status messages are more clearly displayed on a separate status bar.

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If you are currently toting around an Apple iPhone 4 or 4s, or a Samsung Galaxy S2, then you are likely aware that it's time for an upgrade. While many on Apple and Android platforms will probably stick with what they know, Microsoft is hoping it can win a few of you over.

For a limited time the company is offering a trade-in deal. Customers who bring in an iPhone 4 or 4s or Galaxy S2 can walk out with a new Nokia Lumia 1020 or 1520 at no cost.

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Installing a reliable antivirus package is a key part of maintaining your PC’s security, but there’s more you can do. It’s just as important to ensure you keep up-to-date with the latest software patches, blocking security vulnerabilities before malware can exploit them.

SecPod Saner is a free tool which can help automate this process by scanning applications, highlighting missing security patches, and even downloading and installing them for you.

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