New Zealand-based MEGA has launched MEGAsync 1.0 FINAL for Windows, the first stable release in a planned trio of desktop tools (Mac and Linux versions are promised soon) giving MEGA account holders access to their cloud-based files via their computers. It follows the launch of the mobile MEGA app for Android and iOS.

MEGA -- which includes Kim Dotcom among its founders -- offers robust, secure cloud storage using 2048-bit RSA encryption. It also offers a generous free 50GB of storage space, with paid-for plans offering up to 4TB secure storage with extended bandwidth (up to 8TB/month).

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If you’re working on the PC and would like a little background noise then you could launch your media player, stream something from the web, maybe just turn on the TV. These options could be a little distracting, though, making it more difficult to concentrate on your main tasks.

Atmosphere Lite takes a more effective approach. Much like Sound Valley, which we reviewed last November, it works by generating custom nature-based ambient soundscapes, like a forest stream, a woodland campfire, the ocean’s edge and more. You get the background noise you need, but it doesn’t demand your attention: it’s relaxing, more than distracting.

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In March 2013, popular note-taking service Evernote announced a partnership with German mobile operator Deutsche Telekom which would enable the latter's subscribers to receive free access, for one year, to the Evernote Premium plan. First available only in Germany, the offer is now extending to 12 more European countries.

There is a caveat, however. While German subscribers have been able to benefit from 12 months of free Evernote Premium, the Deutsche Telekom customers in the additional eligible countries -- Albania, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia -- only get half as much (six months).

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New research by Gartner predicts that over the next few years mobile apps will become the most popular computing tools across the globe.

It says that by 2017 mobile apps will be downloaded more than 268 billion times, generating a revenue of over $77 billion. As a result it predicts that mobile users will provide personalized data streams to more than 100 apps and services every day.

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What do you get after taking out the cellular prowess from a very, very large smartphone? The answer would be a tablet, albeit one that falls on the smaller side. It is exactly what Japanese maker Sony has done with its Xperia Z Ultra, which will be available in a Wi-Fi only version this week.

For those unfamiliar with the Xperia Z Ultra, the device was announced in the first half of 2013 with a 6.44-inch display, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and 4G LTE/HSPA+ cellular connectivity, as the main selling points.

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Imagenator is a portable, open-source tool for converting digital images between various formats: BMP, EXR, GIF, HDR, ICO, J2K, JP2, JPG, PBM/ PGM/ PPM (both RAW and ASCII), PFN, PNG, TGA, TIF, WAP, XPM.

The program supports a range of format-specific options. Export to ICO, say, and you can select an icon resolution from 16×16 to 256×256; JPEGs have Quality and Subsampling options; EXRs give you control over image compression (you can choose lossy, lossless, or none at all), and more.

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Last week the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia shot holes in the US Federal Communications Commission’s version of net neutrality saying the Commission was wrong not in trying to regulate Internet Service Providers but in trying to regulate them as Common Carriers, that is as telephone utilities.

The FCC can’t have it both ways, said the Court, and so the Feds get to try all over again. Or will they? I think events are moving so quickly that by the time this particular argument is worked out all the players will have changed and the whole argument may be moot.

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Independent testing lab AV-Test has revealed its list of the best security solutions for Windows 8.1, according to the company’s November/December 2013 tests.

Six suites were locked at top of the list for protection with maximum 100 percent scores in both months: F-Secure Internet Security 2014, Norton Internet Security 2014, Bitdefender Internet Security 2014, Avira Internet Security 2014 and -- after topping the AV-Comparatives table last month -- Kaspersky Internet Security 2014.

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Windows Phone 8 smartphones are wonderful devices -- except for the underlying operating system. While I actually like the OS, it still has a long way to go (notification center, hello!?).

Sales have been decent in some European countries, mostly due to the low cost. However, these things are hardly flying off the shelves. With that said, one user has found a way to make them fly -- literally, like...in the air.

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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates appeared on Bloomberg Television today to discuss his philanthropic work. While he was there the question of whether he would consider returning to run Microsoft full-time was raised. Gates has said previously that his future remains with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but many people -- including our own Robert Cringely -- would like to see him emulate Steve Jobs and return to once again helm the company he co-founded.

Given how the search for a new CEO is dragging on, and Ford’s Alan Mulally, the most fancied candidate by far, ruled himself out recently, it seemed a possibility that Gates might step in at least temporarily, but judging from his answers that doesn’t appear to be the case.

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Need a free remote access tool? Any day now your number of choices drops by one as the free version of LogMeIn will soon be no more. In a statement posted to the management section of its website, LogMeIn announces that LogMeIn Free is "going away".

Like a gentle parent euphemistically softening the blow about a departed pet or loved one having "gone to sleep", LogMeIn is using this terminology to usher in the news that if you want to keep using its products, you're going to have to pay.

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The primary focus of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was very much on wearable technology. 2014 may not be the year when wearables hit the mainstream, but it’s clear this is where the future is headed with new smartwatches, smart glasses, fitness bands and the like being developed to keep us constantly connected.

The Wearable Technology Show, being held in London on the 18 and 19 March 2014, is the UK’s first dedicated wearable technology event and its organizers have just announced the speaker lineup for the conference program.

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Most PC users need to work with PDF files, if only occasionally, and there are plenty of free tools around to help. Typically they’ll concentrate on a single function, though; just looking at their names tells you all you need to know about PDF to JPEG Expert and CHM to PDF, for instance.

PDFFill Tools is a little more ambitious, fortunately, cramming 15 functions into a single small and entirely free program. There are tools to create PDFs from images, PostScript files or direct from your scanner, and then you can add watermarks (text or image), headers or footers, merge or split the files, encrypt/ decrypt them, rotate the documents, crop them and more.

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Sandboxie Holdings, LLC has just released Sandboxie 4.08, an update to its shareware Windows sandboxing tool. The new build comes with the usual mixture of bug fixes and minor tweaks, but includes several significant improvements that should make it more reliable, particularly when run on Windows 8.1 systems.

Sandboxie’s prime purpose is to provide additional security by allowing users to run programs in an isolated environment, preventing them from making any changes to the hard drive without the user’s express consent.

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We've been focusing a lot on the decline of the PC hardware market of late, but the software spend still looks strong. The latest survey from market intelligence specialist IDC predicts that PC and Mac gamer spending will grow to over $24 billion by 2017.

It also finds that while global PC/Mac games revenue is set to grow at around four percent a year the US market will start to slip.

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