Back in August, when the weather was still warm, Microsoft announced a new contest surrounding its Bing search engine. The Hometown Homepage Photo Contest was designed to bring attention to local photographers, both amateur and professional, and provide them the opportunity to get some recognition.

The winner was chosen by the public after the Bing team narrowed the choices down to nine finalists and will receive a Nokia Lumia 1020, 500px membership, and a canvas of the image. Plus, the photograph is appearing today as Bing daily image, bringing nationwide recognition.

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When Microsoft is not attacking Google with cheesy videos and questionable statistics, the software giant is busy trying to use the search company's platforms for its own gain. While we still anxiously await the arrival of Office (without a 365 subscription) on Android, we do have OneNote and Outlook.com, the latter of which is receiving a big update today.

"Our goal is to provide our customers with the best possible email experience, delivering the features that you've been requesting. We've listened hard to the feedback from you and made several improvements that you asked for", says Microsoft's Steve Kafka.

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A company paying developers and users to discover and report bugs is not new. In fact, these bounty programs are rather widespread. Heck, Microsoft even got into the game back in June of this year. However, Google is expanding on that concept and announces that it will pay users for simply improving open-source software; such as components of the Linux kernel.

"We thought about simply kicking off an OSS bug-hunting program, but this approach can easily backfire. In addition to valid reports, bug bounties invite a significant volume of spurious traffic -- enough to completely overwhelm a small community of volunteers. On top of this, fixing a problem often requires more effort than finding it", says Michal Zalewski of the Google Security Team.

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The emergence of a generation of smart machines taking over middle-class jobs within 15-years is a "futurist fantasy" according to 60 percent of respondents to Gartner's 2013 CEO survey. However, the analysts predict the rise of smart machines will have widespread business impact within only seven years.

"Most business and thought leaders underestimate the potential of smart machines to take over millions of middle-class jobs in the coming decades," says Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner. "Job destruction will happen at a faster pace, with machine-driven job elimination overwhelming the market's ability to create valuable new ones".

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Reports from leading analysts for the third quarter of 2013 suggest that the PC market is still in decline. However, sales haven't declined as quickly as predicted.

According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker PC shipments totalled 81.6 million units in the third quarter. This represents a 7.6 percent decline over the same period last year, better than the 9.5 percent that was being predicted. IDC says the market was buoyed by business purchases plus the channel intake of Windows 8.1 systems in September.

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Let me preface this story by saying that, here at BetaNews, we have a policy against discussing rumors. Quite often some "leaked" information, provided by anonymous sources, turns out to be false, and we feel that it is best to report details that we know to be true, based on official sources that can be verified and our experience with various products. That said, I cannot help feeling surprised by what Nokia just revealed in one of its blog posts, after reading the rumor stories floating around the InterWebs.

Prior to any major press event Nokia usually posts a teaser showing a small part of an upcoming product, or a hint at what will be unveiled. This approach is designed to keep people interested, or to pique their interest at least, and add a shroud of mystery. But this time around the Finnish maker has released a full-blown poster which most likely features all the devices that the company will announce in Abu Dhabi, the place where its next big press event will be held.

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There’s no question that Windows is a lot safer now than it used to be, thanks to Microsoft adding features like automatic updates, SmartScreen, and Windows Defender to its operating systems. I wouldn’t fully trust the built-in protection as my sole line of defense, but installing security software is no longer the very first thing I do on a new PC.

Dennis Batchelder, Partner Group Program Manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, says that Microsoft remains fully committed to protecting its consumer and business customers, and highlights some of the things the company is doing behind the scenes to keep users safe.

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Cloud vendors must establish one definition for cloud to protect buyers falling foul of multiple interpretations of the technology, so says a panel of technology experts brought together by hosting company UK Fast.

With more and more providers joining the cloud market and confusion still reigning over what the term actually means, baffled buyers are at risk of paying over the odds for technology that isn't technically cloud, or worse entrusting their business data to unsuitable cloud solutions.

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MiTeC’s free and feature-packed desktop accessory MiTeC InfoBar has been updated to version 1.8.0. As usual, there are some bug fixes, but the main news in this release is the addition of a basic spreadsheet.

The new tool can be launched from the regular InfoBar menu (the star icon, top-left) or a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+S), and presents a grid in the usual spreadsheet style. It’s extremely limited -- you can’t open existing spreadsheets, there are no graphs or other extras -- but you can still start entering data right away.

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T-Mobile is taking the wraps off the next stage of its "uncarrier" program, revealing that from the end of October anyone on its Simple Choice plans are going to get something for free. Not just any old something. Free text and free unlimited data. It doesn't end there. The free offers work on a global scale, meaning that international data and texts will be free in more than 100 countries.

John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile US, Inc. says "Today's phones are designed to work around the world, but we're forced to pay insanely inflated international connectivity fees to actually use them. You can't leave the country without coming home to bill shock. So we're making the world your network -- at no extra cost".

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Independent analysis company Ovum has released a new report titled Challenges and Best Practices for Deploying Tablets in the Enterprise which finds that tablets are ever more prevalent in businesses.

It notes that as the market for tablets grows, usage of these devices is changing the way people work and is having a noticeable impact on the enterprise. Whether through units supplied by the company or BYOD, fast increasing numbers of tablets are being used to access corporate data and applications.

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In the red corner, Bing. In the blue, Google. But which is better? Microsoft launches the Bing It On campaign in the UK to enable web searchers to choose which results are best. Google is such a ubiquitous online tool that it has become a verb and entered the dictionary; it is the search engine that automatically springs to mind for most people when they need to research something.

But this does not mean that there is not room for a little competition, and this is something that Microsoft is keen to exploit with its latest campaign.

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Security vendor Webroot has announced the release of the latest updates to its SecureAnywhere product range. And while the new builds are officially described as the rather low-key "version 8.0.4.17", this is no minor upgrade: with more than 4,000 improvements across the product, many significant, it’s effectively Webroot SecureAnywhere 2014.

One particular highlight sees all SecureAnywhere editions now including real-time antiphishing. There’s no reliance on database checks to figure out whether a site is safe; SecureAnywhere analyses sites as you access them, automatically detecting and blocking anything dangerous.

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The technology community is abuzz with excitement over the next-generation of Chromebooks. Yesterday, my colleague Joe Wilcox reviewed the sexy $279 Chromebook 11 by Hewlett-Packard. Sadly, while HP's Chromebook looks great, it is very much under-powered. After all, the specs are the same as last year's Samsung model -- ARM processor and a paltry 2GB of RAM.

Today, Acer announces the C720 which undercuts the HP variant in price and trumps it in specifications.

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If you run into problems with your PC network then Windows provides a surprising number of tools to help. You’ll have to find them first, of course, and then master their various command line switches. But if that doesn’t appeal, there’s always Axence NetTools, which just might provide everything you need in one straightforward tool.

The program organizes its functions into twelve sections, each represented by a toolbar button. On first launch, say, you might click "Local info", which displays an enormous amount of information on your current network status: IP addresses, network adapters and interfaces, currently open network connections, ARP and routing data, TCP/IP statistics and more.

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