Summer is vacation time in the northern hemisphere and grabbing consumer attention can be difficult at times, but comparing your tech product to misconceptions is certainly one of the more unusual ways to get noticed. Microsoft decided to go there today with a new music video as a part of the continuing "Browser You Loved To Hate" campaign.

The latest installment sees Microsoft team up with musician Laura Gibson to produce a new music video, titled "Things Aren't Always What They Seem".

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Xara Group has announced the release of Xara Designer Pro X9 ($299), the latest edition of its all-in-one photo editing, web design, illustration and desktop publishing tool. It’s a significant upgrade, too, with worthwhile new features everywhere you look.

The Photo Editor now includes an easy-to-use Background Erase tool, for instance, which helps you quickly cut a complex object out of a photo (a person, say), ready for placing elsewhere. The Healing tool seamlessly removes unwanted defects or objects from your photos, while the program’s effects options have been extended with eleven new Photo FX Plug-ins.

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Finnish maker Nokia announced, on Tuesday, that its HERE Drive, Drive+ and Transit Windows Phone 8 apps will receive an update later this week, which adds new navigation tools and improves the user interface.

HERE Drive and Drive+ get the most noteworthy enhancements, with the latest versions introducing an overview of traffic conditions in surrounding user areas and My Commute, a new feature which allows folks to view the estimated time of arrival to a set destination on the adjacent live tile.

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Jelly Bean is currently the most popular Android distribution, finally surpassing long-time ruler Gingerbread, based on the number of devices visiting Google Play during the 14 days ending July 8.

Jelly Bean (the first and second iteration) accounts for 37.9 percent (32.3 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively) of all Android devices, besting Gingerbread's 34.1 percent distribution level. The latest sweet in the family also outpaced its predecessor, Ice Cream Sandwich, which currently ranks as the third most popular version with 23.3 percent share.

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Twitter has updated both its iOS and Mac apps with the release of Twitter 5.8 for iPhone and iPad, and Twitter 2.3 for Mac. Both apps now correctly synchronize the read status of Direct Messages, which means when a DM is read on one platform, it will automatically be marked as read on others too, including TweetDeck 3.0.5 for Windows and Twitter 4.0.2 for Android.

Both updates also come with the promise of minor improvements and tweaks too, such as making it easier to join conversations via the iPhone app and richer search results that alert the user to new tweets matching their search terms.

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On 4 July, the founder of PRserve, Chris Barrett videoed an arrest that followed a fist fight on the Jersey Shore boardwalk.

We live in a world where such actions are routinely recorded on smartphones and uploaded to YouTube, but what makes Chris’s video unusual is he used Google Glass to film it.

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Leading web host company 1&1 Internet has launched a new cloud server package that delivers user configurable resources to bring greater efficiency to business users.

The adjustable resources -- processor cores, RAM and hard disk space -- are configurable upwards and downwards by the user at any time. This offers the capacity for a very high performance resource at a low cost. The pricing model is clearly set out with costs per hour for each core and gigabyte of RAM and disk space. Changes become active within five minutes and there's no minimum contract term involved.

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Windows utilities developer Foolish IT has released the first version of CopyToFlash, a compact and portable tool which aims to simplify the process of copying content to multiple flash drives.

Launch the program and it first you to specify the folder containing whatever files you’d like to copy, and where you’d like them to go on the destination drive.

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Yesterday Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer provided the opening remarks at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC 2013) day one keynote, taking the opportunity to hype Windows 8.1 and sell the benefits of Windows Phone.

He started the half hour keynote by thanking the 15,000 attendees in the room for their support and for taking care of Microsoft’s customers, before getting on to the subject of the company’s divisive operating system.

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What are the differences between Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers back in 1971?

Not much, really, but the distinctions that do exist are key:

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Today, at the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft announces what many suspected -- Windows 8.1 RTM is coming in August. However, what we didn't know before the announcement is that it is to be released in late August. Unfortunately, "Late August" is just too…late. Microsoft has squandered a golden marketing opportunity -- to release Windows 8.1 RTM on August 1. You see, in the United States, dates are represented by "mm/dd" format. August 1 is represented as 8/1.

To release Windows 8.1 on "8/1" would have been genius with unlimited marketing potential. However, Microsoft failing to capitalize on opportunity is nothing new lately. After all, Windows 8.1 is designed to right the perceived wrongs of Windows 8. Not to mention, the Xbox One launch has been especially fraught with wrong turns -- the console's reputation has suffered a hit from bad publicity.

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Three weeks and two thousand miles on a bicycle is something few of us could even fathom, especially over the steep peaks of the famed Pyrenees and Alps. The race may be a week into its trip around the roads of the French nation, but it is not too late to pull on your gear, take a deep breath and see what it is like to wrest this year's title away from potential winner Chris Froome before the famed race reaches its conclusion on hallowed Champs-Elysées.

Now Google unveils your opportunity to ride along over the mountain passes and down the narrow streets where sprint finishes are frequently decided and carnage is never far off.

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As the Microsoft mobile ecosystem grows, more popular apps are finding their way into the Windows Phone store. The platform now boasts top-notch games like Angry Birds and Temple Run, as well as video services like Hulu. While customers can get their music fix from apps such as Nokia Music (if you have a Nokia phone), competition and options are good.

Now Spotify makes its official debut in the Windows Phone world. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president and manager for Windows Phone Program Management, tweeted "Hey music lovers... today #Spotify for #WP8 is out of beta! A big update: more languages, offline playlist improvements, track scrubbing".

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A study unveiled at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston shows that partners with more than half their revenue related to the cloud had higher gross profits, more new customers and faster business growth.

The study by IDC goes to highlight the changes taking place in the business world as more organizations shift their systems to the cloud rather than keeping them in house. "Cloud alone hasn't caused these impressive numbers, though that is absolutely part of it; top-performing partners were visionaries that took on cloud technologies before their peers," says Darren Bibby, program vice president of Channels and Alliances Research at IDC. "We're at the point in the industry's overall cloud transition where partners that don't move some of their business to the cloud likely won't survive. And some partners that are getting ready to sell their business or retire may be OK with that. Most won't be".

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With an increasing focus towards beefier hardware -- faster processors, more RAM, larger and higher-resolution screens -- it's easy to lose sight of an important part in having an enjoyable smartphone experience -- battery life. The sheer performance has significantly increased over time due to a drastic technological advancement in chip making, but batteries are mostly the same now as they were a couple of years ago (only bigger).

It's no surprise then that smartphones quickly run out of puff after a mere couple of hours of intense use. So what if you want a top-of-the-line handset that is also an excellent battery life performer? Well, according to Which.co.uk, you should get a Samsung Galaxy S4 and look past the Apple iPhone 5 or Nokia Lumia 920.

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