In a letter to the International Trade Commission chairman, the Honorable Irving A Williamson, the Obama administration vetoes an earlier ITC ruling that was due to block the sale of a number of Apple products. The original ruling came in June and was to prevent the sale of various products including certain models of the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2.

The letter from Ambassador Michael Froman explains that having reviewed the information surrounding the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung, he had decided to "disapprove the USITC's determination to issue an exclusion order and cease and desist order". Under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 the President is obliged to evaluate decisions made by the Commission during a 60-day review period, and in this instance the authority was passed to the USTR.

With Microsoft's recently-announced reversal of its anti-consumer DRM policies for the Xbox One, the next gen console war has suddenly been brought back to a level playing field. It's no longer a battle of who had the upper hand at E3 this year, who does/doesn't require impractical internet connectivity 24/7, or whose specs are better on paper. The most hated DRM underpinnings on the Xbox One have been unequivocally rescinded, meaning that we can finally have an honest discussion of what the two next gen consoles will offer apples-to-apples.

While Sony has been squarely riding its momentum on cruise control since E3 this year, trying to keep the debate on its terms after usurping Microsoft in the opinion war, reality is coming back into the middle ground finally. And seeing that we are just months away from these hotly anticipated console launches, Microsoft is slowly unraveling its winning plans for the Xbox One.

I once worked with a manager who, as a joke, sent a nasty reply to an email from the training department -- the trainer was her friend and would get the joke. The problem was, she accidentally clicked "reply all", sending the message to 5,000 people company-wide. Its an error we make from time to time, and it can be something that makes us wish to crawl beneath the desk and hide.

Microsoft aims to help prevent this embarrassment, but takes a slightly different approach with its new NoReplyAll add-on for Outlook. The twist? The sender has to enable it.

We've all done it -- put our hands to our pocket only to discover that the phone we thought was pressed close to our body is in fact missing. But where? That's the question. Android Device Manager is Google's latest solution to help you hunt out your hidden handset.

You could get a friend to call your phone -- that would seem like the obvious thing to do. But it's no help if you have put your phone into silent mode. Android Device Manager is able to call your phone and make it sound, even if the volume is turned down, so you can quickly determine if your Droid is nestling down in the back of the sofa or in the back of your car.

Bloggers rejoice: WordPress 3.6 has been released, sporting the name "Oscar" and including a number of major new features to excite users. The open-source CMS system gains new features for both users and developers, including built-in HTML5 media player and new audio/video API.

The new release is joined by a brand new theme -- Twenty Thirteen -- that provides a modern-art inspired, single-column layout that’s designed to work across mobile and desktop platforms. Sidebars and widgets have been moved into the footer, and it comes with support for Genericon font-based icons.

Fortieth in a series. This week I have both good news and bad news for you. As far as the bad news goes, it was one of the weakest app growth weeks in the history of the Windows 8 operating system. The new application count fell under the 2,000 mark this week, but not only that, it barely made the 1,000 new apps mark.

77,787 apps are listed in the US Windows Store at the time of writing, only 1,019 apps more than last week. The free app count in the store increased by 759 apps to a total of 59,988, while paid apps increased by only 250 to 17,626.

Office 365 has become a bit of a strange concept -- there is the original web-based version, as well as the newer desktop Home Premium iteration that functions as standard Office 2013, though with added benefits. Now the software maker is introducing Message Center to its web version of the suite.

The latest update is described by Microsoft's Jake Zborowski as "a new admin feature for communications. Message Center will help inform Office 365 admins about new features and actions they need to take to keep their Office 365 service running smoothly".

A special committee of the Dell board has reached an agreement with the company’s founder Michael Dell over a buyout of the company.

Under the agreed terms Mr Dell, in partnership with the investment firm Silver Lake, will buy back the company he founded in 1984 for $13.75 a share plus a special one-off dividend of 13 cents per share. This is in addition to a guaranteed third quarter dividend of 8 cents per share. The deal which values the company at $24.5 billion will be put to a special shareholder meeting on September 12.

Jelly Bean continues its dominance streak in the green droid distribution charts, with Android 4.1 alone surpassing the former ruler, Gingerbread, based on the number of devices visiting Google Play during the 14 days ending August 1.

In the latest charts, combined, the first two Jelly Bean iterations, Android 4.1 (34 percent) and Android 4.2 (6.5 percent), reached a 40.5 percent distribution level, which represents a 2.6 percentage points increase (from 37.9 percent) over the previous data set from early-July. By contrast, Gingerbread (versions 2.3 to 2.3.7), accounted for a lesser 33.1 percent share, which is one percent lower compared to the numbers -- 34.1 percent -- released a month ago.

You’ve come up with an important business proposal, and want to share your ideas with someone else. You could just mail them a PDF document with the details, but if the deal falls through, there’s no way to control what happens to the file later.

Protect that document with the free SmartRM, though, and it’s a very different story. You can decide who opens it, when, how many times, whether they can print it, and more. And if there are problems, then you can restrict or block access in just a few seconds -- even after you’ve sent them the file.

It may not be an update that will set the world on fire, but it's one that will be welcomed by anyone who manages a personal and a work Twitter account. The Window 8 version of the app now includes support for multiple accounts, so there's no need to keep signing in and out.

This is good news not only for tweeters who use Twitter for business and pleasure, but also those who just like to maintain more than one persona online. Other additions to the app include list support for easier management of the accounts you follow.

Goversoft’s excellent privacy and system cleanup tool PrivaZer has today been updated to version 2.0.0, with a range of additions and improvements making it now more thorough than ever.

Enhanced Chrome cleanup sees the program now wipe the browser’s omnibox history, for instance, along with its stored passwords, download history and journals.

Internet Explorer might no longer hold 96 percent of the browser market like it did back in 2002, but Microsoft’s browser still remains hugely popular. Firefox and Chrome took large bites out of IE’s dominance, but they have yet to topple it, and don’t look set to do so any time soon.

According to new figures from Net Applications, Internet Explorer 8 is the most popular browser on the desktop with 23.52 percent global market share. And it’s not the only incarnation of IE in the top five either.

I've long been a believer that a judgement gap, influenced largely by negative media coverage, is what continues to hold back cloud adoption among small organizations. And judging from the results of a recent study completed by comScore, my intuition has been fairly on track. The biggest issue surrounding cloud uptake, at least for small businesses worldwide, seems to be none other than an issue of perception.

How so? The study, which surveyed companies with between 25 to 499 computers in the USA, Germany, France, and the UK, found that 42 percent of small businesses which had yet to adopt cloud technologies were concerned about reliability/uptime. Likewise, a full 60 percent had cited issues with data security as reasoning for staying cloud-free.

When Google bought Motorola, the Android community was abuzz with excitement. Motorola is a world renowned class-leader in quality. With that in mind, the world waited for a mythical and epic smartphone to be released as a result of the marriage. Unfortunately, while Motorola did release great phones such as the Droid Razr HD, these were not the Droids we were looking for. Today, Google and Motorola announce the Moto X, hoping to deliver on the high expectations.

The tagline for this new smartphone is "All Yours" -- this is because you can customize the phone to your liking. According to Motorola, the smartphone "...is truly yours, because you design it. Through our online studio, Moto Maker, you choose the colors, and decide on the details: front, back, accents, memory, wallpapers, even add a name or a short message. When you are done, we assemble your Moto X right here in the USA and ship it to you for free in four days or less. Choose from more than 2,000 possible combinations, with more to come. We’ll be constantly exploring new offerings, such as real wood backs, starting later in the year".