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:

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.

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.

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".

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".

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.

In the summer of 1947 an unidentified flying object reportedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico (75 miles north-west to be exact). The "event" was classified by the United States as the crash of an experimental high-altitude weather balloon, and little was made of it at the time. That changed in 1978 when the National Enquirer ran a report of the story and the tin-foil hat crowd jumped on it.

As my friend Brian Dunning, who runs the popular Skeptoid podcast and blog reports: "Stanton Friedman, an obsessed UFO [enthusiast], started interviewing everyone he could find who was still alive who had been connected with the incident and began constructing all sorts of elaborate conspiracies". Regardless if you believe any of this or not, there is no denying it is a fun story and a major tourist draw for the city.

Finnish phone maker Nokia is slowly rolling out its new Lumia 925 Windows Phone in major markets across the world. Following Germany and UK, the smartphone will also arrive in Australia later this month.

Nokia's Australian arm revealed the upcoming local availability of the Lumia 925, earlier today, in a Facebook posting. The Windows Phone 8 device will be offered by "all major retailers" starting July 17, with mobile operators Telstra and Optus selling the handset from July 30 and August 1, respectively.

When you’re troubleshooting PC problems, locating the right Registry setting can often point you in the right direction. But you’ll have to find it first, and that can be a problem as the standard Regedit search option is just about as basic as you’ll get.

You could try to solve this by looking for an alternative Registry editor, but, as usual, NirSoft provides a simpler solution. Its tiny RegScanner utility allows you to search the Registry with a host of new options, saving you time and helping you locate settings you’d never find with Regedit alone.

jAlbum AB has put out another minor update of its cross-platform web media album builder with the launch of jAlbum 11.3. The app, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, simplifies the task of building both picture and video galleries for displaying online in the form of web pages.

Version 11.3 attempts to provide a better showcase of the program’s capabilities by preloading a Sample Portfolio project that demonstrates how to make a full portfolio site by using sub-folders and custom Contact and About pages. Users can then use this as a template or a tutorial for building such sites using the app.

LG is set to launch a new product in New York on 7 August and has posted a Samsung style teaser video suggesting the device will be the follow up to the Optimus G.

The video clip shows various locations in New York as viewed from a first person perspective. At each landmark, including Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, the person holding the camera sees a sign stating "To me, you are perfect. From G", which also happens to be the name of the video.

Replacing a few of the standard Windows and application icons can be a great way to give your PC a fresh new look. Creating new icons can be more of a challenge, though, as the ICO format isn’t widely supported by graphics software.

There is an easy solution to this problem, though, and it’s called Quick Any2Ico. Point this compact free program at an image or executable file and it’ll convert or extract the required icon for you with a click.

This weekend, I returned from a nine day cruise of the Caribbean. On this particular cruise, I went to Bermuda, St. Martin, Puerto Rico and Haiti. What I love about cruises, other than the food (yes, I’m a fat guy), is visiting multiple locations in a short time rather than being in one place for the entire trip. This allows me to take very eclectic photos and have memories that will last a lifetime.

I own a fairly nice point-and-shoot camera with the Nikon Coolpix AW100. The Nikon is my go-to camera when I am visiting beaches since it is waterproof. However, while in Puerto Rico, I was to tour El Yunque Rainforest -- a beautiful place to take photos where I would not be going swimming. And so, I decided to use a different camera instead -- the Nokia Lumia 928 on Verizon. Yup, I was trusting my vacation memories with a camera-phone!

When I receive an email asking to validate my account info, it is an obvious alert that something is amiss. These frequently come in the guise of PayPal and even banks where I have no account -- a no brainer to hit the delete button. However, as I browsed through my messages while preparing for bed, one caught my attention, not because of variance from other email scams, but because it simply attempted to lure me to a trap I had not encountered previously.

While the likes of PayPal and CitiBank may trade between targets number one and two, this was the first time I had been asked to validate my Apple account -- the one I have never had.

Evernote Corporation has released Evernote Touch 2.0, a major update of its touch-friendly Windows 8 app. The latest version's main new feature is a hub page providing a summary of the user’s account, while it also promises improved editing tools and support for Business accounts.

The major new highlight is undoubtedly the hub page, which is the first thing users will see when logging into the app. All of its core navigation items as well as an overview of the various parts of the user's account, including notes, notebooks, tags and shortcuts, can now be found here.