Nineteenth in a series. "Computer companies don’t go public to raise money; they go public to make real the wealth of their founders", Robert X. Cringely explains in this chapter from 1991 tome Accidental Empires. Other organizations do IPOs to fund future investments, whereas many tech firms already sit on mountains of cash when going public.

We’re at the ballpark, now, and while you and I are taking a second bite from our chilidogs, this is what’s happening in the outfield, according to Rick Miller, a former Gold Glove center fielder for the Bosox and the Angels. When the pitcher’s winding up, and we figure the center fielder’s just stooped over out there, waiting for the photon torpedoes to load and thinking about T-bills or jock itch endorsements, he’s really watching the pitcher and getting ready to catch the ball that has yet to be thrown. Exceptional center fielders use three main factors in judging where the ball will land: what kind of pitch is thrown where in the hitter’s zone, the first six inches of the batter’s swing, and the sound of the ball coming off the bat.

After 15 years of development, it’s probably no surprise that PowerDVD has become one of the most powerful and comprehensive media players around. Music, video and movies, DVD and Blu-ray, 3D, DLNA, mobile device syncing, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube – the program does it all.

There’s still plenty of room for improvement, though, and PowerDVD 13 Ultra takes the package forward with a range of new additions. There’s even wider file format support; enhanced video quality for HD footage; a new movie library, complete with cover art (for files as well as discs); a smarter, simplified interface; an all-new subtitling engine; and a new focus on performance to try and make this “the fastest, most responsive PowerDVD ever”.

XnSoft has released XnView 2.00, a new version of its freeware multimedia browser, editor and creation tool for Windows. The tool makes it simple to browse, organize and edit images, plus includes a screenshot capture tool in addition to acquiring images from scanners. XnView can also create supplementary material such as slideshows, web pages, contact sheets and video thumbnail galleries.

Version 2.0’s most notable change is the addition of a new optional toolbar style -- Metro3 -- that mimics the tile-based ModernUI interface found in Windows 8. The toolbar isn’t active by default; users must select Tools > Options > Toolbar, then switch to the Skin tab, select Metro3 and click OK.

Eighteenth in a series. The true test of a good writer is time. Chapter 12 of Robert X. Cringely's 1991 classic Accidental Empires passes easily. His observations about what makes, or breaks, high-tech start-ups is as relevant today as 22 years ago. Every entrepreneur should use this installment as a manual for what to do (or not).

America’s advantage in the PC business doesn’t come from our education system, from our fluoridated water, or, Lord knows, from our tax structure. And it doesn’t come from some innate ability we have to run big companies with thousands of employees and billions in sales. The main thing America has had going for it is the high-tech start-up, and, of course, our incredible willingness to fail.

Late last week rumors surfaced that Google Play store would update, which according to the APK file is officially version 4.0.25, and sporting a whole new look. Today that news becomes official as Google confirmes that the latest version is beginning its slow, but steady, march to Android smartphones and tablets.

Michael Siliski, group product manager for Google Play, announces that "today we’ve started rolling out a redesigned Google Play store on Android phones and tablets that is simple, clean and, most importantly, helps you find great entertainment, fast".

What's wrong with Samsung? That's the question I asked in newsroom group chat today after seeing specs for Galaxy Note 8.0. Screen resolution diminishes the otherwise noteworthy feature list. Sorry, but 1280 by 800 is inadequate -- little more than matchup to Apple's iPad mini, which is similar size. For a company that makes such great-looking displays, lower-res is an endemic problem across Samsung's entire tablet line.

I really expected more from Galaxy Note 8.0, which as the same suggests has an 8-inch screen; iPad mini is 7.9. Samsung unveiled the tablet in February, and I wrote the news story. But in the rush of Mobile World Congress news didn't consider screen resolution, in part on possibility specs would change. The electronics giant has done it before, announcing one thing but shipping something slightly different months later.

Microsoft has released an app for Windows Phone called Authenticator, which is designed to generate security codes associated with two-factor authentication. Nothing special so far, other than Microsoft's name being associated with the app. What is noteworthy is that, according to the release notes, you can use Authenticator "to help keep your Microsoft account secure". Is Microsoft finally taking the user's security seriously?

At the time of writing this article two-factor authentication is not avilable for my Outlook.com account. But this suggests that, eventually, Microsoft will enable the extra security measure for its cloud services, presumably sometime soon and likely for Outlook.com first of all. Currently users have to rely on the complexity of their passwords in order to insure the safety of their Microsoft accounts, whereas Google users, for example, have had the option to use two-factor authentication for quite some time.

If you have followed me for anytime now then you probably already know that I am a happy Pandora customer. The music app gets me through my days in my lonely office of one. It turns out, I am not the only fan of the streaming service as I have 200 million friends joining me.

Pandora announces that it has passed that milestone after eight years in the market. While the personalized radio service came online back in 2005, it took until July of 2011 to reach the first 100 million users, but growth has obviously expanded exponentially since then.

Although the decentralized digital currency first appeared in 2009, Bitcoin’s popularity has really taken off in recent weeks and the value of the coins has skyrocketed since January. The world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, currently has the currency listed as being worth $209 per coin.

Although you can purchase bitcoins, the real way to get your hands on some is to mine for them using a computer. The process involves solving a complex mathematical algorithm and it becomes harder to find blocks of bitcoins as time goes on because there’s only a set number of them in the system (the total number of bitcoins in existence will never exceed 21 million).

AdDuplex, which touts itself as the "largest cross-promotion network for Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps", released a new monthly report which shows the Nokia Lumia 920 as the most popular Windows Phone device currently available. The handset holds a 14 percent market share among devices running Microsoft's smartphone operating system.

According to the report, the Lumia 920 dethroned the Lumia 800, "by a very small margin", for the title of the most popular Windows Phone device. The 920 was released worldwide in November 2012. The latter made its way onto the market one year earlier and also holds approximately a 14 percent market share among Windows Phone handsets, albeit slightly lower when it comes down to actual numbers.

FairSearch, a coalition comprised of 17 global businesses including Expedia, Kayak, Microsoft, Oracle, Nokia and TripAdvisor, has announced that it has filed a complaint with the European Commission (EC) against Google, citing an "anti-competitive strategy" and consolidating "control over consumer Internet data for online advertising" in the mobile space.

FairSearch uses two reports from Strategy Analytics (SA) and eMarketer to base its claims. According to the coalition, Google exerts its dominance in the mobile operating system space with Android, which held a 68.4 percent market share in 2012 per SA, and in mobile search advertising, which eMarketer says Google dominates with a 96 percent market share.

Adobe has refreshed its cross-platform web media playback and runtime tools with the release of Adobe Flash Player for Other Browsers 11.7, Adobe Flash Player for Internet Explorer 11.7 and Adobe AIR 3.7.0.

There’s only one notable change to report in this first stable release of Flash Player 11.7: enhancements to the sandboxing features that allow it to better address application launches in protected mode.

By now a number of you have probably joined me in moving on to Office 2013, either the desktop version or the new Office 365 Home Premium subscription adaptation of the suite. However, there is nothing wrong with the previous Office 2010 release of the product, and many users and businesses are still running that software.

For those, there is some good news this morning -- Microsoft has released a beta version of Service Pack 2 for Office 2010. The SP2 beta also includes Sharepoint 2010 support as well. In addition, it has improved support for Internet Explorer 10 and Windows 8, updates for system reliability, program compatibility, security and more.

EE has announced plans to double the speed of its 4G network in 10 British cities, increasing the maximum theoretical speed to 130Mbps, or around 80Mbps in the real world. The mobile operator will also be doubling the average speeds for 4GEE customers to more than 20Mbps.

Double-speed 4G, as the improved offering will be known, will be rolling out to Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield by the summer.

Vladimir Yuzhikov has released the first beta of SmartDeblur 2.0, a powerful tool for recovering data from blurred images.

Top of the new features list is an “auto-detect blur” option, which allows the program to automatically figure out whether your image is suffering from motion, Gaussian, or just plain old out-of-focus blur, and perform the appropriate corrections.