Media server developer Plex Inc rings in the New Year with two notable new updates to its cross-platform range of media server and media center products. First, Plex Media Server 0.9.7.9.375 launches with a number of enhancements and new features, including support for album music searches and the potential for massive performance improvements when streaming via DLNA.

Joining it is a major update to the Plex for Windows 8, which adds a universal search tool among other improvements.

There is friendly disagreement here at BetaNews. My friend and colleague, Mihaita Bamburic, uses Windows 8, but laments that he wants to return to the last era by downgrading to version 7. While I feel for him, and he certainly has that option, I would say the same thing I did to my family when I upgraded our household computers -- yes it is different, but I doubt Microsoft is going back now.

That is a harsh statement, although I certainly put it as gently as possible to my wife and kids. However, aside from my assertion that things will not revert, there are several other reasons I feel no loss in this move.

Little more than three months since the last build, breaking away from the previous Sunday release schedule, the team behind Android Open Kang Project (AOKP) unveiled Jelly Bean MR1 Build 1. The latest build represents the first official release based on Android 4.2, sporting most of the custom distribution's traditional features.

The work on Android 4.2-based builds started from scratch after Google released the latest green droid operating system, a "tough decision" according to the team behind AOKP. At the moment, Jelly Bean MR1 Build 1 delivers most of the previously known features such as widely customizable navigation bar, including buttons, color or widgets to name a few, custom vibrations, LED Control, lockscreen targets, Quiet Hours and advanced sound settings, among others. However, there are some new features included as well.

When I say "old media" I refer to several mediums, including movie studios, TV networks and the recording industry. However, in this case, I am talking about, perhaps, the oldest of all -- the newspaper. It seems that the once-desirable rags may be one of the last forms of media to actually get it.

To that end, the licensing body that represents the Irish nations newspapers seems bent on going forward with a plan to wring fees out of any website that links to its material. To that end, the group issued a statement today, reading, in part, that: "The sort of activities which constitute "copying" for these purposes are the photocopying of newspaper articles, placing of newspaper articles on an intranet website, viewing of articles on a website hosted by a press cutting agency and the sending of articles to clients or other third parties".

Tenth in a series. Welcome to this year's first look at what's new and hot in Windows Store and the Windows 8 ecosystem. The week has been rather uneventful but that can easily be explained with the Holiday season, which is never the most productive time of the year when it comes to software. This week there are 23,788 apps in the U.S. Windows Store of which 4,439 are paid applications of which about half offer free trials, and 19,365 free apps. Some of the free apps may include advertisement or in-store purchases, but there is unfortunately no statistic available on that.

Here is a selection of 10 Windows 8 apps that released this week or were updated.

Life as an early adopter is sprinkled with moments of joy and regret after first trying out a product up until another shiny toy takes its place. The burning desire to pursue something new often backfires in my endeavors, with personal expectations rarely fulfilled by cutting-edge software or hardware. My experience running Windows 8 is no different, as Microsoft's latest entry into consumer operating systems seldom ticks all the right boxes. But I plow through, even though what I really want is to go back to Windows 7. (Oh my, my colleague Alan Buckingham disagrees.)

I started using Windows 8 in mid-August and throughout all my time with it not once did I ever feel comfortable enough to say: "This is a keeper". Fact is what I love about Windows 8 I almost never use, and what I loathe I do have to deal with every single time -- it's a self-destructive relationship I simply do not want to be in anymore. On the other hand, at the opposite end lies Windows 7, which fits me like a tailored suit -- no extra "in your face" functionality that I rarely take advantage of. Simply put -- less is more.

The US Federal Trade Commission decision to close the Google "search bias" investigation is absolutely in the best interest of consumers. On that point, I agree with agency Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who announced the findings during a January 3 press conference. The result isn't what many Google critics or competitors hoped for, or even what some in the news media expected. Journalists repeatedly probed on the investigation's closing during yesterday's Q&A. Many people view Google to be a monopoly, perhaps dangerous one, while others regard the search giant increasingly as gatekeeper to the Internet.

In response to journalist questions, Leibowitz said that anyone in his position wants to take on the career-making case, which inference is clear: Google isn't it. "The Commission exhaustively investigated allegations that Google unfairly manipulated its search engine results to harm its competitors, a practice known as search bias", he said yesterday. "The Commission has closed this investigation by a 5-0 vote", which is unanimous, by the way. The decision fits long-standing US legal principles about competition and protecting consumers. Perhaps the government learned lessons from its monopoly case against Microsoft, which, as I previously asserted, failed to achieve its goals.

Gingerbread, your reigning days are numbered as Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean aim to take your crown! For the first time in recent months the two year-old operating system drops under 50 percent in the Android distribution charts, based on the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending January 3.

On November 13, Google released its latest treat in the candy jar, Android 4.2. Little under two months later, the second Jelly Bean iteration claims a distribution level of 1.2 percent of all green droid devices, a number 50 percent higher compared to the previous figures released in early December. The significant growth can be attributed to sales and software upgrades for Nexus-branded devices such as the Nexus 4, Nexus 10, and Nexus 7, respectively.

Android, the popular mobile operating system, is based on Linux and there are a number of good reasons to learn how to program for it. Number one is the vast audience that will be at your disposal if you can make it into the Google Play store or Amazon's Appstore for Android.

The Linux Foundation has launched a new initiative to help interested parties learn basic Android programming. So far, Juliet Kemp has only posted part one of Android Programming for Beginners and it just covers the basics to get you started, but more advanced tutorials are promised in the future. The two-part intro to Android coding will show you how to get a basic timer app up and running, and teach you about the Android API. It assumes some basic familiarity with Java, XML, and programming concepts, but is easy enough to follow.

If you regularly find yourself helping to fix other people’s PC problems then you’ve probably already thought about creating a portable troubleshooting toolkit. And this needn’t take very long. Just copy something like the Sysinternals Suite to a USB stick, for instance, and you’ll be more than equipped to diagnose and resolve all kinds of issues.

And if you find you need to extend your troubleshooting capabilities even further, then you can always add another free toolkit or two. Switchblade is an excellent free example: just download the latest version, unzip it to your USB key and you’ll gain all kinds of useful features and functionality.

Problems at Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused a major Netflix service failure on Christmas Eve that affected a large portion of US and Canadian subscribers. "Terrible timing" Netflix tweeted as the scale of the problem became apparent. The outage in this case, Amazon said afterwards, was caused by human error -- a developer accidentally deleted some Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) data.

This wasn’t the first high-profile web outage, and it certainly won’t be the last either, but as Randy Clark, UC4 Chief Marketing Officer explains, solutions like DevOps, WebOps and ITPA can all help to limit the problem.

Second in a series. A friend of mine who is a securities lawyer in New York worked on the 1985 sale of 20th Century Fox by Marvin Davis to Rupert Murdoch. He led a group of New York attorneys to Los Angeles where they spent weeks going over contracts for many Fox films. What they found was that with few exceptions there were no contracts. There were signed letters of intent (agreements to agree) for pictures budgeted at $20-$50 million but almost no actual contracts. Effectively business was being done, movies were being made, and huge sums of money were being transferred on a handshake. That’s how Hollywood tends to do business and it doesn’t go down very well with outsiders, so they for the most part remain outside.

Jump to this week’s evolving story about Intel supposedly entering with a bang the TV set-top box business replete with previously unlicensed cable content -- an Over-The-Top virtual cable system. This was expected to be announced, I’m told, at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Are you looking for competition to Netflix and Amazon Prime? By now you have likely heard that Redbox has teamed with Verizon to provide just that. The kiosks, which can be found almost everywhere these days, are quite popular with a number of people, but running out to a store, especially in bad weather, is not overly user-friendly. When the snow is flying, it is so much nicer to get the movie you want without leaving your couch.

Redbox has been testing its new Instant service in private beta for a couple of months now. If you want to try and get into the program then head over to Redbox Instant and request a code, but be aware that the wait can be long. In fact, with the service expected in early 2013 you may just be better holding off.

Are you tired of the standard Windows search tool? You’re not alone. Its indexing component is difficult to control, and uses too many resources; we’ve found the index can become corrupted for no apparent reason; and filtering the results just isn’t as easy as it needs to be.

Fortunately there are plenty of interesting alternatives around, and AstroGrep is one of the best: compact, powerful yet also simple to use, it’s a search tool which should appeal to just about everyone.

Earlier today, the US Federal Trade Commission announced closing its search bias antitrust investigation into Google. Chairman Jon Leibowitz says the nearly 20-month investigation "does not support a claim" and that commissioners reached a unanimous decision. However, they did find that Google caused consumer harm by pursuing patent litigation started by its Motorola Mobility subsidiary, and the search giant voluntarily made business practice changes affecting its core business.

Many competitors will find the FTC's decision to close the core antitrust investigation as little more than a slap on the wrist. However, Leibowitz contends that the agreement protects consumers and that commissioners found no overt search bias. In fact, the agency found the the most disturbing alleged practices are commonplace among other search providers, mitigating any potential consumer harm.