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Yesterday, when reporting about Nexus 7 32GB showing up on Office Depot shelves, I asked: "Why wait?" Google may have cancelled today's Android event because of Hurricane Sandy, but there are many good reasons to announce anyway -- and stealing thunder from Windows Phone 8's launch is one of them.

Google went ahead, today announcing the long rumored Nexus 4 smartphone, Nexus 10 tablet and Android 4.2. It's no Key Lime Pie but more Jelly Bean. Make no mistake, despite the point-one update and nomenclature, this is a big upgrade.

Just in case you were thinking it was all about the iPad mini and Surface tablets at the moment, along comes Google with a new Nexus range. The company had planned to make a big announcement in New York today, stealing some of the thunder from Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 launch, but Hurricane Sandy decided to put the kibosh on that (how ironic), so instead the search giant has had to make do with a blog post instead.

There are actually three Nexus devices being announced today, the Nexus 4 smartphone, the new Nexus 7 tablet (which my colleague Joe Wilcox talked about here) and the bigger Nexus 10 -- Google’s 10.1-inch answer to the Apple iPad.

Editing lots of digital photos in a single session is generally a tedious and time-consuming business, as most image editors still assume you’ll only ever want to carry out actions on one picture at a time.

Fortunately there are plenty of third-party batch processing tools around who are trying to fill this functionality gap, and COOLTWEAK is the latest, allowing you to resize, watermark or share multiple images (on Facebook, Picasa and Twitter) directly from the right-click Explorer menu.

Napier & Son was the most successful British manufacturer of aircraft engines in the 1920s and 30s with their 12-cylinder Napier Lion powering 163 different types of aircraft between 1918 and 1935. Over that 17 year period the Lion grew from 450 to 1350 horsepower and was, for awhile, the most powerful aircraft, boat and car engine in the world, holding world speed records in all three venues at the same time. And then the Napier Lion was suddenly gone -- a lesson from  which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer could benefit if he and his company don’t repeat it.

Napier perfected the Lion engine over those 17 years, improving it in every way until it was the best and most efficient engine of its class in the world. Then, seemingly overnight, the class changed as air forces and record setters alike suddenly needed more than the 1,350 horsepower a finely-tuned Lion could deliver. Napier’s Lion gave way to Rolls-Royce’s larger and innately more powerful Merlin and Griffon engines and Napier, for all intents and purposes, was gone.

Eight might just be a lucky number for Microsoft. The company launched Windows 8 in New York just before a crippling hurricane arrived and took out a competing Google Android launch event; and today, it launches Windows Phone 8 in a San Francisco still reeling from the Giants winning the World Series.

Today at 10am Pacific, Microsoft will be hosting the live launch event of Windows Phone 8, which we have been expecting since late June, when it was first revealed.

It’s fair to say Valve’s boss Gabe Newell isn’t a fan of Windows 8. In fact, the ex-Microsoft man called the new OS a "catastrophe for everyone in the PC space" and, just in case that doesn't make his views clear enough, Valve announced shortly afterwards that it would be working on bringing Steam, its hugely popular games distribution platform, to Linux. A move that prompted me to ask the seemingly unthinkable: Will Windows 8 make Linux the new gaming OS?

I guess we’ll find out the answer to that question soon enough because Windows 8 is now here and, it seems, the Linux version of Steam won’t be too far behind it.

Last Friday, Valve put out an open request for experienced Linux users to apply for the chance to install and test its new Steam for Linux client, stating that it would be notifying successful participants this week, and kicking off the limited beta shortly afterwards.

Hours ahead of Windows Phone 8's big launch, Microsoft released an app to the Windows Store.

So what does it actually do? Like the name suggests Windows Phone is designed to sync music, photos, videos as well as other types of files between computers running Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 smartphones. Through the app users can also access programs available on the Windows Phone Store. But there's a problem, which has been signaled by a great number of users.

O&O Software has announced the availability of the Migration Kit for Windows 8, a bundle of two packages which aims to simplify the process of upgrading to the new operating system. At the heart of the Migration Kit is Laplink PCmover Professional, which can transfer your data, applications and settings from a Windows XP, Vista or 7 PC to Windows 8 (either on a separate PC, or in place).

The other major kit component is a copy of O&O DiskImage Professional 6.8.1, ideal for creating a backup image of your original system configuration before you start.

There are many circumstances in which you may need to capture an image of what is happening on your screen at any given moment. Hitting Prt Scr will do the job, but apart from the option of pressing Alt at the same time to capture just a single window, there are few options available to you. Ashampoo Snap has been updated to make image capturing easier and more flexible than ever before, even introducing video capture as a new feature.

The latest version of the app includes a new minimalistic capture bar that resides at the top of your screen at all times. If you’re the sort of person who does not get on with keyboard shortcuts, although these are still available, this bar provides you with access to all of the various capturing modes supported by Snap 6, ranging from simple full screen captures and individual windows to scrolling windows and freeform shapes.

The 64-bit Firefox variant Waterfox 16.0.1 is available, providing Windows users with a stable version of Firefox that’s optimized for 64-bit systems.

The latest build finally appears 19 days after Firefox 16 itself released, and includes all the changes and improvements found in the 16.0.1 build of Firefox. However, it has already been effectively made out-of-date by the appearance of Firefox 16.0.2, which contains a critical security fix.

Before the public unveiling of Windows Phone 8, Nokia on Monday introduced the Lumia 822 smartphone. Sporting the latest mobile operating system from Microsoft, the Lumia 822 will be exclusively available at Verizon Wireless.

The Nokia Lumia 822 will feature 4G LTE connectivity with up to 100Mbps download and 50Mbps upload speeds. It has a 4.3-inch display with an 800 by 480 resolution, and a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 1GB of RAM. On top of the 16GB of internal storage, the Lumia 822 comes with a microSD card slot which can offer up to 64GB of extra storage. As it usually happens with high-end Nokia devices, a Carl Zeiss lens is onboard for the dual-LED 8 megapixel back-facing camera which is capable of 1080p video recording at 30 frames per second. On the front, there is a 1.2MP HD camera that can shoot 720p video.

NirSoft has announced the availability of LastActivityView, a new tool which displays details of recent user actions and events on almost any PC (it runs on Windows 2000-8, both 32 and 64-bit editions). And while that doesn’t sound too exciting, wait – it turns out to be surprisingly useful.

The program logs the applications you’ve launched recently, for instance. The files you’ve opened or saved (from the standard Windows Open and Save dialogs, anyway). The folders and files you’ve opened in Explorer, the software you’ve installed, and the networks you’ve accessed. It also details your system startups and shutdowns, user logons and logoffs, software hangs, blue-screen crashes and more.

I just hauled back from the local Office Depot, which has Nexus 7 32GB in stock -- well, one left, for $249.99. The 16GB model is now $199.99, replacing the 8 giger at that price. So the rumors were true, and not all that surprising. I didn't check the local Gamestop, but online the 16GB tablet is $199.99. So it's not rocket science what's coming.

Something unexpected: With all the rumors about Android 4.2, I expected that version. But the spec sheet has 4.1. So it's anybody's guess what to expect and when. The real question: What new product pops next and where. Google may have cancelled the New York Android event because of Hurricane Sandy, but that may not stop retailers from going ahead with plans to offer product. The channel isn't easily stopped, particularly when there is chance to get in front of competitors with a hot product. Retailers don't share Google's priorities.

Like Microsoft in the late late 1990s and early 2000s, antitrust scrutiny confronts Google on two continents. Among the core issues emerging from the preliminary investigations: privacy. Your data, who has access to it, how clear are the search giant's privacy policies and how carefully does the company adhere to them. But Google is by no means the only concern. Facebook is renown for making user interface and feature changes that can suddenly and unexpectedly expose personal data, and there are problems past about third-party applications accessing what they shouldn't.

As more established tech companies offer more services in the cloud, increasingly there is lingering question: Whom do you trust with your personal data? Last month, Apple expanded cloud services with iOS 6 and iPad mini and the fourth-generation 9.7-inch model go on sale November 2, supporting them. On Friday, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and Surface and does same with Windows Phone on October 29. To get the most from these products, users must have a Microsoft account, like Apple and Google require for their cloud services. Meanwhile, Office 365 extends online sync, storage and collaboration features.

Friday, October 26, Microsoft released its highly anticipated Surface RT tablets to the masses. I was able to snag one of these devices and spent most of my weekend in the web browser reading reviews that questioned Microsoft’s so-called "curious inclusion" of the desktop. Perhaps I’m missing something but I don’t understand why there is so much angst about the desktop in RT. Some people don’t understand why the desktop is there but I think it makes complete sense.

To be fair, I really do understand that to other reviewers of RT the desktop is only limited to MS Office applications and few other MS included apps like Notepad. Additionally, RT does not allow x86 apps to run or even be installed. That being said, I get the feeling this limitation due to the platform running on the ARM architecture is temporary.