Google’s standing in the Muslim world isn’t great right now. The company’s refusal to pull the offensive The Innocence of Muslims video from YouTube has led to lots of criticism around the world. The Saudi Arabian government even led calls for a new international body to censor the internet purely as a result of Google’s stance.

However, perhaps in an effort to appease angry Muslims, Google has announced that from today it will stream the ritual of Hajj (the world’s largest pilgrimage) live from Mecca, on the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information's YouTube channel.

Unless you have spent some time under a rock recently then you probably know that Microsoft is about to officially unveil Windows 8 for the masses. The public has had access to the new operating system for some time now, through three iterations of betas, from Developer Preview to Consumer Preview and finally landing at Release Preview. The OS will debut this Friday, but the Redmond, Wash.-based company will actually hold their launch event on Thursday in New York City.

The big shindig is now bigger. Microsoft is inviting all of New York to what they are calling "Microtropolis". This is a 160 foot version of the city that the company calls "Manhattan experienced through Windows".  This isn't a Microsoft pop-up store, but there will be one of those in the Big Apple as well. This is more of a concept art project designed to show off the latest OS in an interactive way.

For those of you skydiving from the edge of space or returning from a week in some Fringe alternate universe, today Apple announced iPad mini -- so far the autumn's worst kept secret. Rumormongers got right the event and sales dates, product name and screen size but flubbed the price; sorry it's not $249 or $299, Bub. That's in another alternate reality. But do dream.

I just have to ask, again: Will you buy iPad mini? I look forward to the impact facts will have on your answers. In February I asked: "Apple is rumored to be developing a smaller tablet. Would you buy an 8-inch iPad?" About 56 percent of the 3,624 respondents answered "Yes". That's a high number. But much has changed since, with Google Nexus 7 joining Kindle Fire at $199, Amazon offering 8.9-inch tablets and Apple choosing to price higher than many people hoped. So I ask the question again, offering new poll and your chance to comment.

Windows 8 is a highly controversial operating system and a big gamble for Microsoft that can largely be attributed to the new Start screen interface that the company introduces in it. The Start screen is not just a program launcher like the Windows Start menu was, as it is also the location where apps are run in. Apps, of which some come pre-installed with Windows 8 and others can be installed from the Windows Store, run in full screen on the interface. However, you can add your own shortcuts to the Start screen page, to open documents or desktop programs quickly from here.

If you like Windows 8's start screen but want to keep on using a previous version of the Windows operating system instead, you may be interested in a new beta program that IOBit just released. WinMetro basically adds a Start screen-like interface to versions of Windows that do not ship with it. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

"Don't upset the apple cart" takes on new meaning for the company Steve Jobs cofounded. Supply chain simplicity defined his leadership, starting with the many products axed after he took the interim CEO title in early 1997. While complexity creeped into some product lines over the years, mainly iPod, Apple followed a streamline approach. Until today. Tim Cook oversees a suddenly complex tablet lineup, following iPad mini's introduction early this afternoon.

Before today's event, Apple offered eight different iPad configurations -- that's without separately counting carrier-specific LTE models. The mini, which goes on sale November 2, brings the number to 14. It's a crowded lineup, with overlapping features and prices not seen from Apple since the early- to mid-1990s. Something else: Apple chose to price higher than what BetaNews surveys show people want to spend on a tablet, particularly in the mini's size class, and too close to other models, risking some sales cannibalization -- or worse, none at all, if customer confusion hurts sales.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wants 2012 to be "the most epic year" for the company determined to make a splash in October with the launch of Windows 8, Surface, and Windows Phone 8 all within a few days of one another.

To complete the package, Microsoft has announced a major update for the Xbox dashboard, the launch of Xbox SmartGlass, and a cheaper Xbox 360 console.

At WWDC 2012 in San Francisco last June, Apple debuted its latest generation of Macbooks. Today, at an event to spotlight the new iPad Mini, Apple also unveiled a version of the 13" Macbook Pro which includes the high definition Retina Display. For the last five months, this display has only been available on the 15" Macbook Pro.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the 13" Macbook Pro is Apple's most popular notebook computer, and by adding the Retina Display into the mix, the company now offers four different stock versions of the PC.

Months of rumors have come to this: Yes, Virginia, there is a smaller iPad, and if they don't sell out, you could get one for Christmas. During a special media event today, Apple unveiled iPad mini.

The new tablet's screen measures 7.9 inches, compared to 9.7 inches for fourth-generation iPad, also announced today. Screen resolution is 1,024 by 768 -- the same as iPad 2 and other tablets in the size class. The device weighs .68 pounds and is 7.2mm thick, or about one-quarter more than fourth-generation iPad. Apple claims 10-hour battery life. The tablet runs an A5 dual-core processor and packs a 5-megapixel camera on the back and another camera, mainly for video recording on the front. Contrary to rumors, prices start at $329, not $249.

Today, during a special media event, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that 200 million devices already have iOS 6. That works out to half cumulative shipments -- 400 million. The company may update that number during its quarterly earnings call in two days.

The number starkly contrasts with Android, where just 1.8 percent of devices are on newest version Jelly Bean. The difference demonstrates the extent of operating system fragmentation of one versus the other. Uniformity offers many advantages to developers and customers using their apps. Consider this: Jelly Bean released in mid-July, iOS 6 last month. So Apple reaches considerably more users with its newest OS than does Google. There is no comparison.

The music industry has tried various things to combat piracy over the years, ranging from actually selling music online, to suing alleged file sharers/customers. In the United Kingdom, the British Phonographic Industry is trying to force internet service providers to block access to infringing sites.

The Motion Picture Association started the trend last year by going to the courts and asking them to block access to Newzbin 2, a members-only site sharing music and video. The BPI followed its approach, successfully getting the High Court to order ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay, and now it’s got three more major torrent sites in its crosshairs.

Whether some might people like it or not, we live in the cloud era and there the key role is played by services. But what happens when there's an outage? Yesterday I tried to log into Flipboard, but unlike what would usually happen, the message "service is currently down" greeted me.

It wasn't a scheduled maintenance. Flipboard announced via Google+ that the service was down and it "only" took roughly five hours to get it back up. So what happened? According to Data Center Knowledge and Wired, when Amazon Cloud went down so did Heroku, Flipboard, Foursquare, Reddit "and others", with problems reported to its North Virginia-based servers. But the cloud is supposed to be the future, and it doesn't include pulling the plug and sending people off: "Go to sleep, I'm incapable of anything now!"

When Apple debuted the iPhone 5 just over one month ago, I was assigned to cover the launch event in a liveblog, despite the fact that I wasn't actually present at the event. So I did the liveblog the only way I saw fit: in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

So here we are again, there is another Apple event today in San Jose, where the company is expected to unveil a couple of new products including the smaller, cheaper 7-inch iPad, and a new Macbook with a high-resolution Retina display. The event will begin at 10am Pacific, or 1PM EST, and I'll be providing a live, unscripted sarcasm track starting approximately an hour before the event begins. Unlike the iPhone 5 launch event, this one will be live streamed at Apple Events.

I struck a chord with my recent column on H-1B visa abuse, so soon follow up with an enormous post that tries to explain the underlying issues. But before then here’s something I came across that doesn’t quite fit that theme but was too interesting to let pass unnoticed -- how companies like IBM intimidate employees and discourage them from speaking up.

A few years ago there was a class action lawsuit against IBM. Thirty-two thousand server administrators were being forced to work overtime without extra pay. IBM lost the suit and paid a $65 million settlement. That’s just over $2,000 per affected employee before the lawyers took their share. Then IBM gave all those workers a 15 percent pay cut with the justification they’d get it back in overtime pay. Next IBM restricted the workers to 40 hour weeks so there would be no overtime.

Piriform has updated the Mac version of its popular freeware cleaning tool to add full support for the latest revision of Mountain Lion plus an option for selecting files and folders to include or exclude from scans.

CCleaner for Mac 1.05 also resolves issues with older versions of OS X, and includes a number of other performance and stability improvements in addition to the usual round of minor bug fixes.

Following an earlier tweet from Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager on SkyDrive at Microsoft, the Redmond, Wash.-based company announced the availability of the new Office Web Apps across Outlook and SkyDrive which sport a refreshed look and feel in line with Microsoft's modern design language deployed across its various services.

It also features expanded device support with touch-friendly editing from tablets, co-authoring and collaboration support across the Web apps, as well as more editing and formatting controls. The latest version promises general improvements to the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Web apps.