Rumors of a $199 Microsoft Surface RT tablet popped up on the Web a month ago, feeding the idea of a cheap and even subsidized Microsoft tablet that would take the pricing war to any device from the Google Nexus 7 to Apple's new iPad. In an interview for The Seattle Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned a new price range for the the company's Windows 8 device, putting the previous rumors of a $199 Microsoft tablet to rest.

Even though Microsoft did not announce the pricing, when asked about Surface, Steve Ballmer said that it would go for "probably $300 to about $700 or $800," giving a rough estimate of what potential buyers should expect to pay for the much discussed tablet. The previous rumors might be dust in the wind after the latest "estimate," but at the same time it calls for speculation justified by the $500 difference which isn't unsubstantial to say the least.

Firefox-variant Pale Moon 15.1 for Windows has been released, promising to resolve a “fairly large number of issues with the initial version”. Version 15.1, also available as a dedicated 64-bit build, includes fixes for the mouse wheel scrolling preferences, memory inflation while playing some canvas games and a fix for private browsing mode.

Pale Moon, which is optimized for speed and efficiency, offers a lightweight, fast variant to Firefox. This latest build comes after version 15.0 was released at the end of last month.

Who would have guessed after the less-than-mesmerizing announcement of the iPhone 5 that it would be the most popular smartphone from Apple yet?

Apple iPhone 5 pre-orders topped 2 million in a 24 hour period according to the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation. Apple's latest smartphone is apparently twice as popular as its previous model, the iPhone 4S which managed one million pre-orders for the same period of time.

Let’s everybody beat up on YouTube for not pulling that offensive anti-Muslim video that is infuriating people around the world. No, wait. As disturbing as this story is let’s instead take a moment to try and figure what’s really happening and why YouTube and its parent Google are behaving this way.

It’s easy to blame Google’s algorithmic obsession for this mess, but I don’t think that’s at work here at all. Yes, Google is very good (which means very bad in this case) at blaming one algorithm or another for pissing-off users. Google customer support is, in a word, terrible for this very reason, and it often seems like they don’t even care. But this case is different, because it has less to do with algorithms than it has to do with intellectual property laws.

Last year Venkat Panchapakesan, Google Vice President of Engineering announced the company's plan to limit support to modern browsers across Google Apps. To support modern web apps, support for browsers not supporting technologies like HTML5 had to be discontinued. Examples given at that time included desktop notifications or drag-and-drop file uploading, which both require browsers supporting HTML5.

For that reason, Google made the decision to support only the current and previous major version of a web browser. When a new major version of a browser gets released, support for the third oldest version gets discontinued automatically.

Motorola recently introduced the new Droid Razr HD family of smartphones, and to top off the recent announcement the Droid Razr HD Developer Edition looks ready to join the group.

What you will get is exactly the same device as the more "common" Droid Razr HD with an unlocked bootloader thrown into the mix. The result? A modding-friendly Motorola smartphone, and if the older Motorola Droid Razr Developer Edition is of any indication there will be no warranty and a hefty price tag.

After acquiring Palm, releasing a scant few smartphones, then terminating the business and open sourcing webOS, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman now says the company isn't done with the smartphone business yet. In a television interview this week, Whitman said her company "took a detour into smartphones" and that it has no other option but to release a smartphone because in many developing markets, that is the primary computing device.

This is something we've heard from all kinds of technology companies and international development groups for the last few years, following more than a decade of attempts at bringing better computing capabilities to emerging markets. In many of these places, the notebook computer simply did not exhibit the same impact that mobile communications devices did.

From Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez, Rihanna to Barack Obama, just about everyone is using Instagram to share photos these days. And if you’d like to get a closer look at the contents of any particular account then all you need is a copy of the Free Instagram Downloader.

To get started, just click “Input User Name” and enter the user name of the account you’re interested in. If no-one comes to mind, try MTV, say, or perhaps TaylorSwift.

Last in a series. If you read tech blogs as much as I do I am sure you have seen a number of articles criticizing Windows 8. Among these are articles that focus on the overall design of the Modern UI and its numerous inconsistencies. I saw a forum post on one website claiming that visual designers hate Windows 8?

The reason, hold on to your seat because this one is a doozy: the Modern UI design language has done away with drop shadows and realistic looking icons; in other words, the interface looks nothing like the skeuomorphic interfaces of Apple and to some degree, Google.

Bad news for anyone who finds themselves needing to look up something on Wikipedia when talking on the phone to their mom, the CDMA/LTE version of Apple's iPhone 5 will not support simultaneous voice and data (SVD). The pure GSM versions of the iPhone 5 will, however allow this feature, so the new buyer must beware.

For this feature to exist on Verizon and Sprint's networks, Apple would have had to install another wireless radio antenna in the iPhone 5. Of course, Apple only began offering CDMA iPhones last year, and those versions did not support simultaneous voice and data, either, so upgrading customers should already be well familiar with this missing feature.

The golden years of Apple's outright dominance in technical innovation is fading, and quickly at that. The iPhone 5 just launched with a deservedly ho-hum and lackluster reception, with many people asking the obvious question: that's it? For a company riding the high waves of Wall Street for more than a few years now, with earnings going through the roof quarter upon quarter, is this the best that a larger-than-life tech giant can bring us?

Maybe the naysayers are right in that Apple is the leftover shell of a monolith once passed (post-Jobs.) Perhaps that internal drive to bring out the best in technology they release is starting to fizzle. I'd go as far as to argue that Apple never really has been as continually innovative as many people may believe. While Apple does have an easy ability in commanding the lead for sectors it enters, this doesn't necessarily mean the company if filled with technical Einsteins as so many supporters clamor to believe.

Talk about your bitter clingers! Here I am, minding my own business, just writing about my experiences using an Android tablet, when out of the woodwork comes this wave of angry post-PC deniers. I mean, the level of rage on display is unreal. You'd think I walked into a Steve Jobs memorial service wearing an "I love Android" t-shirt or something!

For those of you who missed my earlier post, I noted how pleased I was with the outcome of my own post-PC experiment. I wrote how, with the right supporting peripherals, I could be perfectly productive on even a cheap Android tablet -- like my trusty Acer Iconia Tab 200. In fact, I was so impressed with the results that I declared being done with laptops forever. I would literally never buy another traditional laptop PC.

F-Secure has announced the availability of its 2013 product family, which includes F-Secure Anti-Virus 2013 and F-Secure Internet Security 2013.

And while this represents a relatively gentle evolution of both packages, with no major changes, there have been one or two worthwhile tweaks here. It’s good to see that Internet Security 2013 now fully supports Google Chrome, for instance (although not before time). The firewall has been redesigned, offers more configuration options, and, F-Secure says, “works seamlessly in home and public networks”. The core protection technologies have been enhanced to offer even greater safety, both online and off.

Reflecting its recent acquisition by Microsoft, the new Skype 5.11 for Windows Beta has been released with a focus on improving integration with Microsoft services.

Users will now be able to log into Skype through their Microsoft or Facebook accounts as well as their regular Skype one. The update also makes it possible to take part in IM conversations with other Messenger contacts in addition to Skype users and Facebook friends.

MAGIX Software has revealed MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 2013, the latest edition of its powerful video editor. And a strong focus on performance has resulted in some major speed enhancements.

AVCHD import is now up to 40-percent faster, for instance. Processing effects on the GPU has delivered a 90-percent speed boost, while rendering AVCHD Full HD projects can be up to twice as fast in some situations.