Last week Microsoft kinda-sorta announced its new Surface tablet computer. This week will come a Google-branded tablet. Both are pitted against the mighty iPad. Both companies see opportunity because of what they perceive as a Steve Jobs blind spot. And both companies are introducing tablets under their own brands because they can’t get their OEM’s to do tablets correctly.

For all the speculation about why Microsoft or Google would risk offending hardware OEMs by introducing name branded tablets, the reality is that neither company really had any choice but to make the hardware. In the commodity PC market, no one company is likely to be willing to make the investment necessary to compete with the highly-integrated iPad. Samsung tried, and even then it didn’t pay off for them. Taiwan Inc + Dell just don’t seem to run that way. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to make a product when you control the operating system. You have the experts right there. You don’t have to go through support channels to fix stuff. So ultimately, Microsoft and Google should be able to make much better products than their licensees.

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Open-source desktop customization tool Rainmeter 2.3 has been released, boasting a number of major changes. Rainmeter allows Windows users to customise their desktop well beyond the options provided by the OS using a range of “skins”, which can be downloaded from other sites or created from scratch by the user.

Version 2.3’s headline new feature is a new, improved Rainmeter Skin Package system, which will simplify the process of distributing new user-created skins to others.

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If you’re looking to equip your PC with a free spreadsheet, then your first thought will probably be to download one of the open-source Office competitors: OpenOffice, maybe, or LibreOffice.

But if you prefer something a little more lightweight then there’s an interesting alternative in the GNOME Project’s Gnumeric.

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Just ahead of Google I/O 2012, The Street claims that "Android users don't know enough to matter". Interesting story, especially considering the timing, and one that’s bound to stir lots of criticism just because it puts down all Android fans in the world.

There are plenty of references, but they sustain a flawed point of view.

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Now that Samsung's Galaxy S III is kind of available here in the United States, it's past time to discuss the inevitable iPhone migration. Hey, this is the iPhone 4S killer, right?

Samsung generated a little buzz over the weekend about one tool, Media Mushroom's Easy Phone Sync. The app extends capabilities already offered by the developer's free and paid iTunes offerings. Easy Phone Sync grabs non-DRM music and videos, contacts, calendars and messages -- provided there's a backup on your PC or Mac. Near as I can tell, and someone using the app can correct me, this thing isn't iCloud friendly.

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Today’s homes are becoming smarter and smarter, thanks to embedded technologies. While we’re a good way off from talking homes with their own personalities -- popularized on television and in the movies -- they can do amazing things.

Our homes can keep out burglars, conserve energy, control temperature and humidity and even make our morning coffee, all with little input from us. Interestingly enough, today most of those functions are independent of one another. Our "smart" homes are really a collection of decentralized smart devices, all of which make modern living easier and more comfortable.

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Editor's Note: On June 25, Microsoft announced acquisition of four year-old, enterprise social-networking startup Yammer, for $1.2 billion. A day earlier, in the midst of rumors, Chris Wright put the merger in context, in this sharp and insightful analysis.

Recent press reports claim that Microsoft has bought Yammer, or that they are buying Yammer, or that they at least want to buy Yammer. The scenario currently playing out isn't entirely clear, although the New York Times seems confident the deal is done. In reality, we won’t know the exact nature of what is going on until any paperwork is complete.

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I don't own shares in Google -- or any other company, for that matter (conflict of interest). But were I a shareholder, I'd want to know why Google's CEO missed this week's shareholder meeting and will skip next week's I/O developer conference. Given that Page has only been on the job (his second time as CEO) since April 2011, visibility at big events should be a top priority. His absence already has raised health questions, and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt isn't helping by giving a health reason (laryngitis) as reason why Page will miss Google I/O.

Google shouldn't pull an Apple and play the privacy card. Apple withheld critical information about then-CEO Steve Jobs' health during crucial junctures. He died, which says much about the severity of his illness and impact on his ability to run Apple. I've long contended shareholders had a right to know. Apple is a public company owned by them. Google is much less since cofounder Sergey Brin, Page and Schmidt are the majority stakeholders. They should be informed, and surely are, if no one else. Nevertheless, Google's shares are publicly traded. If something is up (or down) with Page's health, Google should say so. If he's okay, stop the ill-health rumor stories by publicly saying so.

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As we reach the end of June, commercial developers are busy preparing software for a Q3 launch, so we’ll be entering a lean period for key, new releases. This doesn’t mean it was a quiet week; far from it. TechSmith released Camtasia 8.0 for Windows and 2.2 for Mac. This powerful screen-recording tool will enable you to produce professional-level presentations for just about any audience.

If you’re seeking an image editor to complement your screen recording toolkit, look no further than the free GIMPshop 2.8. This is effectively the popular GIMP, wrapped up in a different and user-friendly interface. The various K-Lite Codec Packs are a collection of codecs you can use to play video and audio content on your PC. Although it’s becoming more of a challenge to find videos that won’t play on your PC, there are still plenty encoded using a compression format that was more popular in the early part of the previous decade. Download K-Lite Codec Pack 8.92 Basic, the Standard pack, Full or Mega, which also contains a number of conversion tools.

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People can't stop talking about Microsoft Surface. It’s a very hot and disputed topic. Some critics say that the tablets (there are two) will fail, while others are enthusiastic. There's heated discussion about price, too.

For me and many others like me, Surface is the only tablet that can be used for more than common tasks -- certainly not Apple's iPad. Windows is a very powerful platform, and most professionals need it for work. I want to tell you why you need Surface.

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One thing I have to say about US District Judge Richard Posner, he doesn't mince words. He's direct and cutting. If only there were more jurists like him on the bench. Cut he did today, in an order slicing Apple and Motorola to bits -- but the fruit-logo company he turned to mush. In a 38-page opinion and order, the judge effectively ended Apple's patent lawsuit against Motorola. Apple can appeal, but it's finished presenting before Posner.

"It would be ridiculous to dismiss a suit for failure to prove damages and allow the plaintiff to refile the suit so that he could have a second chance to prove damages", he writes. "This case is therefore dismissed with prejudice; a separate order to that effect is being entered today". Ouch.

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Most PC users need to capture an image of their screen from time to time, and Windows’ ability to grab the full screen and active window will usually be enough. Opting for a specialist screen grabber can give you considerably more options, though, and the open source Live Capture is a particularly good example.

The program allows you to draw a rectangular (or freehand) area you’d like to capture, for instance. It can grab the contents of a fixed area of the screen. There’s an option to grab a program menu, and the Window Control Capture tool makes it easy to grab specific elements of a window: a toolbar, say, or the folder tree in Explorer.

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The annual Google developer convention I/O will take place next week. Like Apple's WWDC and Microsoft's TechEd, it is the big summer event where the world is given a look at each of the respective companies' plans for the coming year.

Google is expected to announce a lot of staggering new stuff, like its own branded sub-$200 tablet and its own Cloud platform to rival Amazon Web Services.

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The rift between Amazon and its cloud competitors got a little wider on Thursday after Amazon Web Services' dominance in the market took center stage at the GigaOM Structure conference in San Francisco. Rackspace president Lew Moorman called for an open alternative to AWS, and warned the service is creating vendor lock-in.

Rackspace and Amazon are becoming increasingly bitter rivals as competition in the cloud heats up. Moorman's company is one of the leading participants in OpenStack, an open-sourced cloud standard. Amazon does not follow cloud standards, and that has lead to the development of OpenStack rivals such as CloudStack.

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Flipboard, the social newsreader with a stylish magazine-like design, has emerged from beta and is now available free for all Android devices, including the Kindle Fire (although it’s optimized for smartphones rather than tablets). Editor's Note: It's not compatible with my ASUS Transformer Pad 300 -- curses.

The app lets you build a magazine made up of topics that interest you. Categories on offer include News, Technology, Flipboard Picks, Design, Photography, Politics, Sports, Style, Film, and Travel. Content is pulled from a range of quality sites like the BBC, Wired Magazine, and USA Today, and fully localized. American readers will see something different from British or Australian users.

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