Latest Technology News

Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a very interesting look at where the operating system is going next, in particular with features like the new Windows app store, but of course it’s also a beta and needs to be treated with caution. Especially as it can’t be uninstalled should things go wrong.

If you only want a quick look round at the Windows 8 highlights, then, the safest approach is to install it on a VirtualBox virtual machine. You won’t have to spend time freeing up a laptop or creating a new partition, and can browse the new Metro interface in a window on your desktop: far more convenient.

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There are few apps that could pull me away from Galaxy Nexus, the current Google phone, to iPhone 4S. But SmugMug's Camera Awesome is close. Real close. If you're an iPhone shutterbug, this app is for you -- or so I believe after a brief test late today.

Photo buffs can find no shortage of apps for iPhone. But Camera Awesome literally lives up to its name, improving the photo-taking process -- not just enhancing images later. The app provides tools for easing image composition, adding effects before or after taking the pic and automatically post-processing your work -- what SmugMug calls "Awesomizing".

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Microsoft has released betas of its various Visual Studio 11 editions -- Ultimate, Premium, Professional, Test Professional and Express -- along with Team Foundation Server and the .NET Framework 4.5.

And of course it’s no coincidence that the latest version of the IDE has arrived on the same day as the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Visual Studio is all about developing for Windows 8, and its integrated tools for publishing directly to the new Windows App Store will make it much easier for developers to reach a potentially huge market.

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I must be candid. The best product reviews come from you. You're the audience BetaNews reaches, and you use software in real ways that no benchmark can measure. So once again, I ask for your review -- this time Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which is now available for download as upgrade or in a virtual machine.

Your first impressions will matter to other readers, or even a thorough review. Please comment to this post. I'll collect first impressions/short reviews into a separate post. However, I'd love to run your review, with name, photo and bio instead. Please email joe at betanews dot com to contribute a review. To everyone: Please provide specs on your test systems, which will be valuable reference for other Consumer Previewers.

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Make it small, make it cheap, and people will buy it.

Two tiny, single-board Linux computers with sweet names that debuted at nearly the same time have attracted disproportionately large attention from PC consumers this week: the Raspberry Pi, and the FXI Cotton Candy. The Raspberry Pi is a bare, uncased board that costs $35, and the Cotton Candy is a finished, ready to run PC-in-a-USB stick that costs $199. Both sport ARM processors, both will run Linux variants.

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Okay, everything is going Metro with Windows 8, right? The new, tile-like user interface is the hottest thing to ever come to Windows, right? Not so fast. Businesses need to be cautious when choosing which new applications should be designed for Metro and what apps should be designed for the desktop. Why?

In IT, change often isn't a good thing, and Metro brings lots of it.

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In addition to the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, and the betas of Visual Studio 11 and the .NET 4.5 framework, Microsoft on Wednesday also released the beta of Windows Server 8.

With this version of its popular server software, Microsoft is concentrating on a few key areas: multitenant virtualization, simplified multi-server architecture, cloud management of sites and applications, and simplified, cross-platform access providing "the full Windows experience anywhere"

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Yesterday I asked: "Will you try Windows 8 Consumer Preview?" It's here, and many of you are rip-roaring ready.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's most important OS release since XP and quite possible ever. The company is reinventing Windows for the cloud-connected device era. There is major emphasis on mobility and syncing you across devices. The new Metro UI revives and fulfills Microsoft's Active Desktop concept attempted in the 1990s and abandoned by Windows XP's launch in October 2001.

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We told you that Microsoft today announced the release of its Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and made it available to download for anyone interested. Well, where do you get it?

While it’s not tagged as a beta, the Consumer Preview is still a prerelease edition, unfinished and incomplete, so you need to be very careful where you install it. It’s also much closer to the finished product than the Developer Preview, though, and includes the Windows Store amongst many other interesting new features, so if you’d like to see where Microsoft are going next then it’s well worth a look.

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Not since Windows XP has Microsoft promised so much and delivered it so quickly. Today, in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft officially announced what we all knew was coming: Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The software is available for anyone to download and try, and its timing almost certainly assures -- short of atomic blast, alien invasion or Mayan end-of-the-world predictions come true -- that Windows 8 will release to manufacturing by end of summer and launch in time for holiday PC sales.

Microsoft has greatly improved the look, feel and functionality of Windows 8 since releasing the Developer Preview in September. Given release timing, the software available today should be considered near-final code. Expect few changes before the release candidate, assuming Microsoft even sees need to make one publicly available. The Consumer Preview is available to anyone with a PC capable of running it.

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The Handbrake Project has announced an update to its open-source, cross-platform video transcoding utility. Handbrake 0.9.6 includes new and updated codecs, improved filters and demuxers, a new “Normal” preset promising faster transcoding times and improvements detecting DVD discs.

There are also a number of platform-specific changes, including various user interface tweaks spanning Windows, OS X and Linux. OS X users also lose support for DVD encryption using VLC 2.0 due to a lack of support from the latter.

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Multimedia specialist MAGIX has released Photo Manager MX Deluxe, the latest edition of its photo workflow package, extending the program’s already ridiculously lengthy feature list with some worthwhile new additions.

If you’re looking to create a panorama, for instance, the new montage tool will automatically combine, position and crossfade up to eight individual images, variously correcting for lens distortions, perspective and other issues to produce the best possible panorama. That’s the idea, anyway; our initial tests weren’t always successful, but did show the tool is capable of some impressive results.

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As Windows chief Steven Sinofsky takes the stage in Barcelona Wednesday to debut the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, there's a sense that a new era is dawning at Microsoft. Windows is about to take a dramatic turn and Sinofsky is very much responsible for that.

On top of this, Windows is coming out on time (AGAIN!), a real change in Microsoft's track record of missed deadlines. With current CEO Steve Ballmer's time at the helm arguably less than stellar, you have think there must be someone waiting in the wings at Microsoft to take his place.

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Screen capture can be as simple as hitting the Print Screen key on your keyboard, but if you’re slightly more demanding you’re going to have to look elsewhere for a more advanced tool than those built into your operating system.

Snagit is one such a screen capture tool that has carved out something of a name for itself on both Mac and PC, and can be used to grab entire screens, individual windows, capture on a delay and much more. The release of Snagit 11 and Snagit for Mac 2.0 sees a major new feature, the ability to capture video as well as stills, added to the Mac version, while Windows users have a number of key improvements and new features to enjoy.

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ISO disc images are an increasingly popular way of distributing software, but the standard tools for working with them aren’t particularly useful. Windows 7 can burn ISO images to disc, for instance, but that’s about it, and disc burning packages typically don’t do very much more.

Turn to a specialist tool, though, and it’s a very different story. WinISO in particular is one of the most powerful image management packages around, providing everything you need to create, open, edit, extract, convert and otherwise work with a variety of CD, DVD and Blu-ray disc image formats. And while it’s normally priced at $29.95, this Wednesday you can obtain a full copy of your own for no charge at all.

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