Microsoft has called on developers to rev their enthusiasm and begin coding apps for the new Windows Store, which is expected in late February. The digital distribution center, which will be part of Windows 8, is similar in concept to the Mac App Store part of Apple's OS X Lion. But Windows Store is less about customers and developers and more about Microsoft.

Windows 8 presents Microsoft with a big problem, and one Vista foreshadows. Actually, if working for the software giant and understanding the problem's depth, I'd be freaked out about the risky Windows 8 strategy. Windows and Windows Live President Steven Sinofsky and his development team are trying to leap the operating system forward. But it's a leap of faith, because they don't have the third-party applications necessary to assure success. Windows Store is their only hope.

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Tonight, in San Francisco, Microsoft offered up more details about the Windows Store, which makes its debut in late February -- presumably with the first Windows 8 public beta. Like Apple does with Mac OS X, Microsoft will sell third-party apps from the operating system.

Based on today's announcement, it is near certainty that Microsoft is planning Windows 8 availability for holiday 2012 and release to manufacturing sometime in early summer, based on the v7 development milestones. However, Windows 8 is a considerably more complicated release than any of its forebears, as Microsoft prepares business customers, hardware partners and software developers for ARM-chip support, Metro user interface and the operating system's built-in store. Execution and, more importantly, preparation is key -- hence today's announcement months before the store is available for public testing.

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The prospect of cost savings is touted as a significant benefit of cloud computing, but a new study disputes that argument. More than one-third of US businesses employing the cloud save less than $20,000, according to the study commissioned by IT consultation firm CSC. Nearly one-quarter saved nothing. Going to the cloud does not reduce the size of IT departments generally: only 14 percent report a reduction in tech workforce, while one-fifth actually expand the number of employees in IT through the hiring of consultants.

Cloud computing was recently touted by former US chief information officer Vivek Kundra as a method to save the federal government some $5 billion annually. If CSC is right, Kundra's claims are way off, and actually may cost taxpayers far more.

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If you have any private photos on Facebook that you really don't want out there, consider this story your fair warning to delete them. A flaw in the social networking site's reporting mechanism allows users to peer into content that is otherwise marked "private". Now would be a good time to remove that pic of drunken you mooning the boss.

The flaw was first widely reported on the forums of bodybuilding.com, a popular fitness site. The post -- since removed -- details the exploit. Proceed through the menus after reporting an image as inappropriate. When the dialog asks if you want to report any other images in the album, click "yes". All images, whether public or private, will be displayed.

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The US blogosphere has become increasingly alarmed by the new Anti-Piracy Act – Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. Discussions of the topic are, to put it mildly, quite frank, with comments like: "These idiots are coming for your internet."

What is SOPA? It is support for and development of something that is currently very relevant – the protection of intellectual property. Ladies and gentlemen, this really is important! "Thou shalt not steal," as the Bible says! An author – or more often than not, a team – spends sleepless nights writing a book, composing music, shooting a film, creating software or testing software packages. Doesn’t that deserve a financial reward? Yes or no? Think before you answer – someone could well ask the same question about your profession… So?

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As long as you have a fast Internet connection, then nothing quite beats the convenience of online backups. There are no network issues to worry about, no discs to prepare: just set up the backup client and it’ll automatically transfer whatever files you’ve specified at the appropriate time. And better still, by backing them up offsite you’ll guarantee their survival, even if your home is hit by a disaster like a burglary, or a fire.

Of course most online backup services fully realise their advantages, and so will charge sizeable amounts of money to open an account for anything other than the most trivial amount of server space. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And if you’re looking for an online backup bargain, then we just might have one in the shape of AVG’s LiveKive 2012.

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Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 in 2005. The console has been around for just about 6 years, but in that timeframe, through the distribution of numerous software updates, the company has kept the console fresh and competitive. The latest major software update is now available for the 57.7 million Xbox 360 consoles that have been sold worldwide, and with it comes a brand new Metro based user-interface along with a number of fresh capabilities that not only improve the Xbox experience, but moves it several steps closer to being the jack-of-all-trades device of your living room.

In a way, the new Xbox 360 dashboard reflects Microsoft larger ambitions -- a declaration that Xbox is much more than just a games console. It's a full-blown entertainment system that not only competes with the likes of game-industry rivals Sony and Nintendo. It also contends with Apple and Google.

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EASEUS, best known for its Windows data recovery and partition management software, has ventured into the Mac market with its first new release.

MacCleaning Free 1.0.0 is a drive monitoring and cleanup tool for OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later. Not only does it give you a quick overview of your drives’ free space from the menu bar, but it also provides a “fast clean” option for clearing out certain parts of your hard drive.

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The world of smartphones and mobile media tablets may be dominated by processors based on the ARM architecture, but other instruction sets are getting their due with Android.

There is development on Android on x86, spearheaded by processor makers AMD and Intel; and this week, MIPS Technologies announced the availability of the first mobile tablet running Android 4.0 on the MIPS architecture.

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Opera Software has announced the release of Opera 11.60 Final. Despite the relatively minor version number, Opera 11.60 boasts three major new features, including revamped Address Bar, browser engine and mail client.

Opera, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, has long been regarded as a pioneer when it comes to the web browser -- it was the first to introduce tabbed browsing, for example, and is still the only major browser to also include a mail client.

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Classic comedy "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" opens with a body collector calling: "bring out your dead!" "Here's one", replies a man carrying a geezer, who pipes in: "I'm not dead". Major Microsoft competitors -- Apple, Google and their supporters, for example -- have repeatedly tried to give up Microsoft for dead. But today's major Xbox updates clearly proclaim Microsoft isn't dead, or even dying. The Redmond, Wash.-based giant has repositioned the console and supporting cloud services as a whole entertainment package -- more than just about gaming.

If any dead deserve to be brought out, they are Apple and Google. Xbox 360 and Live trailblaze where rumor whores claim Apple TV and Google TV will go. It's pathetic that bloggers and journalists spread rumors about Apple's future TV plans -- the newest about a television coming in three sizes -- a year from now! How the frak could anyone possibly know? Instead of what might be, how about writers focus on what is? Some commenters accuse me of linkbaiting. Apple future product rumors are real prime examples. You won't read them from me.

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Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless on Tuesday introduced two new Android-powered tablets sporting the Droid brand name and 4G LTE connectivity and the promise of an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) upgrade: The Droid Xyboard 10.1 and 8.2. The devices are the successors to the popular Motorola Xoom tablet which first debuted in early 2011.

As the names suggest, one model of the Droid Xyboard has a 10.1" touchscreen and the other has an 8.2" touchscreen. Both models have dual-core 1.2 GHz processors, 1GB of RAM, LTE radios with 8-device hotspot functionality, 5 megapixel flash cameras and 1.3 megapixel chat cameras.

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A number of Kindle Fire users are reporting Internet connectivity issues that are preventing them from browsing the web, according to posts to Amazon's community forums. Devices connect to WiFi but not to the Internet, or speed drops dramatically.

The trouble was widely reported today and attributed to WiFi. However, based on a cursory technical review and thorough exploration of forum posts, BetaNews sees a likely different cause: Some kind of breakdown between Amazon's Silk browser, Amazon's supporting web services and local ISP connection -- relating to server caching, we suspect.

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If you've got Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft has Service Pack 2 fresh up on the download servers. The update is more than just bug fixes. Microsoft reaches into its goody bag and pulls out some new features.

For employees on the go, there is "mini version of Outlook Web App". Say, Microsoft, what happened to your usual acronyms -- in this case MVOOWA, which reads very Native American to me (my great-great grandma was MicMac indian). I'd prefer Outlook Mini-App or Mobile-App nomenclature, but that's just me. The browser-based service offers much of the same functionality -- calendar, contacts, email, etc. -- users expect from sibling Outlook Web Access (or is it called App now?) but tidied up for mobile devices.

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