With Microsoft we've become used to the idea of publicly available preview builds of Windows 10 for desktop and phone. Now Apple is following suit and making iOS 8.3 available as a public beta. This is the first time a public beta of iOS has been released, although Apple has tried the same tactic with betas of OS X.

The beta is in the process of rolling out at the moment, so you may not be able to grab yourself the bits just yet, but you can get yourself in line. What is there to look forward to? Not much at the moment, apart from wireless CarPlay and new emoji. Here's how to grab the beta.

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After nine years, Google Code is closing down. Starting today, it is no longer possible to create new projects, and over the course of the coming ten months, the service will be mothballed. Google Code was Google's attempt to help the open source community by offering somewhere to host projects, but the growth of the likes of GitHub and Bitbucket has taken its toll and Google Code has filled up with spam and abuse.

Competition in the world of project hosting has become fierce, and Google feels it's time to pass on the baton rather than fighting for attention. Google has itself moved many of its own open source projects to GitHub. Don't panic if you’re not quite ready to jump ship -- there's still a little time to play with.

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The Apple Watch was announced just a couple of days ago, and the focus has been very much on the hardware so far. But battery life and the amount of storage aside, this is an Apple product, and that means apps are central to its success. Just like the iPhone and iPad, the Apple Watch is a platform on which developers can work their magic.

One such developer is Christoph Burgdorfer, the man behind -- amongst other things -- WhereAreYou App (Locate a friend), a free app that does very much what it says on the tin. It started life as an iPhone and Android app, but the emergence of Apple Watch opens up another possibility. I caught up with Christoph to chat about what it was like to develop for an unreleased product, and whether Apple got it right with the Apple Watch.

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There are unlikely partnerships, and there are unlikely partnerships -- Google and Microsoft certainly make for strange bedfellows. At developer conference ng-conf in Salt Lake City, Google's Angular team revealed that it has been working with the TypeScript Team from Microsoft to produce Angular 2.

The worlds of TypeScript and AtScript have converged, resulting in the collaborative effort that is Angular 2. The new version of the JavaScript framework will be written in TypeScript and will be used to develop the next generation of web sites and web apps.

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Every discussion on mobile-first development misses out on one of its most important and least understood characteristics: Mobile apps need to work offline.

The fundamental premise of mobility is that the technology should work everywhere. And that means everywhere. Imagine if you couldn’t access iTunes on the subway, or look up your next meeting on your calendar in an elevator, or a phone number in your contacts while trying to make an urgent call from the road. And forget being able to access anything when you are 15,000 feet in the sky.

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It just became a whole lot easier to embed Twitter-hosted videos on websites. A newly launched widget makes it possible to add the video from a tweet to a website without the need to embed the entire tweet. It's a neat-looking solution that makes it simple to embed videos without unnecessary, distracting page furniture.

It works in just the same way as embedding an entire tweet, and it provides a way for Twitter to drive traffic back to its own site rather than other video services, whilst simultaneously making life easier for embedders and helping to pull in followers from other sites.

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With MWC 2015 underway in Barcelona, the tech world is laser focused on mobile devices at the moment. Whether your mobile device preference is an iPhone, an Android handset or a Windows Phone device, your decision will have been swayed by a number of things -- price, brand reputation, knowledge of the ecosystem, and range of apps. Android may be the most popular choice at the moment, but this appears to be in spite of problems the platform suffers form.

A new report from Crittercism suggests that Android apps crash more frequently than their iOS counterparts. But this is not the only bad news for Google's mobile operating system; the report also finds that the fragmentation of Android persists.

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Microsoft Garage is home to all manner of innovative projects from Microsoft employees, and today a new batch of projects has been unveiled. As Garage is a cross-platform venture, there are apps for Windows Phone, Android and desktop Windows, and the myriad tools cover everything from app development to the weather.

On the productivity front, Mouse Without Borders is a name that might seem familiar. Strictly speaking, this is a re-release rather than a new release, and the utility makes it possible to control up to four computers with a single keyboard and mouse by acting like a virtual KVM switch. If this isn’t your sort of thing, there are plenty more tools to explore.

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Chrome Experiments is now entering its sixth year and is home to hundreds of coding experiments that help to make the Internet a more fun and enjoyable place. Ten hundred in fact. To celebrate reaching the milestone of 1,000 experiments, Google is not only launching a new experiment that shows off all of the rest, but also rolling out a redesign.

The redesign is about more than just a new look, it's also about emphasizing the fact that Google wants to be part of every platform available. It's a Polymer-based redesign that works equally well on large-screen-desktops and small-displayed mobiles and is Google's new way to showcase the best in HTML5 and JavaScript.

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Today Microsoft launches a new OneDrive API, opening up its cloud storage service to a wider range of developers. The API can be used to integrate OneDrive into apps running on Android, Windows, iOS and the web, and there is a focus on efficiency with minimal calls needed to keep files in sync.

The API has already started to roll out to a number of Microsoft apps, and the company is keen to ensure that all developers have access to the same set of tools. There are a number of new features to be found in the API which can be easily added to existing apps and services.

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The demand for Linux developers has jumped seven percent in comparison to last year, a study has shown.

The 2014 Linux Jobs Report shows that hiring managers at tech-powered companies are focusing more attention on Linux talent, and that’s reverberating in the market, with stronger than average salary increases to those working with the OS.

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The web could be in line for a speed boost as the HTTP/2 standard edges closer to being finalized. The updated standard will be the first major alteration to the protocol since the late 1990s, and it includes a number of important updates that should help to make life online faster and more enjoyable.

Although HTTP/2 is yet to be published as a completed standard, it is already supported by some web browsers including Chrome and Firefox. However, it won't be until the standard is far more widely adopted that the real benefits will be felt.

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Microsoft's mobile-first, cloud-first strategy continues. In something of a surprise announcement the company reveals that it is launching a new cloud storage partner program meaning that any cloud storage provider will be able to integrate with Office for iOS and Office Online.

The news follows on from Microsoft's partnership with Dropbox in November and while it is just iOS users who will benefit from the new mobile options for now, Office for Android and Office for Windows 10 will also get the same treatment in due course. It's a recognition of the fact that integration with OneDrive is not enough so it shouldn't be long before we see iCloud and Google Drive working with Office.

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Smartglasses are tricky. You have people who don't like to wear glasses. Those who do may not like their design. They can also be tiring to wear for extended periods of time, as Google Glass Explorers have confessed. Not to mention that smartglasses are also very expensive. And, at least for the time being, consumers are not taking the plunge, as they appear to be perfectly happy with using just their smartphones.

The lack of consumer interest, and Google recently killing its beloved Glass project, hasn't stopped Japanese maker Sony from coming out with its own pair of smartglasses. They're called SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1, and they're available for pre-order starting today.

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Google managed to ruffle a few feathers recently by disclosing bugs and security problems in widely used software. Project Zero is used to encourage companies to fix issues that have been detected by imposing a 90-day deadline before details of the vulnerabilities are made public.

Microsoft was angered a month ago when Google published details of a security issue in Windows 8.1 just a few days before a patch was due to be released. A few days later, two more bugs were revealed leading to complaints not just from Microsoft but from software users. Now Google has backed down and announced a slight relaxing of its previously strict 90-day disclosure policy.

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