Microsoft has announced that it is rolling out a preview version of Skype for Outlook.com in the United Kingdom that will allow users to make audio and video calls directly from their inbox.

Available from today, Skype for Outlook.com requires a one-time download of a browser plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome. Once installed, users simply connect Skype to Outlook.com and merge their contacts.

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If the rumors are to be believed, every company in the tech world is currently working on a smartwatch. Apple was among the first to be linked to a wrist device, but since then we’ve heard similar development stories concerning Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and LG, to name just a few.

Assuming at least some of those rumored watches come to fruition, the developers are going to have to find a way around the issue of typing on a tiny smartwatch face, but researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have come up with what they think is an ideal solution.

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Today is the biggest day of the off-season for NFL fans. We all wait to see who our favorite team selects when the pick rolls around. We wonder if the player will be boon or bust. After all, the Draft is little more than a crap shoot -- ask the San Diego Chargers how that Ryan Leaf kid worked out. On the other hand, there are late round gems to be found -- Terrell Davis was a sixth round pick and Davone Bess went undrafted.

Either way, the whole show, live from Radio City in New York, will go down beginning tonight at 8pm ET and the spectacle can be watched on the NFL Network.

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The weather is warming up and our thoughts are turning towards vacation time. Where are you heading on that big summer trip? Regardless of the destination you decide on, Gogobot in conjunction with HomeAway can make sure you get the most from your time away with its new social-based guides covering many popular destinations.

Insider Guides is a new social sharing service which allows individual vacation rental owners to create customizable guidebooks for their guests, packed with local tips and recommendations covering favorite restaurants, attractions and activities. The guidebooks combine the property owners’ local expertise with Gogobot’s destination content, photos, reviews and social functionality. The service boasts over 2.5 million contributing members.

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The BBC tends to favor iOS when it comes to mobile apps. The broadcaster isn’t ignoring Android, it just takes a while to roll out apps for Google’s mobile operating system, and often those apps, when they do arrive, aren’t as slick or don’t have all the features found in the iOS versions.

Case in point -- the Beeb debuted the iPlayer Radio app for iOS seven months ago, but it’s taken until now for the Android version to appear on Google Play (it will also be available on Amazon’s app store "very soon").

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Sixth in a series. I’ve always admired the concept, execution and possibilities of Raspberry Pi, the British designed and built world-conquering credit card-sized ARM GNU/Linux computer. But despite following the Raspberry Foundation’s every move closely, and frequently promising that I’d buy myself a Pi soon, for some reason I never did.

A year came and went, and although a million Pis were sold in that time, I wasn’t one of the proud purchasers. But after my chat with the lovely Liz Upton, Head of Communications at Raspberry Pi Foundation (and wife of executive director Eben), I realized I had to rectify that mistake. Three weeks ago I finally ordered a Model B Pi, and minutes after powering it up, I knew I was in trouble.

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According to the London Fire Brigade, the number of accidental fires involving young professionals (aged 18-35) in the UK capital has dropped by an average of nearly two a week since the fire service started using social media to deliver fire safety advice.

The Brigade set up its Twitter account and official Facebook page in 2009, and now has over 66,000 followers across both social sites.

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I own an iPad, which I love dearly. I use it for lots of things -- games, email, browsing the web, social networking, writing, viewing photos and video, and remote accessing my PC. The iPad, like all tablets, is a true jack of all trades and a master of some too.

But, try as I might, I can’t use it for "real" tasks. While it’s fine for writing small-ish articles on, I could never write a novel on it -- and I’ve tried. For some reason, I just can’t connect with typing on a touchscreen in the same way I do when typing on a proper full-size keyboard. And I could never imagine attempting detailed Photoshop work on a touchscreen either (well, not without a fine stylus at least).

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No, I am not talking of the nerdtastic movie from Joss Whedon, but of an app. I have written twice now of my move from an HTPC to Google TV in the living room, with my most recent post surrounding ways to get both live TV and home media to the tiny set top box. For serving up home media I opted for Plex, which seemed the best solution.

Plex is both a server and app and both are free. Simply install the server software on an always-on computer and control it from a web browser dashboard. From there you can direct it to all of your media -- movies, TV shows, music and photos. It is dead simple to set up and maintain.

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As someone who switched from Hotmail to Gmail in 2004 and then never looked back, moving to Outlook.com has been quite a weird experience (setting it up was fun in its own right). Some people hate Gmail’s interface, but if you’re used to it, using anything else seems odd.

That said, I’ve adapted to Outlook.com pretty quickly. It feels a bit like going back in time, using an interface similar to the ones I used in the past, but it doesn’t feel dated -- quite the opposite actually -- and I’ve grown to really like it in the short period of time I’ve been using it as my email service.

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On Tuesday, Vonage introduced free video calling into its mobile app for iPhone and Android, rounding out a suite which already offers features like free app-to-app calls, texts, photo and location sharing, as well as international calling.

I chatted to Nick Lazzaro, Vonage’s SVP Product Development, Information Technology and Managing Director Mobile Services, about the new addition, the company’s plans for the future, and what he thinks is next for the mobile industry.

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Although it sounds like a slightly late April Fool’s joke, Amazon has today announced it will be giving customers who have purchased vinyl records from Amazon dating back to 1998, free copies in MP3 format.

It forms part of the AutoRip service which automatically adds MP3s of past and present CD purchases to the shopper’s Cloud Player libraries.

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The notion of a Facebook phone has certainly lingered for a few years now -- the concept reached a point of half-hearted fruition in the HTC ChaCha and Salsa in 2011, but neither really embodied the true potential of a Facebook phone. They were much more of "throw and see what sticks" devices -- with the only tangible evidence of deeper Facebook integration being the Facebook button on the devices’ fronts.

Much has changed in nearly two years: Facebook’s Open Graph, the acquisition of Instagram and the introduction of Facebook Camera and Messenger applications, among others. Perhaps the most strident progression Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has made in the past two years is reaching 1 billion active users. And counting. That’s approximately one in seven people in the world, and an even larger proportion if accounting for the developed world alone.

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The 2012 Kickstarter darling Ouya has been anticipated ever since it skyrocketed past its fund-raising goal and began pre-production. While Sony has released information on its next-generation PlayStation and many people have been talking up the new Xbox, Ouya may have outdone both larger companies in terms of publicity and expectation.

CEO Julie Uhrman announces that "Today we start shipping our early backers their OUYAs. And at our unveiling event this evening, the first of you will get to see OUYA in the flesh (or, metal, as it were)".

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Apple has gone to great trouble to craft its stores and reputation. The company refers to its employees as geniuses, for goodness sake! Taking your device in for repair is alluded to as a visit to the "genius bar". It is an entire ecosystem designed to make the customer feel confident and comfortable when dealing with the company. It is also a setup that lends itself to comedy and U.K. hard cider maker Somersby saw that opportunity.

The company has produced a new one-minute TV spot that portrays the Apple Store as a bar that serves up its cider and the geniuses explain why it is so good. The ad does not so much make fun of Apple (that is what Samsung is for), but instead uses the tech company's concept as a basis for some good tongue-in-cheek humor.

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