Sixteenth in a series. Windows Store's slow but steady application growth continues this week with the addition of 610 new apps in the US store. This brings the total listed to 28,665.  Of those, 22,101 free and 6,563 paid. It is not clear why there is one application missing when you add free and paid apps.

The growth is slowing down if you look at the recent performance. Two weeks ago, 970 new apps were listed in Windows Store, one week ago that number dropped to 773, and this week we see another drop to 610 new apps. It will be interesting to see if the downwards trend continues or if there will be a recovery in the coming weeks.

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A few weeks ago I wrote about Apple allowing a member-measuring app into the App Store (which BetaNews readers seemed to love) and now news reaches us that veteran singer Chubby Checker has got his knickers in a "twist" and is suing Hewlett-Packard over a penis size estimator that bears his name.

The "Chubby Checker" app for HP’s Palm OS platform was pulled from all Palm and HP listings in September last year and the developer, Magic Apps, is no more, but that hasn’t stopped the singer’s lawyers going to war over the (frankly genius) use of the name and demanding a stiff half a billion dollars for "irreparable damage and harm" to Checker.

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Cloud backup provider SugarSync, Inc has announced the release of SugarSync 2.0.1 FINAL for Windows and Mac users. The desktop tool, which provides backup, sync and sharing services through SugarSync’s cloud servers, has been radically revamped for this new release, which first debuted in beta back in November.

The latest release includes a number of major new features and improvements, including SugarSync Drive, more flexible sharing of files and cloud search tools. The new build is joined by SugarSync 4.0.0 for Android, with an iOS update promised soon.

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The vast majority of us use multiple cloud services for email, social media, and file storage, which means having to regularly switch between different websites or apps to access our data. KiteDesk aims to solve that problem by aggregating information from all of the popular cloud services into a single application.

Aimed at busy consumers and professionals, the service presents email messages, social media posts, contacts, calendar events, and files from the likes of Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox, in a single stream and lets you search for, share, and comment on content.

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British broadcaster ITV has agreed to a deal with Shazam -- the popular music identification service -- allowing viewers of this year’s The Brits music awards to access exclusive content during the live broadcast -- a UK first.

By using Shazam to tag the show between 8pm and 10:15pm on February 20, viewers will get access to exclusive behind-the-scenes content from performers and guest presenters.

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One of the least impressive features added by Google in Android 4.2 is the ability to use lockscreen widgets. By default the second Jelly Bean iteration comes with a limited number of options, none of which is capable of delivering enough glanceable information without swiping left and right to find emails or calendar entries. With DashClock Widget the true potential of lockscreen widgets is unleashed by displaying relevant "status items" right after unlocking the device, all in one go.

DashClock Widget can be used as a Digital clock widget replacement, further building on the stock functionality by introducing support for next scheduled alarm, upcoming calendar appointments, missed calls and unread texts, unread Gmail inbox or Priority inbox count as well as local weather data. Straight off the bat it puts the stock lockscreen widgets to shame by combining sufficient relevant information, all in one place.

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Mozilla announced back in October that it would release a Metro Modern UI version of Firefox. At the time, the company released a "preview" version that was code named "Elm" which was an offshoot of the Nightly builds that the company produces for those users who wish to live on the bleeding edge of technology.

The day has finally arrived where that test build has graduated to an actual Nightly build. Yesterday evening Mozilla's Asa Dotzler announced that "preliminary Metro Firefox development work arrived at mozilla-central, the source code repository that feeds the Firefox Nightly channel".

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The so-called "bring your own device to work" movement is great for employees looking to use their own (and newest) stuff and for business managers looking to cut hardware costs but a nightmare for IT admins. So they're fighting back, just too bad at the typically glacially slow pace of big enterprises.

Gartner predicts that by 2017 one-quarter of enterprises will have their own mobile app stores offering sanctioned wares for employees.

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There has been a lot of news recently about Surface Pro. The new tablet made quite a splash over the weekend, but the jury still is out about the real success of the launch. However, Bluestacks is interested enough to bring its wares to the new platform and carry 750,000 Android apps along.

That may sound like a nice gesture towards Microsoft, but it also represents somewhat of a dig at the company. In fact, the website launched by Bluestacks is titled Get your Apps Back. The site even has a headline -- Missing your apps on Windows 8? While a dig at the lack of apps proliferating the new Windows Store, it is also a nice little bonus for Surface Pro early-adopters and other Windows 8 users.

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With cloud services like MediaFire and Mega offering generous free storage straight off the bat, the spotlight slowly fades away from other players and their abysmal free space offers. Box, however, has decided if you can't beat them, join them and is currently providing the same mind-boggling 50GB of free cloud storage, courtesy of Dell.

The offer has been available for a couple of days and comes with no expiration date on the storage limit. Even though it's associated with Dell there is no limitation requiring you to sign up using a Dell device, such as computer or tablet. Any user can take advantage of the 50GB of free cloud storage just by providing the first name, last name, email address, password and phone number.

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Yesterday it appeared that WinZip for Windows 8 app was now available for free. Which would have represented a fairly swift change of direction, as it’s not even three months since the app first appeared in the Windows Store with a price tag of $7.99.

But apparently this is not the case. The Windows 8 store may label it as free, and you won’t be told otherwise on installation, but it seems the app is only free for a 15 day trial, after which point you’ll need to subscribe for the same $7.99 a year.

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The timing could not be better. Yesterday my wife received her shiny new Nokia Lumia 822 and today she can now use it to play music from the streaming service Spotify. Oh, she probably will not because, not her thing, but she could, and that is the important thing because the option was not available to her, or any other Windows Phone 8 customers, yesterday.

Today Microsoft's Michael Stroh proudly announces that Spotify has now found a home in the Windows Phone Store. The app is still in beta, which means users may experience a bit of a hiccup here and there, but customers can "instantly increases the size of your music library by millions of tracks, making it easy to discover new songs and artists. You can create your own playlists, or browse and indulge in the ones your friends put together". It also features the ability to download playlists to your handset for listening at times when you are not within range of a connection. Tracks added from the phone app also show on your computer.

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Fifteenth in a series. Several important applications received updates in the past seven days. Adobe updated its Reader application for Windows 8 and even changed the name of the application to Adobe Reader Touch. Microosft, too, released updates for several of its applications, including the Bing, which now includes video search results.

In another interesting turn of events, WinZip decided to remove the price tag from the company's Windows 8 app of the same name. The application, previously available for $7.99 is now available free.

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WinZip Computing has announced that its WinZip for Windows 8 app is now available for free.

This represents a fairly swift change of direction, as it’s not even three months since the app first appeared in the Windows Store with a price tag of $7.99.

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Thanks to the internet, the cloud, smartphones and services like Skype, a business no longer needs employees in-house or even in similar locations. BetaNews itself employs writers located in various places around the world who can easily communicate and share with one another.

Now team collaboration company BusyFlow, already a web app, has launched its services for both Android and iOS, further pushing the boundaries for cloud sharing and communications.

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