Get outspoken insights and expert advice on the products and companies that define today's tech landscape, from a source who knows these technologies inside and out.
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
Microsoft's ready to release its second Surface-branded device to the public. Unlike the Surface RT, the new Surface with Windows 8 Pro is a real PC, with all the strengths and weaknesses that go with it. Should you buy one?
Microsoft released Office 365 Home Premium to the public today. The subscription-based service is specifically for noncommercial use, so CIOs can ignore it, right? Well, not exactly. Here's how to avoid potentially costly licensing hassles.
Business buyers who said no to Microsoft's Surface with Windows RT will get a chance to try the Surface with Windows 8 Pro when it goes on sale next month. Will the second time be the charm for Microsoft? Or will businesses pass on the radical tablet/PC design?
Oracle's Java plugin for browsers is a notoriously insecure product. Over the past 18 months, the company has released 11 updates, six of them containing critical security fixes. With each update, Java actively tries to install unwanted software. Here's what it does, and why it has to stop.
Remember Lala, the innovative music service that made a splash in 2009? After Apple bought the company, Lala's services vanished. Now, a candid (maybe too candid) report from an insider explains why Apple was willing to pay $160 million to make this "clear and present danger" to iTunes go away.
A new slice of data highlights the incredible diversity of the PC ecosystem. Thousands of unique PC models are running Windows 8 and RT. What does it mean that the top slots on the sales charts are dominated by cheap, generic Windows notebooks?
If you followed security experts' advice and manually updated Java this week to fix a critical vulnerability, you might have gotten more than you asked for. Oracle probably makes tens of millions of dollars a year from crapware, and big venture capitalists see it as a growth business.
Update: Effective March 12, 2013, Microsoft has reversed the behavior described in this article. In Windows 8 and especially on Windows RT, your ability to run Flash programs hosted on the web depends on whether a site is included on Microsoft's Compatibility View list. This post describes the original rules, which are no longer in effect.
After more than two months of day-in and day-out use, the strengths and weaknesses of the Microsoft Surface and Windows RT are easier to see. Here's a long-term update.
The next time someone complains that Windows 8 touchscreens give you "gorilla arm," you have my permission to stomp on them like that ape in the old American Tourister commercials. The reality is that touchscreens work great on modern laptops, and you might even be able to retrofit touch support on your old trackpad.