"In a large staff memo, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer details how the company is aiming for a 'One Microsoft', by altering its organization around the 'devices and services' vision. Terry Myerson will lead a new operating systems engineering group that will span across console, mobile device, and PC. Myerson used to lead the Windows Phone group at Microsoft. Julie Larson-Green takes over a new devices and studios engineering group."

"Google's Chromebook was dismissed as a bare-bones laptop with limited appeal when it debuted two years ago. Now it's defying skeptics and gaining share as the rest of the personal-computer market shrinks. Chromebooks have in just the past eight months snagged 20 percent to 25 percent of the U.S. market for laptops that cost less than $300, according to NPD Group Inc. The devices, which have a full keyboard and get regular software updates from Google, are the fastest-growing part of the PC industry based on price, NPD said."

"In a decision that could reshape how books are sold on the Internet, a federal judge ruled that Apple conspired to raise the retail prices of e-books in violation of antitrust law, and called for a trial on damages. The decision by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan is a victory for the U.S. government and various states, which the judge said are entitled to injunctive relief." Yet another ruling confirming that virtually all technology companies are criminals. But don't worry, there's nothing wrong with how companies are run and the immense power they have, no sirree!

"The default timer resolution on Windows is 15.6 ms - a timer interrupt 64 times a second. When programs increase the timer frequency they increase power consumption and harm battery life. They also waste more compute power than I would ever have expected – they make your computer run slower! Because of these problems Microsoft has been telling developers to not increase the timer frequency for years. So how come almost every time I notice that my timer frequency has been raised it's been done by a Microsoft program?" Fascinating article.

"Apple and Amazon.com have ended their lawsuit over who has the right to use the 'app store' name, clearing the way for both companies to use it." The silliest lawsuit in the history of technology.

Robert Nyman, a Mozilla technical evangelist and editor of the Mozilla Hacks website, provides a perspective on the history and evolution of Firefox OS in this LinuxGizmos guest column. Nyman writes on the occasion of the first Firefox OS smartphone, the $90 ZTE Open, becoming available for sale in Madrid, Spain.

"Windows 8.1 RTM will be available for OEM partners in late August. This means OEMs will be able to get the RTM bits and begin preparing devices with Windows 8.1 just in time for the holidays! We’ll have more details to share in the coming months for consumers and other customers on how to get Windows 8.1." So far, Windows 8.1 has been a massive improvement over Windows 8 on my Surface RT - except for the total system crashes (including shrieking sounds) Skype causes a few times per week.

MidnightBSD 0.4-RELEASE hit FTP servers today and the new version includes a custom package management tool, "mport", that was developed with sqlite3 and libarchive. The packing list and all metadata is stored in SQL and a tool is provided to query the package database directly. This allows scripts and third party tools to easily integrate with the package system.

"People who don't play video games would be forgiven if they turned on an Xbox 360 and didn't realize it was a device used to primarily play games. The first screen you see on the Xbox 360 Dashboard is often a mixture of ads for all sorts of goods and services, and many times games are in the minority of ad slots. The latest redesign increased the ad space that can be sold to advertisers, and that in turn increased this problem. Let's be clear, it is a problem. Game discovery is terrible in the current design of Xbox Live, and the usability of a system that used to be about games is suffering in order for Microsoft to make money on ads." Written a year ago by Ben Kuchera for Penny Arcade. In light of increased advertising efforts in Windows 8.1, this has become relevant once more. In a nutshell, do not count on Microsoft being able to strike a proper balance (thanks, Soulbender!).

Qt 5.1 has been released. It brings several enhancements, Qt Quick Controls, Qt Sensors, a much better C++11, Wayland and OpenGL support, and the development of Android and iOS applications is very usable for a large number of use cases. In related news, the LXDE desktop prepares the change to Qt.

"Today, Microsoft said its advertisers will be able to target users not just on Web search results pages but directly inside Windows Smart Search. David Pann, general manager of Microsoft’s Search Advertising Group, said in an interview that advertisers don’t have to do additional setup to participate. The Smart Search ads will feature a preview of the websites the ad will send people to, as well as click-to-call info and site links, which are additional links under the main result that direct users deeper into a website to the most likely page they might want." So, you pay for a product, and then Microsoft shoves ads in your face. Scumbags. Then again, they've done the same on the Xbox, which is now virtually unusable due to all the ads plastered all over your dashboard. And then people say Google is bad with ads.

"Researchers said they've uncovered a security vulnerability that could allow attackers to take full control of smartphones running Google's Android mobile operating system." So, how bad is this? Can anybody with knowledge of Android's inner workings explain?

"Douglas C. Engelbart, a visionary scientist whose singular epiphany in 1950 about technology's potential to expand human intelligence led to a host of inventions - among them the computer mouse - that became the basis for both the Internet and the modern personal computer, died on Tuesday at his home in Atherton, Calif. He was 88." We lost one of the greatest - if not the greatest - visionaries of computing today.

Opera 15, the brand new version of Opera based on Chromium and Blink, has been released today. I'm still missing a bookmarks bar and a bookmark import feature. Other than that, I'm really liking Opera 15. I hope they bring those two features back soon, because I cannot use a browser without them.