It was eight months ago that Microsoft launched its revamped mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. Overall, the platform was well-received both by users and the tech press, as they lauded the fresh, bold and, easy-to-use interface, thoughtful integration of features, and improved performance. However, it also had its fair share of shortcomings and pitfalls.

This fall, Microsoft will release its first major update for Windows Phone, bringing more than 500 new features to the OS. Known up till now as Mango, the update will formally go by the name of Windows Phone 7.5 and focuses on improving three key areas: Communications, apps, and Internet.

We got a brief look at some of the enhancements during a preview event in late May, but recently, Microsoft gave us a chance to dive deeper into Mango with a technical preview of the OS. Since the software wasn't final, we weren't able to test out everything, but below you'll find our hands-on impressions of some of the more major features you can expect from Windows Phone 7.5. (To see our final thoughts, skip to the end.)

Contacts
When developing Windows Phone 7.5, one of Microsoft's main goals was to deliver an experience that was "smarter and easier." In the area of communications, this meant offering a simpler way to connect with contacts and share information, and part of the solution was to add support for group contacts and dynamic live tiles.

Group contacts is pretty straightforward. Set up simply requires going into the People hub, tapping the + icon and following the prompts to create a group. Once saved, you can e-mail and text all the members of the group. What's even nicer is that group contacts allows you to see the status updates and photos of just those members in the group and not everyone in your entire address book, so it acts a great filter if you have a large number of friends in Facebook.

Like an individual contact, you can pin a group to the Start screen for easy access and with Mango, you'll be able to see more real-time information in these tiles. So, for example if you pin a contact to the Start screen you can see the contact's real-time status updates or any notifications, such as a missed call or message from that person. The tile is much more useful in that sense and no longer serves just as shortcut to an individual's contact card.

The enhanced features also extends to the Me tile (your profile), where you can now post a message, check in to places, see notifications, and set your chat status, instead of only seeing what's new in your profile. It's a welcome addition but more than contacts, we're excited that developers will also be able to tap into the new dynamic tiles for their apps.

A couple of final notes about contact and social networking in Mango: Facebook support has expanded to include check-ins and integration of Facebook events into the phone's calendar. Also, Windows Phone will finally fold in Twitter and LinkedIn into the People hub once Mango is released this fall. This was one of the features that wasn't enabled for our technical preview, so we weren't able to take it out for a test drive. However, we're told by Microsoft that the integration will work much like Facebook, where you can see and respond to your contacts' tweets and LinkedIn updates in the What's new section of the People hub.

Messaging
Windows Phone 7.5 addresses a couple of issues we had with the platform's handling of e-mail and messaging in the original release. The first is the addition of conversation view. E-mail threads are now grouped together, so you no longer have to scroll through every single message trying to find a response. Each thread is clearly marked and shows the number of messages in the thread and the number of unread messages. Expanding and collapsing the conversation is done with single touch--very simple, very clean.

Threaded view is carried over to text and instant messages as well. You can see all messages sent to a contact in a single thread, whether the message was a text, MMS, or an IM from Windows Live or Facebook chat. Microsoft says you can even start a thread on your PC and then switch over to your phone and continue the conversation choosing a method of your choice. The set up process should be seamless and automated when Mango is released, but again, since we weren't given final software, we had to manually sync our Facebook account. Even then, we had to wait a few hours for our contacts to sync in order to use Facebook chat.

A unified inbox also makes its debut on Mango. This certainly isn't new to other platforms, but it's appreciated nonetheless. Microsoft allows you to choose which accounts you want to link together, so if you prefer to keep your work e-mail separate from your personal e-mail, you have the freedom to do so. That said, there isn't an easy way to identify which message came from which account, unlike Android where they color code messages by account. It's a small point of contention, but we wouldn't mind seeing that added in the future.

There is added Exchange support, including the ability to search for e-mails on the server, out-of-office reply set up, to-do list syncing, and PIN support. All that said, Microsoft has not changed it policy on direct Outlook sync, so if you're not connected via Exchange ActiveSync, you must sync through the cloud (via Windows Live/Hotmail) in order to get your calendar and contacts synced to the phone.

Apps
Microsoft's 18,000 apps can't possibly compete against much larger markets like Android's 200,000 titles and Apple's reportedly 500,000 apps. Instead, Microsoft wants to better integrate your apps into other areas of the phone.

For example, app suggestions will now pop up in Bing search results when you search for places, movies, or products, like books. This happens two ways. In the first scenario, you swipe to the new "apps" section (Microsoft calls them "pivots") to see a list of compatible apps, like those for Amazon or Best Buy if it's a product, or for Open Table or Yelp if it's a restaurant. In addition to finding information online, you can also open the related apps from the Bing results Apps menu. In the second scenario--the two can occur alongside each other--Bing suggests a relevant app that you don't have at the top of the results, with an option to download it.

We give Microsoft points for the novel concept, but because this is a limited technical preview, it was hard to put into action. For the suggestions to appear, application publishers need to take advantage of Microsoft 's API, called App Connect. Unfortunately, while we can see an example of the app suggestions at the top of the Bing results page (to download the IMBD app,) Bing's new Apps section won't be able to show us related apps we do have, certainly not until those third-party publishers make their apps Mango-friendly. So while it works in theory, we have yet to see the feature's nuances play out in practice.

Bing isn't the only place where apps will appear in Windows Phone 7.5. They'll also surface as separate sections in the Music + Video and Photo hubs as well. For instance, we were able to launch AT&T Radio from the Apps pivot in the Music Hub.

Hopefully the concept will live up to the promise, but there are still some unanswered questions, like how many suggestions you'll see in the Bing results at a given time, and if you'll be able to manage the list of apps from the dedicated Apps pivot page. Although Microsoft has released beta tools, the final developer tools are still in production, so we'll have to reserve our final critique until the real deal arrives. What we do know is that App Connect for Places and Movies will be limited to the U.S. for now, and results for Products will be available for just the U.S., UK, and France until further notice.

Bing (Local, Vision, Music ID)
Bing is home to some of Mango's most interesting new features. The Windows Phone 7.5 update gives it an additional menu, and four new icons along the bottom: Local Scout, music search, Bing Vision, and voice search (this already existed in Windows Phone 7, but is highlighted now.

Local Scout channels Yelp and other restaurant and business databases to serve up dining, events, and retail stores in your immediate area. Tap the sliver of a map above to expand it and plot your course. The map hooks into reviews, events, and details of the establishment. Scout is a fine idea that seemed to suffer some hiccups during our tests. It was slow to load at times, and it lacks some filters and other management options that take you beyond the 20 listed results, and help you refine or delete options based on criteria like price, ratings, and type (like cuisine type or "dive bars only.")

Bing Vision, conceptually one of Mango's most exciting additions, is a visual search app that mashes up traditional bar-code readers with image-identification software. Press the eye-shaped button and move the phone so the entire bar code, QR code, Microsoft tag, book, magazine, poster, DVD, or CD fills the view finder. Without pressing a single other button, Bing Vision will return search results that you can drill into. It will also scan text that you can opt to translate into a number of languages. Barcode scanning will work for U.S. items only, and text translation won't work in all regions.

As with Local Scout, Bing Vision needs some work done for it to live up to its considerable promise. Search success was hit or miss. The database didn't match to a new hardback that's being aggressively promoted in book stores, though it did register the bar code and it did succeed in identifying some other books. It also didn't recognize any of the common magazines we tried scanning (including Wired, Scientific American, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek), serving up a Not Found message. Translation worked well enough, but the software rarely captured the entire text. We'd also like the option of setting a default translation language for longer-term translation requests.

Bing's new music identification feature is also neat. Like Shazam and other music ID apps, if you launch it while next to a source of recorded music (tunes playing through Google Music on our Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in this case,) the Redmond-built Bing tool will attempt to identify the song title and cover art, giving you the option to open the record in the Marketplace app.

We experienced some problems in this camp, too. An incoming meeting notification killed the listening feature, and the app didn't recognize everything we threw its way. At times, it didn't always have a Marketplace record for every identified song.

Music + Video
One of the things we love most about Windows Phone is the Zune integration, and it only gets better with Mango. There's a new feature called Smart DJ that that creates a playlist similar to the artist, song, or album you're currently listening to using the content available on your phone.

If you happen to be a Zune Pass subscriber, Smart DJ will expand its search to the Marketplace and include content from there when creating a playlist. You can even save playlists and share them with friends via e-mail. We can't say we always agreed with the grouping of artists or songs, but it's still a great source of entertainment, and a fantastic way to discover new music and artists.

Podcast lovers will be happy to hear that Windows Phone 7.5 brings the ability to browse, download, and subscribe to podcasts right from your phone, instead of having to first connect to your computer and Zune software. To do so, simply go to the Marketplace under Music + Video and then select Podcast. You can search by genre, top or feature podcasts, or simply by entering a specific title. If a call comes in while listening to a podcast, it will hold its place and resume once you hang up the phone.

The video player also now offers a way to skip ahead or go back to any point in the clip.

Voice-to-text
The first thing we noticed about the enhanced voice-to-text app is that the voice software, powered by Microsoft's TellMe division, sounds slightly less robotic when it confirms our voice prompts to open apps and launch Web searches. Although Microsoft is pushing these features to reviewers, this variety of prompts already existed.

Composing a text message and instant message with just your voice is a new Mango feature, but accuracy was only so-so. Punctuation and capitalization are absent and formatting was often bizarre, with spaces between a word and a contraction. The voice-to-text software will work in a pinch for hands-free texting, but it isn't the most satisfying implementation, mostly because humans are still much more accurate than computers at transcription. Press and hold the Home button to get started.

Being able to hear incoming messages read aloud makes the feature truly hands-free when you combine it with voice-triggered texting. In the Settings, you can choose how and when you want them read, like through Bluetooth, wired headsets, or both.

Rival software vendors create apps for voice prompts, too. Many are built into the system software like this one is, and we're always glad to see seamless integration here, especially since Microsoft wholly owns and develops the Tellme software after acquiring it in 2007.

Multitasking

Like the other mobile platforms, Windows Phone 7 runs multiple system programs simultaneously, but it won't be until Mango that you'll be able to seamlessly switch among open programs. To switch, just press and hold on the Back (arrow) touch-sensitive button beneath the screen. The program you're in will shrink to a thumbnail size, and you'll be able to swipe left and right to see thumbnails of other open programs. You can open any other by tapping it; Mango will keep your place so you won't have to reload every time you leave and return to the app.

While it's technically more accurate to call it app-switching than multitasking, we're glad that Microsoft is taking a cue from rival platforms and adding this useful, easily-used feature.

Internet Explorer 9
The differences in Internet Explorer are more subtle than those found in other new and enhanced Mango features. Microsoft tinkered the interface a tad, moving the address bar to the bottom of the screen, for example, and hiding certain icons to increase page real estate.

More importantly, however, this version is based on IE9, rather than the IE7 bedrock of the previous OS release. Hardware acceleration (powered by the GPU) is touted to help Internet Explorer render content faster and more efficiently. Behind the scenes, there's support for the HTML 5 Web standard (but not for Flash or Microsoft's Silverlight.) Indeed, the Samsung Focus with Mango loaded graphically-rich pages significantly faster than the original Samsung Focus we placed right beside it in simultaneous tests (both phones were also on the same Wi-Fi network.)

Another welcome addition is the ability to share content from the browser with social networks like Twitter and Facebook; before you could share via e-mail or texting. We were able to post messages to Facebook this way; they took just a minute to appear.

Protected browsing mode and new "hang" protection were two other features Microsoft has added behind the scenes, but we were unable to test their efficacy.

Office Hub
Microsoft teased some of the new business features of Mango early on, and there is quite a bit of added functionality in the Office hub. This includes the ability to share and store documents through Office 365 and Windows Live Skydrive cloud services and a new locations pane to access documents from various locations (SkyDrive, Office 365, SharePoint, and so forth). At launch, Microsoft will also make available a Lync app in the Windows Marketplace that allows for meetings and instant messaging capabilities across companies.

Xbox Live

The Xbox Live experience is set to get richer and more connected with Windows Phone 7.5. Currently, you have to download the Xbox Live Extras pack from the Marketplace in order to customize your 3D avatar, track achievements, and connect with friends. However, this will all be available to the user from the get-go with Mango. A more visually appealing and descriptive Spotlight section in the Xbox Live hub and improved Marketplace also makes it easier to discover and search for games.

Marketplace
The Windows Phone app Marketplace also gets a little face lift in Mango, in the form of search suggestions for apps and games, music, and podcasts when you first begin typing. It also adds a new soft-key search button to make it easier to search within categories. Search results will now be organized by type (music, podcasts, etc.) on separate pivot screens. If you search from one of the narrowed-down categories to being with, you'll see results for just that category, not for all content.

Microsoft earns some better-late-than-never credit for its plans to overhaul its first generation Marketplace Web site with a version that will let you buy and download games from your computer to your Windows phone. We still don't have details beyond the continued promise that the revamp is set for the fall release. We'll revisit just how seamless it is to use and navigate when the feature debuts.

Final thoughts
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango is a work in progress, and that's not to Microsoft's detriment (yet) since this is a preview and not the final release. The features aren't necessarily new, but Microsoft's approach embraces the company's idea of the smartphone as more than just an app launcher, and instead as a device that fluidly takes a task, a game, or any other experience from start to finish. From our vantage point, both the incremental and more ambitious changes are fairly successful at doing this. However, some of Mango's features are so zealous that the gaps and inconsistencies tend to seem glaring. Never mind that similar features and services on other mobile platforms usually perform about the same, with mirrored mistakes, but with Microsoft trailing Android and iPhone, critical eyes are especially sharp.

Part of Microsoft's challenge is getting customers to see Mango's smart integration as a new way, one that gives them an edge over the status quo--this has been one of their biggest trouble spots from the get-go. Bright ideas like app integration, Bing Vision, and voice-to-text don't and should not paper over the weak points like inconsistent search results. We hope Microsoft inspects and overcomes every flaw we found. Taken as a whole, however, Mango is a satisfying upgrade from the original Windows Phone OS, and one that brings the platform closer to the competition.

As it stands, there's a lot to like in Mango, and we remain cautiously optimistic about Microsoft's mobile prospects. For their part, Microsoft will need to continue bulking up the features, wooing developers, educating consumers, and thinking outside of the box--posthaste.

Originally posted at Dialed In

One of the big criticisms of Google's Chromebooks is that they're significantly less useful when you don't have an Internet connection or are paying by the megabyte for a wireless data plan. That drawback is particularly glaring when it comes to Google Docs.

And unfortunately for Google, the company missed the Chrome OS launch window with one important upgrade coming to Google Docs, the ability to use the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software while not connected to the Net.

Offline Google Docs was slated to arrive early this year, but Google pushed it back. In May, Google promised offline Google Docs this summer and said it's testing the feature internally.

And apparently, it's not just internal: the unofficial Google Operating System blog reported a case in which a reader saw a black status bar at the top of the browser window with the label "Offline Docs," the alert "network connection lost," and apparent links for "switch to online mode" and "switch to offline mode."

I use Google Docs a lot and am both impressed and disappointed.

On Friday, I collaborated with several other writers collectively writing a single document--and we even used Google Docs' chat abilities when Yahoo Messenger's chat room faltered. Right now, I can see words I'm writing on my Mac appearing across the room on my Windows machine--a silly curiosity were it not for the fact that I need to use multiple computers. I've looked up needed information on Google Docs with my smartphone. The power of building the network into Google Docs is truly impressive.

But Google Docs' offline shortcomings afflict me me whenever I'm on a train going into London, vacationing in Cornwall, suffering a DSL outage at home, avoiding exorbitant data roaming fees abroad, or working at a tech conference with overwhelmed Wi-Fi.

Unlike Googlers, I'm not equipped with unlimited data plans. During these moments of unconnectedness, I crack open Microsoft Office again and afterward deal with the annoyance of mirroring the files back into my online archive.

So I for one would like to see offline Google Docs arrive as soon as possible--and offline Gmail, Calendar, and anything else in the Google Apps service, while we're at it.

In a Reddit discussion last week, Google Docs product manager Jeff Harris blamed the significant technical challenge of the task for the delays.

You're going to see offline start to roll out later this summer. We used to have offline with Google Gears, but it became pretty clear that plugins weren't the right approach. We've been reimplementing offline using HTML5 standards like AppCache, File API, and IndexDB [aka IndexedDB].

We're some of the first webapps that are really putting those standards to the test, so it's taken a while to iron out the kinks.

It should be noted that one of those offline technologies, IndexedDB, is still in somewhat early days of the standardization process and hasn't necessarily won over all the browser makers. Don't be surprised therefore if only early fans such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome support offline Docs.

The Gears approach to offline Google Docs provided the feature earlier but with significant limits. For example, spreadsheets couldn't be edited offline.

Technical challenges arise when offline Docs go online again, particularly when multiple people are editing the same document, Harris said.

We will launch in whatever incremental pieces make sense. But the long-term direction is if you access a Doc URL while offline, it should open the local copy of the doc and let you edit. When you go online all your edits get synced in the background. You should also be able to see a list of your docs while offline.

We'll need to work through all the tricky problems with how to merge conflicting edits. It's fun stuff.

I for one would welcome the incremental piece of only enabling read and write privileges with documents of which I am the sole owner.

After all, it's not just me waiting for offline Docs now. I imagine the Chrome OS team is paying very close attention as well.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Skype is bringing several new Facebook features to its voice over IP service.

Windows users who download the new Skype 5.5 Beta version will now be able to instant message with Facebook friends. According to the VoIP provider, the beta's users can also "like" and comment on a friend's Facebook status. A new Facebook Contacts tab has been added to Skype to help users more easily find and communicate with their friends on the social network.

Skype integrated Facebook in version 5.0 of its software last year, allowing users to check out their news feed and update their status. Prior to that announcement, AllThingsD reported that Facebook and Skype were working on a "significant and wide-ranging partnership" that would make Skype far more social than it had been in the past.

Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Facebook was considering acquiring Skype. Not long after those rumors surfaced, Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. The Federal Trade Commission recently approved the deal, paving the way for the U.S. Justice Department to file its opinion. If all goes well, the VoIP provider will become the Microsoft Skype Division under the leadership of its current CEO Tony Bates.

The Skype 5.5 Beta for Windows is available now.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Google has acquired SageTV, which develops software for DVRs and home-theater PCs, for an undisclosed sum.

SageTV has been developing its software since 2002. The platform allows people to record live television, including full seasons, thanks to support for antenna TV, cable, and satellite. A place-shifting feature lets people start watching a show on one device, such as their PC or Mac, and continue watching it elsewhere, including on mobile devices or even in the car.

Though speculation abounds over what Google has planned for SageTV, one possibility is that the service will be integrated into Google TV. That platform, which launched last year, allows people to search all their TV content, as well as access streaming services, such as Netflix and Pandora. However, not everyone is convinced that SageTV will be coming to Google TV.

"I consider it impossible that Google acquired SageTV so they could add native DVR capabilities to Google TV," Rakesh Agrawal, founder of SnapStream, a service that directly competed with SageTV before transitioning to "TV search," said in a blog post. "Remember, Google already manages the program guide, channel changing, and even automating your native DVR."

In announcing the acquisition over the weekend, SageTV was coy about its future, saying that its "ideas will reach an even larger audience of users worldwide on many different products, platforms, and services."

Google did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Mozilla has answered Microsoft's concern that WebGL raises too many security risks with the observation that Microsoft itself has accepted the same risks with 3D interface technology coming with its own Silverlight browser plug-in.

WebGL, a new standard from Khronos Group, lets Web programmers add hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web with an interface that mirrors the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard used among other places in Android and iOS devices. WebGL opens up online possibilities such as virtual worlds and graphically rich games, and it's built into Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome today.

Microsoft, though, is worried that it's too insecure because it exposes new low-level interfaces to downloaded code, especially given that responsibilities for closing security holes lies in part with graphics hardware makers who lack experience in the area. "We believe that WebGL will likely become an ongoing source of hard-to-fix vulnerabilities," Microsoft said. "In its current form, WebGL is not a technology Microsoft can endorse from a security perspective."

In a response, Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of technical strategy, observed that the new Silverlight 5 plug-in from Microsoft manages to pull off the feat, even with a cross-platform design that extends to Mac OS X. Underneath the covers, Windows uses the Direct3D interface for accelerated 3D graphics, but Mac OS X uses OpenGL.

Microsoft's concern that a technology be able to pass their security review process is reasonable, and similar matters were the subject of a large proportion of the discussions leading to WebGL's standardization; I also suspect that whatever hardening they applied to the low-level D3D API wrapped by Silverlight 3D can be applied to a Microsoft WebGL implementation as well. That Silverlight supports Mac as well, where these capabilities must be mapped to OpenGL, makes me even more confident. The Microsoft graphics team seems to have done a great job of making the D3D shader pipeline robust against invalid input, for example.

Shaders are one variety of graphics code that 3D graphics hardware can execute, and screening invalid input means keeping away badly written or malicious code that could be used to mount some sort of attack.

Shaver acknowledged that there have been security problems with WebGL--security firm Context Information Security has pointed some out and advised against WebGL use. But, he argued, the problems are being fixed, and they aren't showstoppers.

I think that there is no question that the web needs 3D capabilities. Pretty much every platform has or is building ways for developers to perform low-level 3D operations, giving them the capabilities they need to create advanced visualizations, games, or new user interfaces...

It may be that we're more comfortable living on top of a stack we don't control all the way to the metal than are OS vendors, but our conversations with the developers of the drivers in question make us confident that they're as committed as us and Microsoft to a robust and secure experience for our shared users.

Mozilla initiated the WebGL project before beginning work with the Khronos Group to standardize it. As a browser-centric organization, it's a strong ally of the idea that Web programming should become more powerful.

Alternatives to WebGL include the traditional technology of native software running on Windows or other operating systems; Microsoft's Silverlight 5; and Adobe Systems' upcoming Flash Player revamp that adds the "Molehill" 3D interface.

Mozilla has some notable allies in the browser world: Google signed up with support, deciding to build a higher-level Web graphics 3D interface atop WebGL. Opera is building WebGL into its next-generation browser. Apple, too, apparently wants to enable use of WebGL for its iAds advertising technology for the forthcoming iOS 5.

And even one researcher at Microsoft is on Mozilla's side. Avi Bar-Zeev, a principal architect at Microsoft who also happened to found the company Keyhole that became the Google Earth project, raised objections on his personal blog to Microsoft's anti-WebGL stance.

"Operating systems and security mitigation are what Microsoft is known for. It's our bread and butter," Bar-Zeev wrote. "Why would we run away from that challenge with such an alarmist attitude of 'shut it off, shut it off, it might hurt me!' I think we would face these potential threats head on, as we've always done."

Bar-Zeev also said that engineers must accept risks to advance the Web, as Microsoft itself showed with its ActiveX plug-in technology, which let Internet Explorer run native code from sources to which the user extended privileges.

It was Internet Explorer's pioneering work with plug-ins (specifically ActiveX controls) that help build the rich interactive web as it exists today. Plug-ins created capabilities not found in browsers, even to this day...

ActiveX controls were, at one point, the primary vulnerability for browser-borne attacks on your PC. They are, after all, native code with hardware access that could run malicious operations, perform disk writes, read your personal data and plant viruses. Indeed the MSDN site on ActiveX controls begins with "An ActiveX control can be an extremely insecure way to provide a feature."

Yes, indeed.

Somehow we survived the existential threat of native code plugins taking over our PCs, or at least we made it through alive.

Microsoft needs to engage with the WebGL world, to ensure that it works well and that Microsoft doesn't end up with the blame when problems arrive, he argued. A very important 3D is coming, "tying the real world to the information space that surrounds us in our everyday lives," Bar-Zeev said, and WebGL is the only to offer that "in a cross-platform, stable, browser-based way."

"There is clearly only one direction forward for Microsoft and 3D on the Web," he said. "WebGL is the way."

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Don't get too comfortable with Firefox 4, folks, because Mozilla recently upgraded its eventual successor, Firefox 5, from beta to "release candidate" status. Memory management, JavaScript rendering, canvas, and networking performance have all been enhanced, and background tabs will load faster.

Not to be outdone, Google also gave us a browser bump this past week, as it pushed Chrome 14 to Google's dev channel. It comes with improved secure HTTP support thanks to an updated V8 JavaScript engine, and tightened security when installing Web apps from the Chrome Web Store.

Meanwhile, it's been confirmed that Microsoft's next-gen OS will behave much like a browser, with Windows 8 incorporating an app-friendly interface. The OS' new programming foundation will let developers build native apps with the same techniques they use for Web applications, and that has sparked some heated comment discussion.

And that's it for this week. Be sure to check out CNET's picks for best iOS golf games for Dad. Whether you celebrated Father's Day or not, you're bound to enjoy teeing off with some of these hot downloads. Also, Yahoo released its Play music app for Android, which is certainly worth a look, considering the special technology involved.