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Online re-seller leaks on-sale dates for Windows 10  Summary: A major software reseller in the U.S. has begun taking preorders for Windows 10 OEM software, in the process leaking prices and the apparent availability date of the software. Surprisingly, Microsoft is actually raising OEM prices in this cycle. It happens every product cycle. Despite Microsoft's best efforts to keep details of its launch plans under wraps, an online retailer has leaked pricing for OEM copies of Windows 10 and Windows 10 Pro and is even accepting pre-orders. The details appear at Newegg.com, where a  search for Windows 10  turns up two OEM System Builder packages for sale. This is familiar turf for Newegg, which also jumped the gun with preorders for Windows 8 in 2012. Assuming the on-sale dates listed here are accurate, small system builders will have access to Windows 10 before Labor Day. But if you were looking forward to a price break, think again. These prices are actu

Do you qualify for the free  Windows 10 upgrades ? Summary: Microsoft's free upgrade offer for Windows 10 comes with an asterisk and some fine print. Most modern PCs qualify, but beware if you build or buy custom PCs or you want to run Windows 10 in a virtual machine. We've got the details. One question We've been asked more often than any other lately is this: "If I'm running the Windows 10 Preview, do I get a free license when the Preview is over?" Is this a physical device or a virtual machine? With extremely rare exceptions, virtual machines don't include a Windows license. Skip ahead to the next section for details on how to acquire a qualifying license. If this is a physical device, such as a desktop PC, laptop, or tablet, it needs to have a proper underlying license to be eligible for the free upgrade. Most PCs sold through the commercial and retail channel come with a home or business edition of Windows already installed. All M

Google News & Weather now works on Apple Watch Summary: Although the company has its own Android Wear watches to support, Google is starting to bring its apps to the Apple Watch. Last month, We asked when Google's apps would support the Apple Watch. Looks like we have an answer: Today. The  Google News & Weather app for iOS  was updated on Tuesday both with "performance enhancements and stability improvements" and support for Apple Watch. I haven't seen any other Google apps ready for the watch, so this appears to be the first. Like most other watch apps for Apple's wearable device, Google News & Weather for the watch is essentially an extension for the iOS app. You can't have the watch app without installing the software on your iPhone, that is. Google included the ability to add News & Weather to your Apple Watch glances for quick access. That's because the watch requests data on demand from your iPhone over a B

Linksys brings fastest Wi-Fi router ever to market Summary: Wave 2, the next generation of 802.11ac Wi-Fi, is here and Linksys is the first to bring it to us with its latest router: The EA8500. The Linksys EA8500 is the fastest Wi-Fi router of them all. Who doesn't love fast Wi-Fi? Thanks to   802.11ac , real-world   speeds are finally cracking the 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) barrier . With the new   802.11ac multi-user multiple-input and multiple-output  ( MU-MIMO) Wave 2   finally arriving in chipsets, Gbps speeds may finally become commonplace rather than exceptional. Leading the way is   Linksys   with the first Wave 2 router to market: The   Linksys Max-Stream AC2600 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router (EA8500) . In theory, 802.11ac Wave 2 devices, when working with other Wave 2 enabled gear, can crack 7Gbps. Linksys, wisely, doesn't make any such claim. In the real world, Wi-Fi never runs as fast it does in a pristine lab environment. Linksys does claim that the EA8

HERE's the good news: Maps a bright spot for Nokia as networks profit slides Summary: While sales are up across the board at Nokia, profit has taken a tumble in its Networks division. Nokia's sales are on the up, with all three of its units showing revenue growth during the first quarter of the year. Nokia published its   first quarter results   on Thursday, showing revenue increasing 20 percent year on year to €3.2bn, up from €2.7bn a year ago. However, operating profit took a tumble, falling from €305m a year ago to €265m for the most recent quarter. The biggest reduction in profit came from Nokia's Networks division, falling 61 percent to €85m, despite a 15 percent rise in revenue to €2.7bn. The company said that it is seeing growth in Networks' global services business, particularly around network implementation, but attributed a drop in profit from its mobile broadband business to climbing operating costs, a decrease in income from its core network

Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and the cloud gang Summary: Comparing the largest cloud players on the block gets a bit convoluted the way tech vendors are compiling their financials. Here's a crack at playing the cloud revenue face-off game. Amazon's disclosure of its Amazon Web Services financials fills in a big piece of the cloud financial picture that revolves around a bevy of tech giants all claiming to be the biggest as-a-service kid on the block. Unfortunately, it's difficult to declare a winner since every cloud player has its own math. So much for standards kids. But given I can't really resist an apples and oranges cloud face-off I'm going to give this a shot. For our purposes, we'll look at the four biggest hyperscale cloud providers. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM. We'll toss in some over-the-top cloud players such as Salesforce, which is a bit hard to ignore, with Oracle, which also breaks out its various as-a-service cloud efforts nicely

Google Fiber is forcing its rivals into offering cheaper, faster service Summary: When Google comes to town, it's bad news for its rivals but good news for consumers. Good news for Charlotte, NC! Google, the search engine you often go to during the day, has sufficiently scared your existing internet service enough into giving your faster speeds at no extra cost. It's the latest trend-setting move by the search giant, which aims to upend the rural internet-providing monopolies that are often the sole providers in one area. And not by offering a better overall service. Just announcing its way into the market is enough. Time Warner Cable announced last week it would launch  its next-generation "Maxx" television and broadband service  in the North Carolina city, hot on the heels of rivals Google Fiber and AT&T's Gigapower service arriving in town. That means hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses will now have internet speeds up to &q

Might Microsoft buy HERE maps (this time) if Nokia sells it? Summary: Nokia may be shopping its HERE mapping division around, according to a Bloomberg report. If the price is right, might Microsoft be among the potential buyers? Bloomberg is reporting this week that   Nokia Oyj is looking to sell its HERE mapping uni t. The report claims that the Finnish equipment maker wants to sell HERE to focus on its wireless-networking business and improve its debt rating. Among those to whom Nokia is said by Bloomberg to have reached out are Uber, a "group of German carmakers," and private-equity firms. Not on Bloomberg's short list: Microsoft. (Or Apple or Google, for that matter.) Of those three, Microsoft might seem like the obvious potential buyer, given Microsoft already bought a big chunk of Nokia's business (the handset division, plus various services and patents) last year. Microsoft also ended up laying off about half of the Nokia employees that it acqu

TrueCrypt audit shows no evidence of NSA backdoors Summary: But there's no lifeline in sight for the now defunct open-source encryption project, which barred developers from taking the remains and forging something from its ashes. Good news and bad news for TrueCrypt fans. After a thorough public audit, the open-source full disk encryption software found no backdoors or unfixable vulnerabilities that could kill the project flat. The bad news is that it's still likely not coming back any time soon. TrueCrypt called it quits last year unexpectedly, saying that it "may contain unfixed security issues" and that the software "is not secure." Its developers directed users to more readily available alternatives like Microsoft's BitLocker (which was later  found to have been cracked by the CIA ). The software had glowing recommendations from security experts, as well as whistleblower Edward Snowden. But the mystery surrounding the project&

The programs with the most security vulnerabilities in 2014 were not the ones you think Summary: Google Chrome, Oracle Solaris and Gentoo Linux all beat Microsoft's Internet Explorer in having the most vulnerabilities last year, according to Secunia, while IBM software took 40 percent of the Top 20 places. Secunia recorded 15,435 software vulnerabilities in 3,870 applications during 2014, according to its annual  Vulnerability Review 2015 , released this week. This represented an 18 percent increase in vulnerabilities and a 22 percent increase in programs compared with 2013. But if you asked people to name the programs with the most vulnerabilites, they probably wouldn't get them right... unless they'd read an earlier Secunia report. Google Chrome headed the list with 504 vulnerabilities, followed by Oracle Solaris (483), Gentoo Linux (350) and Microsoft's Internet Explorer (289). Apple's Mac OS X placed 13th with 147 vulnerabilities, with Microsoft'