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Microsoft has released Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones, but only for a very small number of low-end devices (Lumia 630, 638, 635, 730, 636, 830), so most of us are out of luck. The reason for this limited initial release is technical in nature.Some context on why we chose these and not higher end phones like the 930/Icon or 1520: We have a feature that will be coming soon called âpartition stitchingâ which will allow us to adjust the OS partition dynamically to create room for the install process to be able to update the OS in-place. Until this comes in, we needed devices which were configured by mobile operators with sufficiently sized OS partitions to allow the in-place upgrade, and many of the bigger phones have very tight OS partitions.I only have an HTC 8X, which technically should get Windows 10 eventually, but since it's not a Microsoft device I doubt it's very high on the priority list.

This spontaneous anti-green-bubble brigade is an interesting example of how sometimes very subtle product decisions in technology influence the way culture works. Apple uses a soothing, on-brand blue for messages in its own texting platform, and a green akin to that of the Android robot logo for people tweeting from outside its ecosystem.Believe it or not, these are people going batshit crazy because they are texting with someone who doesn't have an iPhone. And people espousing a certain pride over this shallowness.These are probably the same shallow people who threatened to kill their parents or kill themselves when they didn't get an iPhone for Christmas. For once, I'm glad everyone in The Netherlands uses WhatsApp because we're an 85% Android country.

Very interesting interview with Adrian Ludwig, lead engineer for Android security at Google. There are a lot of fascinating answers to quote here, and I'm going for this one - do you need antivirus crap on your Android phone?In 2014, according to Verify Apps data collected by Google and ignoring rooting apps that were intentionally installed by users, fewer than 0.15 percent of Applications installed from outside of Google Play to U.S. English devices were classified as Potentially Harmful Applications. Given the built-in protection provided by Verify Apps and the low frequency of occurrence of installation of PHAs, the potential security benefit of an additional security solution is very small.I - and many others - have been saying this for ages, but let me just repeat it: do not install third-party security solutions on your Android phone. They are useless resource hogs that provide no additional security, and are built by scammy, untrustworthy, and needlessly alarmist software peddlers.That being said, it'd be great if Google released more information about these background security tools in Android - more specifically, numbers, numbers, numbers.

JanOS is an operating system designed to run on the chipset of mobile phones. It runs without a screen, and allows you to access all phone functionality, from calling to the camera, through JavaScript APIs.Why?Current development boards for Internet of Things solutions have one big problem: they are very expensive. Boards like the Raspberry Pi or Arduino have a limited feature set and simple extensions, like a GSM shield, can cost $80. That is a shockingly high price when a full smartphone can be available for just $30. Why not break out the mainboard from a mobile phone and use that to develop embedded projects? Cheaper and more powerful.It's built on top of Gecko, so you can use Firefox OS APIs. Interesting.

In past years Apple has said it's cracking down on the manipulation of App Store rankings through bot programs, but a recent image from Chinese social media site Weibo suggests the trade is alive and well using actual iPhones. The photo is captioned "hardworking App Store ranking manipulation employee," and shows a young woman sat in front of a bank of around 50 iPhone 5cs, all hooked up with a nest of cables. There's an identical bank of iPhones on her right and what looks like two more smartphone-laden desks facing away from her on the other side of the room.On some sites, the photo is being paired with an alleged price list for the services (above), with Tech in Asia reporting that it will cost customers RMB 70,000 ($11,200) to get into the top ten free apps (that's the option at the top), while keeping it there will cost RMB 405,000 ($65,000) each week. The third column reportedly shows the monthly price for these services, while the fourth gives potential customers a contact number on QQ - a popular messaging app run by Chinese internet giant Tencent.Wait, you mean to tell me the popularity contest that is the application store rewards quantity, not quality?Say it isn't so.

Software increasingly defines the world around us. It's rewriting everything about human interaction - I spend a lot more time on my iPhone than I do at my local civic center. Facebook, Apple, Tinder, Snapchat, and Google create our social realities - how we make friends, how we get jobs, and how mankind interacts. And the truth is, women don't truly have a seat at the table. This has disastrous consequences for women that use these systems built by men for men. I must use Twitter, as it's a crucial networking tool for a software engineer, yet I must also suffer constant harassment. Women's needs are not heard, our truth is never spoken. These systems are the next frontier of human evolution, and they're increasingly dangerous for us.You can close your eyes for this. You can cover your ears, shouting "LA LA LA LA!" at the top of your voice. You are free to do so.Until it's your daughter, and you realise that your refusal to acknowledge this huge problem will have consequences.

Over 720,000 Android Wear devices shipped in 2014 out of a total of 4.6 million smart wearable bands. Though the Moto 360 remained supply constrained through Q4, Motorola was the clear leader among Android Wear vendors. LGâs round G Watch R performed significantly better than its original G Watch, while Asus and Sony entered the market with their own Android Wear devices. Pebble meanwhile shipped a total of 1 million units from its 2013 launch through to the end of 2014.That's not a whole lot, but that doesn't surprise me considering how terrible Android Wear and current smartwatches are.

Today, Microsoft released their latest Patch Tuesday. This Patch includes a fix for vulnerability CVE-2015-0057, an IMPORTANT-rated exploitable vulnerability which we responsibly disclosed to Microsoft a few months ago. As part of our research, we revealed this privilege escalation vulnerability which, if exploited, enables a threat actor to complete control of a Windows machine. In other words, a threat actor that gains access to a Windows machine (say, through a phishing campaign) can exploit this vulnerability to bypass all Windows security measures, defeating mitigation measures such as sandboxing, kernel segregation and memory randomization.Interestingly, the exploit requires modifying only a single bit of the Windows operating system.Fascinating.

Samsung's smart TVs have already come under fire this week for a poorly-worded privacy policy that apparently let the devices listen in on owners' conversations. Now, there are reports that the sets are inserting ads "every 20-30 minutes" into users' own, locally-stored content. There's been a string of complaints online by customers using third-party video apps such as Plex and Australian service Foxtel, with most referring to rogue Pepsi ads interrupting their viewing. "After about 15 minutes of watching live TV, the screen goes blank, and then a 16:9 sized Pepsi ads (taking up about half the screen) pops up," wrote a professed Samsung smart TV owner on Foxtel's support forums. "It's as if there is a popup ad on the TV."If you're into Android, don't buy Samsung. There are enough better alternatives.

After a number of delays, BlackBerry is ready to begin the rollout of BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 on 19 February. This release has already been available for Passport and Classic users, and starting 19 February, it will be available for other BlackBerry users too.

Tim Cook spoke at length during today's Goldman Sachs conference on Apple's insane first quarter, China, the Apple Watch, and so much more. Here's a transcript of his remarks, with occasional interjection by the Goldman Sachs interviewer.A lot of ground is covered, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

The start of something beautiful.I have become completely dependent on my computer for all sorts of things. Obviously, I use my computer to develop software, but I also use my computer for banking, email, my personal phone book, my appointment schedule, playing games, and so on.I am not quite at the point where I leave my machine on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but soon I will be able to carry a computer in my pocket during those rare hours my desktop machine is not at easy reach (like when I'm flying back and forth between Seattle and San Francisco). This computer's official name has not been announced yet, but its codename is Pegasus. It's being created by Microsoft with six hardware partners. I'll start by showing you the Pegasus hardware from the user's perspective. In the second part of this article I'll dive into the details of the software platform and discuss the programming issues you need to understand to write cool Pegasus apps.Don't believe the haters and retrospective I-bought-my-first-smartphone-in-2009-and-now-I-know-everything naysayers - PocketPC was an amazing platform that put so much functionality and awesomeness in your pocket back when Google was still Altavista and Apple had just started peddling music players.Palm OS may have been my dressage show horse, but PocketPC was my trusty workhorse.

Linux kernel 3.19 has been released.This release adds support for btrfs scrubbing and fast device replacement with RAID 5&6, support for the Intel Memory Protection Extensions that help to stop buffer overflows, support for the AMD HSA architecture, support for the debugging ARM Coresight subsystem, support for the Altera Nios II CPU architecture, networking infrastructure for routing and switching offloading, Device Tree Overlays that help to support expansion busses found on consumer development boards like the BeagleBone or Raspberry Pi, support for hole punching and preallocation in NFSv4.2, and the Android binder has been moved from the staging area to stable; it also adds new drivers; and many other small improvements.Here is the full list of changes.