So you’ve just bought the best Windows laptop, you’ve gritted your teeth through Cortana’s obnoxiously cheery setup narration, and the above screenshot is the Start menu you’re presented with. Exactly how special do you feel as you watch the tiles animating and blinking at you like a slots machine? I’ll tell you how I felt as I was getting to grips with the Huawei MateBook X Pro for the first time: perplexed.

Over the past seven months, we’ve been rapidly replacing major parts of the engine, introducing Rust and parts of Servo to Firefox. Plus, we’ve had a browser performance strike force scouring the codebase for performance issues, both obvious and non-obvious. We call this Project Quantum, and the first general release of the reborn Firefox Quantum comes out tomorrow.

Researchers from several groups have discovered hidden tracking software inside of more than 300 Android apps available on the Google Play Store. Researchers with a French non-profit organization called Exodus Privacy initially discovered 44 trackers in over 300 Android apps. Researchers at the Yale Privacy Lab, an initiative created by the Information Society Project at the Yale Law School, hope to reproduce Exodus’ findings.

Google currently has two OSes on the market: Android and Chrome OS. The company is never one to leave a successful product alone in the marketplace, though, so it's also developing a third operating system called "Fuchsia." When we last checked in on the experimental OS in May 2017, calling it an "OS" was a bit of a stretch. We only got the system UI up and running on top of Android, where it then functioned like an app. The UI offered a neat multi-window system, but mostly it was just a bunch of placeholder graphics. Nothing worked.

Google is working on an overhaul of its Android mobile software for a new generation of smartphones mimicking Apple Inc.’s controversial new "notch" at the top of the iPhone X, according to people familiar with the situation. The Android update, due later in the year, will also more tightly integrate Google’s digital assistant, improve battery life on phones and support new designs, like multiple screens and foldable displays, the people added.

Microsoft is rolling out an updated version of Skype for Android, one that’s optimized for devices running older versions of the OS, providing better audio and video quality for lower-end devices. The new update will optimize the app for Android devices running versions 4.0.3 to 5.1. Microsoft says that this version “is lighter on both disk and memory consumption,” and that it’ll provide better audio and video for those devices, in addition to better performance when the connection isn’t so hot. The update will be rolled out worldwide in the coming weeks.

Everybody hates smartphone notifications. They’re interruptive, distracting, annoying, and increasingly less valuable. The signal-to-noise ratio on your average smartphone’s lock screen is completely out of whack. The solution, of course, is to dive into your phone’s settings and turn as many app notifications off as you can. But it’s a constant struggle: every new app you install wants to get on your lock screen and the little pop-up box is all too easy to just say yes to. Ten-ish years into the smartphone revolution, we’re still coming to grips with which things we should allow to interrupt us.

Color everything!

First, and this was pointed out by our tipster Nitin, is the fact that WhatsApp can re-download media that was deleted from the device's storage. I can't say how new (or old) this is. It's been years since I've deleted some WhatsApp media, but a friend did so several months ago and asked me how to get them back. The option wasn't there then. So the best I can guess is that it's relatively new-ish.

Regardless of what your current email situation is, it is always a good time to switch to a better email service provider. In this article, we introduce and compare 5 popular free email services to help you decide what is the best email service providers currently available.

The newest version of the Wikitude AR development platform is out! Equipped with the largest variety of augmented reality features on the market, Wikitude SDK 8.0 is the go-to tool for developers and businesses that wish to create endless AR possibilities and solutions.Wikitude SDK 8 introduces Scene Recognition, Instant Targets, Unity Live Preview, Windows Support, …

Microsoft has a new plan to win back consumers after the company killed off hardware, software, and services and let some of its most loyal fans down

Email management as a necessary activity for being productive in the 21st century. Learn how to delete emails in bulk across mailboxes.

My big curly hair is rich sexual-harassment material. Instead of tying it back to protect myself, I decided to use my academic and professional experience to reinvent a safe environment for me and eve

A beginner's guide to outfitting a new Android tablet.

Gadget Lab picks out the most memorable apps of the year, may they be for success, failure or hype.

A state lawmaker in Georgia is so perturbed that someone used Photoshop to put his head on a porn star's body that he now wants any kind of lewd Photoshopping to be banned. 'No one has a right to make fun of anyone,' he says.

My dad has used Photoshop since 1.0. Twenty-odd years ago, he was a forward-thinking graphic-design upstart unafraid to use a computer instead of an X-ACTO knife.

Some apps are essential, and everyone who's anyone knows to have them on their computer. Some apps, however, are fantastic, yet fly under the radar. Today, we look at our top 10 underhyped apps on Windows.

Microsoft is working towards a public preview version of Windows Blue. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed that the software giant is aggressively targeting a summer launch date.

Malicious software unintentionally downloaded by offshore oil workers has incapacitated computer networks on some rigs and platforms, exposing gaps in security that could pose serious risks to people and the environment.

Jealous about your mates' ability to edit photos and whatnot via their mid-sized slates? Well, Adobe has just announced a solution.

At the Perth Writer's Festival this past weekend, Game of Thrones director David Petrarca downplayed the threat of piracy to the show's success, saying that illegal downloads don't matter since shows thrive on "cultural buzz."

Microsoft has been fined 561m euros for failing to promote a range of web browsers, rather than just Internet Explorer, to users in the European Union.

Facial recognition? Pah. Dahling, the only way to find someone in a crowd is to pick out what they're wearing. InSight is an app being developed for...

During a SXSW talk, the not-for-profit's vice president of product says the organization won't build a version of its Firefox browser for iOS devices until Apple changes its ways.

Pop prince Justin Bieber may have over 35million followers on Twitter but there seems to be many more people who just can't stand him.

After years of development BitTorrent has now released its live streaming service to the public. BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen is one of the main developers of the new protocol which he expects to revolutionize online streaming.

While Apple never creates apps for other mobile systems or devices, each of its major mobile-platform foes—Google, Amazon and Microsoft—make many of their apps available for Apple devices, says Walt Mossberg.

Microsoft has figured out how to get websites to stop treating Internet Explorer like a second-class web browser: it's going to disguise itself as Firefox.

What would a "killer app" for Google Glass look like? Tech industry analyst Tim Bajarin offers his input, then asks for yours.

Some of you don’t like Windows 8. And thanks to Internet comments and social media, you have lots of ways to express your loathing. But a closer look at one well-known real-world rating says Windows 8 might be more popular than you think.

Google joined in on the April Fools' Day fun a day early with their latest feature: Treasure Maps. Following last year's prank, 8-bit Google Maps, the company debuted a pirate-style design on Sunday.

Want to buy an app for your Windows 8 PC? You may change your mind after you see the Windows Store, an epic blunder that Microsoft seems unwilling or unable to fix, even months after its operating system launched to the public.

Nick D'Aloisio's story isn't a boilerplate tale about a youngster hitting the jackpot, a former Internet giant trying to buy a relevance makeover, or even about an intriguing programmatic way to summarize news. It is about the future of search.