At its San Francisco event, Microsoft announced that the technical preview of Windows 10 will touch down tomorrow.

The company’s new operating system is a long-awaited replacement for its beleaguered Windows 8.x platform. That version of Windows saw limited business adoption, and consumer fatigue.

On stage, Microsoft executive Terry Myerson stated that Windows has 1.5 billion users. Myerson indicated that Windows is at a “threshold,’ ironically. For more on the new operating system, head here.

The ‘Insider Program” is designed to let people get the new code, but with the expectation that they new stuff will be a bit off, here and there. New code is new code, after all. Myerson indicated that the new code is an attempt to “share more than ever before.” The goal, he said, is to build something for every Microsoft customer.

Windows 10 is the name for the “product family,” according to the company.

The full operating system will be available after Build in 2015, or, put another way, mid of next year.

Now Samsung’s sloping, curved OLED phone is real: meet the Galaxy Note Edge, the highest-end phone in Samsung’s lineup.
The Note Edge is, on paper at least, only the slightest variation on the new Note 4. It has the same metallic design, a huge improvement on anything Samsung’s done before. It has the same soft-touch back, blissfully without the fake stitching. It has the same 16-megapixel camera, the same heart-rate monitor, the same processor, the same memory, the same software, the same new Multi Window feature, the same everything. It's an incredibly high-end, incredibly powerful phone. It even has a Quad HD, 2560 x 1440 display like the Note 4, though this one is slightly smaller at 5.6 inches rather than 5.7.

But there's more to the Note Edge than its spec sheet.

It’s on the right side of the phone’s front face that a sharp difference appears between the two models. The screen starts to slope downward, falling off toward the edge and wrapping around the side. It’s as if two screens have been connected to each other at an acute angle, but there’s only one display here. The asymmetry of the phone feels a little odd, like I chipped part of the right side off by accident, but it doesn’t really hurt the aesthetic appeal of the phone. It’s still very comfortable, the metal body both solid and dense, and I like the way the screen curls under my right thumb. (If you’re a lefty, using the Note Edge in one hand is going to be terrible — but then again using a Note in one hand is already terrible.

Samsung uses software to separate the two parts of the display, to allow them to be simultaneously independent and connected. The sloping screen’s default status is as a quick launcher of sorts, with easy access to a bunch of your most-used apps. There are a number of widgets, though, tickers of sorts that let you flip through news or tweets or information about how many steps you’ve taken. And you can do it all without ever changing or disturbing what you see on the larger display. In some apps, the edge acts as a toolbar, offering easy access to font menus or camera modes or in-app settings. At night, it can be your alarm clock, the time displayed on the side of the phone so you can see it without taking your head off your pillow.

It’s an odd idea, turning this vertical rail into essentially an always-on secondary display. Is it best-suited as a ticker? A notification center? A quick-launch taskbar? Samsung doesn’t seem entirely sure.

Still, by releasing the Note Edge broadly – it’s coming to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint — and giving both users and developers a chance to figure out what they want, Samsung could find itself with a truly unique smartphone feature that no other manufacturer can copy.

Today, Samusung announced the latest in its line of flagship phablet-style devices, the Galaxy Note 4. The Note 4 is a refinement on last year's Note 3, an iterative update that improves upon the Note 3's shortcomings, without changing the look or function of the device.

Samsung's other big smartphone announcement today, the Galaxy Note Edge, will likely get the lion's share of attention over the next couple of weeks. But the Note 4 is an important device for the company, the phablet that more people are likely to buy than any other. It's a flagship that offers the best of Samsung's hardware, display, and design capabilities in one package. It's also Samsung's best chance at standing its ground against the big-screened iPhone that is expected to debut this fall.

If you've been following the leak train (or even if you haven't), Samsung's updates to the Note 4 are rather predictable: the display is now quad HD (though it's the same 5.7-inch size), the processor is faster, the camera has more megapixels, and the software is newer. The Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner and heart-rate monitor have made their way upstream to the Note line, and the S Pen has been upgraded with better sensitivity and tracking capabilities and improved software. The new, 16-megapixel camera features optical image stabilization, a first for Samsung, and the front-facing camera has been upgraded to a higher-resolution with improved low-light capabilities.

The biggest update to the Note 4 comes in the new metal band that wraps around the frame of the phone. First seen on the Galaxy Alpha announced a few weeks ago, the metal band replaces the cheesy, chromed plastic used on the Note 3. The band has sculpted, chamfered edges and great improves both the look and feel of the Note 4 over its predecessor. It seems like a minor change on paper, but in person, the Note 4 feels much more substantial and nicer in your hand, even though it doesn't weigh appreciably more than the Note 3. 

The back of the phone is largely the same, with a textured, soft-touch leather-like finish. Mercifully, Samsung has ditched the faux stitching that was on the Note 3. Overall, the Note 4 feels like a better Note 3, which isn't really a bad thing. And if you look at it straight on from the front, it's hard to tell it apart from last year's model.The new, quad HD Super AMOLED display is predictably stunning, with vibrant colors, exceptionally wide viewing angles, and no visible pixels. In my brief time with the Note 4, the display appeared brighter and more vibrant than the LG G3's screen, which has the same 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution.

Inside, the Note 4 has either a quad-core or octa-core processor, depending on market. It's paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. There's a microSD slot for expansion, and the 3,220mAh battery can charge from zero to 50 percent capacity in just 30 minutes. Samsung has dropped the USB 3.0 charging port in favor of a more traditional, and much more streamlined, MicroUSB 2.0 port.

The Note 4 comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat with Samsung's familiar interface on top of it. Samsung has borrowed a couple of ideas from Android L for the Note 4's interface, including the stacked card multitasking view. Dual-window multitasking has been improved with the ability to have various apps open in smaller windows at the same time. Among the S Pen improvements is the ability to quickly pin short notes to your homescreen. Samsung also says the S Health fitness app has been improved and enhanced for the Note 4.

By all accounts, it appears that Samsung took the right approach with the Note 4: it didn't rock the boat of a successful formula, but still addressed some of its biggest critiques. With the impending threat of Apple entering the big-screened, phablet smartphone market, Samsung needed to put its best foot forward, and it may have done just that with the Note 4.

During the launch of Z87 motherboards ASUS surprised a lot of people when they announced their “Hero” SKU of the Republic of Gamers line of motherboards. When the Hero was released it was an extremely popular motherboard simply because it brought an ASUS ROG motherboard into the reaches of most peoples’ budgets. A surprising move because ROG motherboards have traditionally been extremely expensive products that target a fairly niche market. It is unlikely that ASUS ROG would have made this move last generation without the price pressure of rival brands such as Gigabyte, with their G1 Sniper Z87, MSI, with their Z87-G45 Gaming and ASRock, with their Z87 Fatal1ty Killer. All of these competing products have driven the price of gaming motherboards down to the point where gaming motherboards are no longer exclusive or expensive products, but accessible to the fairly mainstream PC user and mainstream budget. Now ASUS have added the Ranger to sit just below the Hero for the Z97 platform which is another smart move given that Gigabyte and MSI have become even more aggressive with the pricing of their Gaming Series motherboards which start at just £100/$140. The main benefit of the ASUS Maximus VII Ranger is that it carries a 10-15% lower price premium (depending on the region and retailer) than the ASUS Maximus VII Hero but drops fairly little in terms of features or specifications. From our discussions with ASUS they have clarified that the main differences between the Hero and the Ranger are that the Hero has:

Of course, while those extras on the Maximus VII Hero are nice and will be useful to a lot of people, they are not essential for the more value-minded user so the Ranger offers a way for users to save a bit of money by opting out of those extra features. That said the Maximus VII Hero and the Ranger both still have a place in the market but it is important to distinguish the differences between the two. We anticipate a fair amount of confusion about the differences between the two models, and we expect consumers interested in the Ranger will be interested in the Hero (and vice versa). Hopefully this has cleared up some of the differences so let us now move onto to taking a look at the specifications of the ASUS Maximus VII Ranger:

Packaging and Accessories

The packaging is the usual high quality we’ve come to expect from ASUS ROG. Once you open up the product you are greeted with a couple of glossy “marketing” sheets on an additional internal box. The basic jist of those can be seen on the product page.

The back details the specifics and features of the motherboard, of course you can find those in full on the product page.

The accessories include an ASUS ROG door hangar, user guide and some cable labels.

ASUS ROG also provide four SATA III ready cables, a black labelled rear I/O and front panel Q Connectors.