While it isn’t entirely clear why Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)  made this announcement today, it is clear that Microsoft’s OneDrive just became an even better deal along with Office 365.

If you subscribe to Office 365 or have an annual subscription, you can get unlimited OneDrive storage for nothing extra. This may actually be Microsoft’s response to BitCasa screwing all of their customers by getting rid of their ‘infinite storage’ business model and forcing people to pay 10x more for capped storage.

Unfortunately, you cannot upload files larger than 10GB to Microsoft’s OneDrive, but realistically there are almost no files in most people’s library that are anywhere near that size unless they’re Blu-Ray or 4K video files. If you don’t already have OneDrive installed, you can install it on your desktop and laptop and use OneDrive to backup all of your data now that its unlimited. Microsoft is being very clever here with their OneDrive promotion because its essentially marketing. The reality of the situation is that 99% of consumers will never use anywhere near 1TB in the cloud and for those that do, Microsoft won’t really have to worry about them because they will barely affect the average. Even if you upload 300TB, if Microsoft has millions of people using OneDrive, you barely affect the average.

Additiontally, having OneDrive go unlimited welcomes people to use the cloud more and more specifically Microsoft’s cloud more so that they can use OneDrive to connect the data between their Xbox, Windows Phone and Windows desktop or laptop. Now that OneDrive is unlimited for Windows365 users, Microsoft has made using Office365 a no brainer for anyone looking to be productive AND anyone looking to store anything significant in the cloud.

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Typically, if you want to use your DSLR with a remote, you have to go out and buy some wireless remote that operates over RF or some other wireless communication protocol. There have been ways in the past to use attachments to your camera in conjunction with apps to remotely control your camera, but those all cost money. A new app called ShutterBOT DSLR Remote finally allows you to wirelessly take your smartphone and control your DSLR with it, without paying a penny. This free Android app allows you to once and for all control your DSLR with a smartphone app.

The great thing about having a DSLR Android camera app is that you have less equipment to carry around and you can take better long exposure photos without worrying about camera shake. The app itself supports a multitude of cameras and smartphones, but currently does not support the LG G2 even though it does have an IR blaster. The key for this free wireless camera app to work is that your phone has to have an IR blaster built into it, something that Apple’s phones simply don’t have. Thankfully, all three of the major Android smartphones launched this year, Galaxy S5, HTC One M8 and LG G3 all have IR blasters built in for TV purposes but can also double as camera controllers.

The app itself is very simple and very well designed, and has three ways of taking a photo. First, you can simply take a picture by pressing the on-screen button, second you can choose to have a timer and third you can choose to use voice activated shutter, which is also how the developer is able to monetize the app. This is the only in-app purchase that the developer is currently making available, but there’s a good chance that new features may also come in the form of in-app purchases. Perhaps something like an intervalometer or some other features that cameras might lack internally.

As of right now, the app supports the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Tab 3 & Tab 4, S4 & S5, HTC One and One M8, and LG G3. No word on Galaxy Note 4 support yet, but that may already be functional. The app states that it supports Canon, Fuji, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, and Sony, so we’ll be testing this out for ourselves shortly. The developer states that this app is designed to replace the manufacturers’ own IR remotes, specifically Canon’s RC-1, RC-5, RC-6, Nikon’s ML-L3, and Olympus RM-1. Considering that this app is free and a Nikon ML-L3 goes for $18 on B&H Photo, this app is almost a no-brainer for any photographer looking to use a remote in their photos.

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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) appears to have decided to entirely skip the idea of Windows 9 and release their next version of Windows as Windows 10.

The company’s new strategy does in fact do what the company has been aiming to do for quite some time. It helps unify the marketplaces and apps while still giving people customizeable experiences depending on the platform that they’re using. So now users can use the same app on their phone, tablet, and PC while also being able to (hopefully) share data across those devices through the cloud. They are also bringing back the start menu and getting rid of the full-page start menu from Windows 8 and 8.1. As a result, you can customize the size of the icons that you have pop up when you engage the start menu and you can also use it for search like you could in Windows 7 and Windows 8. However, now, the search box also does web searches as well, which is a brilliant move on Microsoft’s part because there’s a very good chance that Bing will be the default search engine for that and could help them gain more traction with Bing.

Microsoft has also implemented new multitasking UIs that bring back some of the legacy snap views as well as multiviews that look strikingly a lot like Apple’s own OSX expose. And Microsoft has also improved little things like the command prompt in Windows 10, which has remained unchanged forever, so now you can paste things into the command prompt instead of manually entering them.

Microsoft also appears to be pulling back more from the overall metro UI idea and forcing people to use fullscreen metro apps, but rather more along the lines of what they are familiar with. As many people have said, Microsoft’s jump from Windows 7 to Windows 8 was too drastic and did not allow for people to slowly adjust to change. Really, Windows 10 kind of slots in between Windows 7 and Windows 8 and finds a middle ground between the two. This is a clear recognition from Microsoft of what their users want and the fact that they simply didn’t listen to what people want and instead went on their own direction (Windows 8). Some may blame Ballmer for that move, but really, it had more to do with Sinofsky, who is no longer with the company.

If you’d like to test drive Microsoft’s newest OS, they will have an ‘insider’ preview available shortly to allow people to test out Windows 10 and give them feedback. The OS is expected to launch in the latter half of 2015 and there’s still no word on upgrades or what prices will be for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users. You can download the insider preview here.

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Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that via an update to Google Hangouts users will be able to make free phone calls to eachother as well as to numbers within the US and Canada.

The search giant is also introducing “affordable” calling rates abroad, which should equate to a few cents a minute. This is a clear extension of the company’s Voice service, which has been rumored to be killed off but really only appears to become integrated into Hangouts. This move makes sense as Google has been quietly trying to integrate all forms of communication, Voice, Video and Chat under one app. Right now, hangouts combines chat (once Google Chat) with video but with this update it it adds voice, simply making Google Hangouts more useful and versatile.

Google Hangouts

This is a clear attempt by Google to also compete with some of the already existing voice, chat and video services that exist as third party solutions. However, those services do not have free calling outside of the application and don’t come as the default messaging app on Android. The one thing to also consider is that even though Hangouts is a great app, it still doesn’t come default on a lot of devices due to manufacturer or carrier customizations. This is changing with the newer crop of smartphones, but that will take some time to really take hold on the whole Android install base. Some carriers, like AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) push their own cloud messaging services which make Hangouts a secondary messaging service to the regular consumer that doesn’t know the power of Google Hangouts.

Google expects to push out the update to Android users over the coming days and a simple update of Google Hangouts will enable free calling via Hangouts. If you have the iOS or web app, Hangouts will already have this functionality the next time you use it. The one thing Google failed to mention, though, is that they didn’t say anything about the Hangouts desktop app or when that functionality will come to those users.

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EA has been doing this a lot lately, giving away slightly out of date games to Origin users for free. They appear to be continuing to do this in order to promote their Origin service and to get people acquainted with it better. This time around, they’re giving away The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, absolutely and totally for free. All you have to do is install Origin on your PC and then create an account and once you’ve logged into your account you can use the following code “I-LOVE-THE-SIMS” and then the game will magically pop up in your game library.

Do keep in mind, however, that this game uses a highly intrusive version of DRM known as SecuROM. SecuROM is so intrusive that there are multiple guides on the internet on how to remove it once you’ve uninstalled a game, because it persistently remains on your system even if the game has been completely removed. If this SecuROM DRM doesn’t bother you, then this game is perfect for anyone that’s never played The Sims before and wants to try it out for free. The graphical requirements on this game are also so low that virtually anyone can play it on any PC or Mac without any issues.

Of course, such intrusive DRM is going to turn a lot of people off and drive them towards piracy, but these companies will always try to fight piracy, no matter how little it actually affects their bottom line. In the end, you can get a pretty popular game, The Sims 2, for free and not worry about whether it was worth the money. If you’re worried about SecuROM then I would suggest possibly installing this on a less-important system where you don’t think SecuROM could be too damaging or intrusive. Until then, enjoy your free game (if you want it) and eagerly await the next free game from EA. Hopefully it won’t also use SecuROM.

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Our buddies over at Origin PC are having a pretty sweet Back to School deal, depending on which product you buy from them. If you’re in the market for a sweet gaming desktop or a high-end EON gaming notebook from them, then you can expect to get a free upgrade to a 240 GB SSD from VisionTek as well as a free copy of Watch Dogs. Or, if you’re in the market for something like their EVO15-S gaming laptop, then you can get free ground shipping across the US, a free 2 year part replacement warranty (standard is one year), and a free copy of Watch Dogs. However, it appears that their 2 year warranty that they’re including here does not include the cost of shipping or labor for the laptop, so it may not actually be as good of a warranty as it may seem.

Back 2 School Origin PC

We’ll be watching out for other good Back to School deals for you guys as they start to heat up, leading to the beginning of the school year. We’re already working on some guides for the best laptops, desktops, smartphones, and tablets for this back to school season so that you’ve got most of your decisions covered. But as of right now, Origin PC is the only company that’s launched their back to school deals so far. And while the 2 year part replacement warranty may not seem so great, most gaming laptops dong really last that long to begin with and any repairs are mostly going to be the cost of parts and not really labor. That’s primarily because replacement parts for most laptops are incredibly expensive and usually drive people towards just buying a new laptop. But even with that caveat, the Origin PC desktop and EON Laptop deal isn’t a bad one because they’re basically throwing in a free SSD and game which is actually worth about what they say it is.

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Normally, when a company violates something such as Net Neutrality it generally is in the company’s best interest and they are looking for ways to make things more profitable and less valuable to consumers. A perfect example of that is with what Comcast is doing to Netflix (and others) in terms of requiring them to pay for prioritization in violation of Net Neutrality. This ultimately hurts Netflix and Netflix users that might be on Comcast, resulting in everyone but Comcast losing. Now, T-Mobile as part of their Uncarrier 5.0 and Uncarrier 6.0 initiatives made an announcement that they would be allowing users to stream music for free, meaning that if they don’t have an unlimited data plan, streaming music won’t count against their data plan.

Now, this move by T-Mobile is clearly very pro-consumer as it gives consumers the illusion that they’re saving money and data by not paying for music streaming, however there is one limitation to this new rule. First, it needs to be one of the following applications: iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker, and Milk Music. They’ve also opened voting to allow users to pick two applications that they believe should be included as part of this free music initiative.

But there’s one problem with all of this, it effectively violates the principals of Net Neutrality and prioritizes one certain application’s traffic over another’s. Specifically, it rewards the already established an existing apps with the right to not penalize users for using the service while still treating the rest of the music apps on the market as second class music citizens. This means that an upstart application will naturally have a harder time competing with the Pandoras, the Spotifys and the Rhapsodys of this world. I mean, the fact that Google Play Music isn’t included as part of this list is already a bit peculiar, but even so, it means that if you’ve got an upstart music app that might be better than all of the rest of the established apps those companies already have a leg up on you in terms of not using a person’s monthly alotted data.

There is no denying that these music services use up a lot of data and if you use Spotify at very high quality for an entire month, you could easily rack up 1GB or 2GB of data usage, so for some this clearly comes as a godsend. However, I’m just not sure if T-Mobile realizes what they’re doing in terms of Net Neutrality or if this is just part of the company’s plan to happily and cheerfully lul us into a world where they pick the winners and losers through cajoling us into thinking they’re actually saving us money. If so, then this is probably one of the best evil plans I’ve ever seen from a carrier and AT&T and Verizon should be amazed and probably take some lessons. Otherwise, I think T-Mobile should seriously consider opening it up to ALL music apps and allow developers to apply for music exempt status, otherwise the company will be in direct violation of Net Neutrality. And as much as it hurts me to say this, especially considering all the awesome things T-Mobile has done lately, they’re really fucking with Net Neutrality and how the internet and mobile apps should work.

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As a huge fan of Unreal Tournament, I have been waiting for this day for a very long time. In fact, since Unreal Tournament 3 came out in 2007 a lot of people have been waiting for a new Unreal Tournament game, it has been nearly 7 years since the last Unreal Title and now Epic Games has finally announced they will start to develop a new Unreal Tournament game with help from the community. The new game will be based on Unreal Engine 4, which is Epic’s latest and greatest game engine and as a result, it will look and perform absolutely fantastically. Not just that, but it’ll be very portable across Windows, OSX and Linux and the game will be completely and totally free. Here’s the announcement from Epic’s online live stream where they explained exactly what the new game will be like, even though the game has basically started development today.

We even asked our good friend Tim Sweeney, Co-Founder of Epic, about whether or not they would be making a new Unreal Tournament game in 2012, but he would not confirm nor deny any such project. And he once again denied any such existence of an Unreal Tournament game at GDC earlier this year with some other press. Even so, I’m not entirely sure he was wrong in either statement since Epic Games hasn’t technically started development of the new Unreal title until today. Today is day zero and starting from today they are beginning the development of the new Unreal Tournament game. What’s interesting is that Epic has decided to bring a lot of the people that currently work at Epic, but were somehow involved with Unreal Tournament as modders and such into the project. Additionally, they are being very adamant that they want to have heavy involvement from the community and that they want to include gamers to help make the game better even at the Alpha stage.

I think that this game is going to present a new way of developing, creating and ultimately releasing a game. However, I don’t really know what’s in it for Epic Games, maybe a way to showcase their latest engine? I don’t quite know, they’ve been a pretty bottomline focused company and for them to do something like this and make a game absolutely and completely free (not even Free to Play) is almost out of their character. They claim that they will be making their money off this game through the marketplace created by modders, they want to give developers, modders, artists and gamers a way to buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from that marketplace will be split between the modder/content developer and Epic and that’s how they expect to pay for the game. It isn’t quite microtransactions, but it kind of is. It sounds almost like something we’re seeing from Valve with Counter Strike: Global Offensive, where people are paying to unlock skinned guns made by the community (In fact, I think we’ll see exactly some form of that, and many others). But you won’t see me complaining, I’ve been starving for a new Unreal Tournament game and now we’ve got it. Now it’ll just be interesting to see how the game will look and how gamers will receive it on three different platforms.

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If you haven’t been following Microsoft lately, then you’re missing out on what could be one of the most significant changes of strategy I’ve seen in a long time. They have slowly been making baby steps towards reorganizing and reconsidering how they address mobile. I have been following Microsoft’s attitudes towards mobile since Windows Mobile 5.0 and even owned a fair amount of Windows-based devices over the course of that time. However, Microsoft made a lot of mistakes along the way and is finally making major changes to remedy them. And with the smartphone market being a virtual duopoly between Android and iOS it comes as no surprise that people are looking for something different.

At the same time, Microsoft is struggling to retain users in Windows while people start to move towards Android, iOS and ChromeOS-based devices. With their release of Windows 8, Microsoft actually alienated a lot of users because they ruined a fairly well received operating system in Windows 7 and tried to modernize it for touch, but made an insane amount of mistakes. Since then, Microsoft has released Windows 8.1 which has made some significant improvements and is continuing to do so by bringing back the start menu in the Windows 8.1 update which will also bring a bunch of other tweaks that will make Windows 8 more usable for users without touch. One of Microsoft’s biggest mistakes with Windows 8 was to assume that everyone would have touch and that application developers would immediately switch to the ‘Modern’ Metro UI that Windows 8 employs with tiles, many of these tweaks fix those mistakes. Some of those fixes include allowing boot to desktop, a start menu, Metro apps on the desktop taskbar, a persistent taskbar, mouse friendly menus, reduced system requirements and much more. Sure, its a bit late when you consider that Windows 9 is likely due next year, but that’s an entirely different conversation. Right now they need to focus on keeping people happy in the now and preparing for the future, which is exactly what they appear to be doing.

Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia also signifies Microsoft’s renewed focus on hardware as did their announcement about their expansion of hardware partners for Windows Phone, which was necessary to show that they wanted to enable more than just Nokia. Clearly Microsoft can sell their own branded devices as Google does successfully with Nexus and Android. One way that Microsoft followed up on their hardware commitments was by announcing that they would be making Windows free on any device that is 9″ or less, which means we could actually see a lot of 8.9″ Windows tablets relatively soon. But what this enables is Microsoft’s operating system to become a considered option for OEMs when building tablets and smartphones.

Microsoft’s new strategy is to monetize on their cloud software like Office, One Drive and One Note and to utilize their strengths in cloud computing to make their operating systems more attractive. If they continue on this trajectory, they could have a fully unified operating system across all platforms. Eventually, with Windows 9 we can expect to see essentially the same OS plus or minus a few features (based on platform) on Desktop, Tablet and Smartphone. Which is reinforced by Microsoft’s move to make app purchases in their store universally applicable across Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Xbox. This will not only encourage people to use Microsoft’s platform for the flexibility and cross-platform nature, but it will also encourage application developers to make applications that think in a cross-platform manner. That is in combination with their announcement of Cortana, which I would expect to see intelligently integrated into all of Microsoft’s operating systems and eventually into Windows 9. Cortana is going to be Microsoft’s next weapon to fight against Google and Apple to help create differentiation.

I really feel like Microsoft really has it together more than they ever have in their history since Bill Gates left his position as CEO. And to be honest, considering that Bill Gates left Microsoft as CEO when I was 10, it seems pretty fair to say that this is the best I’ve seen them since he stepped down as CEO. They finally understand what they need to do in order to be successful in competing with Google and Apple, and their strategies are solid. Only time will tell how quickly they will start to erode Apple and Google, especially when you consider they’ve successfully helped erode Blackberry’s share.

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