PCWorld May-15

With the Surface 3 (go.pcworld/surface3), Microsoft finally puts forth a budget alternative to the Surface Pro 3 that’s worth considering—if only because it runs full Windows 8.1 rather than the limited Windows RT of prior Surface models. The $499 starting price doesn’t hurt either (the Surface Pro 3 starts at $799). But there’s more to the Surface 3 than that, and we dove straight in as soon as we received our unit. Microsoft sent its higher-end Surface 3 for evaluation: the $599 version with 4GB of memory and 128GB of storage. (The $499 version has 2GB of memory and 64GB of storage.) As with its pricier cousin, everything else for the Surface costs extra: The separate Type Cover keyboard costs $130, partially offset by the free one-year subscription to Office 365…

STANDARD CONSUMER SSDS will increase up to an astounding 10TB of storage, thanks to a new type of 3D NAND flash memory that Intel and Micron introduced. The two companies, longtime joint partners in NAND flash development, said the breakthrough isn’t to make larger flash chips, but thicker ones. Much like Manhattan, when you’re out of space, the only way to go is up. Executives at the two companies said that by stacking the NAND they can greatly increase the capacity. The new 3D NAND technology stacks flash cells vertically in 32 layers to achieve a 256Gbit multilevel cell (MLC) and 384Gbit triple-level cell (TLC) die that fit within a standard package. Both say this approach will yield greater efficiency and lower the cost too. Triple capacity boost Pack a bunch of those together,…

MICROSOFT JUST PUSH its universal apps vision for Office to Windows 10 phones at the end of April. The new apps are being rolled out as part of a new Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones. Since they’re part of the “universal” apps family, they’ll look and feel a lot like the universal apps Microsoft has previously released for Windows 10. And yes, they’ll require Windows 10, Microsoft executives said. Microsoft’s new apps will essentially replace Office Mobile, Microsoft’s first stab at bringing Office apps to the mobile platform. But Office Mobile was limited in its editing and content-creation capabilities and lacked the richness of desktop apps. Microsoft claims that the new apps will change all that. Microsoft’s Jared Spataro said that the new universal apps will work on a “freemium” model,…

A BRAND NEW generic top-level domain (gTLD) is now on sale that is the embodiment of modern online sentiment: .sucks. Yes, pretty soon you can own your own piece of Internet hate for the political (HillarysEmail.sucks), the arbitrary (purple.sucks), or the sporty (StandUpPaddleBoarding.sucks). The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approved the .sucks domain as part of the new gTLD expansion (go.pcworld.com/gtldexpands) that ICANN says could include more than 1,300 TLDs over the next few years. Some .sucks domain names could end up being nothing more than a little harmless fun. The worst case scenario for major companies, however, might be a disgruntled customer getting their hands on Google.sucks, Nestle.sucks, or Comcast.sucks. And apparently the company behind the .sucks TLD knows it. Vox Populi Registry (nic.sucks), a Momentous.ca affiliate that owns the…

EVEN THOUGH ITS big annual Build conference didn’t kick off until the end of April, Microsoft dropped their Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10061 (go.pcworld.com/w10prebuild10016) a week early. Unlike the last Technical Preview release—which merely added the Project Spartan browser—this one is positively stuffed with tweaks, changes and news apps. Curious, but loath to install pre-release software on your PC? Live vicariously. I’ve spent some time poking and prodding at Windows 10 build 10061. Read on for screenshots and impressions of all the new changes, and don’t forget to check out PCWorld’s guides to the best new Windows 10 features to try first (go.pcworld.com/w10first10) and the top Windows 10 tips and tricks (go.pcworld.com/w10besttweaks) to get a deeper feel for the operating system. Start me up The very first thing you notice upon booting…

ALMOST EXACTLY ONE year ago, TAG Heuer CEO Stephane Linder spent an hour on the phone with me, dissing smartwatches. He was dismissive. He sounded bothered. He said the smartwatches available at the time looked like “cheap wrist computers.” He also brushed away talk of TAG Heuer jumping into the smartwatch fray anytime soon. “I don’t see us taking a big risk,” Linder told me, “unless we find a way to make luxury watches, looking like real luxury watches that provide very easy-to-use, smart information.” That was March 2014, and within eight months he would leave the company. Perhaps now we know why. TAG Heuer recently announced (go.pcworld.com/tag-google) that it’s working with Google and Intel on a smartwatch that will be released by the end of the year. So what explains TAG Heuer’s dramatic…