I remember the days of the original versions of WinZip, I was a huge, huge user of the software and I still use it to this day. Well, WinZip Computing have just launched WinZip 17, which is the industry's first singel application that is designer to "give users a better way to manage, protect and share files across all the ways we connect today - the cloud, social media and email".

WinZip 17 now features direct integration with cloud-based storage options like SkyDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive. This is great as you can zip your files up, saving space on your cloud storage, as well as offering 128- or 256-bit AES encryption making your files safer than ever in the cloud. WinZip 17 also allows you to both manage and share your files directly from the slow, where WinZip 17 can automatically create links to the files you want to send to friends or family over email.

WinZip 17 also ships with an updated UI, and more intuitive zipping and unzipping of files. WinZip 17 also allows you to send large files or even entire folders, quickly and securely. You can send up to 50MB with a free ZipSend Lite account or up to 2GB with a ZipSend Pro account. WinZip 17 also sports an enhanced compression and encryption engine which lets the software crunch numbers for zipping even quicker than before. WinZip is the only file utility software designed to harness the power of graphics processing units (GPUs) like Intel's third-generation Core processors, AMD A-Series APUs, AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.

I've got to admit, I wasn't that excited about Microsoft's Surface tablet when we first started hearing about it, but now that it's nearly here and we have found out more on Microsoft's iPad competitor, I'm beginning to get genuinely excited.

But, how does it fare in terms of specifications against the competition? Namely Apple's third-gen iPad and Samsung's pen-toting Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet? AllThingsD have made a great little chart comparing the tablets against each other, which you can see below.

So the new Surface tablet sports a 10.6-inch 1366x760-pixel screen, compared to the iPad's 9.7-inch 2048x1536 "Retina" display, the Surface loses out in resolution, but enjoys its slightly bigger and wider display. Surface only sports 720p front- and rear-facing cameras which is disappointing in this 5-megapixel-plus rear-facing camera world we now live in. Processor-wise, the Surface comes with NVIDIA's T30 SoC which is a quad-core design, compared to the third-gen iPad's dual-core A5X processor and Samsung's 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos chip.

The new iPod touch has one feature curiously absent. If you've ever seen your old iPod touch screen brightness change when you walked out of a dark room into the sunlight, you'll know the feature I'm talking about. The new iPod touch will not have this capability and will instead force users to do it themselves.

According to Phil Schiller, this is due to the new iPod touch being just too thin to fit the required ambient light sensor. Without the sensor, the device has no way of knowing the relative brightnesses between locations and lacks the ability to adjust the screen brightness to compensate for the difference.

It's not that big of a deal, but the automatic brightness adjustment is a feature that I have come to take for granted on my iPhone. It's great for when I am using it at night and had the brightness all the way down and then wake up in a bright room. Instead of trying to see on a dark screen, it automatically brings the brightness up to a comfortable level.

When Apple introduced the new Lightning connector for the iPhone 5, many people were amazed at the cost they were charging for adapters and cables. Most people, myself included, figured that there would be knock-off cables available pretty quickly after launch, but this was before a tear-down was conducted on the cable.

As most now know, Apple included an authenticator chip inside the end of the Lightning cable which is making it harder for third-party cables to be made. Chipworks wasn't going to just let it sit there, so they instead have conducted a tear-down of the new cable's chip and found out some information in regards to its security.

The tear-down revealed that the chip included does seem to feature security in some form or another, though nothing like that found in modern printer cartridges. Chipworks found circuitry that is "consistent with a serial communication chip including some simple security features."

Pricing on the new Microsoft Surface RT tablets is now known as Microsoft has put the tablets up for pre-order and the general consensus is that the pricing is just a wee bit, OK, quite a bit, too high. However, there are arguments for the other side saying that it is just right. My fear is that if this is what a Windows RT device costs, imagine what a regular Windows tablet will cost.

As you can see in the picture above, the basic 32GB Windows RT Surface tablet will set you back a costly $499. Note that that does not include the keyboard cover. For that, you'll have to shell out an additional $100, bringing the total price up to $599. For $699, you can get a 64GB system with the keyboard cover.

Most people have taken to Twitter to express concern over the pricing. "Sadly it looks like I'm out for the new Microsoft Surface, the price is too high for the low end model" and "They've priced it too high if they're just trying to get into the market." What are your thoughts on the pricing? Too high, too low, or just right?

I'm surprised it took this long to see the iPhone 5 blended. Blendtec, which started blending iPhones and other weird objects on video back with the first iPhone, has traditionally been very prompt about attempting total destruction on the latest and greatest Apple product, so having to wait nearly a month has been devastating.

But that's OK because the founder and PR manager have returned from Down Under (yes, they were in Australia) and tossed in not just an iPhone 5, but the Samsung Galaxy S III in an attempt to make an epic face-off between the two flagship devices. Of course, by now, I figure you've already watched the video. If not, go watch it then return here. I'll wait.

Back? Good. As you saw in the video, the Galaxy S III held out a little bit longer than the iPhone 5 did. In fact, the iPhone 5 was destroyed almost from the very beginning whereas the Samsung Galaxy S III survived for a good little while there. So, what can we take away from this? If you happen to be working over a giant, over-powered blender, the Galaxy S III might just survive long enough for you to pull it out.

ASUS teased us last week on their Facebook page about their PadFone 2, but now the day is finally here - introducing, the ASUS PadFone 2. Is it a smartphone? Yes. Can it be a tablet? Yes. It's the best of both worlds, and something revolutionary in an other wise same ol', same ol' smartphone world.

Not to say the rest of the phones on the market are boring, but ASUS are going out on a limb once again with the successor to the PadFone with PadFone 2. Spec wise, we're looking at ASUS' PadFone sporting a 4.7-inch 1280x720 Super IPS+ display, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, up to 64GB of internal storage, backed up by 50GB of ASUS WebStorage.

All of this finds its way into a sleek-looking, 9mm thick device that weighs just 135g. Battery life should be quite good with its 2140mAh battery that ASUS reckon is good for 16 hours of 3G talk-time, and 13 hours of Wi-Fi web browsing.

Microsoft may have released Zune which failed to really take off or compete with Apple's iTunes, but it looks like Microsoft is back yet again with a new competitor for Apple: Xbox Music.

Xbox Music is an all-in-one digital music service that will throw the 30 million tracks available to users through the Xbox 360 gaming console to Microsoft PCs, tablets and smartphones running the Redmond-based company's Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems.

There are three parts of this new venture, the first is a free streaming service that will be ad-supported and limited to a certain number of hours after six months. A premium, unlimited, ad-free streaming option is also available at around $10 a month, and consumers will also have the option to simply purchase and download any track from the catalogue.

Windows 8 is nearly here, folks - are you excited? It's going to be a mammoth launch from Microsoft, who are reportedly spending $1 billion or more on a huge marketing campaign stretching the globe. We're looking at the Surface tablet, Microsoft's iPad competitor, a new operating system, a smart device OS (Windows RT, Windows Phone 8) and more.

What should you be looking forward to? Well, a lot! I've compiled a list of five things I think you should be excited for - and as usual, this list is just a personal opinion.

1.) Proper touchscreen support in a Windows OS. Yes, there have been previous versions of Windows that support touchscreens, but Windows 8 has been built with touchscreens in mind.

ASUS have one of the most interesting Windows 8-based devices coming out this year, with their Taichi 21 dual-screen notebook. The ASUS Taichi 21 sports two 11.6-inch screens, both featuring 1920x1080-pixel IPS displays.

The first screen is where a notebook screen normally resides, in front of you, the user. The second one is on the rear of the screen, so when the lid on the notebook is closed it turns into an 11.6-inch touchscreen-capable Windows 8 tablet. It truly is a wonderful design. Both screens are IPS-based, meaning we'll see gorgeous color and viewing angles backed up by the Full HD 1080p resolution on each display.

Taichi 21's backside monitor supports 10-finger touch with an included stylus that offers 256 levels of pressure sensitivity. ASUS' Taichi 21 doesn't pack on the pounds, even though it packs dual screens where it measures in at just 0.7-inch thick, and 2.75lb with the included 6-cell battery.