A logo, not that big of a deal, right? Just come up with something creative at the start of your company and continue using it. Well, that wasn't good enough for Microsoft. No, for the first time in 25 years, they've decided to change their logo and the new logo makes much more sense than the old one. Take a look:

The whole push with Windows 8 is to maintain a similar UI that features a common look and feel across desktops, tablets, and smartphones and this logo extends this idea. It appears to draw heavily from the updated UI that is being used in Windows 8: that UI that Microsoft no longer calls "Metro."

I've never really been a believer in hybrid hard drives as they've never been competitive to SSDs when it comes to speed. Today at the Flash Memory Summit 2012, Toshiba had a demo showing just how wrong I could be. They had three identical laptops set up, one with a 19nm NAND SSD, one with a 5,400RPM drive, and one with an undisclosed hybrid drive.

The demo was booting from a completely powered down state into Windows and then starting a movie playing. Some of the results were shocking, to say the least. The traditional 5,400 RPM hard disk of course came in last as you would expect. However, the hybrid drive and the SSD were locked in a dead heat to the finish.

While the SSD finished before the hybrid drive, it couldn't have taken the hybrid drive more than 2 seconds longer. This result is quite a bit different from what I have seen in the past with regards to hybrid drives. When pressed, Toshiba wouldn't say when we would see this hybrid drive on the market or really give us any info. The best I could get from them is that it is a demo showing what is possible. All of a sudden hybrid drives are looking a whole lot more attractive.

I got a chance to run around the Flash Memory Summit 2012 today and managed to find this gem among the rest of the rather non-interesting happenings. Western Digital has decided that they don't want to be left behind the times and are now looking to hire a team of solid-state drive engineers to build them a product.

I went in for a chat and managed to snag the person in charge of staffing the new solid-state department. We chatted for a little while about why they are out hiring engineers when they had already acquired a company. The response actually makes really good sense.

The reasoning behind Western Digital hiring a new team of engineers is rather simple in design, but not always the way things are done as it can be tough on the bottom line. The basic reasoning behind it is so that the engineers can make their own mistakes rather than cleaning up the ones made by another team.

Just announced at the Unite conference that is currently being held over in Amsterdam, Unity Technologies have officially announced that they will be supporting both Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8. What does this mean?

This means that developers are not going to have to do much work in order to port high-quality, graphics-intensive games to Windows Phone 8 from the iPhone. The news was confirmed by Edge-Online.com, where it was also revealed by Unity Technologies' CEO, David Helgason, that 53% of mobile game developers already use the Unity3D engine. Helgason said:

Apple are still seeding out OS X 10.8.1 to developers, where they'll hopefully address some of the bigger issues with the initial release of Apple's latest OS, Mountain Lion. But, it looks as though some users have received notifications telling them that Apple are preparing to seed builds of OS X 10.8.2 for testing.

Apple seem to be moving pretty quick from OS X 10.8.1 to OS X 10.8.2, meaning that they're looking to clamp down on issues found not only in the original OS X Mountain Lion release, but 10.8.1. The issues in the OS X 10.8.1 are probably not that big to begin with, but it's good to see Apple moving quickly with updates.

According to a report by Reuters, LG Display have officially kicked off the start of mass-production on the new displays that are said to get baked into the new iPhone. Apple's media event to unveil the new smartphone is only three weeks away, which is beginning to make sense that the Cupertino-based company will definitely announce a new iPhone within the month.

Han Sang-beom, chief executive of LG Display, has said "we just began mass production and we don't expect any disruption in supplies". The new display is said to feature in-cell technology to embed touch sensors directly into the display, which should make the new iPhone a little slimmer than the current iPhone 4S model.

The Wall Street Journal is also talking about Apple's plans for the in-cell technology that will hopefully be featured in Apple's upcoming iPhone:

It looks like Megaupload founder, Kim Dotcom, won't be extradited to the United States anytime soon, with the New Zealand high court ruling that the US must now hand over all evidence in its case against Dotcom before any extradition can happen.

New Zealand Justice Helen Winkelmann ruled without a review of the evidence against him, Dotcom would be "significantly constrained" defending himself, while giving the US Department of Justice a large advantage prosecuting him. Ira Rothken, Megaupload's lawyer, told Wired:

Intel and Toshiba have been hard at work on a social film project called 'The Beauty Inside'. It features some Hollywood talent, with Topher Grace narrating, Sundance award-winning Director, Drake Doremus, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead starring.

The first episode is above, for your viewing pleasure, and after watching it, I'm quite intrigued. The main character wakes up as a new person, every single day. Imagine that. You wake up and could be a thin, 20-something year old male, and in the morning, you're an overweight, 50-year-old woman. The changes in clothes, in body weight, aches, hair color, female/male body parts, would make your head spin.

The social film's first episode feels like an introduction to the world, and the advertising from Intel and Toshiba is subtle. It's there, but it's not forced into your face, which is nice. I expected it to jump out at me more, and was pleasantly surprised, as you really only see the advertisement when the characters use a notebook. Another great thing about The Beauty Inside, is this is just the first episode, there's more to come, and if you want to get a chance to audition for a leading role in an upcoming episode, you might want to click here.

We've all spilt liquids on our keyboards before, accidents do happen, you just have to not cry over spilt milk (or expensive scotch). But never fear, Logitech is here, with their latest Washable Keyboard K310. Logitech's latest keyboard can be hand-washed, and is capable of being submerged in up to 11 inches of water.

Logitech have used some drainage holes at the back of the K310 that allow for easy drying while key characters are laser-printed and UV coated in order to keep them from fading. Logitech have also featured the K310 with the ability of sustaining five million keystrokes, meaning that not only is the keyboard washable, it can also take years of typing, gaming, or more.

Sophie Le Guen, senior director of mice and keyboards at Logitech has said:

Google, in their grasp for browser domination, have unveiled Octane, a JavaScript benchmark suite. Octane is a browser benchmark that measures performance when running the "complex and demanding web applications that users interact with daily".

Google have noted that the previous JavaScript-based benchmarks run artificial tests that were "created on an ad-hoc basis to stress a specific JavaScript feature". Where Google have steered Octane is different, as it extends the former V8 Benchmark Suite with 5 brand new benchmarks created from "full, unaltered, well-known web applications and libraries". Google have given a run down on the new tests:

If you want to try out Octane, you can right here.