Windows 8 vies with Vista, but Windows 7 gains

Windows 8 is making slow but steady gains.

(Credit: Net Applications)

Pop open the champagne. Windows 8 may be on the verge of claiming installation share victory over Vista.
The latest figures from Net Applications show Windows 8 with a 4.27 percent share of PCs installed worldwide in May (up from 3.84 percent in April) versus 4.51 percent for Vista.
Vista, one of Microsoft's least popular OSes, was introduced in November of 2006.
Then again, maybe we're breaking out the champagne too soon. Windows 7 still leads by a long shot at 44.85 percent and it actually made gains in May, up from 44.72 percent in April.
And Vista was up in Steam's rankings to 7.25 percent in May from 7.06 percent in April.
Windows XP installations were down in May to 37.74 percent from 38.31 percent in April.

Intel's future Pentium chip does Windows and Android

Samsung Ativ Smart PC. More Android-based Intel laptops are coming, the chipmaker says.

(Credit: Samsung)

Intel's Atom is getting a makeover.
In more ways than one. First, when Intel speaks to customers internally about micro-architectures, Atom is out, Silvermont is in, Intel told CNET on Friday.
Second, some upcoming Silvermont silicon will be branded Pentium and Celeron -- which is the value end of Intel's Core-based mainstream chips.
The chipmaker's reasoning is that some variants of Silvermont now offer performance comparable to current mainstream Celeron and Pentium. That's quite different from the Atom of old, which had a reputation -- particularly in Netbooks -- for being slow.
Higher performance varieties of Silvermont will also ship with PC-like attributes such as PCI and SATA.
But here's where it gets interesting. These chips will debut not just in Windows PCs but Android systems too. Laptops, convertibles, detachables, all-in-ones (AIOs), and desktops -- running either Windows 8.1 or Android -- should begin to ship later this year and early next year, Intel said.

CBS acquires all of TV Guide Digital

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TV Guide Digital has fared well between its web portal and mobile apps, but part-owner CBS thinks there's a lot of potential locked away. Enough so, in fact, that CBS is taking over TV Guide Digital by acquiring Lionsgate's remaining 50 percent stake in the venture. The media giant now has full control of both TVGuide.com and the TV Guide Mobile apps, both of which are folding into CBS Interactive's Technology, Games and Lifestyle division. CBS mostly hopes that the deal will make it a font of wisdom for channel surfers -- it sees TV Guide Digital's rapidly growing audience and programming knowledge as complements to TV.com. We don't yet know how the acquisition will affect the TV Guide properties themselves, but we'd expect more than just the status quo.

Mars pebbles prove that rivers altered the planet's surface

Scientists already had an inkling that water helped form the landscape on Mars, but they're now ready to confirm that claim. In a report written for Science, researchers state that the smooth, rounded shape of the Red Planet's pebbles and the way they overlap is identical to the gravel formation found in Earth's rivers. They appear to be too large to be blown by wind, and their varied shades indicate they were transported from various locations -- telltale signs of a former stream. "For decades, we have speculated and hypothesized that the surface of Mars was carved by water, but this is the first time where you can see the remnants of stream flow with what are absolutely tell-tale signs," said Rebecca Williams to the BBC. This isn't the first time we've heard of water on Mars, but the idea of a Martian river does make us wonder if Marvin had a favorite fishing hole.