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Little over two weeks ago Microsoft took down the "opening soon" digital cardboard sign and officially introduced Outlook.com into the wild as a stable product. And if you're already a user or if you have seen the commercials, then you already know that the email service delivers Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter integration, among other supported cloud services.

But there's one that is still missing, and a very important product integration at that -- Skype. In mid-May 2011 Microsoft purchased the popular voice, video and text chatting service for $8.5 billion, a not so small chunk of change by any means. Naturally, in the cloud-connected era, integration with the software giant's cloud products is the next logical step, especially in the midst of heavy competition from Google which, for instance, includes Google Talk integration with Gmail.

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Nokia targeted hipsters with #2InstaWithLove a couple of days ago, and now the Finnish smartphone manufacturer has shifted its focus onto narcissists. Nokia Glam Me allows users to take enhanced self-portraits for later adulation and, obviously, sharing across various social networks.

There's a catch though. In order to take advantage of the benefits that Nokia Glam Me touts, one has to own a compatible Lumia smartphone running Windows Phone 8. And, for the best results, users might want to look towards a higher-spec'd model in the front-facing camera department, like the Lumia 920 or the recently-introduced Lumia 720.

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If you're in the market for an all-in-one PC running Windows 8 but you also want an Android tablet to carry about inside the house, Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS has just the thing for you -- the new Transformer AiO. Designed as a niche of a niche product, the Transformer AiO appears to have it all figured out.

The all-in-one aims to give users the power of legacy and Modern UI Windows 8 apps, combined with the vast and mobile-oriented Android ecosystem. On the Windows 8 side, the Transformer AiO brings an 18.4-inch LED-backlit IPS display with 10-point multitouch and a resolution of 1920 by 1080. Power comes from a third generation Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processor backed by an Nvidia GeForce GT 730M graphics card with 2GB of RAM. Like you'd expect it features the usual array of ports, including HDMI and USB 3.0 ones.

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Pink does really make a difference. To most people a unicorn is just an imaginary creature from children's books but add the color pink into the equation and Android enthusiasts rejoice about AOKP, one of the most popular custom Android distributions. The team behind Android Open Kang Project has released a new build, a week after the last one, sporting bug fixes, new features and support for more devices.

The AOKP developers have fixed "a really nasty memory leak" which caused the popular custom Android distribution to randomly reboot. A side-effect of squashing the bug is increased speed in navigating the lockscreen. Jelly Bean MR1 Build 5 introduces support for six new devices, for a total of 28 as of the latest release.

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Just as I predicted in early-February, combined, the new sweets on the block -- Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich -- surpassed the mighty Gingerbread in the Android distribution charts for early-March. Based on the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending March 4, Gingerbread is still the most popular green droid iteration.

Almost four months after Google released Android 4.2, the latest treat in the candy jar has reached a 1.6 percent distribution level. The second Jelly Bean iteration continues to grow, if only slightly, by another 0.2 percentage points from 1.4 percent distribution level in early-February. The difference translates into a 14.28 percent increase over the course of a single month.

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On Tuesday, Microsoft detailed another update addressed to Windows Azure, the software giant's cloud platform, aimed at fending off the attack from Amazon S3, Google Cloud Platform and other major competitors. One of the most noteworthy new features is support for developing native Android Apps in Windows Azure Mobile Services.

Microsoft has released the Android Client SDK (Software Development Kit) through GitHub, under the Apache 2.0 license. Windows Azure Mobile Services also features support for Android push notifications, which can be enabled by registering for Google Cloud Messaging, getting the API key and pasting it in the corresponding "Push" tab.

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We all know the dangers of living on the darker side (or the wrong side) of the InterWebs -- malware is waiting at every corner to ruin the "joy" that some may have by saving some money through pirated software. We know that. The real question is whether that is brainwashing caused by large software corporations or a real threat to our safety that people knowingly ignore?

Microsoft, one of the most popular companies around when it comes to having its software pirated shortly after or even before a product is released, has commissioned a new study to inform consumers and businesses of the dangers involved in using pirated software. The study is conducted by IDC which has analyzed 270 websites, P2P (Peer-to-Peer) networks, 108 software downloads and 155 CDs or DVDs, and interviewed 268 IT managers or CIOs (Chief Information Officer) and 2,077 respondents (1,104 consumers and 973 businesses) from various locations around the globe.

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Switching from Android to Windows Phone 8 seems just about the worst decision that I have ever made in my entire tech life. It's sort of like trading a boring but solid marriage for a great one-night stand that has turned into a bad relationship not much further down the road. Granted, it all boils down to personal preference but right now I'd much rather have a spouse that I can rely on (Android) rather than someone that I can't stand anymore (Windows Phone 8).

Windows Phone 8 is all about trying to silence every voice in my head that says "You miss Android" and replace it with the "I can make it work if I try hard enough" broken record instead. Hope and blind faith is what keeps me going as I place my trust in Microsoft and developers to improve upon the operating system and its ecosystem in an update or app that never seems to come. Sadly, this mindset has failure written all over it. And I've reached the boiling point as every day there has to be something off with the Windows Phone 8 endeavor that makes me think "Why did I buy the HTC Windows Phone 8X in the first place?"

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Contrary to rumors yesterday, Microsoft has not abandoned its "Scroogled" marketing campaign, despite sharp criticisms. My colleague Wayne Williams calls the attacks against Google a "sad and frankly pathetic strategy".

If the statement a Microsoft spokesperson has given to BetaNews is any indication, the campaign will get more aggressive than it is today: "Scroogled will go on as long as Google keeps Scroogling people. We know Google doesn’t like it when the facts come out. Chapter two of the consumer education campaign has shown people care about their privacy. More than 3.5 million people visited scroogled.com, and nearly 115,000 people signed a petition asking Google to stop going through their Gmail. Stay tuned for the next chapter".

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Little less than a week ago, after replying to tweets from disgruntled users, Verizon revealed that the Galaxy Nexus will "soon" receive a software update. The big red did not provide any specifics and, judging by its past track record, "soon" means "months down the road" as updates usually roll out with the speed of a snail cruising down the highway in rush-hour traffic.

But great news! Well, sort of. Less than a month after Google rolled out Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean for the other Nexus devices, the Verizon-branded Galaxy Nexus has also received the latest iteration of the green droid operating system albeit via an OTA (Over-The-Air) update file. The OTA update was uncovered by enthusiasts, but comes straight from Google's servers which means that it might hit all devices "soon" (as Verizon likes to say).

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Three weeks ago, Norwegian browser maker Opera Software announced a major change in the company's philosophy, moving from the in-house Presto rendering engine to the open-source WebKit for all future Opera releases. The transition will be gradual but on Tuesday Opera took the first steps towards a Presto-free era.

The developer demoed a preview version at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in late-February, and days after the convention finished Opera browser beta (not a very catchy name) made its way onto Google Play rocking that shiny WebKit engine. Judging by initial user feedback, the company appears to have hit a home run, as the app now has more than 190 five-star ratings out of a total of 275 and an average mark of 4.5. Not bad for an early-development build.

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We've had to wait a tad longer than expected, but it's finally here. The team behind the popular custom Android distribution CyanogenMod unveiled the second monthly release based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, more than a month after the last build.

Like it usually happens with monthly builds, with CyanogenMod 10.1 M2 the focus is on stability improvements rather than introducing numerous new features that have yet to pass rigorous testing. As a result some of the latest features found in nightly builds may be left behind for future monthly releases in order to provide a custom Android distribution suited for daily-driver use.

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Little less than a week after the last build, Team Win Recovery Project has released a new version of the popular custom Android recovery TWRP. The newest iteration features a number of bug fixes and general improvements.

TWRP 2.4.3.0 touts fixing the persistence of the 24 hour time setting, which was introduced alongside TWRP 2.4.2.0, the loading of the screen timeout setting during start-up, the file selector crash (which is attributed to the multi-threaded design of TWRP), as well as two bugs related to restores. For users who have encountered issues with restoring backups, the functionality should work as intended with the latest version.

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Koushik Dutta, the developer behind Android apps like Carbon, ROM Manager and the popular ClockworkMod custom recovery, has released a new open-source root access management app called Superuser.

Explaining the reason for making it open-source, Dutta says that in his opinion a root access management app should be open to "independent security analysis" and that "obscurity (closed source) is not security". He also places a great deal of value on making the app "AOSP buildable" so that developers can include it in custom Android distributions.

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ASUS Transformer Pad owners are in for a treat, the latest treat in the candy jar in fact -- the Taiwanese manufacturer has announced that it will upgrade the popular tablet to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

On its Facebook page, ASUS revealed that the Transformer Pad, in TF300 trim, is set to receive an update to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean this month, although there's no exact date as to when the roll-out will begin. According to the company, the Transformer Pad is the first non-Nexus device to receive the upgrade to the newest iteration of the popular green droid operating system.

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