Operating systems

On a sultry New Orleans afternoon today, AT&T took over a century-old Garden District mansion to open the 2012 CTIA. Yes, the annual wireless confab doesn't formally open until tomorrow morning, but the news already is coming fast and furious. And though I don't arrive in the Big Easy until tomorrow either, a big CNET team is on the ground by the Mississippi. Here are the highlights of what they saw today. … Read more

Apple has launched an update to its iOS platform.

The company's iOS 5.1.1 update comes with bug fixes for AirPlay video playback and the "Unable to purchase" error message popping up after users buy something from their device. In addition, Apple fixed a bug that prevented the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks.

Apple's iOS 5.1.1 update comes just a couple of months after the company revealed iOS 5.1. That update delivered a host of new bug fixes, a few interface tweaks, and even a hint that the next iPhone could come with 4G LTE support. … Read more

Next week as wireless fans descend on New Orleans for the annual CTIA Wireless show, we'll get one more peek at how the mobile landscape will unfold over the coming months. Previously held in March, but moved to May for 2012, the three-day event takes a North American focus while including the wireless movers and shakers from around the world.

At previous shows, carriers have pulled back the curtain on high-profile Android smartphones and tablets. In 2010, for example, Sprint announced the HTC Evo 4G and last year we got the slimmed-down Galaxy Tab 10.1. So considering the rapid clip of mobile development, it stands to reason that this year will be no exception, right? … Read more

Available only to registered Mac developers, build 12A178q of Mountain Lion comes with a laundry list of fixes and minor tweaks. The release notes also list the known issues that are still being worked on by Apple (including issues with both Quicktime and Game Center) and directions for developers to submit bug reports as they explore the new build.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (read our first take from February) is expected to be launched to the public sometime this summer, only one year after the release of OS X Lion, making it Apple's fastest major OS … Read more

The Windows 8 Metro Start screen can quickly get overrun with a huge number of tiles, making it hard to find the app you need. How can you manage this mishmash?

Users who have taken the Windows 8 beta for a spin already know that the Metro Start screen poses certain challenges. For every app you install -- Metro or non-Metro -- one or sometimes several tiles are plopped onto the Start screen. Each Web site you pin gets its own Start screen tile. Displaying features such as Administrative Tools adds even more tiles.

Windows 8 is designed with a … Read more

Want to see how Windows 8 looks and feels on a tablet? Now you can tap into the experience on your iPad via an app called Win8 Metro Testbed.

Designed by the folks at Splashtop, the new app lets iPad users drive the current Windows 8 beta in all its touch-screen glory by remotely controlling the OS from a desktop. All of the Windows 8 tablet features and gestures are fully accessible on the iPad.

The app will set you back $24.99 in the App Store. And that's a special introductory price; it will normally cost $49.99. … Read more

Evidently the Canon 5D Mark III SLR must be a pretty hot item.

Because Apple just released an update to its Mac OS X camera support whose sole purpose is to let iPhoto, Aperture, and other photo applications view and edit the new camera's raw images.

Usually such Apple updates add support for a collection of new cameras, but time is of the essence now that the 5D Mark III is shipping. Many photographers who use this class of camera shoot raw images (data taken directly from the image sensor, not processed into JPEG by the camera) for the … Read more

Internet Explorer users accustomed to working with Favorites will find life a bit different in the new Windows 8 Metro version of the browser.

The desktop flavor of IE10 still lets you create Favorites to manage your Web sites, but the Metro edition does away with such legacy options. Instead, you're given the option of pinning often-used Web sites, as described in a new Microsoft blog. Pinning a site places a tile for it on both the Metro Start screen and in the browser when you click in the address bar.

That process sounds convenient in theory. No more … Read more

The BlueStacks app player for running Android apps on Windows has taken a major step forward today with the release of its first beta, which can run even graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs.

The BlueStacks beta (download) leverages a new, patent-pending technology that the company has developed called LayerCake, which does two things necessary for running Android apps on Windows. First, it powers the app on hardware that it wasn't originally intended to run on. That's basically the ARM to x86 conversion which runs the apps, and it comes with the blessing of one of AMD's … Read more