Hello Everyone! It’s Tuesday once again and it’s time again for our weekly roundup of tech news from around the globe. Last week, we talked about Apple’s new iPhone, iPod touch and iPod nano and the various features these three devices are bringing in into the market. But if you’re somehow drowning in news and features about these new Apple products, then this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays would probably give you a breath of fresh air.

To be specific, we’ll be talking about a new game for computers and mobile devices, an updated version of a very popular productivity suite and two new gaming consoles that will launch in a few months’ time. If you’re all set, let’s get the ball rollin’ shall we?

BAD PIGGIES

Rovio’s Angry Birds franchise has already enjoyed an amazing streak of success with its series of mobile games having been downloaded for over 1 billion times and having been revitalized several times with numerous updates and versions. But Rovio is now shifting the spotlight from the birds and now to the pigs – with Bad Piggies.

However, unlike the Angry Birds Games, Bad Piggies utilizes a different form of gameplay. If you’re wondering if you’re going to use a catapult of some sort to throw things or pigs to the birds, then you’re deeply mistaken. Instead, users will act as engineers, navigators and drivers for the pigs, as the game is focused on users creating a vehicle for the pigs for them to travel from point A to point B. The official trailer of the game is shown below.

Bad Piggies is scheduled for release on Thursday – September 27 for iOS, Android, PC and Mac.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 2013

Microsoft has finally unveiled the pricing for their 2013 Office productivity suite. There are two ways to purchase the applications suite. First would be to get the office suite through common retail channels just like its predecessor. Licensing terms will also follow the same rules as Office 2010. Having said this, users will only be able to install the software on one computer so users would need to buy separate licenses for them to install the program on more than one computer. Per-PC licensing starts at $140 and could go up to $400.

There’s also a subscription based versions of MS Office 2013. First is the Office 365 Home Premium which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Published, Access and Outlook. This version will cost around $100 per year for a household license that will allow users to install the software on up to a maximum of five PCs or Macs and on selected smartphones and tablets.

Users can also subscribe to the Office 365 Small Business Premium version package. Just like the Office Professional Plus 2010 which were sold traditionally through volume licensing programs. In this method, licenses are sold on a per-user basis, at $150 per user per year, with each subscriber getting the right to install the software on up to five machines and on select smartphones and tablets.

Aside from that, subscription packages allows users to get additional features such as cloud storage via Sky Drive, Skype minutes, SharePoint storage and hosted exchange to name a few.

Nintendo Wii U

Nintendo and Sony have announced that they will be releasing new consoles in the coming months. On one side, Nintendo has already made available for pre-order their recently launched Wii U. Meant to replace the Wii, the new console will sell for around $300 and will feature personal TV and video programming and recording through TiVo and other digital recording services.

The Wii U will also feature a “GamePad” that can act as a remote control, with its built-in touchscreen, which can either replicate or supplement the gameplay shown on the main display. The controller features an accelerometer, gyroscope, camera, dual analog sticks, a built-in microphone and can even support NFC.

If the game pad looks a little bit intimidating for you, a more familiar Wii U Pro Controller can be bought separately. Like most traditional game controllers, the Wii U Pro has standard control sticks, buttons and triggers.

Specs wise, Nintendo’s upcoming gaming console will be powered by an IBM Power7-based multi-core processor, a custom AMD Radeon High Definition GPGPU, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of on-board storage which can be expanded via SD memory cards or USB hard disk drives. It also has a slot-loading optical disc drive plus basic I/O ports like a sensor bar power output, AV Multi out port and a HDMI 1.4 out port to name a few.

The Nintendo Wii U is expected to go on sale on November for North America, November 30 in Europe and Australia, and Japan is set to follow on December.

So that’s a wrap for this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL. Tune in again next week for more tech news from around the globe. You can also follow us on Twitter, be a fan on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feeds to get even more updates not only about technology and gadgets but also other stories about Filipino lifestyle.

Hello everyone, it’s Tuesday once again and it’s time for another weekly roundup of the latest news and features about gadgets and technology from around the globe. In this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL, we’ll be talking about another hacker attack on a popular cloud service and two redesigns of web old timers.

Dropped Box gets Hacked

A bomb gets dropped into popular cloud service Drop Box as the company confirmed that usernames and passwords from their system were apparently stolen. According to their investigation, the stolen account information from other websites who were previously attacked (like Linkedin, Last.fm, etc) was the source of the leak.

Fortunately, after a number of their users started emailing Drop Box about them receiving spam emails in email addresses that were used only for Drop Box, the company has already taken measures to mitigate the security breach. Furthermore, the company has added improvements to the way they handle user’s sensitive information, such as two-factor authentication, a new page to enable users to examine all active logins to their account and in some cases, even requiring some users to change their passwords.

Goodbye Hotmail, Hello Outlook

Microsoft’s free web-based email service has just been revamped and rebranded last week. The once cluttered interface of Hotmail is now replaced with a clean and minimalist look that’s in line with the design features of Windows 8. The service will now take on the name of Outlook which is also the name of the email client found on Windows OS.

In addition, Outlook.com will now have integration with social media sites. Ads will also be minimized and will become more targeted just like Gmail. According to reports, almost one million people has signed up just 6 hours after the service went live. You can already sign up for an account through this link, and if you’re a Hotmail user, just select “Upgrade to Outlook” under settings.

Digg is Dug from its Grave

Social news website Digg has been revived just 6 weeks after it closes due to a decline in popularity and visitors over the years. According to its new owners Betaworks and new CEO John Borthwick, Digg’s old platform was too expensive to run, and hence, they wanted to build the new site from the ground up.

And to make this possible they made Digg V4 to go back in startup mode and develop a completely new and modern platform in which the site will build on. The site’s voting algorithms were also taken out. Users will still be able to use their Facebook-based accounts on Digg V4 and they will still be able to retrieve most of the data that they’ve put into the site in the past.

Aside from Facebook, the new algorithms will now look at signals from Twitter. Moreover, the new site has close integration with the iPhone app enabling iPhone users to save a story and read it straight from their phones. The new Digg 4 also stresses that they plan to take the site mainstream but will likely to continue to be biased towards science and technology news.

And that’s a wrap for this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL. Tune in again next week for your weekly dose of news and updates from the tech industry. You can also follow our Twitter and Facebook profiles for even more likeable stories.

It’s another Tuesday and that would only mean that there’s a new episode of Tech Tuesdays on TFL! Last week, we talked about the gaming console Ouya, the security breach that happened on Yahoo! and Formspring and an Nvidia event.

In this week’s episode, the news is all about three big IT companies and the different events that transpired within the past 7 days that are related to them. First on the list is Google.

GOOGLE

American search engine giant recently acquired Sparrow. For those who don’t know, Sparrow is an email client for Mac OS X and iOS that offers an intuitive and streamline user experience to Apple consumers. Originally meant as a minor project, Sparrow went on sale in the Mac App Store on February 9, 2011 and immediately became the top grossing paid app in less than one day.

On July 20, 2012, Dom Leca, Sparrow’s CEO, announced in the company’s website that they will be heading to Google to work with the Gmail team. She also said that even though they are going to help Google with Gmail, Sparrow will continue to offer and provide support to their existing customers from Apple devices.

Google hopes that through the acquisition of Sparrow, their Gmail app can be improved in iOS and Mac and possible improve it further on the PC and on Android. Unfortunately for Apple device users, the acquisition means that development of the app for iOS and Mac will eventually stop to make way for projects from Google.

YAHOO!

After the disastrous hacker attack last week on Yahoo! voices, the Sunnyvale, California-based internet company has got itself a new CEO – former Google executive Marissa Mayer.

Mayer will be at the helm of the internet company as it tries to bounce back from financial problems and internal turmoil brought about by thousands of lay-offs and failed attempts of the past four CEOs of the company.

According to a document from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, 37 year old Mayer will be paid by Yahoo at an annual base rate of $1,000,000. She will also be eligible for an annual bonus under the Company’s executive incentive plan which will be at 200% of her base salary.

Furthermore, she will also be given $12 million worth of stocks (in grants and options) over the next three years and $14 million worth of restricted stocks to compensate for the money she would have gotten if she stayed with Google.  And on top of that, Yahoo will also give her an extra $30 million if she stays with the company for five years.

Not bad right, especially since she’s expecting a baby boy by October this year.

MICROSOFT

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, raised the curtains on the company’s latest update to its very popular suite of office applications – Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Office 2013 or MS Office 15, according to Ballmer will deliver unparalleled productivity and flexibility for both consumers and business customers.  The new suite, will sport the new Metro look and will be seamlessly integrated with the user interface of the upcoming Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft. It will also be touch-friendly, with support for tap to select and pinch-to-zoom functionality.

Also, it will reportedly be heavily dependent on Microsoft’s cloud service, with documents being saved by default to the cloud, allowing users access to content while on the go by using other devices like tablets and smartphones.

Office 15 will be shipped together with ARM-based windows 8 devices, which is scheduled to be released by October 2012. It will also be available as a stand-alone product, with pricing and availability to be announced.

And just like Windows 8, Office 15 is already available for download as a consumer preview via Microsoft’s website.

And that’s the latest updates on the tech world for this edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL. Tune in again next week for your weekly dose of news, features and events in the tech industry. Also, please follow us on twitter and be a fan on Facebook. Thanks!