PCWorld Podcast

This week, PCWorld Editors Nate Ralph, Melissa Riofrio, Elsa Wenzel, and Jason Cross talk a lot about Microsoft. First, there's the big huge Xbox 360 update that brings the Metro design style to the game console, along with a whole slew of streaming video and audio services. Then there's the surprise release of an official Xbox Live app for iOS.

Perhaps the biggest Microsoft news this week was the event detailing the Windows Store for Windows 8. This will be the way hundreds of millions of Windows 8 users download metro-style apps, and Microsoft's policies are, surprisingly, more open than app stores from Google or Apple.

This week, PCWorld Editors Ginny Mies, Melissa J. Perenson, and Jason Cross are joined by guest Carlos Rodela to talk about Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Carlos worked at Amazon for years in the early days of its push into digtal products, and has some insight into how Amazon is thinking of the tablet a bit differently than others.

The coversation then shifts to the new Google Music store, fresh out of beta. You can still upload 20,000 of your own tracks, but now you can buy music for around $0.99 per track. Does the world need another "buy songs for a buck" music store? Not really, but Google does bring a few unique features to the table and Android users should probably have a default music service they can rely on being integrated into the OS.

Join PCWorld Editors Ginny Mies, Tim Moynihan, Patrick Miller, and Jason Cross as we give you the low-down on mechanical keyboards. What's the difference between these and the keyboard you probalby have on your PC today? What are the different switch types? Which ones are best?

And what's this about Nokia's new Windows Phone 7.5 phones? Are they just nice to look at, or is there a real reason to wait for them? They're going to miss the holidays here in the U.S., but Europeans should get them real soon now. Is this what Windows Phone 7 needs to be relevant in the market, or is it too little too late?

PCWorld Editors Megan Geuss, Nate Ralph, and Jason Cross express their disappointment in the new FX processors from AMD. "Bulldozer" was supposed to get AMD back in the arms race against Intel for high-performance CPUs, but it's not nearly fast enough and draws too much power. The best AMD can compete with seems to be the middle-of-the-road from Intel.

We're also sort of dismayed by Netflix's decision to kill the whole Qwikster idea. Yes, it was a terrible name, but we're actually sort of in favor of the DVD rental business splitting off from the streaming business. Now it just looks like they don't know what they're doing over there. Speaking of web services, Megan gives us a sneak peak at the results of her coming feature on the most useful websites on the 'net.

PCWorld Editors Ginny Mies, Mark Sullivan, Nate Ralph, and Jason Cross briefly discuss the passing of Steve Jobs at the age of 56. Jobs was an incon the likes of which comes along only once every few generations, and was both likeable and infuriating in the way only true visionaries are.

After that brief look at his important life, we move on to discussing the iPhone 4S announced this week, and the Facebook announcements from last week. We even answer a reader mail from a blind listener in Scotland who wants to know more about the accessibility features in Windows 8.

Join PCWorld Editors Melissa Riofrio, Melissa Perenson, Nate Ralph, and Jason Cross as we discuss the sorry state of Cloud Printing and what could be done about it. Melissa Riofrio also dives into some shopping research she's been doing, and lets you know where you buy our ink and toner (and where not to).

Microsoft's BUILD Windows conference is next week, where the company will finally reveal much about Windows 8. The gang talks about what we know so far and what we hope to learn.

Ed Albro, Melissa Perenson, Tim Moynihan, and Jason Cross gather around the podcast table to talk about some of the latest news stories this week. Does Adobe's Edge tool signal the death of Flash and the prominant rise of HTML5? Are people already losing interest in Google+, or is it just that the initial gold-rush wave of early adopters is over? A recent study showed that Internet Explorer users are dumber than those that use other browsers; only the study and the company that conducted it were both fake, proving that it's tech journalists that are dumb (or at least lazy and rushed).

Download the podcast (41:54).

Nate Ralph, Nick Mediati, and Jason Cross gripe a bit about some of the changes Apple has made in its latest version of OS X, Lion. That hasn't stopped the company from making record profits in the last quarter, though. We also lament the closing of Google Labs, which has been the public incubation chamber for many of our favorite google products. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, and other everyday google products started out in Labs, but it's the off-the-wall stuff that we may miss the most.

Download the podcast (35:14).

Joe Braidwood, CMO of TouchType stops by to chat with us about SwiftKey X, their just-launched replacement keyboard for Android phones and tablets. It should be an improvement over the already highly-regarded original SwiftKey, and the tablet version is one of the first full-featured Android 3.0 tablet replacement keyboards.

Melissa Perenson and Jason Cross also chat with Joe about the U.S. launch of Spotify, the Toshiba Thrive, and the iRiver Story HD, the first E-Reader to tightly integrate with Google Books.

This week, we give you the skinny on the promising-but-not-great HP TouchPad, before potificating at length about social media. Facebook just released video chat and other chat tweaks, and Google has certainly found a following with its latest attempt to get social media right: Google+. We're all cautiously optimistic about its future.

Download the podcast (52:24).

Today, host Jason Cross is joined by Nate Ralph, Patrick Miller, and Megan Geuss as we discuss the hot new hardware of E3 - the Wii U and PlayStation Vita. We also give you some advice from our recent "What specs matter" feature to help you more easily buy a desktop or laptop PC you'll be happy with. Finally, Megan gives us some insight into the process and results of her tests of the new Facebook facial recognition features.

If you want us to answer your reader question in the next podcast, send it along to podcast@pcworld.com. You can use the same address to send us feedback; or leave feedback for us on iTunes.

Host Melissa J. Perenson is joined this week by Jason Cross, Ginny Mies, and Nick Mediati. It’s been a busy week in tech, and we’ve got all the details here—starting with the news about iOS 5 and iCloud from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. We introduce you to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android tablet, discuss mobile security threats, and delve into our experience handling the first Google Chrome OS Chromebook—the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook.