Much buzz around the next major release of Windows has centered around the controversial ribbon interface for Windows Explorer. However, no ribbon appeared in a sneak preview of Office 15--World, Excel, PowerPoint--that Microsoft gave this week in a video about developing Windows On ARM (WOA).

The examples shown were early desktop versions of Office 15--not in the style of the Metro interface that appears in Windows 8--which may explain the absence of the contentious ribbon design, and provide a hint of what to expect in the next productivity suite.

With the Windows 8 consumer preview rumored to be announced Feb. 29, Microsoft has given much thought into optimizing it to run well not just on desktops and laptops, but also on tablets and even smartphones. Part of making an operating system friendly for mobile devices is making it power-conscious, able to do everything you want while using as little power as possible.

Earlier this week, Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog detailed how Windows 8 will accomplish this. Here are five ways the OS is being optimized so your apps use less power and you can get more work done.

Between the official rollout of Chrome 17 and the launch of Chrome for Android, it's already been a busy week for Google's popular Web browser.

On Thursday, however, Chrome reached yet another milestone with the release of the beta version of Chrome 18, which appears to be particularly notable for the graphics improvements it enables.

Google's motto of “Do No Evil” apparently extends to its environmental policies, as the company grabbed the top spot on Greenpeace's Cool IT Leaderboard ranking for overall green practices. Google climbed to the No. 1 position for the first time, ranking high due to recent disclosure of its carbon footprint as well as its investment in utility projects such as a large-scale solar project near Sacramento.

Other reasons it made the top of the list include the RechargeIT.org project, which Google designed to demonstrate the technology used in plug-in electric vehicles and to accelerate their adoption. Its other actions include increasing its renewable energy purchasing and creating a subsidiary called Google Energy.

If you want potential customers to get a 360-degree, panoramic view of your brick-and-mortar business when they click on any of your listings in Google, its new Business Photos campaign makes its listings for business more interactive. To that end, the search giant is pairing its own certified "Trusted Photographers" with businesses that want to show off their interiors to the public.

While including these photos in your Google Maps listing and Google Places page is extremely helpful for someone wanting to find out more about your business, it will really matter in your search engine results. When someone does a search and your listing comes up first, Google pinpoints the business on a map, offers its existing street view photo, and gives the option to look inside the business if interior pictures exist.

Comment spam, also known as blogspam, has existed since the dawn of blogs. It's created for one purpose: to insert a link on your site back to the commenter’s website. Comment spammers are getting craftier at the game. Comment spam was a much larger problem for bloggers in the nascent days of blogging before improved spam blockers, when you could easily spend 10 minutes a day moderating a blog. Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, actually created a spam blocker for WordPress called Akismet in 2005, partially so his mom wouldn’t be assaulted by Viagra ads while writing her blog.

Today, spam blockers do a good job of nabbing most spam, but link builders still employ underhanded tricks to get their comments onto your blog, usually hiring people to do the deed since bots are usually stopped by the spam blockers. Many business owners and employees are unfamiliar with comment spam; they happily approve spam all the time, and who can blame them? They just don’t know. Here are a few ways to tell if that comment is spam or from a real person, and eight tips for reducing it on your website.

Smartphones and tablets are dominating technology, and apps are among the top selling points for each mobile OS. With Apple’s and Google’s app stores each having over 500,000 apps and tens of billions of downloads, the desire to be a part of this growing market is strong. Apps can be useful for internal use by your company, or as a way to collaborate with clients, vendors, customers, and the public. Before deciding to develop an app for your business, though, take these considerations into account.

1. Compatibility

Facebook’s IPO has revealed one of its greatest weaknessess: the need to monetize its increasingly mobile user base through advertising. Speculation has been rife about how Facebook plans to solve this problem, which future stockholders will want addressed.

To that end, a new mobile ad program is rumored to launch in March, according to a Financial Times report. Here are five directions Facebook could take with mobile ads, and how your business can position itself to get ready.

Mozilla on Friday rolled out the beta version of Firefox 11, complete with several key improvements for both users and developers.

Perhaps most notable for users is a new Add-on Sync feature that gives them the option of synchronizing add-ons across platforms. Enabled in the Preferences window on the Sync tab, the new capability is designed to let users pick up where they left off on different computers.

Fragmentation is often held up as one of Android's biggest problems, posing all kinds of challenges for developers and users alike.

While the release of Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” and mandatory use of the “Holo” theme are both expected to reduce fragmentation of the Linux-based platform, the problem may not actually be as bad as many think to begin with.

Six weeks to the day after the release of Firefox 9, Mozilla is slated to roll out the next version of its popular open source browser on Tuesday.

Though the software does bring an array of tweaks and enhancements for both users and developers, it's perhaps most notable for the fact that it marks the debut of the business-oriented Extended Support Release (ESR) program Mozilla has been working on with the Enterprise User Working Group it re-established last summer.

Smartphones now make up almost half of all phone sales, and many millions of people use them for personal communications as well as work-related tasks. Yet, few people want to carry multiple phones at all times just to separate the workday from their home life. Here are five ways you can access your business and personal accounts without having to carry two phones.

1. Virtual Machines