Stories by: Joseph Fieber

The updated specs of the iPad 3, should make the tablet even better at something it already does well: enabling remote desktop access.

Every new version of Windows has included interface changes. Most of these have been minor--an icon moved here, a toolbar added there. Windows 8 will be different, using a completely new Metro interface as the primary environment, and removing important elements like the Start menu from the older but still accessible "desktop" interface. Even IT pros may need to do some web searching to figure out some features. What questions will your workers have, and will you have the answers?

With smartphones and tablets quickly gaining widespread adoption, even IBM is calling this a post-PC era. It’s a world of portability, apps, and touch-enabled devices. This is clear not only in the dominance of mobile devices and laptops on the hardware side, but in the way that Apple and Microsoft are merging their mobile and desktop operating systems.

Apple hasannounced an update to its OSX operating system. Notable in the updated features is tighter integration with iCloud, its cloud-based file, apps, and settings syncing service. For businesses, this isn't big news, since iCloud targets individual consumers, and has almost no business-friendly features. What can Apple do to change that?

Because Windows 8 will run on laptops, ultrabooks, and tablets as well as desktop PCs, access to mobile networks is important. On the Engineering Windows 8 blog, Windows president Steven Sinofsky detailed five improvements to Windows 8 that will simplify connecting to mobile networks and managing network connections. Here's a recap of the changes to watch.

Lenovo has announced laptops targeting small and midsize businesses. Looking to combine "serious business technology and personal lifestyle computing features", Lenovo introduced the $US499 B Series entry-level laptop. But it’s the ThinkPad Edge S Series that’s more interesting, with an ultrabook option as well as hybrid storage that combines a solid-state drive (SSD) with a hard disk.

New phones and tablets with Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, are just around the corner, and carriers are also announcing which current models will be upgradable, most likely in early 2012.

Before smartphones were mainstream, Microsoft's Windows Mobile was considered the OS for business smartphones. RIM's Blackberry stole away its market by becoming a better communication hub. iPhone and Android have since buried Blackberry by extending a phone's functionality with apps.

Smartphones and tablets are becoming the PCs of our time, and there are two major players in the game. Apple's iOS and Google's Android dominate smartphones, with RIM and Microsoft being niche players.

Solid State Drives, or SSDs for short, are taking the laptop world by storm. They've been most widely used in Apple's latest Macbook Airs, giving a solid performance boost to even the most basic configurations.