Hackers at the CanSecWest event in Vancouver couldn't break Google's latest version of Chrome OS in the company's Pwnium 3 contest, leaving the $3.14159 million (yes, that's Pi, for those keeping track at home) in prize money untouched.

Google's Chromebook Pixel went up for sale on the Play store on Thursday, to the surprise of some industry observers who had expressed doubts over earlier rumors that the device was on the way.

The most disturbing thing about online shopping, to me, has always been just how easy it is. A couple of clicks, a brief glance at a credit card number, and bang -- there's an order of chicken wings on the way to your door. It's too easy, frankly, as my bank account balance and expanding waistline can attest.

Microsoft has signed a patent agreement with Taiwan's Compal Electronics that provides coverage under its patent portfolio for Compal's tablets, mobile phones, e-readers and other consumer devices running Android or the Chrome platform, the company said Sunday.

Quanta Computer, the Taiwanese contract computer manufacturer, is now the ninth company to license patents from Microsoft for its Android devices, the companies said Thursday.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Windows and other traditional PC operating systems are "torturing users" at Google's Chrome OS launch event Wednesday, where the company claimed 75 per cent of business users can be converted from Windows to Chrome OS right away.

While Google currently does not see any conflict between its Android vision for tablets and smartphones and its Chrome OS cloud-based laptop vision, a company official acknowledged today that there is potential for such a conflict in the future.

Google's move to ban Windows for internal use was ostensibly for security reasons. But that looks more like a convenient excuse than anything else, because there are plenty of reasons the ban doesn't make sense.

Microsoft is launching Windows 7, Google has fired back with Chrome OS, and today Microsoft is turning up the volume on Office 2010. That's a lot to juggle, and soon you'll be asking yourself: Can I afford to upgrade or can I afford not to upgrade?