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If Instagram and Vine had a baby, they'd name it PhotoBlab. This free iPhone app lets you create and share short photo slideshows with audio.

After launching the app and signing up for an account with an e-mail address, the app will ask you to add a profile picture or you can choose to do this later via settings. At the bottom of the app are four buttons: Create Blab, Blab Feed, Popular Blabs, and Settings.

You can get some PhotoBlabbing ideas by browsing the Popular feed, while the Blab Feed lets you view so-called Blabs you've sent … Read more

Recently, cloud-storage service Box was offering free 25GB accounts to new customers.

I meant to write it up, but other things got in the way. Good thing, too, because now Box is offering free 50GB accounts to new customers. My foot-dragging is your gain.

Before I go any further, take note that the signup page says "Dell Exclusive Offer." There's no indication you need to actually be a Dell customer or employee or anything like that, but there's always the chance Box will get flooded with unintended/unwanted sign-ups and decide to end or even rescind … Read more

Market researcher Canalys has again put Apple in top spot among PC makers with an overwhelming 20 percent market share.

Apple shipped 27 million units in the fourth quarter, while HP and Lenovo both shipped around 15 million (HP slightly more than Lenovo), putting them in the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively.

Samsung is also on the rise: it made an appearance in the top five for the first time, pushing Dell out of fourth place.

All of this is possible because Canalys counts "pads," i.e., tablets, as PCs -- not a ludicrous concept considering … Read more

As Apple appears to be winning the U.S. smartphone race, Google still has a strong hold as the top mobile platform.

New data by ComScore shows that Apple got the rank of "top smartphone manufacturer" by raking in 36.3 percent of the market share, while Google Android was the No. 1 platform with 53.4 percent share. ComScore tallied this data by surveying more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers between September and December 2012.

To date, 125.9 million people in the U.S. now own a smartphone, which is 54 percent of the … Read more

Running out of space on your hard drive? Hey, even in these days of seemingly endless gigabytes, it happens.

Bitcasa is a new service that aims to supplant your hard drive with unlimited cloud storage. And by supplant I mean replace -- kind of.

I'll circle back on that in a minute. For now, consider this: a year of Bitcasa no-limit storage normally runs $99, but right now you can get a year of Bitcasa Infinite for $69. If that doesn't immediately butter your bacon, how about a 10GB Bitcasa account absolutely free?

Update: As eagle-eyed reader brotherj2k … Read more

Rumors of a Dell buyout deal have been swirling for the past few weeks and now word is that Dell's board plans to vote tonight on whether to take the company private, according to Bloomberg.

The deal would offer Dell shares at $13.50 to $13.75 each, which totals around $24 billion, sources familiar with the negotiations told Bloomberg. The buyout could be announced as early as tomorrow morning.

Reportedly Microsoft, private equity firm Silver Lake Management, and company CEO Michael Dell will all contribute sizable investments in the deal. Michael Dell is expected to contribute $700 million, … Read more

New mobile browsers including Google's Chrome, Microsoft's IE, and Amazon's Silk are gaining a foothold in a market that's growing faster than traditional browsing on personal computers.

The mobile browsing market has long been dominated by three products. Apple's Safari has long held the top spot in usage share measurements by Net Applications, with second place going to Google's unbranded Android browser after it surpassed Opera Mini last year.

Safari had 61.0 percent, the Android browser 21.5 percent, and Opera Mini 9.8 percent of usage in January, measurements released today show. … Read more

Thousands of legitimate files are being blocked and removed from users' Mega accounts, even when the file is legal for sharing, according to a report.

TorrentFreak tested the situation, uploading a number of files free for sharing, including, amusingly, a video explaining fair use and a copy of Mega founder Kim DotCom's own music single. All were removed within minutes, with TorrentFreak receiving e-mails from Mega explaining that a take-down notice had been issued on the files.

The problem is that Kim DotCom recently took to Twitter to claim that Mega was receiving only 50 copyright take-down notices a … Read more

As Android tablet shipments surge, probably the best thing that can be said about Microsoft is that it's not going away.

Android tablet shipments totaled about 30 million in the fourth quarter, IDC reported today. And that number (total market) jumps to 50 million if you throw in Apple's iPad.

"There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul," an IDC analyst said today in a statement, trying to put Microsoft's tablet debut into perspective.

In fact, that's probably about as positive a statement that can … Read more