HTC's recently-acquired Beats Audio division may have moved to acquire the MOG music streaming service.

A Business Insider source claims that a deal has been reached between the two companies, while GigaOm confirms that terms of the purported agreement were exchanged at the weekend.

HTC was rumoured to be plotting its own music streaming service following the $300m Beats buy-out, but the Taiwanese giant could have settled on snapping up an existing player.

If the reports turn out to be correct, HTC would certainly be looking to incorporate the streaming service into Beats Audio-enabled handsets like the HTC Rezound.

Is MOG HTC's top cat?

MOG, while playing second (or third) fiddle to the likes of Spotify and Rdio in the United States in recent times, offers 14 million tracks and similarly-priced ad-free and mobile subscription options.

The service, like Spotify, has apps for iPhone and Android and can be accessed through a range of connected devices, as well as through a desktop client.

The company refused to comment on the speculation, but told Business Insider it is always prepared to look at 'best for business' options.

A spokesperson said: "We're always looking for the best opportunity for our business and shareholders, but don't comment on specifics of those conversations. Nothing to confirm at this time."

Back in February it was rumoured the streaming company was looking for a suitor, but those reports were shot down by CEO David Hyman.

Virtualisation is ideal for trying out a new operating system. Instead of installing the OS onto a live machine and potentially overwriting, or generally messing up a working OS, virtualisation leaves your current installation untouched.

No worrying about a messed up MBR, freeing up space on your drives for a new partition or having to route around for drivers just to get back online.

Virtualisation is a lot faster than it once was as well. Oracle VM VirtualBox is similar to Microsoft's own VirtualPC, but boasts more advanced features and better system integration. It's also free.

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These both boast support for hardware virtualisation, which means you'll enjoy a responsive machine after installation.

You will need a processor that supports hardware virtualisation, but given AMD and Intel have supported such extensions for a number of years, so as long as your PC is reasonably up to date, this shouldn't be a problem.

In order to run a virtual version of Windows 8 you'll need the Windows 8 ISO - we'd recommend grabbing the 32-bit, just because it's a little less exacting specifications wise. You'll need the virtualisation software for the host machine as well. For this tutorial we've used VirtualBox, although the setup is similar for VirtualPC as well.

1. Welcome to the machine

Install and run VirtualBox and then click the 'New' button to create a new virtual machine (or VM for short). Give your virtual machine (or VM for short) an obvious name, such as "Windows 8 CP" and then select Microsoft Windows as your OS type and Windows 8 from the drop down menu, or Windows 8 (64-bit) if you're going down that route.

2. Minimum specifications

The next screen enables you to define how much memory your virtual system has. Windows 8 has a minimum memory requirement of 1GB for the 32-bit version, but we'd recommending electing to go for 2048MB unless your physical machine is a bit strapped for RAM. Click Next.

3. Create a drive image

The next step defines the virtual drive for your installation. Elect to go with the default setting to create a new hard disk. On the next screen leave the type as a VDI drive image – VirtualBox's own file format. It's fine to leave this virtual drive as being Dynamically allocated as well.

4. Size matters

Define where you want the Virtual disk to reside and change the initial drive size if you feel the need – although the default 20GB default size should be fine. After installation our Windows 8 sat at 7GB. Check the Summary is correct and then when you're ready, hit the Create button.

5. Virtual optical

Right-click the Windows 8 CP and select Settings from the drop-down list. Click on Storage, then the CD icon under IDE Controller, next click the CD icon to the right of the controller to locate your Windows 8 ISO and elect to Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file… Point it at your Windows 8 ISO you have downloaded and then click Open.

6. Install Windows 8

You're now set to install Windows 8 CP on your virtual machine. Just make sure the virtual PC is highlighted and then hit the Start button. The installation of Windows 8 is fairly straightforward, just ensure you elect to pick a custom installation. Complete the installation and log into your account.

7. Guest Additions

Installing Guest Additions is a little trickier, as you need to install them in Safe Mode. Go to the desktop view and hit [Win]+R and launch MSConfig. Click the Boot tab, check the Safe boot and Base Video options and then OK the changes, choosing to reboot into Safe Mode.

8. Improve system integration

Install the Guest Additions from the VirtualBox Devices menu, enabling full 3D support when prompted. Don't reboot, instead clear the Safe boot and Base video options in MSConfig and then power off the VM. Increase the video memory to 128MB in the Display settings for the VM and enable 3D and 2D acceleration. Launch the VM and your done.

The final version of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system will be available in October, according to Bloomberg.

Sources 'familiar with the situation' say that Redmond will complete work on the software this summer so tablets and PCs can go on sale before the Christmas rush.

The report says that both Intel and ARM-based gadgets will be part of the initial roll-out.

Vital to Windows and iPad battle

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, says it's vital that Microsoft gets the software out in a timely fashion if it wants to see results in 2012.

"If they miss the September-October timeframe, they're going to be stuck without being able to ship anything in 2012," he said.

"The last thing Microsoft wants to have is a situation where there are no compelling Windows tablets at a time when the new iPad looks like it's going to be a good seller for the holidays."

Microsoft released the Consumer Preview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, allowing users access to the exciting new mobile-friendly OS for the first time.

Nokia has confirmed that mobile hotspot functionality will arrive on the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 Windows Phone handsets in a forthcoming software update.

Late last week it emerged that the base-level Lumia 610 handset will enable users to wirelessly tether their 3G signal to other connected devices.

While the feature is commonplace on most top smartphones these days, its announcement for the Lumia 610 raised eyebrows as it doesn't yet exist on the higher-end Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 models.

However, that will be rectified "soon," through a Zune update according to a Q&A session on the Nokia Connects blog.

Lumia 900 too

The feature will launch with the flagship Nokia Lumia 900 device, which is set to arrive in the United States in the next few weeks and around the world later this year.

Responding to a question on whether Nokia plans to bring the 41-megapixel camera featured on the 808 Pureview device to its Lumia range, the Finns again confirmed that this is in the offing.

"We don't comment on future releases but we do expect to be leaders to imaging space and bring this innovation into future products," read the post.

For more information from the horses mouth on the Lumia 900, check out the Nokia Connects blog.

OMGPOP's Pictionary-inspired social drawing title Draw Something is now the most played game on Facebook.

According to stats from tracking service AppData, the game is racking-up 10.8m daily users, comfortably beating its closest challenger Zynga's Words With Friends, which has 8.6m every day.

Draw Something's social networking success follows its sharp rise to the top of the iOS and Android charts after hitting 20 million downloads just five weeks after it was released.

The duality of its success on mobile and Facebook has arisen largely through allowing cross-platform challenges, during which users have to guess their pals' touchscreen drawings.

Just like Words With Friends and the official Scrabble game it pinched took inspiration from, iPhone players can take-on Facebook friends and vise-versa.

Old ones are always the best

The exceptional success of Words With Friends and Draw Something do prove one thing; time tested games like Scrabble and Pictionary are still massive winners even though we rarely sit around and play the physical games. Hooray for the 21st century mediums keeping them alive and kicking.

For Zynga, for so long the kingpin of the Facebook gaming arena, through titles like WWF, Farmville and Zynga Poker, its dethroning raises further questions about its long-term future on the social network.

The company recently announced its own gaming portal, which will go head-to-head with Facebook and also encourage third party developers to submit their own titles.

We've managed to fully digest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, even if some manufacturers haven't, and therefore we're tuning our taste buds ready for Android Jelly Bean.

The Jelly Bean name looks pretty much certain to be the fancy brand for Android 5.0, but apart from this, details on the next generation Google mobile operating system are few and far between.

This hasn't stopped speculation on what Android Jelly Bean may bring and we've pulled together some of the more likely suggestions for you to mull over.

Android Jelly Bean: Key Features

We've recently seen Google release its Chrome internet browser app for devices running Ice Cream Sandwich.

We expect to see Chrome become the default browser for Android when Jelly Bean rocks up, offering us the slick tabbed web surfing experience we've grown accustomed to on our computers.

As enormous screens start to keep onto more and more phones, it'd be nice to be able to flip it into landscape mode and use it like a tablet - especially as Android 5.0 will be designed to run on phones and tablets, like its predecessor.

With dual-core and quad-core processors now ruling the roost when it comes to mobile power we expect Android Jelly Bean to optimise these super quick chips and provide a fluid and speedy experience.

More power means more demand on the battery and Android 5.0 will need to make sure it works in the most efficient way possible, providing us with maximum battery life when we're hammering high-def, 3D games.

An improved power management suite would also be useful and Google may take a leaf out of HTC's book, which integrates power management features into its Sense UI.

We could see a "lite" version of Android Jelly Bean which is optimised to run on budget devices and which will allow manufacturers to offer super-cheap smartphones. Microsoft is already sowing the seeds with its Windows Phone Tango OS and we won't be surprised if Google follows suit.

If you're an HTC user you'll be familiar with lock screen widgets and this feature could be made a permanent option with Android Jelly Bean, bringing widgets to every manufacturer's lock screen.

Android phone manufactures have got user's backs up recently over the slow deployment of Ice Cream Sandwich to their current handsets. When Android Jelly Bean rolls onto the screen we hope it brings a clear upgrade plan with it, with users knowing exactly where they stand and how long they will have to wait.

As we churn more and more files onto our devices, it becomes increasingly tricky to keep track of everything. Some manufactures offer file managers as part of their user interfaces, but Android currently lacks its own dedicated file manager, something Android 5.0 can hopefully solve.

Android Jelly Bean: Manufacturer commitments

LG told TechRadar that it guarantees an update to Android Jelly Bean for all of its 2012 handsets which are able to support version 5.0 of the popular operating system.

Asus has made it clear that it wants to be the first company to offer devices running Android 5.0, after leading the way with Android Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich updates.

Android Jelly Bean: Release Date

Some rather optimistic rumours have suggested that we could see Android Jelly Bean make its way onto handsets as early as Q2 (April-June) this year, but we find this highly unlikely as we've only just seen the first wave of Ice Cream Sandwich devices launched at MWC 2012.

There's also some slight more believable speculation that Android Jelly Bean will arrive towards the end of this year as Google looks to continue with its annual roll-out of software updates.

Google has said that it will be flexible with the Android Jelly Bean release date and it might differ from previous releases depending on how long it takes to finish the update.

Android Jelly Bean: Successor

Ok, so we're definitely getting ahead of ourselves here, but it looks like the next version of Google's mobile OS (Android 6.0?) will be known as Android Key Lime Pie.

Grab yourself a spoon as we could be digging in sometime during 2013 - but nobody cares about the future of technology, right? Oh, wait...

PayPal has launched an iPhone-friendly credit card reader and plans to enter into direct competition with the well-established Square ecosystem.

PayPal Here is a small, triangular, blue dongle that plugs into the iPhone's headphone jack and allows vendors to accept payments for goods and services wherever they may roam.

Like Square, launched by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, PayPal Here uses an iPhone app which, once the card is swiped, allows a merchant to type in the amount.

The phone can then be passed to the customer to check the amount and sign, using the device's touchscreen. Both the app and the card reader are encrypted.

Beyond that, there's also a Scan Card feature, which doesn't require the dongle, but will need the seller to type in the zip code and three-digit security number on the back of the card.

Undercutting Square

As for PayPal's end, the company will take 2.7 per cent per transaction, compared to Square's 2.75 per cent charge.

PayPal is also giving out free PayPal debit cards, which can be used to withdraw cash from a local ATM as soon as a sale is made and, with each transaction offering 1 per cent cash back, it effectively lowers the fee to 1.7 per cent.

The service will launch in the United States, Australia and Hong Kong initially and will come to the rest of the world soon.

However, despite undercutting Square, the company has a long road on its hand to eclipse the mobile payment pioneer.

Square took in $4 billion in revenue last year, has found its way into New York taxis and recently launched the Square Register app, which threatens to make the traditional cash register a thing of the past.

Microsoft will officially introduce China to Windows Phone at a launch event on 21 March, after sending out press invites.

The news comes after HTC announced the re-branded HTC Titan (Triumph) and Nokia revealed its plans to bring the Lumia range of Windows Phone devices to China.

The invite states that "the carefully designed, refined, and all-new Windows Phone 7.5." will be revealed at the event, which suggests the launch of Windows Phone Tango.

Uphill battle for Microsoft

The Tango update is expected to hit Windows Phone handsets in April, but is only regarded as a tweak ahead of the Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) launch later this year.

The Tango OS is also lighter and likely to be featured on lower-end, mid-range devices.

Much as it has in the US and Europe, Microsoft faces an uphill struggle to gain a foothold in the Chinese market.

Android is the dominant OS, while Symbian also retains a large market share. iOS penetration is expected to rise dramatically now that the iPhone 4S has officially arrived on networks in the country.

UPDATE: Check out our new iPad 3 review

Applications optimised for the new iPad's super high-resolution Retina Display are up to five times larger than previous iterations.

Vietnamese site Tinhte has been examining the recently-unveiled versions of Apple's iWork and iLife suites which were given a new coat of paint during the new iPad launch a week ago.

brightcove : 1524775309001

The Keynote application is up from 115MB to 327MB, while Numbers has more than doubled in size from 109MB to 283MB.

Pages has almost tripled from 95MB to 269MB, while the most dramatic increase comes through iMovie which is up from a humble 70MB to 404MB.

With many of the improvements cosmetic, rather than feature centric, it appears that the improved graphics necessary to fill out the 2048 x 1536 Retina Display on the new iPad are responsible.

Less space, less time

If this pattern is replicated beyond apps developed by Apple, the ramifications for potential new iPad buyers are two fold:

Firstly, the usefulness of the 16GB model is significantly reduced.

If we take the example of the FIFA 12 app, which already requires 1.06GB of space then a Retina Display-enhanced app could require at least a quarter of your hard-drive space.

Secondly, it's also worth considering the extra time needed to download these apps to the device.

Loading a 2-3GB application onto your iPad before you head off to work in the morning will surely be too much of a challenge for most UK households.

So the message is clear for those heading down to the nearest Apple Store on Friday morning: Go big or go home.

Microsoft says it realised during the development of the Windows 8 Metro interface that it provided a better way for people to browse the web.

"To deliver the best browsing across all Windows 8 devices, we re-imagined the architecture and experience of the web browser," explains Rob Mauceri, the group program manager for Internet Explorer in a new blog post on the Building Windows 8 blog.

"While building and tuning the Metro style browsing experience for the Consumer Preview, we realised it is a better way to browse – whether on a desktop computer with a big screen, mouse and keyboard, or on a touch-enabled mobile device."

Mauceri says that as people browse more "chromelessly" on their phones (an interestingly choice of words), they've "become accustomed to a more immersive and less manual browsing experience compared with the desktop".

He also talked up the use of the Windows 8 charms (the pop-up icons on the side of the Windows 8 Metro screen or Windows 8 desktop) as an alternative to toolbars and menus.

"We've found that many people – even those with the most enthusiastic and intense browsing patterns – prefer Metro style browsing because it's less manual and more focused on what you browse than on how you browse."

"The result in Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a Metro style web experience. IE10 is designed to make website interaction fast and fluid for touch as well as for heavy mouse and keyboard use."