In preparation for the next Xbox, Microsoft is rumored to be releasing another dashboard update for the current Xbox 360. Sources “familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox plans” have told The Verge that a public beta for the new dashboard will go live in “late June or early July.”

In addition to a “refreshed user interface,” Microsoft is supposedly tinkering with smaller Live Titles and possibly looking at darker or lighter themes for the Xbox dashboard. Microsoft is hoping to create a smooth transition for current Xbox users when upgrading to the next-gen Xbox. The goal seems is for next-gen Xbox users to be able to interact with existing Xbox 360 users using messaging, beacons, and achievements.
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The U.S. tech industry added nearly 64,000 software related jobs last year, but as the workforce expanded, the average size of workers’ pay checks declined by nearly 2%.

There are multiple theories for the decline in pay, but a common one cited by analysts is simply that the new people being hired are paid less than those already on the job.

The average annual wage of all workers in the software services sector was $99,000 in 2012, about $2,000 less than the prior year, reported TechAmerica Foundation in its annual Cyberstates report.
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A special edition, stock Android version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone will go on sale June 26 on the Google Play store for $649, Google announced Wednesday at the start of its annual Google I/O conference.

The device will still run Android 4.2, as do existing versions sold by U.S. carriers. But it will run the stock version of Android, minus the custom software added by Samsung, such as the TouchWiz interface or software included from various carriers.
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Just 11 days after issuing an advisory, Microsoft has released a patch for a bug in Internet Explorer 8 that bedeviled the U.S. Department of Labor earlier this month.

Microsoft’s speedy release of this patch “is an outstanding example of Microsoft’s responsiveness to the security community and their users,” wrote Andrew Storms, director of security of operations for security software provider Tripwire, in an email statement.

This IE8 security bulletin (MS13-038) is one of 10 that Microsoft released Tuesday as part of its “Patch Tuesday” release of bug fixes and security bulletins that the company routinely issues on the second Tuesday of each month.
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There is a new Android chief in town, and it seems that he has hinted that there will be no merger of Chrome and Android platforms in the foreseeable future – at least not for the coming year, and perhaps even in the year after that. Sundar Pichai has been quoted that both Chrome and Android will remain separate “for the short term,” where he shared that nugget of information over an interview which was posted before Google I/O’s opening keynote that is set to happen this Wednesday.
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If someone asked you the best possible way of obtaining information online, you’d probably tell them about Google. The world’s biggest search engine has been around for a long time and from the looks of it, its not going anywhere soon. The company has been in cleanup mode recently, shutting down services that it thought were heading no where. While many of the loyal Google Reader users will disagree, it has come to light that Google SMS search service was apparently shut down a couple of days ago quietly by the company.
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The upcoming Firefox OS will appear on higher-end smartphones, and not just entry-level handsets, with Sony expected to release a premium device running the operating system, a Mozilla executive said.

“Sony is known for quality and user experience. So they are targeting for very very high (end). We are in joint discussions on the kind of device and what’s the product,” said Li Gong, Mozilla’s senior vice president for mobile devices.
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