Windows 10 has a new browser.. No More Internet Explorer

Microsoft is preparing to unveil a new browser in Windows 10, codenamed Spartan, and leaked images are providing an early glimpse at the Internet Explorer successor. Chinese site Cnbeta has published screenshots showing the simple interface of Spartan and the Cortana digital assistant integration. The Verge revealed yesterday that Spartan will include digital inking support to share and annotate web pages, and deep Cortana integration in the address bar and throughout the browser.

Cnbeta’s screenshots also reveal Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 10 user interface. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Windows plans tell The Verge that the company is planning to build light and dark themes with color accents for Windows 10. The look and feel will be similar to that of the existing user interface for Windows Phone, and these leaked screenshots provide an early look at an internal Microsoft concept and the aim for the final UI. They do not represent the final interface as Microsoft will be tweaking it a number of times over the coming months. Some of these user interface changes have started appearing in recent builds of Windows 10, with the new dark taskbar surfacing in a leaked version last month. Microsoft is also tweaking its built-in apps to match the new color schemes, with a new Xbox app that hints at what the company is planning for the final version of Windows 10.

Microsoft is expected to unveil these user interface changes and a mobile version of Windows 10 for tablets and phones at a press event on January 21st. The software maker will also likely detail its plans for the Spartan browser across PCs, phones, and tablets.

Google opens its domain registration service to people in the US

Google's domain registration service is now in open, public beta in the United States. Launched back in June, Google Domains was initially available through an invite-based system, but the GoDaddy alternative is now available to everyone inside the US. For prices starting at $12 per year,

Only Half of Twitter's Active Users Actually Tweet

With over 500 million tweets sent per day, Twitter can seem like a dizzying hive of activity.

But looking at the numbers more closely might tell a different story.

Twitter doesn’t like to release too many numbers, but during the weeks leading up to its IPO we got to sneak a peek behind the curtain.

In early October, the company announced that it had 218 million active users. And while that number might seem high, it pales in comparison to Facebook’s 1.19 billion.

What’s more, new numbers from third-party data analysis company PeerReach show that Twitter’s 218 million might not actually be as large as it seems.

PeerReach did some data mining during the month of October, and discovered that Twitter had grown by 14 million users, up to 232 million. That’s great, but those 232 million users are monthly active users: meaning that 232 million people are logging in to Twitter at least once a month. PeerReach looked deeper, and found that just 117 million users log in and tweet at least once a month.

Put another way, only about half of the people who log in to Twitter once a month are actually taking the time to tweet. The others, presumably, are either simply reading tweets, or logging out without doing anything at all.

Other numbers from PeerReach show that Twitter has almost reached the 1 billion total registered accounts milestone, with 904 million as of October. Considering that only about 25 percent of these accounts are logging in at least once a month (and just 13 percent are tweeting), it seems that Twitter has an engagement and retention problem on its hands.

(Source: PeerReach)