The best all-in-one PCs bundle solid desktop features in a sleek display—no unsightly tower required. But because they include a display, they often cost a lot more than traditional desktops, a problem Lenovo seeks to address with its C260 all-in-one, a 19.5-incher which goes for $480 (Amazon was selling this model for $450 as of this writing).

The C260 is pleasing enough to look at. It’s compact, with a medium-sized black bezel surrounding its 10-point touchscreen (at this price you don’t really expect the edge-to-edge glass we see in higher-end models). And at first glance, its feature list—which includes four USB ports, gigabit ethernet, HDMI out, a DVD burner, and an integrated 720p webcam—sounds good.

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A type of malware called Reveton, which falsely warns users they’ve broken the law and demands payment of a fine, has been upgraded with powerful password stealing functions, according to Avast.

Reveton is in a class of nasty programs known as “ransomware,” which includes the notorious Cryptolocker program that encrypts a computer’s files. The FBI issued a warning about Reveton in August 2012 after its Internet Crime Complaint Center was flooded with complaints.

The malware often infects computers via drive-by download when a person visits a website rigged to automatically exploit software vulnerabilities. Users are helpless after the computer is locked, with Reveton demanding a few hundred dollars as ransom payable various web-money services.

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An analysis by security researchers of 48,000 extensions for Google’s Chrome browser uncovered many that are used for fraud and data theft, actions that are mostly undetectable to regular users.

The study, due to be presented Thursday at the Usenix Security Symposium in San Diego, forecasts growing security problems around extensions as cybercriminals tap into the rich data contained in Web browsers for profit.

They found 130 outright malicious extensions and 4,712 suspicious ones, engaged in a variety of affiliate fraud, credential theft, advertising fraud and social network abuse.

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It’s not surprising that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer abruptly gave up his board seat some six months after leaving the top job, and the move should help cement the regime and strategy of his successor Satya Nadella, according to several industry observers.

“I think it’s a classy move by Ballmer,” said analyst Frank Scavo, managing partner of IT consulting firm Strativa. “It shows Ballmer has confidence in Nadella, allowing Nadella to move forward without worrying about what Ballmer thinks.”

In a letter to Nadella released Tuesday, Ballmer cited a number of reasons for leaving the board, including his recent $2 billion purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. “I have become very busy” since leaving Microsoft, Ballmer said.

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Steve Ballmer’s decision to step down from Microsoft’s board draws to a close a 34 year-long career that took him from business manager to CEO.

During that time, he’s spoken hundreds of times at events and in interviews. Here are some of his most memorable quotes.

On Apple, the iPod and iPhone

“We’ve had DRM (digital rights management) in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is stolen,”—in an interview with Cnet in 2004.

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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency traders now have a new tool, LibraTax, to calculate their tax obligations—provided they want to report them to the government, of course.

LibraTax isn’t a full-fledged tax preparation suite in the vein of TurboTax or TaxAct. Instead, it’s a cloud-based tool that scans the Bitcoin blockchain to determine how much in profits, or losses, you derived from the purchase or sale of cryptocurrency. 

The app generates a report that attaches to the schedule D form, a company spokesperson told PCWorld. The company also plans to integrate its service with other services like Intuit’s TurboTax and QuickBooks, she added.

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Microsoft released OneNote for Android tablets today with handwriting input, bringing Android users closer to the OneNote experience the company envisioned for the Microsoft Surface.

When the Surface Pro 3 was announced, OneNote figured significantly into the release. Microsoft’s Panos Panay positioned the tablet as an effective digital inking device that even launches OneNote when users click the stylus. Once inside the app, users can mix and match typed notes and text, written annotations, audio, and images. And thanks to another update today, the Windows app can also import files such as PowerPoint documents and PDFs, as well as highlight text in notes and print them.

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About six months after retiring as CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer has relinquished his seat on the company’s board of directors effective immediately, citing a busy schedule and confidence in the company’s current and future financial performance.

“As I approach the six month mark of my retirement and your appointment as CEO, I have been reflecting on my life, my ongoing ownership of Microsoft stock, and my involvement with the company,” Ballmer told his successor, Satya Nadella, in a letter made public Tuesday. “I have reached some conclusions and wanted to share them with you.”

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Children who want to use Google services may no longer have to lie about their age, as the company reportedly plans special accounts for users under the age of 13.

Try to create an account now on Google if you’re not at least 13 years old, and the Web giant will stop you in your tracks.

Currently, Google doesn’t allow users to sign up unless they say they’re at least 13 years old. That’s because the Federal Trade Commission has strict privacy rules in place for children, requiring parents to provide “verifiable consent” in the form of a credit card transaction, a phone call to a trained specialist, a printed consent form, or a scanned image of the parent’s government ID. But it’s not exactly a secret that kids will pretend to be older in order to use online services like Google.

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Nearly all of Facebook’s outbound notification emails are now encrypted while traveling the Internet, a collaborative feat that comes from the technology industry’s push to thwart the NSA’s spying programs.

In May, only 58 percent of the social networking site’s email was encrypted when it was sent since the receiving entity must have the technology, called STARTTLS, enabled, wrote Michael Adkins, a messaging integrity engineer at Facebook, on a company blog.

Since that time, Microsoft, Yahoo and other email providers have enabled STARTTLS, which has pushed the percentage of Facebook’s encrypted messages to 95 percent, he wrote.

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Talking about the weather may be the ultimate sign that an awkward conversation is going nowhere. Nevertheless, most of us think about the weather often enough that we want to know what it's going to be like outside on any given day.

In the summer, you want to know when it's going to be boiling hot. In the winter, you need to know when to wear that extra layer. In the spring, you always want to know the rain forecast, so you have someone to blame for getting soaked after leaving your umbrella at home.

Windows 8.1 users that like the modern UI have it easy since they are many weather apps with live tiles that deliver quick updates. But if you're one of the weather obsessed masses living solely on the desktop, you can still keep tabs on the weather. Here's a quick look at three ways to have the current temperature and forecast always at hand on the desktop.

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