Windows 8 Release Preview arriving in the first week of June.

The countdown to the Windows 8 launch is slowly ticking (although we are not sure which date it is ticking down to) but while we wait for the final version to go on sale Microsoft is going to keep us busy with another beta version of the desktop OS.

Microsoft announced at the Windows 8 Developer Days conference that the Windows 8 Release Preview (previously known as Release Candidate) will be released in the first week of June. There was no further mention about the exact date or what changes this new version might bring.

If you remember, Microsoft released the Release Candidate for Windows 7 on April 30, 2009, with the RTM arriving later in July and the final version in October. If Microsoft sticks to a similar schedule with Windows 8 then we can expect the RTM by August and the final version in October, as has been rumored.

Dropbox update lets you share anything with direct links.

Dropbox has updated the desktop version of its app, introducing the option to get direct links to any of your files.

Previously, you could only give public link to files put from your Public folder, but now the Dropbox boffins have put an end to this, making the cloud sharing service a whole lot easier to use.

Now you can share a direct link to any videos, photo galleries and documents found in your Dropbox folder by clicking the “Get Link” item on your right click menu. When it gets opened, the link only shares a read-only copy of the file you want and won’t give editing/deleting permissions to anyone.

Intel launches its Ivy Bridge processor.

Today, a little ahead of schedule, Intel is launching its Ivy Bridge family of processors.

Originally, Intel was supposed to launch the new CPU family on April 29, but after the numerous delays, doing it a bit early won’t hurt anyone.

Built around the 22nm manufacturing process, the Ivy Bridge CPUs feature Intel’s 3D tri-gate transistors technology, which boosts power efficiency.

Initially, 13 quad-core processors of the Core i5 and Core i7 variety are hitting the shelves, most of them aimed at desktop computers. Unfortunately for the ultrabook lovers, dual-core and ultra low voltage Ivy Bridge chips will be delayed yet again until some time later in the summer.

The future looks bright for the company, as Intel plans to launch chips with 14nm transistors in 2013, and by 2015 it should even hit the 10nm mark.

Adobe CS6 packages announced, coming on May 7.

Adobe will officially announce all of its latest products part of the Creative Suite 6 today at a dedicated event in San Francisco. Expected to arrive on May 7, the design and video editing products can be had in a variety of suites.

In fact, as we told you earlier, the company is also introducing its new monthly subscription plans, which will allow customers to use the products by paying smaller monthly fees, as opposed to spending a large chunk of cash upfront buying them .

Pricing for the traditional packages remain about the same as with the CS5.5 packages. The ultimate offering is the Master Collection retailing for $2,599. There’s also Design Standard going for $1,299, while Production Premium, which is aimed at video editing professionals gets a $200 price increase and will now cost $1,899 due to the addition of Adobe Prelude and Adobe Speed Grade. And last but not least is the Design and Web Premium package replacing the old Web Premium bundle. Those will now cost $1,899, rather then $1,799.

Skype for Windows Phone.

Microsoft has released the final version of the Skype client for Windows Phone devices. The latest version includes ability to search and add contacts, call landline phones, improved app startup time and general bug fixes.

However, there are still some caveats left. The application cannot run in the background, which means once you exit it you cannot get calls anymore, nor do you get any toast notifications from it. The Skype spokesperson who talked to The Verge said that this is due to the “combination of how Skype works and how the Windows Phone OS works.”

In comparison, other VoIP applications such as Tango work fine even after you close them and Skype itself works perfectly in the background on iOS and Android. This is particularly shocking because Microsoft now owns Skype and it could have very well tuned it to make sure that the app would work perfectly with the OS.

To me this seems like something Microsoft is saving up for Windows 8. With it being certain that current Windows Phone 7.5 owners not getting the Windows 8 update, Microsoft is likely to use features like full integrated Skype support as a carrot for people to upgrade to Windows 8 devices.

You can download the latest version of the Skype app for Windows Phone from here.

Google+ SMS now available in 41 additional countries.

If you haven’t heard of the Google+ SMS service until now, I wouldn’t blame you. The service isn’t particularly popular (neither is Google+, for that matter) and was only available in the US and India until now.

Google has now expanded the list of countries where the service is now functional and it includes the following names: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo (DRC), Cote D’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.

So what exactly do you do with this service? It’s simple. Instead of posting messages on Google+ using the website or their dedicated app, you can post using SMS. The SMS is sent to a particular number and then the message gets posted on your Google+ profile. If people reply to it, you get the replies and notifications on your phone as an SMS.

Crysis 3.

A few days ago, Crytek announced that the third game in the Crysis series will be out in 2013 and now the first teaser trailer has officially been released.

Being true to its name, the teaser shows only a handful of the key elements of the game. For starters, you see that the game is based again in New York City like the previous one, except this time it is within a sealed off portion covered by the Nanodome. If you remember the first Crysis, it was based in a jungle. The second one, on the other hand, was in a city. This one actually has what looks like a jungle within a city so is a hark back to both the previous games.

There are some new weapons in the game, of which one is showed in the teaser, a badass looking laser guided crossbow. And then of course, there is the greatest weapon of all, the Nanosuit, which had quite an important role to play in the previous game and is likely to continue being a key element in this one as well.

Samsung could announce sCloud service on May 3.

According to Korean tech site MK, Samsung might be prepping up its very own cloud service. It's going to be called, and we are not joking, S-Cloud. In its core, it's going to be similar to Apple's iCloud, but will offer much more, according to the report.

For starters, there won't be any limitations on the things you could upload, which means it will work like Dropbox and the upcoming Google Drive. It'll even come with access to movies, popular TV shows and music. Free and paid content will also be available to various Samsung products such as laptops and tablets.

Furthermore, the amount of storage S-Cloud would offer is said to be more than 5GB, with Microsoft handling the server-side of the operations. We'll find if any of this is true on May 3, when Samsung will unveil its latest flagship Android smartphone.

Mozilla.

Mozilla’s CEO Gary Kovacs announced in Sao Paulo yesterday that Brazil is going to be the first country to see the launch of the company’s HTML5-driven Boot To Gecko smartphones.

This was somewhat expected since Mozilla announced its partnership with carrier Telefonica, which has strong presence in Brazil. Kovacs also announced he expects devices to start hitting the shelves there by the end of this year or in early 2013 at the latest.