Update: A Microsoft spokesperson has since got in contact to clarify that Ballmer was actually repeating a figure of 500 million Windows 7 license sales that was announced in December - explaining this means there is an installed base of 500 million potential users that could be upgraded to Windows 8.

While that changes the context of his comments in the article below slightly, it still shows that Microsoft has high hopes that its new operating system will be adopted by the majority of its vast user base.

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Shy, retiring and wallflower are not a phrases you'd ever hear in connection with Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer.

He's one of life's characters, you might say, although we say this with respect, as Ballmer's enthusiasm is a refreshing change from many dry and dusty chief executives that can waffle on for hours without saying anything remotely interesting.

In that spirit, Ballmer once again has hogged the spotlight with comments in Seoul, South Korea, in which he estimated Microsoft will have 500 million users of its forthcoming Windows 8 system in the next year, according to a report by the AFP.

Such a figure, when considered in detail, is hard to place - would that be good or bad for Microsoft?

Well, firstly, there must be far more than 500 million Windows machines in operation at present, running everything from Windows Vista to Windows 7. So 500 million could seem low in that context.

However, these platforms have had years to establish themselves in the market, and during periods of little competition, unlike now as Apple starts to make inroads into the desktop market and consumers eschew laptops and home PCs for iPhones and iPads.

Perhaps, then, 500 million would be a success for Microsoft, especially when set against data it announced in 2010 that it had shifted 175 million copies of Windows 7 within the first nine months in which it was released.

However, estimates from analyst firms don't even place total PC sales for the entire market at above 500 million in 2012. Gartner estimates around 440 million units will be sold this year, suggesting Ballmer's boasts may be a tad speculative.

Then again, Microsoft is pushing Windows 8 as a product not just for the desktop, but also the smartphone and tablet markets.

This could well mean that, if manufacturers such as Samsung, Dell, Acer, Nokia and Fujitsu all push new tablets to the market, 500 million may even be a modest estimate, especially as consumers and businesses in developing nations start to embrace these devices for the first time.

Ultimately, only time, and sales figures, will prove how popular the new platform from Microsoft proves to be - even the head of Windows has admitted it's a ‘bet' on the future of computing - but you can be sure Ballmer will be the first to let the world know if his prediction comes true.

As smartphone users wake up to the dangers of apps snaffling data they would rather not share, researchers at Microsoft have come up with a neat solution to the problem that could be used to bake a balance of content personalisation and privacy into its Windows Phone operating system.

Many of today's most popular smartphone apps reliant on harvesting information about users to deliver a personalised service, according to Ben Livshits of Microsoft Research. 

But unless users are aware of the extent of this information, they risk handing over more data than they bargained for, as app makers harvest user data and transmit it to their own datacentres.

A case in point is photo-sharing service Path, which caused a furore earlier this year after users realised the app had sent the contents of their address book back to the firm while Apple and Google where also caught up in the issue.

So Livshits and his colleague Drew Davidson of the University of Wisconsin developed MoRePriv.

It designed to be used with the Windows Phone system to build up a picture of the user, and defines the level of data sharing allowed on the phone according to a set of pre-established roles, such as technophile or business user.

“MoRePriv advocates leaving user data on the mobile device, under the control of the user,” they said.

This change in perspective means users retain control of their data and cloud providers will not fall foul of data protection or privacy laws.

MoRePriv analyses the use applications such as email, SMS and Facebook to establish a persona for the user – this persona is not intended to exactly match the user, but provides a means to establish rules for data sharing based on their profile.

“The use of personas limits the potential for user tracking: while persona information can be shared by apps to perform server-based personalisation, for instance, it is not enough to link the user across multiple interactions,” the researchers said.

The researchers then used Amazon's Mechanical Turk to establish how these different categories of user would have to sharing data in various circumstances before testing the system using a Windows Phone running the Mango version of the operating system.

They found that the system was able to reduce the permissions given to 73 per cent of apps that wanted some access to data, providing the user with greater privacy without crippling the apps that they want to use.

It remains to be seen if the tool could be extended to other systems, but it could be a key step on the road to providing device owners with more control over how their data is stored and secured, and kept away from organisations with unknown motives.

The original designs for iPhones and Android devices looked quite different from what we know today. Fortunately, none of them actually hit the market.

Gone would be the giant touch screens and virtual keyboards we currently use. In its place, we would have been typing with Blackberry-esque physical keyboards and spinning classic iPod click wheels.

The blueprints for the original Android device concepts emerged during the ongoing Oracle trial. According to reports from the courts, the "Google Phone" would have been outfitted with a physical keyboard, a 200MHz processor, a 2-megapixel camera and QVGA display.

The people at Apple, meanwhile, considered an iPhone with a similar design to the classic iPod. Former Apple Senior Vice President Tony Fadell recently said the company had considered launching the iPhones with click wheels and a physical keyboard.

"The biggest problem with the 'iPod+phone' was we had a little screen and this huge hardware wheel," Fadell explained on an episode of the On the Verge podcast.

The time of the click wheel has long passed but it is interesting to imagine a world where the virtual keyboard never took off. Without touch screens we most likely would have never seen the giant and high definition displays we're used to.

So next time your writing an email on your iPhone or Android device just remember your experience could have been quite different.

Just how good is the protection afforded by the pattern-lock technique Google designed to prevent unauthorised access to some Android-based smartphones?

Good enough to apparently defeat the entire technical brainpower of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Regional Computer Forensics Labs (RCFL) in Southern California.

A recently released affidavit, discovered by security researcher Christopher Soghoian of Indiana University, revealed that the FBI went cap-in-hand to a judge, seeking a warrant that would force Google to help them unlock the phone.

The phone in question had been seized during the arrest of a notorious gang member and pimp in January.

In his warrant application, special agent Jonathan Cupina explained how the RCFL technicians made several attempts to unlock the phone, but ended up just triggering the lock-out mechanism, which requires a Gmail login and password to override. It was these details that the FBI wanted Google to hand over.

As Soghoian points out, it seems slightly perverse for a computer forensics lab to resort to obtaining search warrants for Google, when there are tried and tested commercial products and hardware hacks that would have enabled the FBI to access the phone's data.

Sure, the FBI may have needed a warrant to legally access the phone's data, but surely it could have done that rather than going direct to Google? It certainly doesn't paint the FBI's computer forensic team in a flattering light.

Microsoft has added a pair of features to the Bing search platform on Windows Phone.

In a posting to the Bing UK blog, the company said that it would be equipping the search platform with additional options for mobile users. The update will allow users additional options for scanning and viewing content on their handsets.

The Bing Vision add-on will add the option to scan in QR and bar codes as well as image recognition tools which will allow users to view sites and retail information by scanning images from DVD and CD covers. Additionally the tool will recognise book covers and data from the Microsoft Tags platform.

The company is also looking to expand its image recognition platform into the print media space. Set to launch in March, Bing Imaging for Newspapers will allow the handsets to take pictures of newspaper and magazine articles and then match the article with its online edition.

The reception of the Imaging for Newspapers platform will be watched closely by newspaper and magazine publishers who have seen their print readership plummet in recent years and have strugled to transition their business models into the digital space.

Apple's share price passed the $500 mark for the first time in the firm's history on Monday afternoon as the success of its iPad 2 and iPhone devices continue to make the firm one of the world's most valuable companies.

It has taken just six months since passing the $400 on the Nasdaq market to rocket to £500 and comes three years after the firm's share price was a comparatively paltry $89.31 in February 2009.

Since then the success of its iPhone and iPad ranges, particularly their increasing use among both consumers and business users, has fuelled the firm's valuation, which is now inching towards $470bn as it continues to rake in record profits.

The firm's financial success is in stark contrast to some of its key rivals, with the likes of Microsoft stagnating on $30 per share price - and a market cap of $256bn - and Nokia on just $5 a share or a $18.5bn market cap, as other firms find it hard to make any traction in the smartphone and tablet markets.

Only Google can outperform Apple for share-value, with its stock currently priced around the $613 mark, but with fewer shares it circulation, it's value is a 'paltry' $199bn.

The question everyone will be asking, though, is clear: why on earth didn't I buy some shares in Apple three years ago?

Google has blindsided bitter rival Apple by hiring a senior employee from the iPhone maker, despite the firms apparently having an agreement not to poach each other's staff.

Simon Prakash, senior director of product integrity at Apple, was responsible for ensuring that products such as the iPhone and iPad were of the highest quality before they hit the market. No cushy job that, as he worked to the notoriously high standards imposed by former chief, Steve Jobs.

Although his job role at Google is unclear, Prakash is set to start work on a secret project, according to Venturebeat. He could find himself reporting directly to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who takes charge of a variety of secret research and development projects at Google.

This isn't the first time that Google has tried to tempt an employee from Apple. Former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs alledgedly emailed Google to ask the firm to stop trying to recruit its staff, after an incident back in 2007.

A court document revealed that Jobs emailed former Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, asking him to stop "stealing" employees. Schmidt agreed with the Apple chief's request.

This latest hire represents a big coup for Google and is likely to add fuel to the already intense rivalry between the firms.

Even though Apple is likely to be displeased at this latest development, it is unlikely to do anything about it. The US government wants to crack down on "no poach" agreements as they are deemed to be anti-competitive.

It was the beginning of a new era at CES on Monday when Sony announced its first smartphone since the firm bought out Ericsson from their joint mobile phone venture.

Available globally in the first quarter 2012, the Xperia S is the first of the under fire Japanese electronics giant's new NXT series with the consumer heavy-focus as ever on multimedia and entertainment functionality.

Under the covers the device is powered by a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor and runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) although it will be updated to Ice Cream Sandwich by the second quarter.

The NFC-enabled phone has a high res HD screen, 12 megapixel camera and a new design dubbed "Iconic Identity" which Sony says helps emphasise the display.

Other nifty additions enabled by its Android OS include SmartWatch, which allows Android to wirelessly access calls, messages and apps and Xperia Smart Tags, which launch pre-configured, personalised settings when NFC Android phones are swiped against them.

Sony also pushed the device's entertainment credentials, saying it is PlayStation certified and offers access to the firm's Entertainment Network via an HDMI TV connection. Photos can also be shared wirelessly, Sony added.

Whether this device is the one to propel Sony into the top tier of Android smartphone vendors along with HTC and Samsung remains to be seen. Only time will tell whether its €1.05bn buy out of Ericsson was a stroke of genius or the final nail in the coffin of its smartphone ambitions.

Also at CES, Sony showed off its dual-screen Tablet P as well as the Vita portable gaming device and other innovations.