Jewish & World News

Microsoft's Windows 8 took another knock Wednesday as research firm IDC laid much of the blame for the first quarter's historically-horrible PC numbers at the feet of the beleaguered operating system. Yesterday, IDC and rival Gartner released their estimates for 2013's first-quarter PC shipments. The former painted a gloomy picture of the industry, saying that the 14% decline, year over year, was the largest ever in its nearly two decades of tracking. Gartner pegged the global downturn at 11%.

Say goodbye to the Windows start button. Microsoft has gotten rid of it from the latest build of Windows 8. Hitting the Web over the weekend, screenshots of the new Windows 8 build display the "super bar," but without the start button orb on the left, according to The Verge . Build 8220 will be the final version released before the beta, now known as the Consumer Preview, debuts before the end of the month.