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"Microsoft's Office suite for iPad, iPhone, and Android is now free. In a surprise move, the software giant is shaking up its mobile Office strategy to keep consumers hooked to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Starting today, you'll no longer need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents or store them in the cloud. The move comes just days after Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with Dropbox to integrate the cloud storage service into Office across desktop, mobile, and the web. You can now download Office for iPad and store all your documents on Dropbox without paying Microsoft anything at all. Microsoft is also releasing a brand new iPhone app today, alongside a preview of Office for Android tablets, all with Dropbox integration."

""On both ends of the spectrum, this middle piece is taking away browsing from the iPhone and the tablet," Adobe Digital Index principal analyst Tamara Gaffney tells WIRED."

The big takeaway here is pretty clear, in terms of the top two players: Android is on fire because of choice, availability and price point in emerging markets focused on shifting to smartphones from feature phones on limited budgets. That means it's even more crucial to watch what Apple debuts this fall in terms of a low-cost iPhone device, which is rumored to be based around the iPhone 5 and sport a plastic back that's cheaper to produce.

The first iPhone text message screenshot generator.

Smartphone usage continues to climb in the U.S. More than three out of five (61%) mobile subscribers in the U.S. owned a smartphone during the most recent three-month period (March-May 2013), up more than 10 percent since smartphones became the mobile majority in early 2012. When it comes operating system preference, Apple remained the top smartphone manufacturer in the U.S., while the majority of smartphone owners used Android OS handsets. Fifty-three percent of smartphone owners used the Android OS, and 40 percent owned iPhones.

"Thanks to the game Babylonian Twins, iPhone and Android users can explore creative renditions of monuments in and near ancient Babylon, including the legendary hanging gardens, the Ishtar gate and processional way, and the ziggurat some believe to be the Biblical Tower of Babel."

"ARIS is a user-friendly, open-source platform for creating and playing mobile games, tours and interactive stories. Using GPS and QR Codes, ARIS players experience a hybrid world of virtual interactive characters, items, and media placed in physical space."

"TASCAM's iM2 turns the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into a high-quality stereo recorder. A pair of condenser microphones---the same high quality as TASCAM's best-selling DR-series recorders---plugs into the dock connector of your Apple device. The microphones are adjustable over 180 degrees for the best sound placement."

"Helpouts are face-to-face video calls powered by Google+ Hangouts. You can start and join a video call from your computer, Android, iPhone, and iPad devices. The Helpouts platform is different from Hangouts because Helpouts takes care of all of the setup and maintenance associated with delivering your services - from payment, to scheduling, reputation management, and customer acquisition."

"Louis C.K.'s daughters won't be getting cell phones anytime soon, because the famous dad/funnyman explains as only he can, phones take away his kids' ability to just feel sadness. It's a valid point; when was the last time you were able to sit idly doing nothing without reaching for your iPhone to check Twitter or something? Louis says smartphones distract us from the sadness and despair that we're all meant to feel sometimes. Sigh. Maybe it's too early in the day for existential dread, but at least his delivery is perfect."

"A new version of Foursquare began to roll out this fall, offering the kind of "passive notifications" Crowley had always dreamed of, and last week, with the release of a new app for iPhone and iPad, it reached out to an even wider audience. "

"Samsung's new Galaxy S5 arrived with an unexpected and underhyped feature. Like the iPhone 5S, it came with a fingerprint reader, but this reader plugs directly into PayPal, which in turn connects you to dozens of different payment systems. It's a clever trick: instead of a password, all you need is a fingerprint, carrying you through the entire web. If it catches on, soon you won't need a password at all."

"Perhaps the easiest visual medium for most communicators to grasp and use is photography. There is a growing school of thought that with an iPhone or Nexus smartphone, a communicator is well equipped to meet the needs of the visual thirsty stakeholder. Don't kid yourself. Every communicator needs a real camera."

"Twitter will shut down multiple TweetDeck apps to focus on the product's web-based version, the microblogging service announced Monday. In yet another sign of the battle between social media's two biggest players, Facebook integration will be removed, too."

Trends on college campuses with BYOD...