Josh Miller/CNET The school year is fast approaching and that means it’s time to buy school supplies. If Microsoft Office is on your list, don’t purchase it quite yet: there’s a chance you can get it for free, courtesy of Microsoft. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced it was giving away Office 365 subscriptions to New …

Garmin The Garmin Forerunner 15 was one of our favorite entry-level running watches. It offered GPS tracking for pace and distance, and all-day activity tracking for things like steps and calories burned. Our one complaint was the lack of Bluetooth to sync up with our smartphone. Garmin seems to have addressed these problems with the Forerunner 25. The company’s latest …

The Magnepan MMG (left) and Pioneer Elite SP-EBS73-LR (right) Steve Guttenberg/CNET Readers are always asking for speaker recommendations, and while I can supply my favorites they might not be a good fit for every reader. Personal preferences are just that, personal; there’s rarely a clear-cut best speaker for all buyers. The Magnepan MMG and Pioneer Elite SP-EBS73-LR are two very …

Enlarge ImageThe Silver Edition Passport BlackBerry Blackberry launched the squared-off Passport back in September 2014, just days before company CEO John Chen announced that the company had received 200,000 orders. Along with the BlackBerry Classic , released a few months later, the company hoped that this was the phone to reinvigorate interest in the world of BlackBerry. It looks like …

iOS 9 has a neat new feature where it scans your email inbox and finds events mentioned within the body of the message. It then uses that information to add tentative events to your calendar, in an effort to ensure you don’t forget about that dinner you had planned but never actually put on the schedule. The feature is useful, …

Apple’s iOS 8 is now on most iOS devices. Apple/screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET iOS 8 continues to rise up the ranks, albeit a bit more slowly these days. Apple’s latest mobile OS is now on 85 percent of all iOS devices, according to Apple’s App Store Distribution page. That figure refers specifically to all iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches that …

Enlarge ImageFacebook is making it easier for its users to communicate with businesses and celebrities. Facebook Some of Stephanie St. James’ clients send her messages at 2 a.m., and she’s fine with it. As the head of Amazing Fairytale Parties, an Oregon-based business that puts on theme parties with organizers dressed up as characters who sing and play games, she’s …

Sway, now out of its “beta” phase, is available for Windows 10 devices and Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Microsoft Microsoft’s latest example that it can make a cool app: A new presentation program. Called Sway, the free app is a modern take on slideshow software that lets you drop in photos, text and videos from your personal collection or from …

Enlarge Image Jason Cipriani/CNET Ephemeral messages weren’t a thing until Snapchat made them one. Now everyone wants to send messages that disappear after a set amount of time. The problem, however, is that each system requires users on both the sending and receiving ends of the solution to install and setup a new app. Kaboom, on the other hand, is …

Graava Camera makers typically focus on helping you capture the best video or photos possible and then leave the rest — gathering up your clips, editing, storing and sharing — up to you. Graava, on the other hand, will try to deliver a shoot-to-share experience that requires as little effort from you as possible. Following a hit-and-run bicycling accident, Graava …

Intel Coming right on the heels of Intel’s Broadwell line of processors, the new 6th generation of Core i-series CPUs, known by the code name Skylake, has officially debuted at the Gamescom video game trade show in Germany. But before you toss your current-gen laptop, keep in mind that the first wave of new Skylake processors includes only a pair …

Now playing: Watch this: 360-degree video puts eyes in the back of your head 1:08 Get ready to change your perspective on what video can be. Click here for more Exciting Tech stories. Look up, down, around or side-to-side — footage is coming at you from all angles. From the outside, 360-degree video looks deceptively simple. Set up a few …

CNET’s Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. Is there such a thing as combat-ready earphones? Perhaps. Accessory Power I think we’ve all been there: You settle in to watch a movie or listen to your favorite playlist, only to discover …

Vault 101 is a convenient little Mac app that lets you create and share encrypted files and is currently and steeply discounted by way of $2 Tuesday from its usual $9.99 price to $1.99. The app lets you select files and folders to be password-protected behind AES-256 encryption (256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard). To use Vault 101, file out its form …

Quickflix Amidst declining profits and falling customer numbers, Quickflix has made a bold bid to revive its fortunes, announcing its intention to buy out a Chinese film and TV company to distribute in China and beyond. The company today confirmed it has entered a memorandum of understanding with an unnamed “Shanghai-based film and television company” with Quickflix signalling its intention …