The government of China has officially announced it has begun an anti-monopoly probe of Microsoft in its country, one day after it raided the company's offices in four Chinese cities. China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce claims that Microsoft has not fully disclosed information about the company's Windows operating system and its Office suite of software products....
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed during an earnings call yesterday that the software giant will merge all major versions of Windows into a unified operating system. Nadella said that Microsoft is set to "streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system. This means one operating system that covers all screen sizes."...
Google has announced that a serious flaw in the web browser, reportedly affecting Windows machines since 2010, will finally be addressed. The issue is Chrome fails to return to an idle state when not being used, requiring more juice from the power supply, a serious problem for laptop and tablet owners. The company has pushed the flaw to the top of the to-do list for the Chrome team so...
Microsoft was a little humble today as it agreed with recent statements from the research firm Gartner that the Windows platform as a whole can only claim to be installed on a small percentage of the total worldwide device market, which include PCs, tablets and smartphones. Windows is by far the most installed operating system on desktop and notebook PCs, but today Microsoft used...
Console OS, an Android-based operating system designed to run on Intel PCs has announced that it will try to support all three members of Microsoft's Surface Pro family of tablets, including the Surface Pro 3. The team behind Console OS, Mobile Media Ventures, launched a Kickstarter campaign a few weeks ago to help fund the launch of the operating system. With 33 days to go in this...
Windows PC gamers who have been waiting for official Xbox One controller drivers can finally have that access. Microsoft has now released official 32-bit and 64-bit x86 Windows drivers for the controller. Microsoft has been promising this support for some time. Indeed, a third party programmer was clearly getting impatient with the wait and in March he released a software hack that...
Microsoft and Salesforce.com have just announced a strategic partnership. Salesforce.com is best known for it's customer relationship management (CRM) product and it's other products in cloud computing and social enterprise. The deal will see the CRM from salesforce.com connected with Microsoft Office and Windows to make customers more productive. A Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 app...
Sometimes we get so involved with Windows 8, Surface, and other products from Microsoft that we forget about their humble beginnings. Microsoft itself has not forgotten where it came from though and has released the source code for early versions of MS-DOS and Word for Windows. If you wish to step into a time machine and travel backwards to the 1980s where the adventure began, read on...
Asus and Intel have been working together to combine two experiences - Windows and Android. This enables tablets and other form factors to run Windows and then Android, depending on which mode has been enabled by the user. Asus presented the TD300 at CES 2014, but now Digitimes reports that the company is postponing launch plans due to pressure from Google. The new products with dual...
This March sets the stage for the twenty-seventh annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. The event itself is a collection of film, music, and interactive media. This year, South by Southwest will begin on March 8 and continue until the 17 for a seemingly never-ending party of fun. If the event was not already awesome to begin with, Microsoft will be there in full setup to...
In a somewhat surprising move, Samsung today announced that its KNOX mobile security platform will support Microsoft's Workplace Join and Windows Intune cloud-based mobile device management solution. This move is in addition to Samsung's Cloud Printing Solution, which uses Windows Azure and SharePoint. Utilising Microsoft technologies, Samsung is looking to improve security and...
Joe Belfiore, responsible for Windows Phone and the user experience of Windows 8, took to the Windows blog today to talk about improvements being made to Microsoft's desktop platform. An upcoming spring update for Windows 8.1 was also covered, which will continue to refine the user experience. "We bet on touch and on mobility in a big way, and included a fresh take on what a touch-...
It's old news when we talk about Microsoft's problem with getting developers on-board with both Windows and Windows Phone. The company has had trouble having new content developed and released on its own operating systems alongside iOS and Android. It's no secret that Microsoft platforms are generally left in the dark — just take a look at Flappy Bird. Now, according to The Verge,...
You and your Nokia Lumia aren't the only two buddies who can put together an awesome selfie. Microsoft has decided to assemble what they are calling "A Video Selfie" of some of their greatest achievements during 2013. You can checkout the video and more details below, after the break. The video selfie centers around a Windows 8 interface, in which live titles bring special moments...
The creation of Android/Windows 8 hybrid machines is nothing new. I personally wrote an editorial a month ago, entitled "A Tale of Split Personalities: Windows 8-Android Hybrids", that concentrated on the negative effects these machines could have on the Windows 8 ecosystem. This year at CES 2014, the trend continues as Asus announced its Transformer Book Duet TD300. The unit itself...
Last week Microsoft pulled their latest firmware update for their Surface Pro 2 tablet. The update itself had caused issues on the devices of users who initially grabbed the update and Microsoft promised that a new update would be posted “after the holidays”. To our surprise (and delight), the update will actually be right around the corner instead of early 2014. For those unaware of...
If you are a Viber user, here’s great news for you! The company has just announced Viber for Windows 8, bringing the leading messaging and VoIP platform with over 200 million users to tablet and desktop devices running Windows 8.1. Viber users can send free text messages, fun stickers, photos, videos and doodles, share locations anywhere in the world, and make free HD-quality calls...
One of the submarkets that we are quite surprised to see kick off is the growth of large portable touch screen all-in-one machines. Lenovo’s Horizon and Sony’s TAP series of machines have sold surprisingly well, and Acer wants to get in on the fun with their latest machine, the Aspire Z3-600. Acer announced a new 21.5 inch Portable All-in-One that will be touching down this month in...
Sky and Windows don't go well together. We're including both Windows 8 and Windows Phone in that group, by the way. You may remember our campaign to help drum up some support to show Sky just how much demand there is for Windows clients in the UK. Little did we know the same demand was being voiced over in Italy. While we continue to wait here in the UK, Italians rejoiced at news Sky...
Microsoft currently has three operating systems set up for different hardware. Should you be on a desktop, laptop or supported tablets, Windows 8.1 is what powers the system. Windows RT 8.1 is loaded on the Surface 2 and other tablets with ARM chips. Finally, we have Windows Phone 8 for smartphones. With Microsoft working on further uniting its services and software, how will Windows...