Microsoft

In a stunning development, Microsoft is preparing to kill off its much-hyped "social-focused" mobile phone, Kin. It follows some poor decisions about how to price the phone given its audience. The Kin was in development for several years under the ... codename Project Pink. For much of this time, it was widely speculated the phone would be based around the Zune media player, acting as a direct rival to Apple's iPhone. Instead, the two handsets, Kin One and Kin Two, were based around social networking updates and the ability to share content like photographs with friends. Unlike most phones today ... (view more)

Microsoft says more than 10,000 computers have been attacked through a bug in the Windows XP help system. Strangely, it has resisted criticizing the security researcher who publicized the security flaw. The bug involves the way XP directs web ... browsers towards help pages, having first checked the page against a "whitelist" to make sure it is legitimate. It's possible for hackers to exploit the flaw by fooling the computer during this checking process. The result is that the browser can be relocated to a page containing malicious software. Microsoft hasn't yet found a permanent solution to the ... (view more)

Windows 8 may still be a few years away from reality, but according to a new study, small and midsize businesses can get a real financial boost by switching to Windows 7 right now. The reasoning has to do with a reduction in support costs. ... "Businesses with 250 or fewer PCs that are deploying Windows 7 are gaining more than happier users," said a report by researchers at analyst firm IDC. "They are lowering support costs, improving security, and making end users more productive." (Source: informationweek.com ) Support Savings as High as 65% Some support cost cuts have been higher than 50 per ... (view more)

Have you ever wondered why casinos in Las Vegas are able to survive when offering dinners for 99 cents? It's a marketing tactic designed to lure consumers, with the hopes that they will stay and purchase regular-priced items out of convenience. ... Microsoft is now using a similar strategy to attract curious individuals to an all-new revamped version of their Bing search engine . Bing to Offer TV, Games, and Music Bing now features an entertainment page that will let users watch TV shows, play games and listen to music -- all without leaving the website. This, Microsoft hopes, will entice users ... (view more)

Microsoft's plans for Windows 8 appear to have been leaked online. It's hard to tell if they are legitimate, but they make for interesting possibilities. Windows Store In The Works? Of the supposed plans leaked, the most newsworthy feature is the ... possibility of a "Windows Store," which would allow software developers to distribute their programs similar to the iTunes App Store system and combines a central catalog with a rigorous vetting process. Software bought on one machine could be transferred, complete with user settings, to another machine subject to licensing. If closely tied ... (view more)

Microsoft has reported that Windows 7 has now sold 150 million units, which they claim roughly translates to seven copies of the operating system sold every second since its October 22, 2009 launch date. The figures come from a post on a ... Microsoft-run blog, written by the company's Brandon LeBlanc. (Source: windowsteamblog.com ) Businesses Upgrade Late Back in April, on the day which marked six months since Windows 7 went on sale to the wider public, the company reported selling "well over 100 million licenses of Windows 7." In most cases one might expect a slowdown in the total number of ... (view more)

Microsoft representatives have promised that the forthcoming Windows 7 Phone system will be based around the way customers use their phones in their everyday lives. But when Microsoft speaks to the marketing world, it tells a different story. Kostas ... Mallios, who oversees Microsoft's Strategy and Business Development unit, recently spoke at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. He spoke about the way in which Windows Phone 7 is designed to be a seamless experience for the user such that everything from social networking to multimedia is linked together smoothly. However, he also ... (view more)

A public beta of Microsoft's highly-anticipated Windows Live Essentials will be made available today, and promises to lure many curious onlookers with Office Web Apps and new social networking and media sharing options. Many of the programs which ... were part of Windows XP have been taken out of Windows 7 and re-branded into Windows Live Essentials. Programs included are: Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, Writer, Family Safety, and Toolbar, plus Microsoft Office Outlook Connector, Office Live Add-in, and Microsoft Silverlight. (Source: microsoft.com ) Windows Live Internet Integration ... (view more)

Dell executive Amit Midha on Monday announced that the hardware company is considering using the Google Chrome operating system (OS) on a select list of its laptop computers. That could represent a step away by Dell from Microsoft's Windows ... offerings, and will likely be a major concern for the Redmond-based software giant. In an interview with Reuters, Google senior executive Midha admitted that the company was considering a partial switch from Windows to Chrome on its laptops and perhaps some of its smartphones and tablet computers. The move could be enormous for all of the firms involved, ... (view more)

Microsoft is making it easier to help spread the word on incidents of Internet fraud and stolen personal data. In its latest corporate venture, the company has teamed with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) to establish a ... centralized service called "Internet Fraud Alert." Security researchers now have one universal location for which to report any kind of stolen data, ranging from online account login information to credit card numbers. The service can also be used to warn financial institutions immediately after a security breach has been identified. Program ... (view more)