microsoft

Microsoft has announced that it won't be sending out Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) by automated update until the end of June this year. Originally, the plan was to send the Internet Explorer 9 update as an automatic download, providing the Windows ... Automatic Updates feature was enabled. The timeline for the automated update was to be scheduled for March 21, but that has since changed because Microsoft says the delay is a necessity due to its widespread corporate use. (Source: zdnet.com ) Internet Explorer 9 Rollout Cause of Delay Two-Fold There are two reasons being given for the June timetable. ... (view more)

A new book by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen reveals a lot about the company and the people who ran it during those heady days in the early 1980s. Some of the most fascinating content focuses on Allen's impressions of Microsoft's 'wunderkind' ... leader, Bill Gates -- and not all of it is complimentary. Along with Gates, Allen helped found Microsoft in 1975, though the latter left the company in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a form of cancer. Allen beat the disease but never formally returned to Microsoft, instead pursuing a number of other ventures with his newfound ... (view more)

To the surprise of many, Microsoft finished well in a recent World's Most Ethical Companies award list, recently unveiled by the Ethisphere Institute. Ethisphere is a think tank whose mandate is to improve standards for business ethics. It looked at ... 110 different companies, some being nominated by the Institute and others applying for nomination. A number of the firms included in the list are from the software industry, including Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, Teradata Corp and Salesforce.com. Hitachi Data Systems was a winner in the computer hardware category, with other notable mentions ... (view more)

Microsoft looks to be working on an interactive television product, likely in the form of a set-top box. That would put it in direct competition with rivals Apple and Google. Speculation about the move has been spurred by the fact that a Microsoft ... executive's company bio has been revised. Tom Gibbons, who'd previously worked in Microsoft's general hardware and mobile devices divisions, is now listed as the company's "corporate vice president of TV & Service Business". Given his background, it does seem logical that he'd be working on physical devices in the new role. According ... (view more)

Hoping to entice new users to make the switch from Google, Microsoft has invested a great deal of time and resources in the promotion of their Bing search engine. It now appears that all of the strenuous efforts are finally paying off, as Microsoft ... (via Bing) has become the second-most popular online video site in the US. February's comScore Video Metrix statistics indicate that Microsoft's Bing is now in second place, surpassing such established competitors as Yahoo! and AOL. Even Facebook, given its sheer appeal and the number of user accounts it continues to retain, pales in comparison to ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) supports two separate technologies for restricting access to information related to a user's online activity. One of the privacy features was recently prompted by the Federal Trade Commission ... (FTC). Both technologies involve the way websites share data with third-parties. The most prominent example is with advertisements that appear on a page; for example, rather than simply linking ads to the page content (such as a newspaper site running golf equipment ads alongside a golf match report), a site might pass on details of all the pages a ... (view more)

Microsoft has launched a special feature in its Bing search engine intended to help users find bargains. To much surprise of many users, however, the mobile edition isn't available on Windows-based phones. Bing Deals to Partnership with Groupon The ... service, dubbed 'Bing Deals', doesn't bring any original offers, meaning it's not like Groupon or Living Social. Indeed, Microsoft says it's made a deliberate decision not to compete against such sites and instead plans to work in partnership with them. (Source: pcmag.com ) It's likely a smart decision. Services such as Groupon work by arranging ... (view more)

"Don't get too used to the way Windows looks" was the message relayed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a recent Houston Technology Center luncheon. Ballmer says he figures the Windows operating system (OS) found on most PCs right now will look a ... whole lot different in just five years time. Windows "will look a lot different and it will run different applications," Ballmer told members of the local business community during a presentation at Union Square in Houston's Minute Maid Park. With many new technology innovations making their way into mainstream, MS Windows needs to keep up ... (view more)

The Microsoft Zune media player is officially dead. Amidst steadily declining sales, Microsoft has reportedly decided to stop producing the handheld MP3 player, once characterized as an 'iPod Killer' by the hopeful Redmond-based firm. Released in ... 2006, the Zune initially had techies excited for several reasons. For one, the design and build quality was top-notch. Others liked the subdued colors, such as brown. But most interesting about the Zune was the ability to share music across different Zune players. For instance, if one Zune owner downloaded a song, he or she could share that tune with ... (view more)

Microsoft is in some hot water after one of their latest Twitter posts was misconstrued as a ploy to use the horrific natural disasters in Japan to promote the Bing search engine. Since the now-upgraded 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck last week, the ... media has reported hundreds of people killed, and thousands more missing. A subsequent tsunami, which slammed parts of northeastern Japan, has sent the death toll skyrocketing still higher. In the aftermath of such devastation, Microsoft sent out the following tweet early Saturday morning: "How can you #SupportJapan -- http://binged.it/fEh7iT ? ... (view more)