microsoft

As part of its ongoing battle with Google for the Cloud computing crown, Microsoft is bringing a version of its Office suite to Facebook, as well as 'Docs.com'. It appears to be a way of promoting the online edition of Office 2010, which includes MS ... Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. (Source: latimes.com ) The Facebook app will simply be known as Docs; a somewhat cheeky title given that's also the name of Google's free spreadsheet application. Microsoft's new tool will be a specially adapted version of Office 2010 designed to work within the social networking system. The idea appears to be to offer ... (view more)

The relationship that Microsoft shares with their Windows XP operating system can be likened to the same kind of relationship shared between Dr. Frankenstein and his monster: what began as a beautiful creation must now be destroyed at all costs. ... While a tad extreme, this is essentially the message that Microsoft is sending out to the world after announcing that the next version of the free Windows Live Essentials software will not run on XP. In a recent blog post, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of the Windows Live Experience Chris Jones confirmed the news, although web-based versions of ... (view more)

Having a rootkit (virus) installed on your PC is a bad thing. That's because by definition, rootkits are specialized malware programs that are stealthy in nature and are near-impossible to detect and remove. In searching for a solution, however, ... it's understandable that infected PC owners would look to a software company like Microsoft to fix a problem affecting its operating system -- in this case, Windows XP. Unfortunately, that's not the case for many users with PCs suffering from the Alureon rootkit virus. Microsoft Update Causes Infected PCs to Crash Alureon, or Win32/Alureon.A, infects ... (view more)

Microsoft, like competitor Apple before it, has become embroiled in a scandal over the treatment of its foreign workers. But it's arguably more embarrassing, as the details continue to emerge via third-party investigation. When stories broke about ... labor violations among staff working overseas on Apple products, the negative publicity was tempered by the fact that it was Apple's own program which uncovered the abuses. That's not the case with the Microsoft allegations, however. The claims come in a report by the National Labor Committee, an independent pressure group which aims to uncover and ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that it will no longer provide support for the first retail version of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturers (RTM). The move is intended to force early adopters of Windows Vista to upgrade their systems using at ... least Vista Service Pack 1 or 2. Microsoft made the announcement on Vista RTM Tuesday. According to a spokesperson for the Redmond-based firm, "Today, Windows Vista RTM has reached end of support... End of support means that customers can no longer receive support benefits from Microsoft and will need to upgrade to a supported service pack (Windows ... (view more)

Microsoft is wasting little time in developing the successor to their recently released Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) browser. Many believe that Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) will be a much improved browser. IE9: New HTML5 and Improved Java Engine Changes ... discussed thus far for IE9 include: the addition of Hyper Text Markup Language version 5 (HTML5), and support for a faster, new JavaScript engine called "Chakra". According to Internet Explorer GM Dean Hachamovitch, IE9 will improve HTML5 applications by taking advantage of PC hardware through Vista and Windows 7. With IE9, Microsoft is looking to ... (view more)

This month's security updates from Microsoft will cover every currently supported edition of Windows. That means home users should check carefully if they don't have automatic updates switched on, while businesses will need to plan how they will ... apply the patches. As happens on the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft will release its Patch Tuesday security fix for issues affecting the Windows operating system (OS). This month, though, there was an exception: an emergency patch released on March 30th for a serious security flaw in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. At the time, several ... (view more)

With strict hands-free mobile phone laws affecting people in cities across North America, in-car services such as Onstar are seemingly the only way a person can make a legal phone call while driving. But what if you need to send an important email ... reply or text message while on the go? For Blackberry users on a Sprint plan, hands-free emails and texting is now a reality. These subscribers have the opportunity to install a speech-to-text mobile application that will enable them to dictate text-based messages without having to take their hands off the steering wheel. The technology that allows ... (view more)

Microsoft had a busy day in court this past Thursday. First, it unsuccessfully lobbied to have an injunction related to patented XML features in its Word software overturned. In another case, Microsoft filed suit against a video game hardware ... producer whose game controllers look similar to the original Xbox 360 model. Microsoft May be Mulling Supreme Court Appeal In regard to the XML lawsuit: Microsoft failed in a bid to have a full appeals court review last year's decision that found the software company in violation of a patent owned by tiny Toronto, Canada-based i4i's patent. The patent ... (view more)

Microsoft has officially released a patch addressing a widely-reported critical zero-day flaw in its Internet Explorer browser. The patch addresses not just one or two critical issues, but ten in total, leading security experts to emphasize the ... importance in having all Internet Explorer users upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. Yesterday's emergency patch release is special for Microsoft, which typically reserves the second Tuesday of every month for its monthly updates. However, since a critical zero-day flaw in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 eluded the last Patch Tuesday release, Microsoft ... (view more)