More msft Stories

Updated: Google called to let me know that despite its inclusion on a list released Thursday that named the search giant as a member of the Open Cloud Manifesto Group, when the formal list comes out on Monday, Google won’t be on it.  Spokesman Jon Murchinson […] Read more »

Cloud computing and cloud services are real, but this is only the beginning. This was the message the guys who helped build Amazon Web Services, Google’s App Engine and Microsoft’s Azure clouds conveyed in Austin, Texas, this morning at South by Southwest’s only cloud computing panel. […] Read more »

It emerged over the weekend that Verizon Wireless was trying to share your cell phone data with “affiliates, agents and parent companies.” David Weinberger read the fine print on a recent 45-page Verizon mailing to discover that tidbit, and posted a really clear set of instructions […] Read more »

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Texas Instruments is looking to hop on the trend of using non x86 processors in the data center, according to Kathy Brown, general manager of the company’s wireless base station infrastructure business. Last night over dinner, Brown said the wireless chip powerhouse was trying to build […] Read more »

Australian carrier Telstra says it will open a mobile application store much like Apple’s App Store, joining the frenzy surrounding such mobile app marketplaces (Microsoft, Research in Motion and Nokia all have stores in the works as well). What’s noteworthy is that Telstra is a carrier, […] Read more »

Microsoft today is expected to announce a research and development program called Cloud Computing Futures that aims to look at how the data centers underlying cloud computing can operate as efficiently as possible. The idea behind this year-old effort that will emerge from stealth mode at […] Read more »

Broadcom said today that it would make sure content from Chumby, a nascent widget syndication effort for televisions, would run on its chips. It’s one of a handful of integration deals Broadcom has inked with software vendors to port their content to its chips. As broadband […] Read more »

Nokia said today it has received a €500 million loan  ($630 million) from the European Investment Bank to help it further develop Symbian and keep it competitive with other mobile operating systems. The loan may change the math we’ve done on the likelihood of Symbian beating […] Read more »

Next week, while most Americans are lounging about in honor of President’s Day, the people responsible for your mobile phones, netbooks and cellular networks will converge on Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress trade show. Check back on Monday for clues as to what type of […] Read more »

A few days months ago, Stacey reported on the rumors that Microsoft is building a Microsoft-branded smartphone based on Nvidia’s Tegra chipset. It seems those rumors might be true. Doug Freedman, chip analyst with research firm Broadpoint AmTech, wrote in a note to his clients this […] Read more »

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Today is Data Privacy Day, but instead of reading about privacy violations and pledges to make good by various corporations, pick a Congressman (or woman) and explain to them that when it comes to protecting our privacy online, our laws need a rewrite. Tell him (or […] Read more »

Come Tuesday, Yahoo will step up to deliver its most recently quarterly results, which I doubt will be very much fun. Still, it will be the first time recently appointed CEO Carol Bartz will have a chance to publicly address the most significant question facing the […] Read more »

The impact of declining desktop and laptop demand on the PC industry became that much clearer this morning, as Microsoft reported lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings driven, in part, by a deterioration of its client PC business (sever software sales are flat) and said it would cut 5,000 […] Read more »

Nuance Communications said today it’s bought several patents related to IBM’s speech recognition technology, joining Microsoft as one of the two the largest licensors of such technology. IBM, Nuance and Microsoft all provide speech-to-text and voice recognition products, an industry that’s growing in importance as devices makers […] Read more »

The economy may be giving renewable energy companies plenty to fear in the year to come, but not all the forecasts are gloomy. At a time when analysts are predicting shrinking venture capital investment and companies are shelving plans for new factories, some industry insiders are […] Read more »

Written by Nate D’Amico. Cisco had its living room coming out this year at CES, while Yahoo, Intel Samsung and the gang are banded together to bring the Internet into the living room via their TV widgets platform. But Microsoft wasn’t sitting on the sidelines, and […] Read more »

Microsoft continues to push touch as a user interface, this time as a participant in the $24 million funding round for Israeli startup N-Trig, whose technology enables multitouch, or the use of more than one finger for input. Multitouch hit it big on the iPhone, where […] Read more »

In a nod toward privacy, Yahoo today said it would only keep personal data on searchers and portal users for 90 days (double that in cases of fraud or suspicious activity). This ups the ante for search firms Google, which halved its data retention time to nine […] Read more »

As cloud computing moves beyond startups and attracts enterprise users, major software vendors are being forced to reckon with a new challenge to their current pricing models. Much like the emergence of software as a service has caused many large software vendors to evaluate existing licensing […] Read more »

Listening to most executives talk is a hard thing to do for more than two minutes at a time. There’s so much verbal obfuscation it starts to resemble a game of how to use the most words to say the least, leading to achievements like JetBlue […] Read more »

Facebook has postponed its employees’ stock sale, perhaps indefinitely, the Wall Street Journal reports today.  Facebook’s postponement is an understandable bow to market reality — and it prevents the company from setting an official valuation that the social networking site’s investors would consider too low. The […] Read more »

There is something to be said for apps that are so focused, their entire function can be summed up in one word. Spin ($2.99) is just that, a game that revolves around spinning (pun intended). The premise is that you are given a silhouette and an […] Read more »

Microsoft Data Center Chief Mike Manos posted a blog entry yesterday on the company’s vision for next generation data centers. The blog post (and the accompanying animated video) has extensive details on how Microsoft envisions building the data center of the future — and it definitely […] Read more »

Lumen is a deceptively involving game. The premise makes it appear simple: use mirrors and colored filters to guide a laser beam through checkpoints with the appropriate color to win. However, you will quickly find yourself double and triple guessing your moves when you’ve realized that […] Read more »

When I read an Inquirer piece about Microsoft launching its own branded phone with a Tegra chipset by Nvidia, it struck me that this would truly be putting lipstick on a pig. The Tegra chipset and the demos shown by Nvidia of it in action are […] Read more »

At the SC 08 show that ends today in Austin, I was struck by how much the lines between supercomputing and corporate computing have blurred. The show even had a panel on high-performance computing and cloud computing! But after visiting with vendors of all types and […] Read more »

The folks in charge of the SC 08 conference being held in Austin, Texas, this week have trumpeted the phenomenal growth of the supercomputing show, with attendance up by almost 10 percent from the previous year, but I’m beginning to doubt that high-performance computing is driving […] Read more »

Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Inc., in a speech at the SC08 Conference in Austin, Texas, today highlighted the democratization of supercomputing thanks to the use of standards and off-the-shelf parts. That democratization, he noted, blurs the line between high-performance computing and corporate computing, […] Read more »

Grey’s Anatomy last week once again topped the list of shows with the biggest DVR audience, with nearly 4 million watchers catching up after the initial airing. Meanwhile, not only was Barack Obama No. 1 in the presidential polls last week, but his YouTube channel generated the most views on the Video Breakouts Cool 100 list as well. Read more »

How does a huge, monolithic and somewhat old-fashioned public broadcaster get the attention of a generation that gets its TV moments via YouTube and BitTorrent? How about a big conspiracy, completely with allegations that the broadcaster is manipulating the public and possibly cooperating with a powerful […] Read more »

Looks like Yahoo’s Jerry Yang’s ham-handed handling of the Microsoft offer is coming back to bite him. At a Friday business lunch in Australia, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, put on the airs of a spurned lover and told luncheon attendees that he wasn’t buying Yahoo, […] Read more »

The votes have been cast, the winners and losers have spoken, and the euphoria of yesterday will now give way to the realization that a lot of hard work lies ahead. We’re not talking about the U.S. presidential race, but the even longer slog to use […] Read more »

The FCC today opened up the wireless communications market with its approval of a plan to allow independent devices to operate in the spectrum between digital TV channels; it also OKd the merger of spectrum between Sprint and Clearwire as well as Verizon’s $28.1 billion deal to buy Alltel, creating two new wireless networks backed, in part, by Google. Read more »

EETimes reported that Ultra-wideband startup WiQuest has shut its doors. This is a sad day for the more than 120 employees of the Allen, Texas chipmaker and unfortunate for the venture backers who put at least $54 million in the wireless networking company, but it’s something we should prepare to see more of as the wave of startups backing that standard finally run out of money and compelling arguments for the technology Read more »

A week before the Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on a proposal to turn over spectrum between the digital television channels for a wireless broadband service, singer/songwriter Dolly Parton has come out against the plan. Read more »

Despite Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer saying earlier today that a deal to buy Yahoo would still “make sense economically,” Microsoft wants you to know that it has no intention of doing so. Read more »

The Federal Communications Commission has released an engineering report that increases the chances for a new wireless broadband network operating in the so-called white spaces in the unused spectrum between digital TV channels. Read more »

Many people use their MacBooks to organize photos, watch movies or online video, and maybe transfer files to their iPod, which is why Apple’s new line of MacBooks, unveiled today, include Nvidia’s graphics processors. Read more »

Microsoft today unveiled its next-generation Communications Server product that will allow users to replace their existing phone systems with Microsoft’s software. It’s about time Redmond pushed its VoIP offering further. The product, which goes on sale in February 2009, replaces a PBX system with Microsoft’s VoIP […] Read more »

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