Roughly half a dozen new mobile operating systems will come to market over the next 6 to 12 months. Many of these look to be more sophisticated than the older ones controlled by Apple and Google, for whom serious competition could be just around the corner. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Acer’s Iconia W3 is the second coming of Ultra Mobile PCs, only this time, there’s a touch-friendly user interface. The Windows 8 desktop is still the biggest challenge on a small slate; perhaps Microsoft should offer a “Metro”-only license? Read more »
Microsoft’s CMO promised an easy upgrade route for both Win 8 and Win RT users to Windows 8.1. Read more »
Uh oh. Looks like Windows 8 is due for some changes, according to a Financial Times report featuring thoughts from a Microsoft executive. Read more »
Acer has a pair of new tablets to show off. The Aspire A1 looks like an iPad mini, runs Android and costs $169. Acer’s Aspire P3 is a convertible Ultrabook with Windows 8 and starts at $799. Read more »
Despite flat year-over-year WIndows revenue, Microsoft logged a 19 percent profit year over year. Not too shabby for the much maligned company. Read more »
Intel is looking for a new CEO and its looks at internal candidates. The big problem: they are all kids of the PC revolution. What Intel needs is fresh thinking, much like Microsoft to get out of the crumbling PC ecosystem. Read more »
Reports indicate Microsoft is planning a smaller Surface tablet for later this year. It won’t be the first though: Remember UMPCs? The idea was sound, but the interface and hardware weren’t; two things that Microsoft can easily fix now. Read more »
With Q1 PC sales breaking records — and not in a good way — Microsoft is taking heat with two analysts downgrading its shares. Read more »
We can pretty much stop arguing about whether the PC industry is deathly ill or not: the numbers speak for themselves, with its worst quarter since tracking began in 1994. Read more »
Looking for a Windows 8 slate with mobile broadband? Samsung has added an LTE radio in its Ativ Smart PC Pro 700 tablet, but it will cost you quite a bit up front for the privilege. Read more »
Mobile device users already know about TouchPal, the third-party keyboard that speeds input with swiping gestures and word prediction. The free app has now graduated to the big screen of Windows 8. Read more »
First Samsung decided not to even sell its Windows RT tablet in the U.S. Now it appears to be pulling the product out of Germany and unspecified other European regions. Here’s why. Read more »
All-you-can-read digital magazine app Next Issue Media is expanding from iPad to Windows 8. The company partnered with Microsoft and hopes that users will want to read digital magazines across their devices. Read more at paidContent »
The small sequel to the ill-fated TouchPad opts for Android, running on a dual-core processor. The big selling points appear to be a stainless steel shell and the inclusion of Beats Audio. Read more »
The tool, which uses optical character recognition and semantic tagging to recognize and organize many different document types across disparate cloud storage services, is finally out of beta. Read more »
I had high hopes for Windows RT but the apps I want aren’t supported. Windows 8 on Atom chips offers similar battery life and better app compatibility so why go RT? Right now there’s only one reason. Read more »
Not finding enough touch-friendly apps on your new Surface Pro or Windows 8 machine? Try the free Bluestacks player, which boasts more than 750,000 Android titles. Read more »
A recent Microsoft job posting shows the company is ready to take the next step to unify its development platform between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. Read more »
Microsoft’s Surface Pro is now on sale, starting at $899. Early reviews are mixed with the word “compromise” appearing quite often amid the good, the bad, and the ugly. Read more »
Can a Windows 8 tablet running on Intel’s Atom be a good middle ground between Windows RT and more expensive devices? Take a look at Acer’s W510: great battery life and full Windows 8. Read more »
Following Samsung and Acer, HP has thrown its hat into the Google Chromebook ring. The new $329 Pavilion may appeal to those wanting more screen and less Microsoft. Read more »
Research In Motion — which has renamed itself BlackBerry — launched its new smartphones at a star-studded event in New York, but responses to the new devices ranged from sharply critical to “ho hum,” and that could be lethal. Read more »
On this week’s call in podcast we tackle questions about the need for 128 GB of iPad storage, which smartphones have good cameras and the difference between Windows RT and Windows 8. Read more »
While few devices actually provide the advertised amount of storage capacity, Microsoft’s Surface Pro is a hog: The 64 GB model comes with only 23 GB available to the user. Read more »
Acer hasn’t been kind to Microsoft of late and is now trumpeting its Chromebook sales, which account for between 5 and 10 percent of all sales in just two months. Read more »
On this week’s audio podcast: Hands on with the Acer W510, a Atom-based Windows 8 tablet, plus thoughts on the legality of cell phone unlocking. Plus, Nokia has a new music subscription service that sounds great. Read more »
For its second quarter, Microsoft’s profits sagged to $6.4 billion or 76 cents per share from $6.6 billion (79 cents per share) compared to last year’s comparable period. Read more »
The company behind the popular Steam online gaming platform is definitely not impressed by the latest Windows version and is instead pushing Windows developers to Ubuntu Linux. Read more »
Microsoft’s Windows RT software had an opportunity to bring limited Windows 8 functionality to low-cost tablets, but that window may already be closing. Intel Atom-based slates with full Windows 8 and long run-times on a single charge have fewer restrictions and cost about the same. Read more »
U.S. consumers have one less Windows RT tablet to choose: Samsung has decided not to sell its Ativ Tab, citing weak demand for Windows RT and a lack of product understanding by consumers. That’s OK, the Ativ with full Windows 8 and Intel’s Atom is $599. Read more »
Looking for a Windows 8 slate on the cheap? Dell removed the active digitizer and swappable battery from its Latitude 10 tablet for an Essentials model that starts at $499. Aimed at educators and students, the tablet is much less than Microsoft’s $899 Surface Pro. Read more »
One look at the new Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet and you’ll swear you saw it before. It looks just like Microsoft’s Surface products. It blends some of the best features of Surface RT and Surface Pro, however; priced right, it could be a big seller. Read more »
It’s hard to tell if Microsoft’s Surface RT is a sales hit, but according to the company, retailer interest is high. As a result, Microsoft is expanding production and will be allowing third-party retail stores to carry the device earlier than it planned. Read more »
You want to star on your Xbox 360? A new app makes it easy to view your personal photos and videos on the big screen and to manipulate them with Kinect or voice controls. Read more »
Microsoft’s Surface Pro arrives in January with a full-featured version of Windows and an $899 price tag. That costs more than the Windows RT version but adds more app compatibility. It also brings half the run-time even though the battery is 30 percent bigger. Read more »
The wait for details surrounding Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet is over. On Thursday, the company announced some specs and the starting price of $899 which gets 64 GB of storage for the 10.6-inch tablet and also includes a digital pen. Is the price too high? Read more »
The usability of Microsoft Windows 8 on a tablet is so bad that one expert says he’s sticking with Windows 7 until Windows 9 arrives. After using the Surface RT, I understand, but the real issue is lumping together an OS for tablets and PCs. Read more »
A massive billboard in Berlin from Nokia says, “Everyone loves a comeback.” That’s true, but at this point, it still sounds like wishful thinking because there’s been no evidence yet of a comeback to begin with. Windows 8 may be the best hope for Lumia sales. Read more »
As Windows computers morph into tablets, expect more such devices to be found in network operator stores. Case in point: AT&T will sell Samsung’s Smart PC with mobile broadband radio for $799 without contract. Is the price too high for what you’re getting? Read more »
