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Microsoft News: Windows and Beyond
News and reviews about Microsoft latest products and developments, including information about Windows, Office, Xbox 360, Windows Phone 7 and Windows Live online services.
Weekend tech reading: Microsoft Store hacked, plain text data swiped
- Microsoft Store India hacked, username and password database leaked Reports are coming in that Microsoft's online store in India has been hacked. The site is now offline, but Google's cache shows that the Chinese Evil Shadow Team is taking credit for…
Microsoft opening new retail stores soon, coming to Canada by year's end
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Microsoft will be opening four new retail stores by the summer as well as international stores in time for the year-end holiday buying season, according to a new report from The Verge. A person familiar with Redmond’s plans says that new stores will open in...
Windows on ARM: desktop mode confirmed, sans legacy apps
- Microsoft has described in detail their Windows on ARM architecture in a bid to clear up confusion regarding the upcoming Windows 8 release. The exhaustive post by Steven Sinofsky on the MSDN Building Windows 8 blog gives a clear perspective…
Windows 8 Consumer Preview coming Feb. 29, bundled apps leaked
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As promised, Microsoft will release a public beta of Windows 8 this month. The company scheduled a launch event for the "Consumer Preview" of its next operating system on February 29 in Barcelona, Spain -- the same timeframe and city as Mobile World Congress...
Microsoft explains Windows 8's improved power efficiency
- Expanding on previous blog posts about Windows 8's "power hygiene," Microsoft has shared new details about how its latest operating system will improve battery life on mobile devices. In addition to adding a "connected standby" mode for system-on-a-chip hardware and…
Microsoft Flight coming February 29, free to play
- Microsoft Live’s Larry Hryb, otherwise known by his online moniker Major Nelson, announced via Twitter that a release date has been confirmed for Microsoft Flight. The free-to-play title is scheduled for download worldwide starting February 29, 2012.
Up to six new Windows Phone form factors in the pipeline
- Microsoft could be preparing as many as six new form factors for future Windows Phone devices. General Manager of the Windows Phone design studio Albert Shum shared a slide with TechRadar that illustrates an ecosystem with multiple form factor devices…
Microsoft experiments ahead of Windows 8's public beta, is the Start button going the way of the dodo?
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As we draw closer to the Windows 8 public beta this month, we've come to learn many different details of what Microsoft is cooking behind the scenes in the new OS, which is expected to debut in final form by the end of this year.
Windows Phone 8 'Apollo' based on the desktop OS' kernel, brings NFC, native Skype, more
- An internal video acquired by PocketNow has revealed a slew of fresh details about Microsoft's upcoming handsets. In the leaked clip, Joe Belfiore, director of the Windows Phone program, describes future hardware and software changes set to occur during the…
Microsoft releases Kinect for Windows hardware and SDK 1.0
- Microsoft has released Kinect for Windows hardware and the first official SDK is now available for download. The Kinect for Windows hardware is optimized for computers running Windows 7, Windows Embedded Standard 7 and Windows 8 Developer Preview.
Microsoft outlines changes to Explorer in Windows 8 beta
- Microsoft has published a new blog post regarding changes that have been made to Windows 8 leading up to the public beta slated for release next month. Author Ilana Smith notes that nearly 2,200 reader comments were considered in addition…
MS Office 15 gets technical preview, public beta due this summer
- The next version of Microsoft Office has reached a new development milestone, allowing a handful of privileged individuals to sample the pre-release software. The technical preview is currently limited to a "select group of customers under non-disclosure agreements" -- in…
Windows 8: Microsoft shows off "sensor fusion" support
- Expecting its Windows 8 operating system to end up on tablets, Microsoft is gearing up its next generation platform to include improved sensor support. Dubbed "sensor fusion", Microsoft illustrates their journey and experimentation with sensors on Windows 8 blog.
Xbox 720 to be six times faster than current 360, coming fall 2013
- The successor to Microsoft’s wildly popular Xbox 360 gaming console, tentatively known as the Xbox 720, will feature a power plant that is reportedly six times faster than what the current console is capable of. Sources close to the project…
Rumor: Microsoft phasing out its virtual points currency
- Microsoft's Xbox Live point system has been widely criticized by users for being confusing and difficult to convert into real prices. They allow users to purchase content on the Xbox 360, Windows Phone and Zune Marketplace without a credit card.…
Windows 8 to integrate mobile broadband, simplify wireless connections
- Windows 8 will make it easier for users to manage Wi-Fi and mobile connections. Group program manager on Microsoft’s devices and networking team Billy Anders has published a post on the company’s Building Windows 8 blog that outlines steps taken…
Microsoft posts strong quarter as Windows revenue slides
- Microsoft announced revenues of $20.89 billion for the quarter ending December 31, 2011, a 5% improvement over the same quarter a year earlier. Net profits were $6.62 billion, slightly down from $6.63 billion the same quarter last year. But the company…
Microsoft posts Windows 8 tablet hardware requirements
- Microsoft has been releasing the hardware certification requirements for upcoming operating systems for many years now, and the latest guidelines to be quietly detailed cover tablets running the upcoming operating system, due for launch later this year.
ReFS, Microsoft's next generation file system revealed
- Microsoft detailed its long awaited and arguably well overdue NTFS replacement yesterday, the Resilient File System (ReFS), on the Building Windows 8 blog. It marks the first time the Redmond-based software giant has revealed the specifics of its next-gen file…
Rumor: Intel-based Windows 8 tablets may start at $600
- We still have the better part of a year to wait until Windows 8 comes out -- sometime around October 2012 according to the latest rumors -- but information about potential pricing for Intel-powered tablets running Microsoft's upcoming operating system…
Microsoft strikes another Android patent licensing deal
- Microsoft announced today it has signed a patent-licensing deal with LG covering the company's tablets, mobile phones and other devices running Android or Chrome OS. This marks the company's 11th such arrangement with Android device makers, including HTC, Samsung and…
Microsoft delays TV subscription plans over high licensing costs
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The company is said to have spent the last year trying bring media partners on board, and even built something called Microsoft TV for demonstration purposes, but decided to pull back after realizing that the licensing costs were too high for the business model it envisaged.
Microsoft's last CES keynote speech likened to an infomercial
- Thousands of people attended what will suppsoedly be Microsoft’s last opening keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show last night, which took place in the huge Palazzo Ballroom at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. For the last 14 years…
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