Microsoft posts

The world of technology is unarguably one of the most exciting fields in the contemporary era. The breathless pace of change, the innovation, the competition – it’s all so exciting! But at the same time, the world of tech has bred some unfortunate side effects. Whether it’s the pace or the newness, something about technology gives rise to things that just aren’t acceptable or desired. I’m not talking about reduced attention span here, people. What I’m talking about is a kind of petulant, selfish, annoying behavior that we really need to stop. Here are five things that can occasionally make the…

It’s that time of the year again, folks! No no – not the new iPhone. It’s time for E3, gaming’s most important conference, where Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony announce their latest hardware, games and services. Fanboy battles will rage, marketing execs will boast – but if all goes according to plan, gamers will find out what will dominate their time over the next few months. Microsoft What We Know: Expect Microsoft’s big push to be about Natal. Everything we’ve heard from the Redmond-based company so far has suggested that this isn’t just another peripheral – it’s essentially a console relaunch….

Apple has released it’s new version of Safari. The latest version of the popular web browser, Safari 5, boasts a performance boost and many more little additions to make users lives a bit easier. This update adds Bing search and secure sandboxed extensions. As well, there will be support for more than a dozen new HTML5 technologies. “Safari continues to lead the pack in performance, innovation and standards support,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari now runs on over 200 million devices worldwide and its open source WebKit engine…

Yesterday, the net was abuzz with rumours that Google was dropping Microsoft’s Windows in favour of OSX and Linux, claiming security issues. Whether or not the legend is true, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc has already issued a response, calling the situation ‘ironic’ and claiming that it’s doing ‘a better job’ at security than the others. When it comes to security, even hackers admit we’re doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else. And it’s not just the hackers; third party influentials and industry leaders like Cisco tell us regularly that our focus and investment…

Despite the breathless pace of change and innovation in the tech world, when you think about it, a lot of how we interact with technology has stayed pretty much the same for years. After all, if the numbers are anything to go by, it’s quite likely that many of you are reading this very post on a computer with a regular keyboard and either a mouse or a trackpad. When you go home and watch TV, it will be with a remote control, the design of which hasn’t changed for a few decades. And it’s been this way for a long time now. But you gotta wonder: where is the future of interfaces? Weren’t we supposed to be controlling…

Have you ever wanted a more in depth look at the functionality of a product before making up your mind on whether or not to take it home? I know I’ve been there and I’m sure you have too. Microsoft has answered our prayers with its new Microsoft Tag system. Fresh into beta, the free app can be downloaded for the following platforms: Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and it is also available for J2ME handsets. Here is how it works: you point your phone at the desired product tag (unfortunately it has to be Microsoft’s own barcode tech, known as High Capacity Color Barcode,…

Steve Ballmer, the sweaty chief executive for Microsoft, may surprise us by playing a part in Apple’s keynote presentation at this year’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. This, of course, is still all a rumor. But Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, insists that seven minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for rival Microsoft’s presentation on Visual Studio 2010. Chowdhry has reportedly stated that he believes Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer could give the presentation. And given his love for developers, it could be quite…

THAT JUST HAPPENED. No really, it did. In trading today, Apple eclipsed Microsoft’s total market capitalization value for the first time ever. Apple stock was trading earlier today for $247.62, giving Apple a total value of $225.57 billion. Its rival, Microsoft, was trading at $25.38 with a total market cap of $223.83 billion. This marks the first time that Apple’s market capitalization value has trumped Microsoft’s. Source: CBC Money…

I love Steve Ballmer. I really do. Guy is so on-point. Got his finger on the pulse. And so passionate. Windows 1 comes with reversi, guys. Reversi. And a clock. The title of this post isn’t one hundred percent accurate, but I’ve got your attention now, so I may as well clarify. Continuing his long tradition as the wacky, outspoken face of Microsoft, Ballmer bebopped at Microsoft’s CEO Summit yesterday, and besides being notably, er… calm, Ballmer cited the figurative facepalm of operating systems, Windows Vista, as ‘just not executed well’. That’s big of you to admit it, Steve. We were all thinking…

Cast your mind back to June 2007, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs appeared at D:All Things Digital alongside Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Now watch this video in which Gates describes his vision of the future of computing, which sounds remarkably like, erm, an iPad…. “I don’t think you’ll have one device. I think you’ll have a full-screen device that you can carry around and you’ll do dramatically more reading off of that… yeah, I mean, I believe in the tablet form factor [...] You’ll have some way of having a hardware keyboard and some settings for that. And then you’ll have the device that fits in your…