Microsoft has officially announced the name of its next operating system. The new product will actually be called by the very name it has been referred to by everyone – Windows 8. Aside from this announcement, the company has also revealed that it will be releasing three variants of Windows 8.

The first product, to be called “Windows 8” is geared towards the general consumer. “Windows 8 Pro”, on the other hand, is aimed at the business market. The third version is going to be one that is compatible with ARM processors and will be officially called “Windows RT”. This last version of Windows 8 will come pre-installed in Windows on ARM devices, or WOA. More →

There are indications that Microsoft is preparing to launch a new music service/application that will be similar to what Spotify, Pandora, MOG or Rdio offers. Microsoft is reportedly talking with different record labels about developing the said app/service.

Experts say that Microsoft’s plan is to release the service as part of the applications or services associated with the Xbox 360. It does not intend to use its Zune brand name because it did not gain traction with consumers. More →

A newly released report by research firm Nielsen has significantly shown that Apple is still the top dog when it comes to the smartphone market. The report revealed that Apple is still the top smartphone manufacturer with the largest share in the market. But this position is slowly being threatened by other manufacturers who are making Android smartphones.

The Nielsen report – which compiles data taken from August through October of 2011 — showed that Apple has a strong 29 percent share of the smartphone market. The second top smartphone manufacturer is actually HTC, which has a 21 percent share. Coming in at third (surprisingly, at least to me) is RIM – the manufacturer of BlackBerry phones – which enjoys a 17 percent share of the market. Fourth place is occupied by Samsung and Motorola, which both have an 11 percent share of the smartphone market. More →

Patent infringement lawsuits are flying all over the place. Aside from Samsung and Apple, who are locked in a constant legal entanglement regarding patent infringement, Microsoft and Motorola are also involved in such a lawsuit.

Just recently, Microsoft won in a patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola. An administrative law judge for the US International Trade Commission made a decision that Motorola’s Motorola Android phones infringed on one of Microsoft’s seven patents. More →

Android has suffered a serious knock with news that it is more unreliable compared to the iPhone and BlackBerry.

In a study conducted by WDS, a company that provides specialist managed services for the wireless industry, it was discovered that Android phones were more likely to suffer from hardware problems compared iOS, Blackberry and Windows 7 devices.

The study was conducted over the course of a year and focused on customer service support calls. About 600,000 tech support calls were part of the study. Of that number, 14 percent were calls for Android phones that suffered a hardware failure. This is followed closely by Windows phones, which accounted for 11 percent of the calls. More →

Nokia has been taking a beating in the world market the last few years. The mobile phone manufacturer was once the top dog in the mobile phone industry. But its failure to adapt to changes in the mobile phone preferences of consumers – mainly from the typical mobile phones to smartphones – has resulted in a dwindling market share. In fact, the situation has gotten to a point where it is leaving certain markets because of poor sales. For example, Nokia has basically left Japan and it also hasn’t released any new phones in the United States for the last couple of years. More →

Microsoft is hedging its bets on the new Windows Phone mobile operating system as the one that will give Apple’s iOS a run for its money. Microsoft seems to have taken some inspiration from Apple’s very popular operating system and made its own innovations to make it more competitive and separate itself from the giant it wants to do battle with. People who have been able to play with the 7.5 Mango update have reported positively about it.  If you’re still unfamiliar about what Windows Phone 7.5 can offer you read on.

Probably one of the tent pole features of Windows Phone 7.5 that Microsoft thinks will attract consumers is its social media integration. Facebook integration was already featured in an earlier iteration of Windows Phone but with version 7.5 Twitter and LinkedIn have been added as well. The integration of these social networks is not just superficial it is integrated into the system. For example, photo sharing is a seamless affair. Sharing photos to Twitter and Facebook will only take a few clicks. More →

Samsung’s legal troubles from its competitors – most notably Apple, seems to be taking its toll on the company, and seems to be losing its spark to fight some legal battles that are in its way. Samsung just recently announced that it will begin paying royalties to Microsoft for every single Android device it sells, whether it is a phone or a tablet. The agreement was reached between the two parties so that the patent infringement lawsuit Microsoft is filing against Samsung will be withdrawn.

This is not the first royalty agreement Microsoft has entered with a company regarding the sale of Android devices. Microsoft has forged the same agreement with other Android device manufacturers, the most notable of these is with HTC, which is the other company that produces much of the Android devices on the market.

The decision to agree to a royalty payment is to keep Microsoft from suing these companies. Microsoft claims that no Android device they have seen has not infringed on any of Microsoft’s patents. The most crucial element in the suit though is not being made to the public – that is, what Microsoft patents are Android device manufacturers violating. Even though no one knows what (the exact patent infringements are not being made public) these Android manufacturers are violating, Microsoft’s previous lawsuits against Linux for precisely the same charges may shed a little light on the issue because Android is based on the Linux OS.

It’s ironic that Microsoft, which has shown how much it dislikes the Android OS entering the market, is also earning from its existence and success.

An almost universal computing environment. This is what the future will look like if reported information about Windows 8 is true.

According to Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang, he thinks that Microsoft’s next generation computer and tablet operating system, Windows 8, will be able to recognize and run apps that have been developed and coded for the Windows Mobile Phone 7 operating system – which is the new mobile operating system developed by the software giant. More →

A class action suit is likely being readied against Microsoft by consumers alleging that the software giant’s Windows Phone 7 operating system tracks the locations of phone owners without asking for consent.

A woman from Michigan has filed the likely class action lawsuit in a Seattle District Court. She claims that Windows Mobile Phone 7 gathers user data from owners of the phone, and continue to do this even if the owners have already opted out of the location-reporting feature. An equally damaging allegation is that Microsoft did not tell the truth to Congress about how much data from location information the device collects.

According to the suit, the location logging feature incorporated into Windows Mobile Phone 7 gets location and network information data directly from the device in order to build a map of WiFi hotspots, cell towers and other related data that can be employed for assisted GPS. The suit further alleges that the information gathered is not just to give phone owners a thorough location-based service but also to create a targeted marketing system that can personalized the ads that are sent to a user’s particular location.

Microsoft, which is expected to fight the class action suit, has assured the public and the US Congress before that data gathering feature will only work if the user has permitted an application to get location services. The company further clarified that the application only gathers location data and nothing else.

Both Android and iOS devices were also accused of getting location data without permission from users but these were eventually fixed in subsequent updates.

Image credit: technologyrekor.eu