Articles about Microsoft

An old friend has been telling me for months that the future of personal computing was coming with new Windows tablets using the Bay Trail system-on-chip architecture built with Intel Silvermont cores. Silvermont is the first major Atom revision in years and is designed to be much faster. Bay Trail would lead to $199 8-inch Windows tablets while also fixing the limitations of Intel’s previous Clover Trail. Well Bay Trail units are finally shipping but my techie friend is sorely disappointed with his.

The lure of this platform for Intel is great. Manufacturers could use the same chassis and chipsets for everything except gaming boxes and servers. Eight inch tablets, ChromeBooks, Ultrabooks, 10-inch tablets, and netbooks, all one chassis with up to 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. One size fits all for home, car, travel, and work.

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While the Surface line of Windows tablets are well-built and functional, they have not exactly set the world on fire. Consumers are still mostly opting for iPads and Android tablets. It's hard to blame them -- the app selections on these competitor platforms are more bountiful and robust. Not to mention, Surface gets more press over price reductions and billion-dollar write-offs than anything else.

However, there is one place where Microsoft's tablet is poised to make an impact -- the classroom. A Surface tablet with the type-keyboard attachment is a wonderful tool for both students and educators alike.

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I know what you’re thinking -- BetaNews doesn’t need yet another Start button/menu story surely! But actually, I think we do, so bear with me. My colleague Brian Fagioli believes that Microsoft most definitely shouldn’t restore the Start menu in a future version of Windows, and in fact wants the OS to run "legacy" (aka desktop) software full screen like a Modern app. Mark Wilson on the other hand, thinks Microsoft should re-introduce the menu and leave the Modern UI to tablets.

Both are interesting viewpoints, and the comments accompanying the articles show that there’s a firm split in opinion among Windows users. But the Start button and menu isn’t a magic bullet. Adding it to Windows 8.2, aka "Threshold", or even bringing it back to Windows 8.1 as a mini update, as some tech watchers have suggested could happen, won’t save the day. There’s too much negativity surrounding the tiled OS -- and that’s what Microsoft really needs to work to fix.

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Let me get this out of the way first -- the "12 Days of Red Stripe" has absolutely nothing to do with Jamaican beer. Instead, it's Microsoft's latest holiday push (named after the Windows Phone weekly deal), going with the 12 Days of Geekmas and the 12 Days of Deals previously announced. This latest campaign is designed for Windows Phone customers.

"The Windows Phone Store just kicked off a big holiday sale on twelve apps, indie games, and Xbox titles", announces Microsoft's Michael Stroh.

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Unlike my colleague Brian Fagioli, and many other disillusioned users, I think Microsoft made a serious mistake when the Start menu and button were removed from Windows 8. The company practically admitted as much when Windows 8.1 saw the reintroduction of the Start button. But this was simply not enough. Windows is all about the Start menu, and for many people the Start button and Start menu are so inextricably linked that to have either without the other just makes no sense.

Sure, we have the Start screen in Windows 8.1 and from it you can achieve pretty much what you were able to do with the Start menu. But it is not the same. Windows 95 was all about the Start button and the Start menu that it conjured up. Yes, we may be the thick end of 20 years down the line, but this is at least partly the point. We have had almost two decades to get used to a particular way of working. It would be strange if there wasn’t a backlash against something we have become so used to.

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While you can't use Lavabit any longer, there are still plenty of good email services out there, though none is perfect -- they can all experience occasional glitches, just ask Yahoo customers. I also can't tell you which ones you can trust, though I can recommend caution with all of them, given the recent news stories.

Microsoft has been on a bit of a rampage against rival Google lately, and one target of attack has been Gmail, with accusations of messages being "read" in order to better target ads. It's a rather disingenuous point, as all providers scan incoming messages, if not for ads then at least for spam filtering (and Outlook.com does have ads unless you pay to opt out).

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Ever since Microsoft launched Outlook.com the company has been trying to get Gmail users to switch to its online email service, using various tactics, including trying to frighten them into making the move by warning of the evils perpetrated by Google, even going as far as producing unflattering videos portraying the "Gmail Man" as an email snooper.

Now Microsoft is taking steps to ease your transition from Gmail to Outlook.com. The software giant has launched a new tool designed to allow easier importing of your Gmail account, including contacts. It also claims to preserve the status of messages (read and unread), and even offers to let you retain the ability to use your "@gmail.com" address when sending emails from Outlook.com.

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According to Microsoft watcher Paul Thurrott, Windows 8.2, or "Threshold" as it’s apparently being referred to internally at Microsoft, could see the return of the Start menu for desktop users. "After bringing back the Start button in Windows 8.1, Microsoft will take the next logical step in the next Windows version and make the Start menu available as an option. It's possible this will appear only on those product versions that support the desktop", claims Thurrott. He also suggests Threshold will allow users to run some Modern UI apps on the desktop, as you can using ModernMix.

The absence of a real Start button and menu is seen by many as one of the main reasons why Windows 8.x is doing so badly. The Start button and Apps screen in Windows 8.1 is -- for me -- a great compromise, but it seems many consumers would rather just have things back how they were, and if Thurrott is right those disgruntled users might finally get their wish when Threshold arrives sometime in 2015. Don’t want to wait that long to get a proper Start menu in Windows 8.x? The good news is there are plenty of quality third-party options available now.

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Consumers who are in the market for a Windows RT tablet currently have two main options to choose from -- the Microsoft Surface 2 and Nokia Lumia 2520. The former has the upper hand when it comes to availability, as it is sold in a significantly larger number of markets, while the latter offers extra connectivity options -- namely 4G LTE -- and a wider color palette. But as it turns out the Lumia 2520 also has a better screen, according to a new DisplayMate test.

"With virtually identical functionality and OS software, it is the quality and performance of the displays that really differentiates these Windows Tablets", says DisplayMate CEO Dr. Raymond M. Soneira. "The display on the Nokia Lumia 2520 is impressive while the Microsoft Surface 2 is mediocre and a disappointment".

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California-based SaaS security specialist Adallom has revealed the existence of an Office 365 token flaw in Office 2013 that could allow malicious web servers to intercept authentication tokens and remotely access a SharePoint site without any alerts being raised.

Writing on the company's blog Noam Liran, Adallom's chief software architect describes the attack as an "ice dagger" because it's the perfect weapon, leaving no trace. He says, "The vulnerability we've found and the security incident that used it have all the makings of a great crime mystery. Only through months of diligent research were we and the Microsoft Security Response Team able to piece together the elements of what might otherwise have been a perfect crime, totally invisible to existing perimeter and endpoint protection defenses".

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Photosynth is a free panoramic photo app that can take your pictures and stitch them together into some of the most beautiful images you will find on the web. The app was publicly released in 2008 and is now moving to its third generation, designed to mesh with last week's update of Bing Maps.

Microsoft claims the new update to its 3D technology delivers "a dramatic step forward in smoothness and simplicity, and is what we now recommend for anyone with a D-SLR or a point-and-shoot camera". This is only a technical preview at this point, and the previous two generations of Photosynth are still available.

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In the midst of the Snowden leaks, computer users are feeling very violated. After all, a personal computer is personal -- we want to feel that our data and privacy is secure. Microsoft says it best by saying "people won't use technology they don't trust".

While many may feel that the company is just supplying lip service, today the software giant announces that it is walking the walk too. Microsoft accounts are getting stronger and smarter security.

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I'll be brief, because I'm seven days now with the flu and don't feel much like writing. But today's "open letter" for global government surveillance reform demands rebuke.

I'm all for curbing government snooping, but what about corporations collecting information? Tech Giant's -- AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo -- reform rally is disingenuous and self-serving. These same companies collect mountains of personal information for profit. So, what? It's okay for them to snoop, but not governments?

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Headlines about government surveillance of web usage all over the world have been difficult to avoid this past year. Since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on activities by the NSA, both companies and web users have been asking for greater transparency in data collection and there have been endless calls for dragnet data collection to be stopped completely. It is often the case that when confronted with a common enemy, some unlikely alliances are forged. This is certainly true with the NSA, and now Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL are all coming together to present a united front and push for legal reform.

The collective has written an open letter to President Obama and congress, warning that "the balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual". There has been quite a backlash against the number of requests for data that the US government has made of companies, and the letter makes it clear that the eight companies that have joined forces are not happy:

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Following Windows market share on NetApplications, as I do every month, it’s clear to me that Windows 8.x isn’t the hit Microsoft hoped for. There are several reasons for this, all of which I’ve discussed previously -- dwindling PC sales, users dislike of touch and the Modern UI, and so on.

Last month Windows 7’s growth outpaced that of Windows 8.x by four fold, and it’s not the first time the older OS has proven the more popular choice either. It’s becoming something of a regular occurrence. Adoption of the tiled OS is slow, very slow. Especially compared with the strong pick up Windows 7 enjoyed from the start.

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