Microsoft is releasing a phone application platform for emerging markets -- South Africa is first -- that will let owners of so-called "feature phones" (non-smartphones) run some smartphone apps by hosting them in the cloud.
Called OneApp, the platform has both client and server components. The client code that runs on the feature phone is tiny, only 150 KB. The server components run as "cloud services that help offload processing and storage from the phone to the Internet, improving overall performance," according to Microsoft statements.
Microsoft today announced it was expanding an antipiracy program for Office to the U.S., the U.K. and 11 other countries that will identify pirated copies of the suite and nag users with on-screen messages.
The expansion follows a pilot program Microsoft launched in four countries in April 2008, then extended to an additional 24. This is the first time, however, that Microsoft has asked U.S. users to install a notifications component that pesters users if it determines the copy of Office is illegitimate.
Microsoft last week began hiring employees for its coming retail stores in California and Arizona by posting a list on the Web of the six different positions available.
They include assistant store managers for its planned stores in Mission Viejo, Calif. and Scottsdale, Az., customer service, sales and inventory associates, as well as two techie positions: retail technical advisor and retail trainer.
Reporting to the store manager, both positions require "an elite level of product knowledge in all Microsoft retail product and service offerings" and the ability to be an "example of the Microsoft vision of the customer relationship.
A Microsoft Windows 7 installation disk can be tweaked to install any version of the operating system, giving users a "try-before-buy" opportunity before upgrading to a more expensive edition, a popular newsletter revealed.
By deleting one small text file from a Windows installation DVD, users can choose to install any of five different editions, according to Woody Leonard, a contributing editor to the Windows Secrets newsletter.
Leonard published step-by-step instructions last week that walked users through the process on Windows 7 RTM, or release to manufacturing, the final build of the operating system that Microsoft has already shipped to computer makers and distributed to IT professionals and developers.
A Chinese court has jailed four people for spreading their bootleg "Tomato Garden" version of Microsoft's Windows XP program, in what the Xinhua news agency called the nation's biggest software piracy case.
Hong Lei, the creator of the downloadable "Tomato Garden Windows XP" software, was jailed for three and a half years on Thursday by a court in Suzhou in eastern China, Xinhua reported, citing local media.
One of his accomplices received the same prison term and two received two years each.
Office 2010 will provide more than just cool new features, like Web-based versions of the suite's main applications.
It will also improve security for both users and administrators, the company said.
A new security technology that Microsoft is building into the next release of Microsoft Office aims to make it possible to safely view potentially dangerous files that are saved in older Office binary file formats.
Called "Protected View," the technology opens questionable files in a so-called "sandbox," displaying the files' contents in a safe, read-only mode -- but allowing users to edit files once they ensure no attack code is embedded in them.
Microsoft researchers may have taken a step closer to finally turning unused analog TV spectrum, known as "white spaces," into unlicensed spectrum that can be used to deliver new wireless broadband services.
Researchers from the software giant, along with academics from Harvard University, have developed a protocol that the company claims could be the foundation for products that meet Federal Communications Commission requirements for avoiding interference when using unlicensed "white space" spectrum. The researchers presented their ideas this week at the ACM SIGCOMM 2009, a communications conference held in Barcelona, Spain, according to an article published on MIT's Technology Review Web site.
A recent Digitimes report told us what we already sort of knew, but phrased it in such a way that the tech media did a huge double take.
It said that Microsoft will launch Windows Mobile 6.5 in October, and then Windows Mobile 7 in the fourth quarter of next year...pretty much a verbatim repeat of what Steve Ballmer said about the platform last March. However, the report goes on to say that Microsoft will be running what it calls "a dual-platform strategy to allow Microsoft to compete with the Android-based platform using Windows Mobile 6.5 and also compete with iPhones leveraging Windows Mobile 7."
I'll begin by saying that Carmi Levy is my very good friend, and I do admit that most of the time, he and I think along the very same wavelength. I met him through our mutual friend Wolfgang Gruener at TG Daily, and we've carried on a very fruitful dialogue about the IT industry ever since. That, and he has this way of making Winnie-the-Pooh berets look really cool.
We do disagree on one point today, and I think the nature of that disagreement would be beneficial to folks who are wrestling with the question Carmi brought up this morning: "To upgrade or not to upgrade." His article is worth reading, so rather than summarize it here, I'll let Carmi speak for himself.
Microsoft plans to backport a "ribbon" user interface feature it introduced in Windows 7 to Windows Vista, according to the company's developer Web site.
On the Microsoft Developer Network, Microsoft indicated that it is planning support for the interface in Vista around the same time Windows 7 is released. Microsoft has said it would release Windows 7, the follow-up to Vista, worldwide on Oct. 22.