German court rules against Microsoft on patents

A court in Germany ruled Wednesday that Microsoft infringed two patents held by Motorola, in a case that could affect sales of its popular Xbox 360 console and the Windows 7 operating system.

Barnes & Noble and the e-reader competition

Barnes & Noble Inc. makes a variety of Nooks with black-and-white screens, dedicated to reading, and the Nook Color and Nook Tablet, which add color screens, third-party applications and Internet browsing to the mix.

B&N, Microsoft team up on Nook, college businesses

Books and bits united Monday as Microsoft provided an infusion of money to help Barnes & Noble compete with top electronic bookseller Amazon. In exchange, Microsoft gets a long-desired foothold in the business of e-books and college textbooks.

Microsoft sells AOL patents on to Facebook

Microsoft, which just bought patents from AOL for $1 billion, is now turning around and selling most of them to Facebook for $550 million.

Microsoft's Windows propels pleasant 3Q surprise

Microsoft produced a surprisingly strong quarter to start the year, pleasing investors looking forward to even bigger things from the software maker's much-anticipated overhaul of Windows operating system next fall.

Microsoft Africa chairman named interim leader of Mali

Windows 8 to come in just three flavors

'Sabpab' Trojan is latest threat to Mac users

AOL to sell patents to Microsoft for $1.1 billion

Microsoft deal with AOL part of patent scramble

AOL's $1 billion deal to sell and license patents to Microsoft is another in a series of "Antiques Roadshow" moments in the technology world. Faded companies have been rummaging through their assets recently, and some of them have found musty old patents that turn out to be worth a great deal.

Hackers target Mac users

Microsoft, TiVo drop suits against each other

Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc. said Thursday that it had reached an agreement with software maker Microsoft Corp. for the companies to drop lawsuits against each other following TiVo's settlement with AT&T Inc.

Microsoft says no plans for new Xbox anytime soon

Microsoft says it's not coming out with a new Xbox gaming console anytime soon.

Xbox Gamerscore disappearance solved

Software translates your voice to a foreign language

Windows 8 first look — and first touch

Microsoft sees future in Windows 8 amid iPad rise

Microsoft is scrambling to preserve what's left of its kingdom.

Microsoft to Google: Please don't kill Web video

Microsoft hits Motorola, Google with EU complaint

Microsoft on Wednesday lodged a formal complaint with the European Union's competition regulator against Motorola Mobility and its soon-to-be owner Google, saying Motorola's aggressive enforcement of patent rights against rivals breaks competition rules.

Android future unclear as desktop and mobile OS unite

MSN adds new feature to take Internet's pulse

Microsoft is hooking up MSN.com with a hipper sidekick to broaden its appeal and stay on top of the Internet's hottest topics.

Cisco challenges Microsoft takeover of Skype in EU

Networking company Cisco said Wednesday that it is challenging Microsoft's $8.5 billion takeover of Skype at the European Union's top court to ensure Microsoft won't block other video conferencing services.

Designing Windows 8 — or redesigning a religion

Plug in at America's techiest cities

Microsoft cuts about 200 marketing employees

Microsoft Corp. said it laid off some of its marketing staff on Wednesday as part of an effort to restructure its operations.

Executives looking to push more of cable voice onto the Web.

Has Google Chrome surpassed Internet Explorer to become the world's most used web browser? According to one estimate (as pointed out by Global Nerdy), Chrome is the new king: Statcounter, which measures web usage, shows Chrome overtaking IE in week-over-week usage. Firefox, Sa …

Google can be kickin' some ass now and again.  Given that you get IE with every Windoze computer, this is significant.

Microsoft is currently testing a modified version of Internet Explorer 9 on its Xbox 360 console, according to our sources. The Xbox 360 currently includes Bing voice search, but it's limited to media results. Microsoft's new Internet Explorer browser for Xbox will expand on this …

Apple co-founder Steve 'Woz' Wozniak has sided with Australian consumers on the contentious topic of price discrimination, saying we shouldn't have to pay more for technology goods that cost much less in the United States. His comments, made on ABC radio this morning ahead of  …

Protect yourself from this scam: Hint: Microsoft doesn't make house calls!

 Last night my husband - who works in IT as a systems architect - received a phone call from the vice president of his company.  He said that he had just gotten a call from someone purporting to be from Microsoft, who said that Microsoft  …

After a week of speculation, Microsoft has formally announced plans to offer a subscription-based Xbox 360/Kinect bundle requiring a two-year paid commitment. Customers will pay $99 for a 4 GB Xbox 360 and Kinect up front, then will pay $15 per month for the next two years. The …

Very few companies take as many precautions as Microsoft does when it comes to protecting data and applications. This is an overview of some of the security measures undertaken by Windows Azure.

When Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, spoke about the state of the wireless industry at a conference this week, he shared some surprisingly frank comments about the iPhone. In particular, he said that he wished the company had never offered an unlimited dat …

Public Enemy Number One: Amazon [Updated]

About two weeks ago, shortly after the announcement that the DOJ would be filing a lawsuit against various publishers and Apple, I wrote:

Price-hiking technology vendors are set to be hauled before Australia’s Parliament to justify their local markups, with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy confirming the Government will hold an official parliamentary inquiry into the issue, following a long-running  …

It's widely assumed that the ideas for both Apple's and Microsoft's GUI-based operating systems were heavily lifted from research done at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC. And this clip from 1972, showing off Xerox's Alto desktop computer, all but proves the company w …

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has passed the House, despite privacy concerns and a veto threat from the White House. CISPA, designed to make it easier for companies and the government to share information about cybersecurity threats, passed 248 …

SkyDrive absorbs much of Mesh's functionality as Microsoft's ongoing improvements put the cloud service light years ahead of Dropbox.

So much for the speculation over what Microsoft would do with the 925 patents it just bought from AOL earlier this month. At least part of the mystery is solved. Redmond is reselling most of them to its ally Facebook. Microsoft and Facebook on Monday announced a deal for the s …

Many customers are likely not aware that their phone calls to various private and public company’s are being answered by inmates. In fact the programs have been so successful that prisons have all of a sudden been turned into cash centers, earning millions of dollars per  …

Are Mac users smug and arrogant?

I'm offended by the self-important manner in which Apple has created a technological apartheid, mainly just by charging a lot more, but also by distancing itself from ordinary PCs - that's personal computers to the uninitiated. PCs, Apple wants you to know, are for lowly, poor an …

Microsoft is buying the majority of AOL's patents in a deal worth $1.06bn (£668m). A statement said the agreement covers the intellectual property rights to more than 800 innovations. Microsoft will also be granted licensing rights to about 300 patents that AOL is keepi …

Over the past week I have asked Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Lenovo about their reports on labor conditions. Many, if not all, of these electronics makers also use Foxconn.

Microsoft has yet to officially discuss plans for Windows a release would be consistent with previous Microsoft pledges to release a new desktop operating system every three years

Companies such as Apple have made their name by marketing their products not just as technological tools but as glamorous and fun toys. But this marketing technique is nothing new, as these vintage adverts from the early days of PCs show. They portray computers as fun, easy to  …

Although Microsoft has said the next Xbox won't be launching anytime soon, the rumor mill just won't quit. Gaming blog VG247 is now reporting that Microsoft is hard at work on the next Xbox, and when it finally launches late next year, it'll come with a Blu-ray player. The devi …

More rumors concerning the next wave of home console hardware have made their way onto the vast internet. This latest batch concerns the next Xbox (Xbox 720?), codenamed "Durango," and comes from website VG247. VG247 is reporting that the Xbox 720 will require an internet con …

Sony is "confident" that PlayStation 4 will release before Xbox 720 next Christmas.