The temporary price cut that Microsoft made to its Surface tablets earlier this month will be permanent, it has been revealed, leaving both the Surface Pro and the Surface RT varieties of the tablets — as well as the Touch Cover — a fair bit cheaper. The price change isn’t instantaneous, however, with the company […]
We’ve heard a lot of rumors over the past few months that Microsoft is working on the next generation Surface tablets. The company’s tablet hasn’t exactly won over the market, in fact Microsoft took a $900 million hit because of it. They’ve slashed prices and offered them to schools at a fraction of the original price, but all of that hasn’t translated into success for the tablet. Perhaps Microsoft will have better luck with the next generation Surface tablets. Rumor has it that Surface 2 might drop the “RT” for good.
AdDuplex claims to have spotted new Surface tablets accessing its Windows ad network regularly. The devices that appear are named “Microsoft Corporation Surface 2″ and “Microsoft Corporation Surface with Windows 8.1 Pro.” The first one will be running Windows RT like the current Surface RT does. Nothing has been confirmed right now though, this is merely an observation. The difference between RT and Pro Surface tablets isn’t limited to the OS, Pro comes with much better hardware and subsequently costs much more. Would it make any difference at all if Microsoft decided not to attach the “RT” label to its entry level next generation Surface tablet? After all, it doesn’t really have any relation to the tablet’s performance and design, the two key factors upon which its success is going to be determined.
Microsoft Surface 2 May Ditch The ‘RT’ Label original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Late last week, Microsoft announced its current CEO, Steve Ballmer, would be retiring from his role within the next 12 months. At the time, Microsoft didn’t give any details in regards to why exactly Ballmer was making his exit from the company, instead taking the time to show their appreciation for his previous work to help shape the company into what it is today. But one analyst is arguing that Ballmer may have been pushed out of his CEO role due exceptionally poor sales of the Microsoft Surface RT. (more…)
Microsoft May Have Forced Ballmer’s Retirement Due To Surface RT Debacle original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Being creative in this day and age is even easier than ever before, considering the number of options that you have on hand. The introduction of technology in the form of smartphones, tablets, digital tablets, and the ilk make the arts even more interesting. Enter this huge “piano” that you can see in the video above – where it was created by a Microsoft team in Germany who used a total of 88 Surface RT tablets. Each of these tablets were specially programmed to play just one key (talk about overkill!), where this massive digital “piano” is the coolest musical instrument on the block at the moment.
It just goes to show how versatile that Microsoft’s tablet can be when it has been specially repurposed in a manner that one would not have expected in the first place. Of course, those with longer and more reliable memories will be able to recall the situation a few months back when Microsoft displayed their Windows 8 operating system that ran on an Asus tablet, poking fun at the iPad for doing something as ostentatious, touting the iPad to be nearly a toy compared to the real man’s tablet which runs on Windows 8. Karma can return to bite back, hard!
Giant “Piano” Made Up Of Surface RT Tablets original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Microsoft previewed its Bing for Schools initiative back in June, an opt-in program for educational institutions that allows schools to sign up to offer a version of Bing to their students that drops advertisements and increases privacy protections. The Bing for Schools program launches for K through 12 schools today, and as an added bonus, using it will earn users points that their school can redeem for free Surface RT tablets.
Students, parents and anyone else who wants to contribute get credits via Microsoft’s Bing Rewards program for using the search engine, and can add those to a general pool for a specific school. Once a school hits 30,000 points, it gets a free Surface RT tablet, complete with a Touch Cover (the one with the capacitive keyboard built-in). The conversion is roughly such that about 60 users contributing to a school and using Bing as their default search engine can earn a school a Surface RT per month, which actually sounds pretty good.
Of course, the Surface RT is not the finest of all devices under the sun, and some argue that it probably shouldn’t exist to begin with. But at least they’ll do some good in schools, as opposed to sitting around on store shelves. And for Microsoft, the benefit is getting more hardware in the hands of educational institutions and students; that’s a highly attractive market to any computer or software maker.
The Bing for Schools pilot project launches today in a number of districts that have signed up to take part in the pilot project, which covers over 800,000 students going into the new school year. In addition to the benefits listed above, the program also offers automatic strict filtering of adult content, as well as lesson plans based on the Bing home page, broken up into three categories targeted at grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12.
If you’re already Binging, you might as well sign up and support a school, no matter where you happen to be located – turning your searches for cat gifs into tech bonuses for kids is never a bad thing.
Just last month, Microsoft introduced a new firmware update for their Surface RT tablet which admittedly, has not fared as well as expected in the market. Well, I guess Microsoft has been in such a situation before with their original Xbox console that didn’t make much headway, if any, in Japan, but they persevered and the Xbox 360 did a whole lot better in comparison after that. Here we are with word that Microsoft has just introduced a new firmware update for both the Surface RT tablet as well as the Surface Pro tablet, which would be part of the monthly Patch Tuesday event.
The Surface RT patch notes point out that the UEFI firmware update was specially designed in order to improve the tablet’s audio capability even when its volume levels have been set to low. Not only that, this update will also fix what Microsoft called a “perceived pulsing” in the audio volume whenever the Surface RT happens to run on selected content, while the updated drivers help to “enhance stability and reliability.”
As for the Surface Pro, both the UEFI and System Aggregator firmware have been improved, so the entire system should be more stable and reliable. Have you patched up your respective Surface tablet already?
Surface RT And Surface Pro Get Firmware Updates original content from Ubergizmo. 
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It is safe to say that despite all the initial fuss and hype, Microsoft’s Surface tablets aren’t doing as well as Microsoft would have liked, forcing the company to slash prices and write-down inventory. Unfortunately due to Microsoft being a public company, not only do they have their customers to answer to, but they also have their investors to answer to and it seems that some of them are not too happy, and have recently filed a lawsuit against Microsoft to hold them accountable for their failings and accusing them of engaging in false and misleading statements regarding Surface sales.
According to the lawsuit, the investors claim that prior to Microsoft announcing the write-down, they should have already known that was going to happen and that Microsoft should have said something earlier which would have then allowed the investors to make a better decision with their investments. While it does sound somewhat reasonable, the trick here would be to prove when exactly did Microsoft know that the Surface RT wasn’t doing as well which might be a pretty hard thing to do, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled nonetheless. Perhaps Microsoft’s next-gen Surface will be able to become a success and appease their customers and investors.
Investors Sue Microsoft Over Surface Performance original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Microsoft is in a tough spot. Windows RT is all but dead in the water. But Microsoft has approximately a zillion and a half Surface RT tablets collecting dust in warehouses. And so Ballmer and Co. continued its ignorant fight against Apple and the far more successful iPad with another TV spot that pits the two against each other.
Spoiler: The Surface RT is declared the winner.
Like in previous commercials, the Surface RT’s legitimate advantages are touted over the iPad and iOS. And in many cases, Microsoft isn’t exactly deceitful. The Surface, and with that, Windows RT, has clear advantages over the iPad. At first blush Windows RT feels more productive and advanced than iOS. But after a couple of swipes left and right on the Start Screen, the novelty wears off.
Of course Microsoft failed to stack Windows RT’s apps against those found in iOS.
Windows RT was a dog from the start. And now that Asus pulled back from the market, the little brother to Windows 8 will quickly fade into irrelevance. With Asus out, just Dell and Microsoft remain as the only Windows RT hardware providers. Samsung, HTC, HP, and Lenovo previously pulled plans for a Windows RT tablet.
“It’s not only our opinion,” CEO Jerry Shen remarked to the Wall Street Journal. “The industry sentiment is also that Windows RT has not been successful.”
At this point, with Windows RT’s support quickly drying up, Microsoft is doing consumers a disservice attempting to pawn their unsuccessful tablet onto unsuspecting buyers shopping on specs alone. The Windows RT product segment will soon be dead, and with it, the little developer support it currently has will quickly follow suit, leaving consumers with a tablet that will be stuck in the past.
Like I wrote in June, Microsoft, stop trying to make Windows RT happen.
The Surface RT may not have lived up to every expectation Microsoft had, but it doesn’t look like that is going to stop them from returning with a follow-up model. Despite nothing official coming from Microsoft just yet, there is already talk of that follow-up device. That talk has come by way of NVIDIA’s CEO […]
The iPad has been dominating the tablet scene for quite a while now, although recent numbers show that perhaps Apple could be losing their grip at the number one position to Android manufacturers who have been churning out pretty impressive hardware with affordable prices, the new Nexus 7 being a prime example. In any case the iPad is still considered by some as the tablet to beat, and despite Microsoft’s recent woes with their Surface tablets, it looks like the company has decided to take another shot at the iPad, showing off some of the shortcomings of the iPad versus the Microsoft Surface RT tablet. Some of the iPad’s shortcomings, according to Microsoft, would be its smaller display, a lack of a physical keyboard and a kickstand, and how the Surface RT tablet can be used with Microsoft Office while the iPad does not come with productivity suites, just to name a few.
Some of these shortcomings are novel and might not be as important – for example a larger display might not be favored by those who want a slightly more discrete tablet, and the kickstand and keyboard aren’t exactly deal-breakers as well, although admittedly the lack of USB and Microsoft Office could be especially by those who plan to use it in a work setting where they might need to type up documents and prepare Power Point slides. Either way we reckon it’s really a matter of preference in the end, but what do you guys think?
New Microsoft Surface RT Ad Highlights The iPad’s Shortcomings original content from Ubergizmo. 
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