Hasta La Gadget!

Nothing like rumors of corporate layoffs to throw 89,000 Microsoft employees into unproductive turmoil. This time the rumors are being mongered by the Wall Street Journal and TechFlash, both of whom have been told to expect “far smaller” cuts than the 5,000 heads lost during the global financial downturn. And while it’s easy to come to the conclusion that this round of layoffs is the result of the Kin debacle, keep in mind that Microsoft is entering a new fiscal year — the perfect time (from a budgetary perspective) to trim down and refocus on new strategies. Still, if this does affect the Kin team, then let’s just hope that the skilled engineers toiling inside the project’s pink trenches are spared when the reductions begin as soon as today, according to TechFlash. While J Allard may be gone, one executive alone doesn’t create a culture and governance model that builds multi-million dollar silos of duplication and then turns a blind eye to inter-team stonewalling. We say aim high when it comes time to swing that axe Microsoft.

Update: TechFlash is now reporting that, yes, Redmond has wielded its handled blade. At this point it’s suggested to run only in the hundreds across the globe, and “the low hundreds in the Seattle region,” across several groups. Sounds indeed more like a pruning of its over 88,000-strong workforce and less like Kin fallout.

Microsoft layoffs: the axeman cometh? (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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O, to see what Omio sees. The outlet has obtained what it claims to be “a huge UK mobile phone release schedule for the rest of the year… [from] all the manufacturers” (emphasis its own). So, from where would such an all-encompassing roadmap hail? We don’t know, nor can we corroborate any of this, but the details are numerous so let’s go through it — albeit with cautious optimism and a few grains of salt. The biggest phone we can see of this baker’s dozen of a lineup is the HTC Gold (sound familiar?), due in November and loaded with Microsoft’s mobile OS newcomer Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, that’s all the information provided, but it’s certainly enough to entice us. Also in November, we’ve got Samsung i8700 and Nokia E7 — the latter being possibly a N8-esque QWERTY slider with AMOLED display and Symbian^3, and the former being a mystery (although Omio takes a gander that its aquatic Greek mythology might suggest a Bada-powered existence).

Going up the list Memento style, October purportedly brings across the pond-ers HTC Vision, the virtually unknown HTC Ace, Nokia N8, and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X8 and Yendo. September’s a bit of a yawner — SE Hazel and a Nokia X2 candybar — as is August with the X6 8GB and BlackBerry Curve 9300. And July? Nokia E5-00, Sony Ericsson W20, and Samsung i5500. As is usually the case, the more you can wait, the better your options. Now, let’s see if this supposed roadmap stays on course.

HTC Gold with Windows Phone 7 in November, and more from a rumored UK roadmap leak originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re usually pleasantly surprised by the interface technology out of Redmond, but we rarely see Microsoft tackle anything as simple as a TV remote control. However, a July 1st patent application by the software giant describes a fairly interesting gizmo with controls on multiple sides. With a six-axis inertial sensor package, the unit always knows which direction is up and activates only that side — allowing engineers to slim down the unit (or cram more buttons into the same space) by putting contextually-aware touchscreens on any surface of the device. When you move the remote, the sensors detect that, too, and immediately illuminate the screen. Just goes to show you can always find a new angle for mundane technology, eh?

Microsoft patent application proposes six-axis remote that’s buttered on both sides originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

There may have been a lot of behind-the-scenes machinations at Microsoft and Verizon that resulted in the discontinuation of the Kin One and the Kin Two, but there were also many marketplace miscues that resulted in the demise of the handsets. Here, then, were Kin’s seven deadly sins:

Lust. With the Kin handsets, Microsoft was too eager to get its hands into the pockets of young social networkers for whom the smartphone market had proven elusive. The key paradox of this was that the Kin data plan was the same for that of other smartphones at Verizon, and that continued to shut out those who aspired to mobile digital sharing nirvana.

Gluttony. If Microsoft was angling to get Verizon to offer a sweetheart deal for Kin data, it certainly didn’t help its cause with the automatic backup of rich media to the Kin Studio website. If there was one aspect to the Kin handsets operation that may pave the way toward future success, it was the Silverlight-based web interface to all the media that was captured with the device. This also allowed Microsoft and Sharp to minimize the amount of on-device storage. However, constantly backing up high-resolution photos and even standard-definition videos to the cloud required a lot of bandwidth, making it difficult for Verizon to justify a “light” data usage plan for Kin users.

Continue reading Switched On: Kin’s seven deadly sins

Switched On: Kin’s seven deadly sins originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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