Hasta La Gadget!

Despite Steve Ballmer’s apparent disdain for the Googly OS, he must love it really. He’s now making money from ten separate Android and Chrome licensing deals, having just inked yet another agreement with Compal — a large Taiwanese original design manufacturer (ODM) that builds tablets and smartphones for brands like Lenovo. From this point on, a “reasonable and fair” chunk of Compal’s $28 billion annual income will be diverted to the coffers at Redmond. Overall, this means that Microsoft’s tentacles have spread across 55 percent of the Android ODM industry and — more importantly — are poked firmly into two different mobile OS pies. As cut-throat as this approach might seem, however, it’s surely better than freezing the market with cold and ceaseless waves of litigation. PR after the break.

[Thanks, Majed]

Continue reading Microsoft signs Compal deal, now takes money from half of all Android ODMs

Microsoft signs Compal deal, now takes money from half of all Android ODMs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 07:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Microsoft Blog  | Email this | Comments

This article was written on September 12, 2008 by CyberNet.

Last week when Microsoft aired their first Windows ad, a lot of you had lots to say about it. Some of you thought that the commercial simply wasn’t funny while others of you thought that despite the fact there was no direct message, at least they were getting the logo out. We were left pretty confused as to the direction this ad campaign would take, but now that Microsoft has released a second ad, we are starting to get an idea of where it’s headed. Take a look below at the latest ad (it’s over four minutes):

The way we interpret it is that eventually they will bring everything together and the first commercial with the shoes was to represent that you need to find the shoe that fits right, or in the case of Vista, the right version for you whether it be Home Premium or Ultimate. This second commercial could be used to show that Vista is for “real” people since Gates and Seinfeld were living in the “real” world with “real” people.

We’re not sure what they have in store for future ads, but rumor has it that eventually the commercials will become more focused on Vista. So far the commercials have been a little confusing but it is definitely getting people talking, and I think there’s a much bigger picture here that we aren’t able to see yet. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to finding out what else they have in store.

Source

Thanks for the tip Oliver!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Microsoft Officially Launches OneCareMicrosoft Launches New HomepageMicrosoft Office 2007 for $59 – "The Ultimate Steal"Averatec Launches Voya 350 Handheld GPS NavigationHow Much will the Simpsons Themed Xbox Pro Go for on eBay?

This article was written on October 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

Yesterday Microsoft announced a new service called Live Search 411 which will be available soon. Listen to the description: “Customers can gain toll-free access by dialing (800) CALL-411 from any phone to find and connect to local businesses and other local information such as weather updates, movie show times and airline information.  People using a cell phone with Internet access can also receive links to traffic maps from Live Search 411.”

What’s that you say? It sounds similar to Google’s free service called GOOG-411? Well, it is, but who came first? Microsoft’s Live Search 411 was developed jointly with Tellme Networks  which they acquired back in mid-March. Some of you probably remember that about a month after Microsoft acquired them, and a week after Google launched their 411 service, Tellme launched their own 411 Service. Both were probably under development at the same time, but Google happened to launch theirs first.

At the time of the launch we did a quick comparison and found that Google’s service was a bit faster than Tellme’s, but Tellme offers much more information. We concluded that if you were doing a business search, stick with Google, but if you wanted something like stock quotes or weather, Tellme would give you what you want. Seeing as Microsoft’s Live Search 411 isn’t up and running yet, there’s no way to tell what the service will be like.

All I have to say is enough of the competition already. It seems like Google and Microsoft are ALWAYS competing, and it’s not that one is really worse than the other, they both do it. While competition is usually a good thing, often times when Microsoft and Google are competing, it hardly seems worth it. So who came first? Well, technically Google, but if I’m right, Microsoft’s service is just Tellme’s branded with a new name in which case they were in development at the exact same time.

Source: Webware

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Google Uses Billboard to Promote GOOG411*Gasp* Google Takes Two Services Out of Beta!Microsoft Experiments with New Live Search HomepageLive Search 2.0 Reminds Me of GoogleGOOG Yourself a Map…kind of

This article was written on June 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

One thing that Microsoft did a good job of in Internet Explorer 7 was making it easy for users to read feeds. They provided a feed reader that was so simple, yet it does exactly what most casual users want, and that is to keep up on the latest news from around the Web.

Despite doing many things right, there are some things that it doesn’t do, but for those things, there are work-arounds which you might find useful. This includes adding a notifier so that you know when there are new items, and synchronizing with an online service so that your feeds are up-to-date both at work and at home. Here are some tips that you might find helpful if you use the feed reader in Internet Explorer…

–Synchronize with NewsGator Online (Homepage)–

This is one of my favorite add-ons for Internet Explorer because it focuses on the fact that not everyone sits in front of the same computer all day. Many of us go from being at home, to work, and then back home again which is where the NewsGator Desktop Sync comes in handy.

This small, lightweight program installs in a matter of seconds on your computer. Once setup, it will synchronize with an online NewsGator account to keep track of which feeds/posts that you have read. You can choose to have IE override all feed settings, have NewsGator’s online service override all settings, or have the application merge the feeds in the browser and what’s available online.

The System Tray icon gives you easy access to synchronization, and in just a few clicks you can sync up before you go to work or come home. Or, if that seems like too much of a hassle you can actually customize the duration between syncs so that you never even have to think about it.

–Feed Folder (Homepage)–

This add-on doesn’t do that much, but it does make your feeds a little more accessible outside of just Internet Explorer. By using the Feed Folder add-on all of your feeds will be placed in your Favorites bookmarks folder in addition to the normal feed location within Internet Explorer 7. This means that your feeds will quickly be accessible from Windows Explorer as well as the Start Menu (if configured to show Favorites in the Start Menu properties).

–MS Feed Icon (Homepage)–

This is simply a notification system and System Tray icon for the feed reader in IE7. Basically, it adds the most critical thing that Microsoft never put into their browser, but this one does a terrific job of going above and beyond the call of duty. Check out everything it can do:

• Icon in the system tray indicating status of you feed subscriptions
• Displays notifications when a feed contains new posts, and you can customize which feeds receive the notification.
• Can automatically marks a feed as read
• Force an update on all feeds
• Star a notification for later reading (essentially pinning it so that the notification doesn’t close)
• Mark as read without viewing the feed
• Unsubscribe from a feed within the notification window
• Search new posts for specific Tags so you can select which posts are interesting to you. Then any matching posts can be starred to ensure that the notification window does not close until you manually close it.
• Feed statistics
• Presentation mode aware (Windows Vista only)
• Customizable background color

–Feeds Plus (Homepage)–

Feeds Plus makes it possible to read all of your feeds on the same page. This is a really nice feature as long as you don’t have a large number of feeds, but you can always organize your feeds into folders. That way you can just read all of the items on a folder by folder basis.

It also has a built-in notifier that pops up near the System Tray when a feed has new posts, but it isn’t nearly as extensive as what the MS Feed Icon has to offer. Luckily you can disable this notifier so that it doesn’t conflict with MS Feed Icon.

–Summary–

As you can see, there are several tools available that all enhance IE7’s Feed Reader. None of them really make it a full-fledged application like FeedDemon or RSS Bandit, but they help make it a lot more useful.

If you have any other tools that you use with Internet Explorer 7’s feed reader be sure to let us know. We’ve also written two other posts, here and here, on other great add-ons for Internet Explorer 7.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryCyberNotes: Fwicki RSS Reader To Master Your FeedsGoogle Reader Goes MobileNewshutch: Top-Notch RSS Feed ReaderFirefox Changes The Way We Use RSS Feeds

If Apple is that paranoid friend that has four deadbolts on his door and a loaded weapon in every room, then Microsoft is the over-sharer who tweets where, when and what he had for lunch — including both before and after photos (and we’re not talking about pictures of a clean plate). Redmond wants you to know about everything it does — no accomplishment is too minor for a lengthy explanation of the what and why. Take for example, portrait mode. Windows 8 will have one. We know what you’re thinking, “well I would frackin’ hope so,” but the devs want you to know this isn’t just some feature they slapped in the OS knowing people would expect it. The team studied users both familiar with and new to the tablet form factor. They looked at grip, posture and when people chose to rotate their slates. And, if you’re some weirdo who likes reading things on their side, there’s a rotation lock option. For more details hit up the source link and the video after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft talks Windows 8 portrait mode, really wants you to be proud of it (video)

Microsoft talks Windows 8 portrait mode, really wants you to be proud of it (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear, WinRumors  |  Building Windows 8  | Email this | Comments