Tag: microsoft

Chinese Whispers style reporting is why tech blogs can’t have nice toys

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Paul Thurrott on the whole one hundred million dollars of PR for Microsoft and Nokia stories going around. This is why blogging rumours on top of rumours on top of guesswork to chase page-views really damages a lot of tech reporting online. I’ve been sitting on this information for weeks so that Microsoft can make its big announcement at CES this coming week. But with these leaks, as with the equally inaccurate LTE leaks last week, I felt the need to set the record straight. The way tech blogs work these days is that any information, no matter how inaccurate,

Yet again the knowledge of Zune is ignored

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In all the talk of the Facebook phone, a few sites have suggested that a Zuckerberg phone would be as much a folly as the Zune project from Microsoft. Of course the Zune wasn’t a huge seller in the marketplace (but it has many supports, myself included) but I would argue it helped Microsoft in other areas that are just as important: A long time ago, I sorted myself out with a Zune HD – the final iteration of the Zune Media Players boasted a touch screen, an innovative new interface, a dedicated PC environment for syncing and managing media

Windows Phone could have 50,000 apps by the end of the year

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Okay, Rafe Blandford’s projections actually have the 50K mark being passed in early January, but with a bundle of new developers and the general extra buzz thanks to Nokia’s successful launch of the Lumia 800 today (well, they would say that, wouldn’t they), I think that milestone is on before the end of 2011. And who would have said that was achievable at the start of the year outside of Redmond? …the Windows Phone Marketplace has now passed the 40,000 app and games submission mark. Content is being added at the rate of 165 items per day… at the time of writing,

What if Android just went away?

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David Gilson (moonlighting at Blottr instead of the All About family), talks about the current state of play in the Android world with the linkbaiting headline of “Is Android Doomed?” Google has to walk a fine line of not being seen to give preferential treatment to Motorola Mobility, in order to stop the likes of HTC and Samsung quitting Android. So far it’s been doing a good job, by means of helping them to fight its proxy patent war against Apple. An interesting read…

Gavin Kim to Microsoft: Career development, or insidious Samsung plot to destroy Nokia?

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It’s either (a) Gavin Kim moves from Samsung to Microsoft because it’s a better job for him, it’s better for his family, and he wants to try something new. …or (b) Samsung know Android is dead, that all the lawsuits will kill it, and we don’t want to be beaten by Nokia again, so why not drop one of our VP’s into the top levels of Windows Phone so when we do decide to switch we’ll get preferential treatment and not be left behind. Gotta love some of the geekerati commentary this morning.

All About… Metro UI

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One of the talks at the recent Nokia World was Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore talking about the design of Metro UI – which drives Windows Phone Windows 8, the Zune HD, the Xbox and more. The three main principles? “People first” – your friends and loved ones (and what they’re up to) should be front and centre in the interface. Being ‘people first’ is. Joe contends, fundamentally different to iOS, Blackberry, Symbian and other mobile operating systems, which all force an “application by application” basis. “Celebrate me” – Joe contrasted the effortless celebration of ‘you’ to Android’s customisability, where you have