Consumer software and hardware

Microsoft to open up more tickets to Build conference

Those of you who failed to score a ticket for Microsoft's Build conference the first time will now get another chance.

A limited number of additional tickets to Build will go on sale starting Wednesday, May 15, at 9 a.m. PT. Scheduled to take place from June 26 to 28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the conference costs $2,095 for a full-price ticket. "Academic" tickets, which are still available in short supply, go for $995 a piece.

Tickets for the popular event initially went on sale on April 2 and apparently sold out … Read more

No iTunes for Windows 8 devices anytime soon

Microsoft Windows 8 users will likely get access to all the most popular apps in Apple's iTunes store. But it's doubtful they'll get iTunes anytime soon, according to a recent interview a Microsoft exec gave to CNN Money.

Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft's Windows division, said that by the holiday season the Microsoft will support the most popular apps in Apple's App Store in its own app store. Microsoft now has more than 60,000 apps available, and users have downloaded about 250 million of them.

But the one app that is likely … Read more

Microsoft continues its kiosk kick, will open new 'specialty stores'

Microsoft's brick-and-mortar store expansion is increasingly happening via "specialty stores," which are kiosks and small storefront-type outlets, typically located in shopping centers and malls.

On May 8, Microsoft announced it will be opening four new specialty stores in May and June. The four newest locales: Roseville, Calif.; Arlington, Texas; Novi, Mich.; and Seattle. In April, Microsoft opened five new specialty stores.

According to Microsoft's Store locator page, there are a total of 34 specialty stores in the U.S. and Canada that are open now and/or opening soon. That's out of a total of … Read more

Windows 8.1 reportedly updates apps silently

Updating apps in Windows 8.1 will apparently be a simpler process than it is in Windows 8.

Users who installed the latest Windows 8.1 build, known as 9385, discovered that several apps had automatically updated themselves in the background, according to blog site Winbeta. One of the apps that took care of its own update was a new one called Movie Moments, which lets people create and edit short video clips.

The new update process could be an improvement over the one in Windows 8. Currently, people are notified of new app updates but need to venture into … Read more

Acer to launch Win 8 tablets with smaller screens this year

Acer plans to launch Windows 8 tablets with smaller screen sizes in the second half of the year, an executive said Friday.

Such devices will feature touch screens smaller than 10 inches, Emmanuel Fromont, Acer president for the Pan America region, and Sumit Agnihotry, Acer vice president of product marketing, told CNET in an interview following an Acer product launch event in New York.

They likely will cost below $400 -- the typical entry point for Windows tablets today -- and will be pushed as productivity devices that link to the traditional PC world more easily than Android devices, the … Read more

Latest Windows 8.1 build beefs up IE developer tools

Developers who need to peek at the code behind Web pages in Internet Explorer will find more robust tools in Windows 8.1.

A leak of Windows 8.1 Build 9385 reveals an overhaul to the developer panel in IE. Pressing F12 in any current version of Internet Explorer displays a panel that allows you to examine the HTML and CSS code, scripts, and many other elements. Developers can use this feature to analyze the code behind third-party Web sites or to troubleshoot problems with their own Web pages.

Windows 8.1 has upped Microsoft's browser to Internet Explorer … Read more

Microsoft's Surface Pro 'is not there yet,' says IDC

An IDC analyst has tough words for Microsoft on tablets. Fixing Surface Pro is job one.

"Surface Pro today is an interesting product, but it's just not there yet," Tom Mainelli, IDC's research director for tablets, said in a phone interview with CNET.

"The battery life's not there. It's too heavy," he added.

And even Surface Pro's touted high performance is a double-edged sword. "While it performs like a notebook, Surface Pro is always going to be compared to other tablets, and tablets really need to run 8 to 10 … Read more

Microsoft hit by patent lawsuit over Skype

Microsoft's ownership of Skype has placed it in the crosshairs of a patent lawsuit.

CopyTele, a company that calls itself "specialists in patent monetization and patent assertion," launched its suit today, alleging that some of the technology used in Skype violates patents owned by its subsidiary, Secure Web Conference Corp.

In its complaint, CopyTele is asserting the infringement of two U.S patents -- "Method and apparatus for securing e-mail attachments" and "Portable telecommunication security device," both granted in 2005.

Both patents concern secure Web-based peer-to-peer communications, such as those used by Skype. … Read more

Windows 8 inches up in desktop OS market

Windows 8 is slowly scratching its way up the OS food chain.

Microsoft's latest version of Windows took home 3.8 percent of all traffic captured by Web tracker Net Applications in April. That proved a small gain from its 3.2 percent share in March.

Starting with a 1.09 percent share in November, Windows 8 sliced out a 1.72 percent share in December. A 2.26 percent share in January helped it sneak past Mac OS X 10.8 to grab fourth place among all desktop operating systems. And February saw another small gain to 2.7 percent.… Read more