Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani to star in Windows Phone 8 ads?

If you're going to ensure that your new Windows Phone 8 is going to be respected as the only machine with which to be seen, you don't want has-beens holding them in ads.

You want Jay-Z, not Jay Leno.

And so the rumor is that Microsoft has employed not merely Jay-Z, but one of the queens of dressing-up and occasionally singing -- Gwen Stefani -- to implant its phones into the cool side of human brains.

According to the Sun, these fine aspirational figures will be thrust forward any minute now to bend your mind.

They are to … Read more

Nvidia still has a lot to prove in the mobile market

Nvidia may be flying high on its tablet wins, but it still has a long way to go before it can call itself a real mobile player.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company, traditionally known for making graphics processing units found in computers and game consoles, has been counting on its Tegra mobile chip to help offset weakness in its core PC market. So far, it hasn't been enough. Nvidia is showing up in many tablets, but its presence in smartphones is minimal. In addition, the bulk of Tegra sales are for a couple of tablets, the Google Nexus 7 … Read more

HTC's Windows Phone 8X, Nokia Lumia 822 ship November 13

Verizon Wireless is launching not one, but two Windows Phone 8-based devices next week.

The company announced on its site today that the HTC Windows Phone 8X and the Nokia Lumia 822 will both ship on November 13.

The HTC Windows Phone 8X comes with a 4.3-inch display and 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. The device comes in the customer's choice of blue, red, or black. The handset can connect to Verizon's LTE network and comes with 16GB of onboard storage. It will retail for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

The Nokia Lumia 822 is a bit cheaper … Read more

AT&T unveils pricing for Windows Phone 8X, Lumia 920, 820

AT&T unveiled the pricing for its Windows Phone 8 devices with the hope that the three phones appeal to different customers.

The Windows Phone 8X from HTC will cost $199.99 with a two-year contract, although a yellow or blue-colored version with half the memory will be available as an exclusive product for $99.99. The device can be combined with an optional wireless charging case, while the Verizon Wireless version will have wireless charging built in to the phone.

AT&T said that the phones will be available for order on Nov. 9, and will ship … Read more

Windows Phone Store boasts new ways to find apps

Multi-core processing and NFC support aren't the only big new tricks in Windows Phone 8. Microsoft has added fresh ways to sift through its apps store too. … Read more

Qualcomm's Q4 shows gap between mobile, PC chipmakers

In case the market needs more evidence of the strength of mobile versus PCs, all it has to do is look at Qualcomm.

The wireless-chip maker, which helped popularize the CDMA technology used in cell phones, today reported quarterly financial results that were better than it had anticipated, and it provided bullish projections for the current period and year.

Its strong results -- which sent shares up about 8 percent in after-hours trading -- contrast pretty sharply with the dismal forecasts from many other semiconductor companies, most notably PC chip giant Intel. Intel last month gave a fairly grim outlook … Read more

Surface tension: Acer needs to shut up about Microsoft tablet

Acer may only be hurting itself by criticizing Microsoft.

The Taiwanese company, best known for its low-cost Netbooks from several years ago, has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Microsoft's new hardware push since the software giant first revealed its plans in June. Comments have ranged from pleas for Microsoft to change its plans to predictions Surface will flop. The common theme is that Acer believes Microsoft should stick to what it knows -- software -- and leave the hardware to its partners.

The problem with that criticism, though, is that it makes Acer look like a … Read more

Acer warns Microsoft that hardware is like 'hard rice'

Acer is pretty peeved with Microsoft's hardware push and continues to let the software giant know it.

The latest comments from the Taiwanese computer maker again criticize Microsoft's recent push to compete with its hardware partners.

According to a rough translation from Google, Linxian Lang, Acer's manager of Greater China operations, compared making hardware to food. He described the process to "hard rice" that's "not so easy to eat."

Of course, the translation is riddled with errors, but the general sentiment is clear: Acer thinks Microsoft should stick to what it does … Read more

Microsoft cues up the Windows Phone 8 ball

Just before Hurricane Sandy started to pummel the East Coast this week, Microsoft managed to grab the tech headlines with the official debut of Windows Phone 8.

The launch of the next-generation mobile operating system, which came on the heels of last week's splashy Windows 8 debut, got people talking with its support for multicore processors and mobile payments, and its tighter relationship with the Windows platform. And as with Windows 8, Window Phone 8 uses live tiles instead of icons. (Though Microsoft is already being sued for those tiles, over patent-infringement claims.)

So far, Windows Phone 8 has … Read more