windows rt

Since May, Microsoft has dished out announcement after announcement and put on event after event. Now the company is taking a short breather.

Frank Shaw, Redmond's vice president for corporate communications, said in a blog post that the software giant is "taking a breath or two" after two months of hard work at a "blistering pace."

Since May 31, Shaw noted, the company has unveiled the Windows 8 Release Preview, the Surface tablet, showcased Windows Phone 8, and the Office 2013 preview.

The announcement comes a few days after Windows 8 had hit the release to manufacturing … Read more

Microsoft hopes to alleviate one of the oldest PC afflictions known to man: finding and installing printer drivers.

Getting drivers to work properly has always been a daunting task for many. A seemingly straightforward procedure can turn ugly in an instant.

And while driver installation has generally gotten better with each iteration of Windows, printer manufacturers always seem to find a way to gum up the works.

Enter Windows 8. In a blog post today titled Simplifying Printing in Windows 8, Microsoft said it is "reimagining" the print system for Windows 8.

All of that reimagining is incorporated … Read more

Qualcomm's first quad-core Snapdragon chip has arrived in a tablet -- but only for those with $1,300 burning a hole in their pockets and developers.

The tablet packs an APQ8064 Snapdragon S4 quad-core chip -- one of the most highly-anticipated quad-core ARM processors. Why? Because Qualcomm S4 silicon -- currently dual-core -- can be found in popular mobile devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One S.

The S4 is also slated to appear in the 4G version of the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity tablet.

And that means, of course, we can expect the quad-core … Read more

This morning, I installed the Firefox 15 beta on my two favored Android devices: a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and an Asus Nexus 7 tablet.

Big deal, you say. Installing a browser. Ho-hum.

It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is -- because you can't install Firefox on an iPhone, an iPad, or a forthcoming Windows RT tablet.

But on Android, Google has chosen to let any other browser compete directly against its own. For that reason, I regularly use Opera Mini and Opera Mobile alongside Google's Chrome. The Dolphin Browser HD, installed more than 10 … Read more

Microsoft unveiled its plans for Microsoft Office 2013. CNET's already had a chance to do an in-depth hands-on with the new Office. Have more questions? Check out our answers below. … Read more

As Samsung's Android legal woes mount, the hardware giant appears to be showing more interest in Windows.

The Korean hardware giant plans to release a tablet running Windows RT when the forthcoming mobile operating system arrives later this year, sources tell Bloomberg. The news comes on the heels of Samsung's announcement that it would support Windows 8 with an all-in-one PC and a hybrid laptop-tablet.

Details regarding the new device were slim, but Bloomberg said the new tablet would feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The tablet is expected to be released in October.

Windows RT is the first … Read more

Perhaps it goes without saying, but we Microsoft watchers still know very little about the plans of Microsoft hardware partners around Windows 8.

Sure, for a couple of years there have been demos of early hardware (mostly x86-based) running Windows 8. At the recent Computex show, there were even a few details shared by Asus and Toshiba about Windows-on-ARM tablets they're planning, which will run Microsoft's Windows RT operating system.

(Windows RT, formerly known as Windows on ARM, or WOA, is a version of Windows optimized for ARM chips from Nvidia, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm that's largely similar, though not identical to, Windows 8.)… Read more

Hewlett-Packard has chosen not to ARM itself as it preps for the debut later this year of tablets running Microsoft Windows 8.

The big Silicon Valley computer maker confirmed that its first Win 8 tablets will use Intel's x86 architecture, not the ARM-based chips that will run a variant of Windows 8 known formally as Windows RT. HP's first tablet will be aimed at business users, a company representative told CNET.

Windows 8 is the first full-fledged Microsoft operating system designed to run on both Intel and ARM processors. Earlier this month, Microsoft unveiled two self-built Windows 8 tablets dubbed "Surface" … Read more

Microsoft's Surface tablet has got PC makers hopping mad. So, they're going to do something about it.

"[PC makers] are pissed off and they are looking for strategies now to not only counter the iPad but counter Surface," said a source at a large company that's part of the ecosystem -- the component suppliers and device manufacturers -- that does business with PC makers.

Separately, Roger Kay, principal analyst at EndPoint Technologies, told CNET last week that there was no shortage of "teeth gnashing" among PC executives and managers in response to the … Read more