microsoft

Security Essentials fails latest AV-Test

Updated Monday, December 3, 2012, at 11:45 a.m. PDT with comment from Microsoft.

Updated Friday, November 30, 2012, at 1:00 p.m. PDT with comment from AV-Test.org.

In a month of uneven Windows 8 news and reviews, Microsoft is taking another hit. This time, its freeware Security Essentials finds itself in the crosshairs.

Independent German security suite evaluators AV-Test.org publish bimonthly tests that rate the effectiveness of the biggest Windows security suites out there, and the recently published results showed that MSE failed to earn certification on the most recent test. MSE was the only … Read more

Microsoft Surface Pro to get half the battery life of Surface RT

How much does battery life matter to tablet users? Microsoft may soon find out, first hand.

Microsoft went public today with pricing for its Surface Pro PC/tablet devices -- the Intel-based ones running Windows 8 Pro that will allow users to run their existing third-party apps on the desktop. The 64GB version will be $899; the 128GB version, $999. (Both prices include a pen, but no touch or type keyboard/cover. So add another $120 to $130 for that.)

Pricing is not all the team shared about the Microsoft-branded Surface Pros, due out in January 2013.

Surface Pros are … Read more

Facebook ranking would climb with new ComScore system

ComScore has an early Christmas gift for Facebook -- a slight boost in its Internet audience ranking thanks to a change in its measurement system.

ComScore, which tracks Web site visitors and other information, today unveiled its new digital audience measurement and media planning tool dubbed the "Media Metrix Multi-Platform."

Currently in beta in the U.S., the technology tracks audience size and demographics on traditional desktop browsers as well as mobile devices. And it does so in such a way that accounts for people using multiple devices to access the sites.

Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of … Read more

New Microsoft ad Scroogles on the Surface

Since yesterday, you might have already changed your online shopping search methods.

You may have been so moved by your fear of being Scroogled that you immediately decided to Bing every little thing.

No, I am taking an excessively early tipple.

Yesterday, Microsoft launched a site called Scroogle. It informs you that all Google's shopping searches are paid for by companies. It tells you the only honest searches are on Bing.

And now I have bumped into what appears to be a TV spot that tells you the same thing in an even more dramatic way.

Here we have … Read more

Surface Pro price tag: $899

Ever since Microsoft unveiled the Windows RT Surface and its much more PC-like Windows 8 Surface Pro sibling, the big question has been about price. Well, consider the question answered: the Surface Pro will cost $899 for a 64GB version, and $999 for 128GB of storage.

A full ultrabook-level Intel Core i5 processor, 10.6-inch 1,920x1,080-pixel display, 4GB of RAM, and an included Surface Pen are some of the Surface Pro's distinguishing features. Those sexy Touch Covers and Type Covers, both of which are compatible with the Surface Pro, will be sold separately. The real question, of … Read more

Microsoft to IE haters: You're sad

If you despise Internet Explorer, you are a twerp.

You are a sad, lonely doofus who sits alone, night after night, posting stupid, negative comments about a browser that is simply above your station.

You are so truly, irredeemably pathetic that your greatest achievement is to have won a karaoke competition at your local bar in 2008.

No, these are not my harsh words. We never bathe in harshness here.

These are the thoughts and sentiments that emerge from a rather touching new ad produced by Microsoft.

In hyping IE10, the company has decided to confront its critics in the … Read more

Windows 8 launches... and PC sales drop 21 percent. Hmm

Windows 8 isn't exactly lighting a fire under PC sales, according to NPD.

U.S. sales of Windows devices during the initial four-week launch of Windows 8 dropped 21 percent compared with the same period a year ago, the research firm said today.

Notebook sales, which have been on the decline all year, sunk by 24 percent. And desktop sales, which staged a bit of a rebound this year, declined by 9 percent.

"After just four weeks on the market, it's still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market,&… Read more

Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.8 update slated for early 2013

Windows Phone 7.8 -- the update for Windows Phone 7.x that adds tile multisizing support -- is going to roll out to "as many devices as possible" by early 2013.

That's the latest timing I had heard from some of my contacts, and is now officially acknowledged by the Softies, as noted in a November 28 Windows Phone blog post.

The post, authored by Windows Phone chief Terry Myerson, noted that Windows Phone 7.8 is starting to roll out now on new, lower-priced phones in many countries around the world.

But it's … Read more

Ballmer: We're all about devices and services now

BELLEVUE, Wash.--Microsoft may be best known for Windows. It's Office productivity suite runs on hundreds of millions of computers around the world. But Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer made it abundantly clear at today's annual shareholder meeting that the software giant should be thought of as a devices and services company going forward.

"This is really a new era for our company," Ballmer told shareholders today.

The devices and services line is a refrain that Ballmer has been repeating for the last few months, including in a note to shareholders last month. It's an … Read more