Microsoft

A recent security update from antivirus company McAfee has resulted in an estimated "hundreds of thousands" of crashed Windows XP computers. The issue appears to be widespread, causing PCs to crash, freeze, or be stuck in and endless reboot loop, ... thereby rendering the PCs completely unusable. The impact of the malicious update thus far has been staggering. According to the University of Michigan's medical school, almost 1/4 of its PCs (8,000 of 25,000) crashed after the update was applied. The Lexington, Kentucky police force reported shortly afterwards that it had been forced to ... (view more)

Microsoft, like competitor Apple before it, has become embroiled in a scandal over the treatment of its foreign workers. But it's arguably more embarrassing, as the details continue to emerge via third-party investigation. When stories broke about ... labor violations among staff working overseas on Apple products, the negative publicity was tempered by the fact that it was Apple's own program which uncovered the abuses. That's not the case with the Microsoft allegations, however. The claims come in a report by the National Labor Committee, an independent pressure group which aims to uncover and ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that it will no longer provide support for the first retail version of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturers (RTM). The move is intended to force early adopters of Windows Vista to upgrade their systems using at ... least Vista Service Pack 1 or 2. Microsoft made the announcement on Vista RTM Tuesday. According to a spokesperson for the Redmond-based firm, "Today, Windows Vista RTM has reached end of support... End of support means that customers can no longer receive support benefits from Microsoft and will need to upgrade to a supported service pack (Windows ... (view more)

Microsoft is wasting little time in developing the successor to their recently released Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) browser. Many believe that Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) will be a much improved browser. IE9: New HTML5 and Improved Java Engine Changes ... discussed thus far for IE9 include: the addition of Hyper Text Markup Language version 5 (HTML5), and support for a faster, new JavaScript engine called "Chakra". According to Internet Explorer GM Dean Hachamovitch, IE9 will improve HTML5 applications by taking advantage of PC hardware through Vista and Windows 7. With IE9, Microsoft is looking to ... (view more)

Less than two weeks after Microsoft patched a significant zero-day flaw in its Internet Explorer web browser, it's come to light that a Java vulnerability in the software company's Windows operating system (OS) could compromise PCs if they visit a ... particular web page infected with malicious code. Thus far, two researchers working for different security companies have reported on the matter. Late last week, Tavis Ormandy, an engineer for Google, covered the issue in the Full Discloser email list while Ruben Satamarta, an engineer at Wintercore, discussed the issue on his company's web site. ... (view more)

It's been a long time coming. Thanks to a recently leaked build of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), rumors circulating around the Internet suggest that the update's beta version could be available in the next month or two. It appears a few different ... builds have made their way online. The first, reviewed by tech blog GeekSmack, features a compile date of March 27th, suggesting that the build is fairly new and intended to show off how SP1 is looking at the moment. Windows 7 Service Pack 1: Highlights Critics have thus far marveled at a number of things: for one, SP1's installation speed. ... (view more)

Microsoft has released a revised beta edition of Windows High Performance Computer Server (HPC Server), in its effort to crack the supercomputing market. The new edition makes several changes which improve integration with Linux machines. ... Supercomputing is all about processing speed: the idea being to produce computers capable of performing as many calculations as possible. The types of employed tasks tend not to be technically complicated, but instead involve a great deal of detail. A typical example of supercomputing would be data modeling, in which a computer simulates future events where ... (view more)

Taiwan computer manufacturer Asus has announced it will release at least two tablet PCs in the next few months. They'll join a growing list of potential rivals to the much-hyped Apple iPad. Asus is better know for producing netbooks: indeed, it can ... be argued that its Eee PC, released in 2007, helped establish the market for the slimmed-down notebooks designed mainly for Internet browsing and light office tasks. Chairman Jonney Shih told Forbes that Asus is still committed to netbooks, but believes there is a gap in the market between netbooks and smartphones which can be filled by tablet- ... (view more)

Windows 7 launched on October 22, 2009 -- just over five months ago -- but has already gained substantial ground on Microsoft's previous operating system (OS), Windows Vista. According to a recent report from industry analysts Net Applications, ... Windows 7 now accounts for an impressive 10 per cent of the total OS market share. Windows Vista, which launched over three years ago now, is slowly but surely watching its share of the pie decline. (Source: rcpmag.com ) For the record, it took Vista over a year to hit the 10 per cent plateau. Windows 7 is expected to surpass Vista in total market ... (view more)

Microsoft's share of the web browser market has dropped since the release of the " browser choice " screen in Europe. But the decline is not significant enough to draw firm conclusions that the ballot is making a serious difference. The browser ... ballot is the result of a settlement between Microsoft and the European Union (EU) over antitrust concerns related to Internet Explorer's packaging in the Windows operating system. The screen has been appearing gradually since March 1, 2010 to all users in EU countries who have Internet Explorer (IE) set as their default browser. It prompts ... (view more)