Of the nine companies supposedly working with the government on PRISM, four and a half — Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft (which may or may not include Skype), Apple, and Google (sort of) — have disclosed the number of government requests they get including the secret FISA court ones, giving us an idea of which tech company the government loves most.
In a move as fiendishly clever as it is galling, Microsoft tells the U.S. government about bugs in its notoriously buggy software before it fixes them so that intelligence agencies can use the vulnerabilities for the purposes of cyberspying. And that's just one of the new revelations that the tech world is in bed espionage agencies.
Ashton Williams has clarified that she did not take offense, which does not change the fact that Microsoft prominently featured an "off the cuff" rape reference at the company's biggest presentation for one of its biggest products ever, the Xbox One. And it doesn't appear to be changing the gender roles in the gaming industry either.
Now that we know all the specs about Microsoft and Sony's new video-game-and-lots-of-other-stuff consoles, it's time to settle this war before it gets any uglier: Which system is better when they're put side-by-side in an early test of living-room supremacy? Let's break it down.
Perhaps more than any segment of the technology industry, gamer culture has had its fair share of sexism problems, so it's not that surprising that a Microsoft presenter slipped an apparent rape reference into a Monday presentation at the biggest video-game conference of the year.
After taking a little break from the classic Mac-vs- PC wars to punch a little lower (at Samsung), Microsoft has decided to return to its old rivalry, hoping to revive slow Surface tablet sales with a little anti-Apple advertising.
Isn't this supposed to be a video game thing? Well, yes, but Microsoft's mission with the Xbox One is to navigate everything you do on a television, from talking to it and watching it to interacting with every gamer on the planet. Let's break down just how this bad boy can transform your living room.
When Microsoft released Windows 8 last fall, a lot of people thought it could be the PC's savior, a hip-looking new thing that made those clunky IBM-compatibles cool again. In fact, it's quite the opposite.
Instead of going after its usual foe, Microsoft's attack-hungry marketing department has transformed Samsung and the uber-popular Galaxy S III into its latest tech enemy — just another indication that Apple's no longer king of the smartphone makers.
The tired spat between Google and Microsoft just got a lot more interesting after reports that the search giant tipped off European authorities to antitrust concerns, a tip that will now cost the Windows-maker nearly a billion dollars.
The European Commission has fined Microsoft $731 million for breaking an anti-trust promise, setting a strong precedent for how things can go for Google in its European anti-trust investigation.
Sony is set to unveil the first new PlayStation console in seven years at an event this evening, in hopes of catching up to Microsoft and Nintendo.
In its latest attempt to take down Google with a negative fervor unseen since, well, November, Microsoft has begun a three-month ad campaign for Outlook that will cost between $30 and $90 million — and focus almost entirely on how terrible Gmail is.
After weeks of rumored talks, Dell has announced its sale to Microsoft, Silver Lake Partners, and founder Michael Dell for $24.4 billion, the biggest leveraged buyout since the 2008 financial crisis.
Despite the rise of the phablet and its friends, the battle of the very expensive tablets is very much upon us as Apple announced an $800, 128GB version of its iPad on Tuesday morning — less than two weeks before its enemies at Microsoft will launch a $900, 128GB tablet, the Surface Pro.
Sales figures for its new tablet were perhaps the most conspicuously absent part of the software giant's on-target earnings report after the markets closed on Thursday. Here's why.
The latest great idea in saving big-old tech companies is to remind people of a better era.
The tech turf wars are raging on, and there is one notable giant largely missing from battle, report The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. So Microsoft lost 2012. But what about next year?
After almost three years without an update, and with Windows 8 sales flailing, Microsoft will release a new Xbox just in time for Christmas next year.
The new Microsoft marketing push to get users to switch to Bing is more anti-Google than pro-anything, and it's not exactly working at all.
Most of the earlier reviewers didn't wholeheartedly love the tablet, but TechCrunch's MG Siegler just goes full-on Grinch on the thing.
One would think that sources ROFLOLzing in the face of a possible joint Yahoo-Facebook search venture would quiet the rumors that the two companies are thinking about working together, but it has only led to further rumoring.
The new Microsoft operating system that all the reviewers called confusing isn't exactly winning over consumers either.
The timing of Windows 8 mastermind Steve Sinofsky's departure is starting to make more sense: Microsoft got the product it wanted out of him (Windows 8) and therefore doesn't need him anymore.
Steve Sinofsky, the guy behind Windows 8 and once touted as a possible successor to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, left the company yesterday because of his prickliness, even though he got things done, a source tells The New York Times's Nick Wingfield.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
That was quick. Less than a month after Windows 8 hit shelves slightly obscured by the flurry of mixed reviews, the software's chief architect Steven Sinofsky is leaving the company.
Without any organic excitement for today's Surface tablet debut, Microsoft has resorted to faking it.
If techies think Microsoft's new Surface tablet is just an iPad knock off, wait until they see North Korea's.
So Microsoft had a big fancy event in which they described everything we already knew about Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, without any Foo Fighters or any sky diving stunts, and the tech bloggers are disappointed.
As expected, Microsoft has taken this event to give us reasons to love its new operating system.
Just before Microsoft's Surface goes on sale tomorrow, the gadget professionals have spent time with the hybrid computer tablet, and while everyone is certain that it's different from anything out there, including the iPad, no one is sure that's really a good thing.
With less than a week to go before the big Windows 8 launch on October 26, everybody seems to be converging on the same unambiguous conclusion about the new software: bafflement.
A little over a week before its event, Microsoft accidently posted on its website (since now taken down) the prices for its new Surface tablets. At $500 for the 32GB model, it will run $100 less than the 32GB iPad 3.
Discovered: The quantum study that upset the Higgs; computing by waving a gloveless hand; crash dummies that better represent women; how music tastes are formed.
Microsoft has started sending out invitations for an October 25 "Microsoft Surface Reception," where the company will presumably tell us all the details about its tablet that were left out of the initial announcement back in June.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
After taking Bing up on its "Bing It On Challenge," which asks Internet searchers to use Google and Bing in a side-by-side blind test, to our surprise we have discovered that Bing delivered just as often as Google.
Apple has finally put the Genius Bar online -- kind of, sort of, anyway.
Playing around with the manufacturers version of the not-yet-widely released Windows 8, programmer (and hacker) Nadim Kobeissi discovered that the operating system "tells Microsoft about everything you install" and does that "not very securely."
Microsoft has introduced a new logo that the company says is its first revision in 25 years, which isn't exactly true.
The new data analysis system New York police department unveiled Monday not only monitors images from surveillance cameras, license plate scanners, and myriad other data streams citywide, in real time, it also has the power to make the NYPD money.
Microsoft just revamped its Hotmail email client, which is now called Outlook.com, and while a lot of people abandoned the free mail service, it's especially worth considering in light of Gmail's not-so-well-received redesign from late last year.
The way in which we got today's information and "information" regarding Microsoft and Apple's respective tablet projects teaches us something about each of these company's attempts to be secretive.
Microsoft and NBC News have finalized their online news divorce, with Microsoft receiving roughly $300 million for its 50 percent share in the site, according to The New York Times' Brian Stelter.
When thinking about his own life over the last ten years, Microsoft's very well paid CEO does not consider it a lost decade.
The challenge of knowing the difference between MSNBC.com MSNBC the cable news network may be over by next week, if a deal to separate from Microsoft goes through as quickly as The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz says it will.
The once dominant tech company is just now playing catch-up to the hip forward-thinking Apple and now we know what took it so long: bureaucracy.
Microsoft not only dumped all of its hardware partners before making the Surface tablet, like a boyfriend playing his various squeezes, it first forced them into a race to the bottom, leaving them once it had wrung out every last drop of their value.
Looking to (stealing from?) Apple, Microsoft went for a super-secret approach to its tablet launch and it's still paying off, with the Surface dominating today's tech rumor news.
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