Filed under: Computers

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Windows 7 smartphones hit market

Smartphones running Microsoft Corp.’s new software are now available for AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA customers. Get the full story »

Google sues Interior Dept. for favoring Microsoft

Google is suing the U.S. government for excluding its products from being considered for a five-year contract worth about $59 million to upgrade the Department of the Interior’s email system.

In a complaint filed on Friday, Google said the government abused its discretion and acted in a manner that was “arbitrary and capricious” by only considering sales proposals with email technology based on Microsoft Corp technology. Get the full story »

LinkedIn to let members recommend products

LinkedIn Corp. on Monday plans to launch a new recommendations service that will allow the social network’s more than 80 million members to post reviews of products and services linked to their professional profiles.

Participation is free and voluntary for companies, which would need to set up company profile pages and add products to be reviewed before users could leave a recommendation. The program has some 30 participating companies at launch, including JetBlue, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Microsoft Corp. and Harvard Business School Executive Education. Get the full story »

Apple sues Motorola over smartphone software

Apple Inc. sued Motorola Inc., alleging that the company’s smartphone lineup and the operating software it uses infringe on the iPhone-maker’s intellectual property.

The two lawsuits came after Motorola sued Apple in October for patent infringement and were the latest skirmish in a long-running series of disputes in the fiercely competitive smartphone industry. Get the full story »

Microsoft 3Q earnings up 51% on Windows, Office

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that its net income in the latest quarter rose 51 percent, boosted by higher sales of Windows and Office software to businesses.

In last year’s quarter, Microsoft deferred some revenue from Windows sales. Had it not done so, net income would have been only 16 percent higher this year in comparison. Get the full story »

Intel, Samsung, Toshiba join up to halve chip size

Chipmakers Intel Corp, Toshiba Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will join hands to develop technologies that could more than halve semiconductor line widths to nearly 10 nanometers by 2016, the Nikkei daily reported. Get the full story »

Google adds local color with Place Search

Google is making another move to give consumers quick access to information about local places by rolling out Place Search, which clusters search results around specific locations.

For example, if a consumer searches for a museum in Los Angeles, the results will show each museum with relevant snippets of information and links from across the Web, making it easier to compare options. A red pin marks the location of each museum on a map.

T-Mobile to debut Samsung Galaxy, subsidize price

T-Mobile USA said it would be first to offer Samsung Electronics Co.’s  Galaxy Tab tablet-computing device, and plans to subsidize the price for those who sign up for a wireless contract.

T-Mobile USA, the U.S. wireless arm of Deutsche Telekom AG,  plans to sell the tablet for $399.99 with a two-year service agreement, similar to the deal that will be offered by Sprint Nextel Corp.  T-Mobile USA is scheduled to sell the device Nov. 10, a day before it is offered by Verizon Wireless,  selling the Galaxy Tab at the unsubsidized price of $599.99, and four days before Sprint begins to offer it. Get the full story »

U.S. wants courtroom sealed for Goldman trial

U.S. prosecutors asked a federal judge to seal the courtroom for part of the upcoming criminal trial of a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer, an effort to protect the secrecy of the bank’s high-frequency trading platform.

Prosecutors said in a court filing that there is a “compelling interest in favor of privacy” for Goldman in the trial of the former employee, Sergey Aleynikov. Get the full story »

Executive: Microsoft a dying consumer brand

Ray Ozzie at a Microsoft event in 2005. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu/File)

Consumers have turned their backs on Microsoft. A company that once symbolized the future is now living in the past.

Microsoft has been late to the game in crucial modern technologies like mobile, search, media, gaming and tablets. It has even fallen behind in Web browsing, a market it once ruled with an iron fist.

Outgoing Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie called out Microsoft’s lost ground in a blog post over the weekend. Get the full story »

MySpace relaunches as music-focused site

MySpace launched a new version of its Web site centered around music and entertainment, as the social networking company attempts to regain its former appeal in a market it helped create.

MySpace Chief Executive Mike Jones said that News Corp-owned MySpace is no longer seeking to compete head-on with social networking company Facebook, and is recasting itself as a complimentary service that he hopes the 35-year-old-and-under crowd will flock to to stay abreast of the hottest music and videos. Get the full story »

PayPal software to let users pay with their phones

EBay Inc.’s  online payments unit PayPal on Tuesday unveiled new software that will let people to use their phones to make payments, as well as a new platform that will make it easier for consumers to pay for digital media, music and games. Get the full story »

Sony shares rise on Apple speculation

Shares of Sony Corp. rose nearly 3 percent at one stage on Tuesday as traders cited media reports speculating that the Japanese electronics maker could be a potential acquisition target of Apple Inc.

Helping to spark the speculation was a Saturday report in Barron’s that said cash-rich Apple could be contemplating a big acquisition and noted speculation about Adobe, Sony and Disney as potential targets. Get the full story »

Retiring software chief to Microsoft: Move on

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft Corp.’s departing software chief, has asked the company to move on from its roots as a computer-oriented company to imagine a “post-PC world” that relies on wireless devices and the Internet to function.

The call from Ozzie, who announced his retirement from Microsoft last week, is meant to galvanize the company, which has fallen behind Apple Inc. and Google Inc. in the rapidly growing phone and tablet computer sector that many now see as key to the future. Get the full story »

Google to rein in employees on privacy matters

Google is promising to monitor its employees more closely to make sure they don’t intrude on people’s privacy while the company collects and stores information about its users.

The tougher privacy measures announced Friday appear to be in reaction to recent breaches that have raised questions about the Internet search leader’s internal controls and policies. Get the full story »