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News tagged ‘Microsoft’
Microsoft, HTC, Nokia File Complaints Over Apple’s “App Store” Trademark
Microsoft, HTC, Nokia and Sony Ericsson filed formal complaints against Apple’s attempt at getting the terms “App Store” and “Appstore” trademarked. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said that Apple’s application was an “unsupportable claim of exclusivity” and noted that the terms “App Store” and “Appstore” are like “toy store” or “book store” – a generic term “that should continue to be available for everyone to use for stores that sell apps.”
The Incredible Vintage Gadgets That Inspired Apple’s Most Magical Products
Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research scientist, has been collecting gadgets that influenced today’s technology. A large number of them seem to have directly inspired many of Apple’s most iconic products and innovations. For example, the Dieter Rahms-design transistor radio, which inspired the first four generations of the venerable iPod, upon the success of which Apple built almost all of its modern fortunes.
What does the Skype sale mean for Apple customers?
By now everyone seems to know that Microsoft has acquired online communication giant Skype for a huge 8.5 billion dollars. Mac and iOS users immediately questioned the acquisition as a way for Microsoft to turn Skype into an exclusive service for Windows Live-connected devices and other Microsoft products such as the Xbox, Windows 7 and the new Windows Phone 7 OS. Steve Ballmer, however, was quick to reassure everyone that Skype will continue working on the Mac, iOS and all the other platforms it currently runs on (including RIM’s BlackBerry and Symbian). Microsoft, of course, takes Apple as one of the major rivals, though it has a full version of Office 2011 available for Macs, and many apps for iPhones and iPads. The question, however, is whether Skype will ever release a native iPad app as promised last year, and if the new owner will also bring some welcome interface changes to the Mac app.
Apple Beats Microsoft in First Quarter Profit
Six months ago Apple’s quarterly revenue for the first time in approximately 15 years was higher than the Microsoft’s one. But Microsoft was unbeatable with its high profit margins that the company achieved thanks to its software sales. The situation changed in the past fiscal quarter. Today Microsoft has announced net profit of $5.23 billion for the first calendar quarter (third fiscal quarter) of 2011. Apple last week reported profits of $5.99 billion over the same period, which corresponded to the company's second fiscal quarter of 2011. It seems that Apple finally surpassed its longtime rival in almost all position. Moreover Apple’s market cap is now nearly $100 billion higher than Microsoft's.
Is Apple “The Least Green?”
Apple’s huge data center in North Carolina has attracted attention of Greenpeace. Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have gone under the scrutiny of Greenpeace in a recent report which evaluates the companies’ transparency in energy usage, the decisions that go into choosing a location and how those facilities are powered, and willingness to correct and pursue green technologies.
Apple’s decision to locate its iDataCenter in North Carolina, which has an electrical grid among the dirtiest in the country (61% coal, 31% nuclear), indicates a lack of a corporate commitment to clean energy supply for its cloud operations. The fact that the alternative location for Apple’s iDataCenter was Virginia46, where electricity is also comes from very dirty sources, is an indication that, in add it onto tax incentives, access to inexpensive energy, regardless of its source, is a key driver in Apple’s site selection.
Microsoft Releases Bing for iPad
Microsoft released its first application for tablets, Bing for iPad that is now available on the US App Store. It looks really beautiful on the iPad large screen. The first thing you’ll notice in the application is the daily image. The application gives you information about Weather, News, Movies and more. Like the iPhone app it features a Voice Search alongside with the search by text and Bing Maps that let you search for address or business. The iPad app is curiously only available in the US iTunes App Store which is certainly odd considering the web version does have international editions, that even have a different daily picture.
Office for Mac 2011 Service Pack 1 Coming Next Week
Microsoft is reportedly preparing to release Office for Mac 2011 Service Pack 1 in next week. This major update will bring a number of fixes, some stability and security improvements plus some feature additions. Performance is also receiving a boost in the update. But the most significant new features are said to come in Outlook, including support for syncing calendars to iOS devices via Sync Services.
The update will enable calendar syncing between Outlook for Mac and Apple's Sync Services. This means you can now sync your Outlook calendars, as well as your contacts, notes and tasks with any service or device that supports Sync Services.
H-W Technology Accuses Apple Of Infringing Its Ad-Related Patent
This week another lawsuit had been filed against Apple. This time H-W Technology LC accused the company of violating its patent No. 7,525,955, entitled "Internet Protocol (IP) Phone with Search and Advertising Capability".
The latter was filed in 2004, and granted in April of 2009 by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The invention describes a handset with the unique ability to "converge voice and data within a single terminal", which would allow users to "receive information and offers from merchants and to complete a transaction with one of said merchants without having to generate a voice call".
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Steve Jobs Ranked World's 110th Richest Person With Net Worth of $8.3 Billion
Forbes released its annual list of the world’s billionaires this week. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs was ranked at number 110 with a net worth $8.3 billion. Jobs' net worth also ranks 34th among billionaires in the United States. Last year he was placed at 136th place with $5.5 billion.
Insanely creative Apple chief transforms a multibillion-dollar industry every few years. First, personal computers with Apple II, Macintosh; then film with Pixar; music (iTunes), mobile (iPhone). Now iPad is treated as messiah tablet, savior for publishing industry. Apple still sells computers, but twice as much revenue now comes from music distribution and hand-held devices. Shot past long-time rival Microsoft as world's most valuable tech company in May. Shares of Apple surged more than 80% over the last year. Still, the majority of Job's fortune comes from Disney; as largest shareholder he owns about $4.4 billion of stock.
Safari 5.0.4 pwned at hacking contest in five seconds
As far as we know, the Apple’s browser Safari was always the subject of intense criticism for its various security weaknesses. A couple of days ago Safari got pwned again at the hacking challenge pwn2own. It took the French team consists of specialists of security firm Vupen just a few seconds to exploit an unpatched Safari vulnerability. “We pwned Apple Safari on Mac OS X (x64) at pwn2own in 5 seconds,” they tweeted. Just a few minutes before the contest, Apple released Safari 5.0.4 alongside iOS 4.3. Vupen said that the update 62 vulnerabilities, breaking “some exploits but not all.” The winners were awarded $15,000 and a MacBook Air. In addition to Safari, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 was also hacked pretty quickly.
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Mac OS X 10.7 Lion iChat supports Yahoo Messenger protocol
According to blogger iMarck90, Mac OS X Lion's iChat app supports Yahoo Messenger and can transfer text, voice and video chat over Yahoo's IM protocol.
When iChat was introduced by Apple, it was an instant messenger client for proprietary chat protocol of AOL. Later it got a Jabber/XMPP support.
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Mac OS X Lion's interface in screenshots
Along with new architectural features new version of Mac OS X also sports new look for the iCal, Mail and Finder, and some other applications look slightly different due to adoption of design elements implemented in the iPad. AppleInsider received the screenshots of new Lion's interface, and we're posting them below.
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First Developer Preview of Lion Hits The Mac App Store
Apple announced alongside new MacBook Pros the first developer preview of OS X 10.7 Lion, first demoed last October.
Apple today released a developer preview of Mac OS X Lion, which takes some of the best ideas from iPad and brings them back to the Mac for the eighth major release of the world's most advanced operating system. The Lion preview is available to Mac Developer Program members through the Mac App Store, and the final version of Lion will ship to customers this summer.
Apple also outlines a number of features to be found in Lion:
Abramsky: Apple may benefit from partnership between Microsoft and Nokia
This week Mike Abramsky from RBC Capital Markets released another note to investors, where he said that partnership between Microsoft and Nokia can "inadvertently help" Google Android, Apple and possibly RIM.
This Friday, at conference in London Stephen Elop, who was a Microsoft's Business Division head and now is a CEO at Nokia, along with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the strategic alliance.
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