Microsoft

As Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nokia’s smartphone and handheld business this past week, Stephen Elop — the former Microsoft executive turned Nokia CEO — has made various comments about the future of the Android-based Nokia X line. Many, including ourselves, expected Microsoft to cancel the device the moment the acquisition was officially approved, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Stephen Elop, now the Vice President of Microsoft’s Devices and Services unit, stated the following:

Microsoft acquired the mobile phones business, inclusive of Nokia X, to help connect the next billion people to Microsoft’s services. Nokia X uses the MSFT cloud, not Google’s. This is a great opportunity to connect new customers to Skype, outlook.com and Onedrive for the first time. We’ve already seen tens of thousands of new subscribers on MSFT services.

We are using AOSP to attack a specific market opportunity, but we are being thoughtful to do it in a way that accrues benefit to Microsoft and to Lumia.

The Nokia X is a low-cost device that runs a heavily-modified version of Android. The device is part of Nokia’s strategy to target emerging nations and the low-end device market.

This position makes sense, in light of Microsoft’s most recent strategy of focusing on services but you can’t help but wonder what it says about Windows Phone OS that Microsoft actually needs an Android product.
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Google, Android manufacturers agree to participate in “Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment” program

Mike Beasley Apr 15 2014 - 3:34 pm PT

Google has agreed to back a new initiative along with a host of Android manufacturers and all of the major U.S. cellular carriers that would require all smartphones manufactured after July 2015 to come with specific anti-theft features. The program is the latest attempt to prevent theft of smartphones, which some have blamed for increasing crime rates.

To this end, Google introduced the Android Device Manager application last year, allowing users to locate or wipe lost or stolen devices. Today’s agreement between the carriers and handset manufacturers essentially states that all parties will ship this type of system on new phones.

Specifically, the required anti-theft measures are broken into four kinds:

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Microsoft may have silently killed its Scroogled ad campaign (updated)

Mark Hearn Apr 14 2014 - 12:42 pm PT

With the introduction of a new CEO and a few personnel shifts, Microsoft is definitely making some changes, but along with its corporate restructuring, the company appears to have a new take on marketing as well. Derrick Connell, Microsoft’s corporate vice president in charge of Bing recently stated during an online Q&A session that the company was done with its highly publicized Scroogled ad campaign.

30-second smartphone charge demonstrated using biological semiconductors

Ben Lovejoy Apr 7 2014 - 4:33 am PT

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DhJZAhjbcI]

I’d find this video hard to believe were it not for its credentials. The WSJ reports that StoreDot, the start-up behind the technology, has its background in the Nanotechnology department of Tel Aviv University, and it’s been demonstrated at Microsoft’s Think Next conference.

Ultra-fast battery charging has been seen before, but using special (and not very portable) battery technology. This system charges batteries compact enough for smartphones. It’s demonstrated here with a Samsung Galaxy S3, but the company says that it plans to make versions for other phones …
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Microsoft announces OWA for Android coming later this year

Jordan Kahn Mar 31 2014 - 3:33 pm PT

Microsoft made some announcements related to upcoming Office features and the evolution of its email products today and within the blog post announced an upcoming OWA app for Android.

OWA, that’s Microsoft’s Outlook Web App that is already available on Windows Phone and through an iOS app, will arrive later this year as a native Android app. That doesn’t mean that Microsoft won’t continue working directly with Android manufacturers to integrate Exchange support, but the app will give Android users access to the latest OWA features whenever they are ready to roll out.

Microsoft didn’t provide any other details but said that OWA for Android along with other email features announced in the blog post will roll out to Office 365 subscribers later this year.
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Office Mobile for Android goes free for all users

Zac Hall Mar 27 2014 - 1:51 pm PT

While Microsoft’s biggest news of the day might have been the debut of its Office productivity app suite for iPad, there was also news on the Android side as well.

Microsoft didn’t make dedicated apps for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, but the company did make Office Mobile for Android free for all users. Previously, Office Mobile for Android required an active subscription to Office 365.

Just like Office Mobile for Windows Phone, we are making Office Mobile for iPhone and Android phones free for everyone. With Office Mobile, you have the ability to view and edit your Office content on the go. Office Mobile is available in the App Store and Google Play.

Now that Microsoft has moved that requirement to its dedicated iPad apps, Android and iPhone users can now enjoy Office Mobile’s full feature set without any limitations and not subscribe to the membership.

Office Mobile for Android is available for free on the Google Play Store.

Microsoft updates Xbox One SmartGlass app for Android with message notifications, improved friends list, and more

Mike Beasley Mar 6 2014 - 5:22 pm PT

Microsoft has updated its Xbox One companion app, SmartGlass, with several new features and improvements. The first of these is a new hub for watching clips you’ve created with the Xbox’s Game DVR feature. The app will also now send push notifications for messages recieved through Microsoft’s Xbox messaging system.

Some improvements have been made to existing features as well. The friends list has a new design and makes it easier to tell which of your Xbox Live friends are available or playing a game. The app now allows you to close apps that have been “snapped” to one side of the screen on your Xbox One console.

SmartGlass is available for free on the Google Play Store.

Microsoft reportedly working on a cross-platform Xbox Live for Android & iOS apps

Jordan Kahn Mar 3 2014 - 11:04 am PT

Microsoft is considering taking Xbox Live cross-platform and allowing developers to integrate the service in iOS and Android games, according to a report from The Verge. The report cites a job listing from the company’s website seeking an engineer to work on “a modern framework that is open-source, lightweight, extensible and scalable across various platforms,” including iOS and Android. The report also cites its own sources reportedly familiar Microsoft’s plans to take Xbox Live cross-platform.

“New Devices and Gaming” is looking for passionate and experienced developers to join us. Your contribution will have direct impact on how we win back our game developers from our competitors. As a member of the newly formed team, you will have the rare opportunity to influence our planning and design from the beginning. We will create a modern framework that is open source, light-weight, extensible and scalable across various platforms including Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS and Android. Working on the gaming technologies, you will collaborate with both internal partner teams across the company and external ecosystem partners to enable end-to-end gaming scenarios.

The idea, according to the report, is that Xbox Live would act as a cross-platform alternative to Apple’s Game Center and similar services, allowing users to earn achievements, manage friends and more through a single service across Xbox and mobile platforms. No details on specific features or when we might expect to see more.

There’s a dual-boot Android/Windows Phone smartphone on the way – we’re just not sure why

Ben Lovejoy Mar 3 2014 - 4:31 am PT

Image: Gizmodo

The Times of India reports that local phone maker Karbon Mobiles is launching phones that can run both Android and Windows Phone, with the first handsets expected to be available by June.

The company has just signed the licence agreement with Microsoft to make Windows-based phones and will put this along with its existing Android system to bring out the dual-OS phones in about six months, the company’s chairman Sudhir Hasija said.

While I can see the sense in a dual-boot laptop/tablet that can run both Windows 8 and Android, a dual-platform phone seems rather more of a ‘because we can’ gimmick. The explanation may be as simple as Microsoft waiving the license fee to help grow the platform, especially after Nokia announced its (kind of) Android handsets. Hasija commented:

Microsoft has eased the regulations and is opening up its platform for other players.

Karbon gets a cost-free talking point for its new handsets, Microsoft gets a bit more market share in a growth market. We’re just not sure what consumers get …

Microsoft engineer exploits Google Maps openness to intercept FBI & Secret Service calls

Ben Lovejoy Feb 28 2014 - 7:06 am PT

maps

It’s not just fictitious towns you have to look out for on Google Maps: Microsoft engineer and former Marine Bryan Seely demonstrated to ValleyWag how he was able to exploit the open nature of the product to intercept phone calls to both the FBI and Secret Service.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/136881011″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

The technique Seely used was incredibly simple …
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The rumors were true: Nokia X phones run Android … but only just

Ben Lovejoy Feb 24 2014 - 5:36 am PT

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Rumors of Nokia launching an Android phone seemed unlikely for a company acquired by Microsoft, but the company today announced not just one Android device, but three: the Nokia X, X+ and XL. The company’s flirtation with Android does, however, appear to be a token one – not that Microsoft is pleased.

The three budget phones are effectively hybrid devices. Not only have they been given an overlay designed to make them look like they are running Windows Phone, they aren’t even running a standard version of Android and won’t be able to run apps from the Google Play store …

Nokia teases ‘X’ phone ahead of expected Android announcement at MWC next week

Zac Hall Feb 18 2014 - 11:35 am PT

Ahead of its scheduled announcement at Mobile World Congress on Monday, Nokia is teasing what we expect to be its first venture into Android handsets.

What has been codenamed Normandy, an Android variant with a Windows Phone-like user interface seen on Nokia’s recent smartphones, is being branded as Nokia X according to information shared by evleaks and mirrored by Nokia’s promo (seen above).

Nokia X. pic.twitter.com/meA05ALusT

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 17, 2014

WSJ: Nokia’s Normandy Android phones finally coming this month

Zac Hall Feb 10 2014 - 11:31 am PT

Nokia could finally show off those Android-based “Normandy” smartphones we’ve been seeing surface lately. The company will debut its rumored fork of Android later this month at Mobile World Congress, according to The Wall Street Journal. The event kicks off in two weeks in Barcelona, Spain, and runs through February 27th.

Nokia, whose devices and services division was acquired by Microsoft last fall, had been working on the Android phones ahead of the acquisition, WSJ says. Nokia has been the primary handset maker for Windows Phone OS-based smartphones since dropping its own OS years ago, and even its Android fork borrows heavily from the signature Windows Phone design as seen in recent leaks.
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Google takes third place in EPA’s list of green-powered tech companies

Mike Beasley Feb 2 2014 - 11:10 am PT

The Environmental Protection Agency has published its list of the top 30 tech and telecom companies in the U.S. that take advantage of the most renewable energy sources, placing Google near the top of the bunch at third place. Google’s green power consumption reached 737,364,727 kWh, according to the EPA’s report.

Only Intel and Microsoft managed to beat Google in total green power usage.

The study also notes that around 32% of Google’s total power usage comes from “green” sources, such as wind and solar, while the other 68% comes from non-green sources. Many companies easily beat the 32% statistic, but Google’s total power consumption, including non-green sources, is the highest of any other company on the list.

Are these images of Nokia’s Normandy Android fork UI?

Seth Weintraub Jan 8 2014 - 9:52 am PT

The story of the Nokia Normandy project to get Android on low cost smartphones got some more real today with yet another leak of the phones, this time with some OS shots on them. If what we’re seeing is legit, and most evleaks are, this one has two SIM card slots and very thick custom overlay. I can’t wait to see if these are released so I can not buy one.
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Nokia Normandy, the fabled Android-based device shows off its OS

David Beren Jan 2 2014 - 10:49 am PT

Rumors of Nokia’s fabled-Android device persist and with a new leak the rumor mill will continue to spark. Courtesy of WPDang, the Nokia Normandy looks to run a “forked” version of Android which likely means no direct access to the Play Store. Ultimately, that doesn’t surprise us given that the potential for a Google-approved Nokia device seems like a crap shoot in a post-Microsoft acquisition world.

NewGeekGuide readers, what do you want to see from Google in 2014?

David Beren Dec 30 2013 - 7:17 am PT

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As Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt makes his own predictions for 2014, I’m turning the subject over to you…the NewGeekGuide reader. There’s absolutely no shortage of topics to cover or “what ifs” for Google in 2014. Given the various branch directions that Android, Chrome OS and the company itself can go, it’s a loaded question. With recent reports indicating Chrome OS is on the rise, could we see Microsoft running scared in 2014 against the impending threat of low-cost hardware with an operating system that costs manufacturers absolutely nothing?

Twitter tipster shows off another image for Nokia’s rumored Android device

David Beren Dec 23 2013 - 1:53 pm PT

Perhaps one of the greatest “what could have been” stories in recent (tech) times is definitively the question of what Nokia would be like today had they gone with Android over Windows Phone? There’s little question Nokia’s fortunes might have changed dramatically and as a result, the fortunes of every other Android OEM not named Samsung.

The iPhone forced Google to start over … or not, depending who you believe

Ben Lovejoy Dec 20 2013 - 5:49 am PT

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: The HTC Dream: the first Android handset to go on sale, a year after the iPhone

A pithy quote from a Google engineer working on Android on the day the iPhone was launched has been doing the rounds today.

As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.

The quote, attributed to Google engineer Chris DeSalvo, appears in Chapter 2 of Fred Vogelstein’s Dogfight: How Apple and Google went to war and started a revolution. It suggests that Google had to abandon a Blackberry-style smartphone in favor of a touchscreen one in direct response to the iPhone. This is seemingly supported by Android boss Andy Rubin reportedly saying in response to the webcast of the iPhone launch: “Holy crap, I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”

There’s just one small problem with this version of events – it may not be entirely accurate …
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Skype for Android update includes floating chat outside of app

David Beren Dec 13 2013 - 11:48 am PT

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A brand new Microsoft update for Skype for Android is including some new features as well as general improvements for users. The most notable addition in this update includes what Skype says is the first Android app to offer a “picture in picture window that lets you see your video call even when you switch away to other applications.”

Dell to join Acer, HP and Samsung as a Chromebook manufacturer in January

Ben Lovejoy Dec 11 2013 - 7:05 am PT

Microsoft’s renewed nervousness about Chromebooks was likely influenced by advance knowledge of Dell’s announcement that it would be joining Acer, HP and Samsung in manufacturing the ultraportable laptops in January.

The machine will have a Celeron 2955U processor, a choice of 2GB or 4GB RAM and 16GB of flash storage. The screen will be an 11-inch 1366×768 display with 720p front-facing webcam. You’ll get two USB 3 sockets plus HDMI in a case less than an inch thick and weighing under three pounds. Battery-life is said to be around 10 hours …
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Google joins tech titans in calling for government spying reform and limitations

Mike Beasley Dec 8 2013 - 9:46 pm PT

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has joined Microsoft, Twitter, Apple, Yahoo!, Facebook, and other giants in the tech industry in calling for a reform of the NSA’s surveillance tactics. Earlier this year it was revealed that the National Security Agency was using information from these companies and more to monitor citizens across the nation without warrants.

The companies allegedly involved in the “PRISM” program denied turning over any user data to the government, but a leaked NSA slidedeck (seen above) seemed to imply the opposite.

The new collaborative campaign, called Reform Government Surveillance, cites five driving principles in its drive to curb excessive government spying:

Microsoft releases yet another anti-Chromebook advertisement

David Beren Dec 6 2013 - 9:07 am PT

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wAgB5J1gSQ&w=600&h=420]

Imagine my shock and surprise as yet another anti-Chromebook advertisement hits the YouTubes courtesy of Microsoft. The latest in the company’s anti-everything-Google campaign attacks the notion that a Chromebook has “everything you need” as a laptop.