Tag: Microsoft

TikTok says no to Microsoft bid, Oracle now in with a shot.

With over 100m active users in the US, TikTok is more than popular. However, with US President Donald Trump taking a very dim view of any Chinese tech firms, the US operation is in the middle of a forced sale. Both Microsoft and Oracle were in the running …

The new normal has been forced upon us, but it’s here to stay.

With a second coronavirus spike now sliding into view, the idea of “going back to the office” is fading into the background. Remote working is rapidly becoming the “new normal” and the idea of cramming ourselves onto public transport in order to spend time in an expensive office …

What if TikTok USA isn’t sold?

Like Huawei and Honor, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is suffering the wrath of US President Donald Trump. With an impending ban in the USA, TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer has decided to quit the company – a mere two months into the job. He’d recently moved from Disney to …

Microsoft talks to Trump about TikTok sale

After a presumably intelligent conversation with Donald Trump, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella has confirmed that discussions to purchase TikTok will continue. A date of September 15th has been given for completion of the sale discussions. A Microsoft blog post states.. Following a conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella …

Microsoft to close or convert all retail stores

Goodbye to the high street. Goodbye to the shopping mall. Times are changing and Microsoft is to close or “reimagine” their stores across the world. Across the USA, nearly all stores are closing, whilst the NYC, London, Sydney and Redmond store will instead be converted to stores that …

We might see the Surface Duo sooner than expected

In October last year Microsoft released to the world its dual-screen, Android-powered phone, the Surface Duo. It was stated that this device would be officially unveiled during this October’s Surface event and hit the market during the 2020 shopping season. Well, we are hearing rumblings that we might …

Microsoft are back in the phone game

A phone? From Microsoft? And it’s running Android? Are you having a laugh? Well yes, possibly, the release date on this is over a year away – Christmas 2020 – so whether the Microsoft Surface Duo and slightly larger Surface Neo will ever actually appear is up for debate, …

Microsoft xCloud to add to the smartphone gaming transition

You’ll no doubt already know how mobile gaming is turning the traditional world of consoles on its head. We’ve seen phones become more and more powerful, able to run graphically-intensive games locally and produce a gameplay experience that isn’t too far removed from the likes of PS4 and …

WORLD EXCLUSIVE – Microsoft return to smartphones

Thought that Windows Phone was dead? Was it really the end for Microsoft Smartphone, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile? Nokia phones, after being purchased by Microsoft, re-appear with the Microsoft mobile Operating System, but have now returned yet again with Android. The Windows Phone OS, which was the …

Coolsmartphone Podcast 229 We Git Back On Track

We are known for going off track on the Coolsmartphone Podcast. That’s probably one of the main reasons you listen to us. This week Matteo, Khellan and Majid did their best to get back on track. https://youtu.be/lF8Q3XUhwmo Not only did the Tenacious Podcasters discuss the Xiaomi Mi 8 …

Xbox E3 2018 Briefing as it Happened

Welcome, So the rules for this coverage are: I won’t talk about Pre/Post shows in detail only mention what they are doing for them No event screenshots, Not because I can’t but because the stream quality isn’t great and I wouldn’t want to force that on you but …

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) Times, Dates, Predictions

Lights, Camera, Action… a car descends from the ceiling… a car slides out a wall… an awkward demo begins. Yes! It’s that time again, E3. For those who do not know or who don’t understand what E3 is here is a quick rundown. A long time ago, being …

Xbox Adaptive Controller Announcement

Playing Video games is something that everyone has tried on their console, PC or mobile device. Whether that’s Candy Crush, Battlefield, Gran Turismo or the game which has took the scene by storm – Fortnite. But accessibility to video games in the past has primarily relied on opposable …

Windows Phone – Now even deader than it already was

Each year at Mobile World Congress I tend to remember the big Windows Phone 7 launch. It was held in 2010 at the Catalonia Barcelona Plaza Hotel and they placed a large placard above the entrance with big sticker over the name “7 Series”. Yes, back in 2010 …

Groove is to depart (ne-na-na-na now)

Back when everything was black and white, we had something called MSN Music. That launched in 2004 and had 1.5 million tracks available. It was designed to compete with the iTunes Music Store, but the catalogue quickly dwindled. No matter though, because Microsoft had an idea! Let’s kill …

Bill Gates goes Android

It’s not something I talk about much, but I’ve actually met Bill Gates. He’s a bit shorter in real life and had a lot of bodyguards following him around at the time. We spoke about the Microsoft Smartphone because, way back when, Microsoft was actually pretty successful at …

Coolsmartphone Podcast 203 Matteo’s Still Bitter

Coming up in this episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast: Khellan, Majid and Matteo talk about the Samsung Galaxy S8, Google’s commitment to the Nexus/Pixel lines and Matteo’s lasting bitterness. It’s Coolsmartphone Podcast 203 Matteo’s Still Bitter. https://youtu.be/iIDgDAy0OIo Our ternium of podcast hosts also touch on Microsoft’s latest announcements, …

The Orange SPV GUI

Yesterday I found a haul of classic smartphones including the SPV E100, E200 and M2000. Not only that, but I dug out the SPV C500 and C600 too. That C600 was, at the time, quite something – it came with an OMAP850 CPU running at 195Mhz and had …

The Orange SPV – An update

A little update on the Orange SPV story we ran a short while ago. The SPV was from a different era – a phone with a numeric keypad, no touch screen and something called “Microsoft Smartphone” as an OS. John Brown got in touch with us because he’d …

In the beginning there was… The Orange SPV

Way back in 2002 this whole site was kick-started by one phone. It ran an operating system created by Microsoft and the handset was the result of a partnership with UK network, Orange. The network itself has since left the UK, but HTC – a relative unknown at …

Yeah, thanks for that Microsoft. Solitaire on my phone. Whoop.

Years ago, before flat screen monitors, we had big chunky PC’s with big chunky CRT monitors. Laptops weighed half a tonne and smartphones were just a dream. The internet? You’re joking son. If you were at work in these times (which, granted, seems like something from the prehistoric …

Microsoft Office on your Chromebook? Get ready to pay.

As more and more Chromebooks are being granted access to the Google Play Store and the millions of apps within, people are trying to activate their copy of Microsoft Office for Android. Unfortunately, they’re finding out that a subscription to Microsoft Office 365 is required, especially if your …

Microsoft offloads mobile support to B2X.

Well, this is about all I need to hear to be honest. Microsoft are effectively washing their hands of remaining Lumia users. Today a customer care company called B2X has announced that they will be taking over customer care responsibilities for all Microsoft mobile devices. That’s all devices. …

Microsoft Band Canned. Team disband.

I tried out the Microsoft Band and Band 2. I was quite impressed but sadly there’ll be no third version. A few weeks ago Thurrott reported that the future of Microsoft Band looked less than promising. Let’s face it, Microsoft tried to do the “hardware thing” and failed …

Turrah Lumia. Nice seein’ ya.

Get yourself a drink Lumia fans. Turn the lights down. This is the end, my only friend, the end… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4 News from WinBeta and elsewhere seems to confirm it. The Lumia range is dead. An anonymous employee states that Microsoft is about to “end sales” of the range …

EU finds nothing wrong with pre installing software

Eight years ago, the PC market was a completely different place than it is now. Windows Vista was the hot OS and customers where upgrading then regretting it en masse. However, one French user decided he just didn’t agree with Microsoft’s terms and conditions and started a fight …

Microsoft close Lumia Twitter accounts

When Microsoft splashed out millions for the Nokia phone building tech, it knew that the actual Nokia name couldn’t be used long-term. The result, in late 2014, was the end of Nokia branding and a switch to pure Lumia branding. Now things are on the move again, with …

Microsoft to cut thousands more staff

In May Microsoft announced that nearly 2,000 staff would be given the chop after their mobile OS business started to shrink. Now it seems that thousands more will be looking for work after Microsoft added a further 2,850 workers to the previously announced 1,850. The cuts, as before, …

Microsoft off-load nearly 2000 staff as the smartphone adventure ends

It’s a sad day for hard-working smartphone employees, especially in Finland. Microsoft has just announced that 1,850 jobs will go as they “restructure” their smartphone hardware business. 1,350 of the staff affected will be from the Microsoft Mobile division in Oy, Finland. The remaining 500 will be from …

Microsoft sees their mobile market share drop below 1%

It’s the same sad story for Microsoft. Without specifically stating it, they’ve effectively left Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile to die on the vine. Mobile efforts now appear to be concentrated on mobile software for Android and iOS. Meanwhile, their smartphone OS is dropping off the charts …

Windows Phone continues to fade away

I’ve called it the death of Windows Phone. We knew it was losing market share but then things started getting worse. In March it was all over for me. Yes, the OS is good. Yes, the phones are good, but there was a lack of love from Microsoft. …

It’s either cool, or a complete waste of time. You decide.

You may have seen this one kicking around the internet already. You’ve got to partially question the reason for doing this. Perhaps it’s just a labour of love, perhaps it’s just proving the theory. Either way, it worked. Windows 95 on an Apple Watch. A 520MHz CPU, 512MB …

Buy a mobile phone and get a free.. mobile phone!

It seems a bizarre and almost desperate pitch. Imagine a smartphone manufacturer offering up a £469.99 smartphone and then, if you buy it, giving you a phone worth £419.99 completely free. That’s be insane. You’d think that the manufacturer had totally lost the plot. You’d think that they …

Windows Phone losing market share

The promised upgrade of all Lumia handsets to Windows 10 mobile hasn’t quite happened and Microsoft isn’t making a big song and dance about newly released handsets either. Things aren’t looking too great for the Microsoft mobile OS. However, Windows 10 mobile is available and, when these Kantar …

Virtual Reality – Enter the teleporter

There’s an element of bloat to this particular solution at the moment, but in years to come I can imagine that the multiple 3D cameras that are needed might well shrink. Perhaps those 360 VR cameras would do the job ? Each one of the cameras captures an …

Microsoft Lumia 650 – Official specs revealed

Will this be the last Lumia? Well, it’s certainly what Microsoft have done well at recently. Cheaper Windows Phone devices seem to sell, even if it’s still not quite as many as they’d hoped. So step forward the Lumia 650, it runs Windows 10 Mobile and the specifications …

Microsoft swipes SwiftKey. We have the exclusive boardroom transcript *

Well. I guess there’s some sort of logic to this. Perhaps there was a meeting at Microsoft that went something like this… “Hey guys, you bought Swype didn’t you?” “No, not yet. We bought Skype…” “Ohh bugger. I thought we’d bought that software keyboard company…” “No, we were …

Microsoft Lumia 650 incoming but later than we thought

Microsoft is pushing out a new mid-tier device that is going to be aimed at the business sector, however, we are hearing stories that the expected launch date has been moved from the beginning of February to the middle of the month. The phone sports some fairly basic …