Nicholas Kolakowski

Microsoft seems to have canceled Office Genuine Advantage, an anti-piracy measure that asks users to validate their copy of Office before downloading updates and add-ons. “The Office Genuine Advantage (-OGA’) program has been retired,” reads a note on the Microsoft Support Website. “For more information about the benefits of genuine Office, please visit the following […]

For people who follow Microsoft, this week offered a distinct sense of d??«j??í vu, with rumors suggesting the company plans to reveal a new line of Windows 7 tablets during the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show. Should that come about, it would essentially be a repeat of January 2010, when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used his […]

Yahoo is apparently taking the term “buzzkill” to a new level, confirming to various news outlets its plans to eliminate its Buzz social-news portal. “We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, or Traffic APIs, and others,” […]

Apple’s iTunes continues to dominate the paid digital-download market, according to new data from research company NPD Group, comfortably outpacing Amazon.com. For the third quarter of 2010, iTunes’ share of that market rose to 66.2 percent, up from 63.2 percent for the same quarter in 2009. Meanwhile, Amazon.com’s share rose year over year from 11 […]

Research In Motion reported strong financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2011, again refuting some predictions of its imminent demise at the hands of Apple and Google-but along with those positive numbers came rumblings that the PlayBook, its tablet PC due in early 2011, will be released later than some pundits and analysts […]

Corporate purchasing of the Apple iPad and other tablet PCs will rise in 2011, according to new survey data by ChangeWave Research. Based on responses from 1,641 business IT buyers, ChangeWave suggests that some 7 percent of corporations now provide their employees with tablet PCs, a 1 percent increase from August. Apple’s iPad constitutes 82 […]

Riding high on the iPad’s sales success, Apple is reportedly ramping up a high rate of production for its next-generation tablet, according to DigiTimes. “Apple’s orders of iPad 2 are expected to top six million units a month compared to a volume of four million units a quarter for the current version,” reads a Dec. […]

Apple plans to launch its Mac App Store, which will offer full-screen apps for the company’s PCs, Jan. 6. The storefront will operate in a manner similar to Apple’s App Store for mobile devices, allowing users to purchase and download apps in one click. While supported by Snow Leopard, the current version of Apple’s Mac […]

Time magazine clicked “Like” on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, naming him its 2010 Person of the Year. Previous tech luminaries to make that list include Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, former Intel CEO Andy Grove, and Microsoft magnate Bill Gates, who shared the honor with his wife Melinda and U2 singer Bono. “Facebook has merged with […]

Apple will release the iPhone on Verizon in early 2011, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who decided to fully incorporate the device on its new carrier into his predictive model. “Our model assumes Verizon launches the iPhone in early- or mid-[2011],” Munster wrote in his analysis, as quoted Dec. 15 by The Wall […]

Microsoft unveiled some updates to its Bing search engine Dec. 15, as the company rounds out another year of heightened competition with Google in the worldwide search market. Those updates include new features for its Bing for Mobile app for iPhone and Android, notably integration of OpenTable and Grubhub. Microsoft is also promising street-level imagery, […]

Microsoft plans to reveal a new line of Windows 7 tablets during January’s Consumer Electronic Show, according to unnamed sources speaking to The New York Times. According to those sources, a Windows tablet by Samsung will reportedly be “similar in size and shape to the Apple iPad,” although “not as thin.” It will also feature […]