Nicholas Kolakowski

Samsung will officially unveil its Media Hub application Sept. 16 in New York City, along with a device that could be either the Galaxy Tab or Samsung Fascinate. An invitation to the event, which will take place at the Time Warner Center in Midtown, refers to an “announcement” of an “Android-powered device” along with the […]

Microsoft has decided that Windows Live Sync, its cloud-syncing service, will receive a name change-actually, make that a name reversion-to Windows Live Mesh. In addition, the service will now offer 5GB of free cloud-storage space, up from 2GB, and the ability to sync hidden files. The company originally released the beta of Windows Live Sync […]

Apple’s iPad now ships within 24 hours from the company’s online store, suggesting that the company’s production capacity has caught up with consumer demand for the bestselling device. That narrowed ship-time extends to both the WiFi-only and 3G-enabled versions of the tablet, which presents a challenge to both e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and […]

Microsoft has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in its long-running patent-infringement battle against small Canadian firm i4i. Specifically, Microsoft wants to overturn earlier rulings that both Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 violated i4i’s patents for custom XML. In April, a federal appeals court rejected Microsoft’s request for a multiple-judge review of the lawsuit, which […]

Microsoft claims it investigated allegations of massive labor violations at a Chinese factory building its products, and took steps to fix conditions there. But the director of the National Labor Committee, the non-governmental organization that originally highlighted those factory conditions, says Microsoft’s statements about the matter are too vague. On April 13, the National Labor […]

Windows Phone 7 will cost Microsoft nearly a half-billion dollars in marketing during the smartphone operating system’s initial rollout, says one analyst. “This is make-or-break for them. They need to do whatever it takes to stay in the game,” Jonathan Goldberg, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, told TechCrunch Aug. 26. “They don’t have to take […]

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen decided to make technology litigation a little more interesting Aug. 27, filing patent-infringement suits against Apple, Google and nine other companies. Allen’s lawsuit claims violations of patents developed by his Interval Research Corp., a technology incubator. According to The Wall Street Journal, the other companies in Allen’s crosshairs include AOL, eBay, […]

Aug. 24 marked the 15th anniversary of Windows 95’s official release. Microsoft’s marketing blitz for the operating system was enormous: The Empire State Building lit up in the company’s colors, the $300 million spent on everything from newspaper advertisements to the massive launch event, the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” repurposed as a theme song. […]

Apple’s Sept. 1 event in San Francisco will most likely involve a music-related announcement of some sort. The proof? The front of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where the shindig will be held, now features a giant image of an acoustic guitar with an Apple logo-shaped sound hole. The blog Apple Insider has posted […]

Google’s latest move in real-time search, the launch of a dedicated page that aggregates of-the-moment information from Twitter and other sources, represents yet another escalation in the search-engine giant’s competition against Microsoft’s Bing. With Google Realtime Search, typing in a term like “Halo: Reach” will result in a scroll of real-time Tweets about the game, […]

Apple iTunes users can rest a little easier, now that the Federal Trade Commission has settled with a public relations firm accused of posting fake customer reviews for mobile gaming apps. The original FTC complaint accused California-based Reverb Communications of posting iTunes Store reviews that seemed to come from ordinary game players. “Reverb and [owner […]

Skype and Facebook could have a substantial new competitor on their hands, if Google’s new Gmail phone-calling service keeps attracting a substantial number of users. “Over 1,000,000 calls placed from Gmail in just 24 hours! Thanks to everyone using this new feature,” read an Aug. 27 note on Google’s official Twitter feed. The Gmail application […]