Nicholas Kolakowski

Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader will debut in all Target stores June 6, creating a new bricks-and-mortar sales channel for the device. According to a June 2 Reuters report, the Kindle will retail for $259. The broader rollout implies that Target’s more limited Kindle offering, which started in late April, proved a success. For Amazon, having a […]

Microsoft is publicly suggesting that, despite the early dominance of the Apple iPad and news of strong Android competitors in development, Windows could eventually become a dominant force in the tablet PC space.“There are always lots of noises at the beginning of a new category,” Steve Guggenheimer, a corporate vice president at Microsoft’s Original Equipment […]

Adobe on June 1 revealed an application for viewing digital magazines, seemingly the next stage in a multicompany battle over the ebooks and digital media market. In a bit of competitive irony, the technology was used to build Wired magazine’s June iPad edition-despite Apple’s refusal to support Adobe’s Flash, which is used to display many […]

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 and 7 continued to see their shares of the U.S. browser market decline in May, according to data from analytics company StatCounter, even as pickup continues for the newer Internet Explorer 8. Although IE 6 and 7 were market-share stalwarts a year ago, both browser versions have seen their usage dwindle […]

Microsoft and Novell have reported an increase in the number of companies seeking their high-performance computing interoperability offering, which deploys workload management across both Windows HPC Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and allows IT managers to balance server workloads by running specific applications on either Windows or Linux platforms. HPC uses either supercomputers or […]

Microsoft’s week involved some major shakeups: in addition to the departures of two top executives from its Entertainment and Devices Division, responsible for consumer products such as the Xbox and Zune, the company also saw its market capitalization briefly surpassed by that of Apple. Both those events highlight the degree of vigorous competition that Microsoft […]

The upcoming version of Apple TV will run iPhone OS 4 and cost $99, according to rumors reported by technology blog Engadget, which also stated that the set-top box will use a proprietary A4 processor to stream digital content to high-definition televisions. The rumors did not offer a definite release date. Editor Joshua Topolsky claimed […]

Microsoft announced May 27 a new social-networking initiative, dubbed “Project Emporia,” developed through its FUSE Labs. Currently offered in Alpha Preview, the application lets users monitor Twitter streams in real time without needing an actual Twitter account. “Project Emporia enables a personalized search experience over publically available social network data,” reads an explanation on the […]

10 iPad Apps for Health and Fitness by Nicholas Kolakowski MyNetDiary-Food and Exercise Diary for iPadThis app allows users to keep track of the foods they eat and the exercises they do, along with more granular measurements such as water they consume.Cost: $9.99 WebMD for iPadIn addition to a symptom checker, this app offers a […]

Microsoft announced May 27 that its Tag technology, which allows users to scan a customized tag with a smartphone’s camera module and receive multimedia and other content on their screen, is no longer a beta. “Eighteen months ago we launched Microsoft Tag, our mobile barcode technology,” Aaron Getz, general manager of Microsoft Tag, wrote May […]

Time Warner and NBC Universal are pushing back against Apple, according to reports, with both companies refusing to reformat their media libraries into an Adobe Flash-free format capable of running on the bestselling iPad tablet. According to a May 27 article in the New York Post, one media executive indicated that the upcoming Google TV, […]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggested during a trip to New Delhi that the surpassing of Microsoft’s market capitalization by Apple, while trumpeted as a major shake-up by the media, was not a cause for concern at Redmond. On May 26, Apple’s market capitalization reached $227.1 billion, based on its stock price, eclipsing Microsoft’s $226.3 billion. […]