Pedro Hernandez

After releasing the Office Mobile app for Apple’s iPhone a month and a half ago, Microsoft announced on July 31 that a native version for smartphones running Google’s Android mobile operating system is finally available on the Google Play Store as a free download. A big caveat applies, however. As with Office Mobile for iPhone, […]

Microsoft is betting that its upcoming Windows 8.1 update will help unleash the inner high-end tinkerer in many of the operating system’s users, or at least help the 3D printing movement become mainstream. Among the most surprising features being baked into Windows 8.1 is a 3D printer and file format support. The company is paving […]

Analysts aren’t the only ones underwhelmed by Surface RT’s impact on the tablet market. As the clock ticks to the device’s first anniversary, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seems to have come to terms with the tablet’s lackluster sales. The Verge reported July 26 that during an internal town hall meeting, Ballmer addressed slack Surface RT […]

In preparation for the official launch of Windows 8.1 and IE11 later this year, Microsoft has released the Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) Developer Preview for Windows 7. IE 11 is one of several upgrades and enhancements that are set to be included in the highly anticipated “Blue” update to the Windows 8 operating system. While […]

App stores are all the rage, and Microsoft is reportedly interested in bringing the software self-publishing model to its upcoming Xbox One console. First, the company will make moves to dismantle a restrictive policy that kept some independent game developers from offering their wares on its predecessor, the Xbox 360. Currently, independent studios must contract […]

Syncing folders full of photos and multi-megabyte documents can take a healthy bite out of a device’s hard drive or solid-state drive (SSD). Microsoft wants to help its Windows 8.1 users to reclaim some space with an upcoming version of SkyDrive, which is already fairly well integrated into the current OS. In a July 22 […]

Surface RT, Microsoft’s ARM-based Windows tablet, darkened the company’s latest earnings, overshadowing some generally positive results from most of the company’s other business units. Microsoft reported on July 18 that the company had hauled in $19.9 billion during its fourth quarter, which ended June 30—a 10 percent gain over the same quarter a year ago. […]

New advances in software and increasingly more powerful hardware are paving the way for a computing renaissance, of sorts, according to Microsoft’s influential co-founder and current chairman, Bill Gates. In a July 15 address at Microsoft Research’s Faculty Summit in Redmond, Wash., Gates said, “I think it’s fair to say that we’re in a golden […]

In the wake of the National Security Agency ( NSA) Prism controversy, Microsoft wants to come clean on how it handles national security requests for user data. Citing a First Amendment right to release such information, Microsoft joined a chorus of other big tech firms in getting the official go-ahead from the U.S. government. Now, […]

Is another battle between Cupertino and Redmond brewing over gesture and voice control? Apple is in early talks to acquire for $280 million Israel-based PrimeSense, a specialist in 3D sensors and gesture-based technology, according to a report in the Calcalist. Microsoft licenses PrimeSense’s tech for it popular Xbox and Windows peripheral, the Kinect. According to […]

U.S. intelligence agencies had methods of circumventing the security and encryption safeguards placed on popular cloud services from Microsoft, including SkyDrive, Skype and Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail), alleged a July 11 report from The Guardian. Microsoft played a key role in facilitating access to user data by cooperating with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and […]

Microsoft helped the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) bypass the encryption safeguards on some of its popular cloud services, according to July 11 report in The Guardian. The claims are the latest in the continuing NSA spying controversy, which made international headlines after NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked top-secret documents and thrust the PRISM intelligence-gathering […]