Ever since news broke that Microsoft CEO Steve “Sweaty” Ballmer is part of an investment group working on buying Seattle its very own NBA team, the high profile tech company has been forced to fend off angry Sacramento Kings fans who blame it for the loss of their beloved franchise. Read More
You’ve got to hand it to Microsoft: The company just won’t give up on its quest to make everyone reconsider their dismissiveness re: Internet Explorer.
When last we checked in with the IE marketing team, they were attempting to convince us that dorky haters were responsible for browser’s bad reputation. Guess that didn’t exactly work out to be the Geico Gecko, because today they’ve released another commercial, and it’s basically BuzzFeed’s nostalgia-peddling Rewind vertical, deployed to promote IE. Read More
Social media is making Google search less useful. Facebook isn’t ready to compete, at least not yet. Welcome to the search desert. [BuzzFeed]
If you’re a PC maker who wasn’t so thrilled when Microsoft launched the Surface, how exactly do you feel about news that the software maker might invest $2 billion in the deal to take Dell private? [Bloomberg]
Apple releases its quarterly earnings report today, and your guess is as good as ours. As far as what earnings mean for the company’s stock, which has plummeted nearly 30 percent since September? How about something in the $1 to infinity range?[@ReformedBroker]
Two Bitcoin casinos say their businesses are minting profit. [Ars Technica]
Larry Page said that Google Fiber was not a “hobby” for his company, during a conference call to discuss quarterly earnings. Cruelly, he didn’t say anything about when the company might expand the product beyond Kansas City. [Los Angeles Times]
Gather ’round, children, for it is time to hear a tale of a kingdom riven by strife and mired in woe. Our story opens on the proud capital city known as the Microsoft Redmond Campus, nestled amid the volcanic mountains of Washington.
In his modestly appointed chambers, the aging king is lonely. He has many fine troubadours and jousters to entertain him–but could one of his noblemen be conspiring to overthrow him? Better to dispatch the problem now, by dispatching the possible insurgent.
This is the mental image we can’t help but form after reading this Reuthers interview with Joachim Kempin, a former Microsoft exec who’s now written a tell-all with the clunky title of Resolve and Fortitude: Microsoft’s “SECRET POWER BROKER” Breaks His Silence. Read More
Coming soon to a CES recap near you: Microsoft is twerking that Kinect technology just as fast as it can, creating all kinds of weird futuristic use cases to help separate you from your hard-earned dollars.
Fast Company reports that Microsoft Research has created something called the “Illumiroom,” which promises to splash the “Call of Duty” combat experience all over your living room walls. (Given that this idea is still in the “proof of concept” stage, it’s not too late to change the name, hint hint.)
Here’s how it works: Read More
Steve “Sweaty” Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, was not slated to give the preshow keynote this year at CES. So fancy our surprise when he came running out, pointer fingers dancing wildly in the air, to join Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs on stage. Mr. Ballmer did his best goofy Steve Ballmer impression, waggling his tongue as he placed his outstretched and no doubt moist hand into Mr. Jacobs’. Read More
The NORAD Santa tracker, a cute little tool that helped kids everywhere track Santa’s trip around the globe on Christmas Eve, has been around for ages, first starting as a phone service and then transitioning to the web in the late ’90s. For the last five years, the service has been using Google Maps to display Santa’s progress, but this year it seems that Google may have been bumped to the naughty list. Read More
Microsoft has chosen the Times Square-to-Grand Central shuttle to launch an advertising campaign for the Surface, and it’s a full-on assault: not only did the company install video screens to loop an ad for the tablet computer, but it painted entire cars flamboyant pink, the same color, Mashable points out, as the double duty screen protectors/keyboards that Microsoft calls Touchcovers. Read More
After a particularly rigorous code review or boring business meeting, who among us hasn’t considered just quitting our day jobs and drifting into the drug trade? Turns out even Microsoft employees are not immune to this hazy daydream. Seattle TV station KIRO TV reports that former Microsoft executive Jamen Shively has decided to forgo his career in tech in order to start a premium pot business.
Mr. Shively, who worked as a corporate strategy manager for Microsoft from 2003-2009, told KIRO TV that the idea came to him the way many great ideas do: on the wave of a few voluminous bong rips. Read More
Microsoft is still plugging away, trying to convince us all to return to the bosom of Internet Explorer. Their latest volley in the company’s ongoing campaign: An almost 2-minute-long video chronicling a stereotypical nerd’s journey from hating on the world’s least cool browser to finally accepting that it is the greatest.
If only Internet Explorer’s perception problems were that Read More
