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Microsoft takes control of Nokia's phone business and acquires 25,000 new employees Summary: It's official as of today, April 25: Nokia's Devices and Services business is now owned by Microsoft. Microsoft Mobile Oy Microsoft Mobile Oy is now the subsidiary of Microsoft responsible for Lumia, Asha and Android-based Nokia X phones, and other unspecified devices. The new name and status is the culmination of Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset business, which cost Redmond $5 billion (plus another $2 billion for a 10-year associated patent-licensing agreement). Microsoft Mobile Oy is now part of the Microsoft Devices Group headed by Executive Vice President Stephen Elop. The Mobile Devices Group is now responsible for Lumia smartphones and tablets, Nokia mobile phones, Xbox hardware, Surface, Perceptive Pixel (PPI) products, and accessories. Under the patent piece of the deal, Microsoft acquired 8,500 design patents covering phone manuf

Amazon AppStream now available for all developers, including Mac Summary: AppStream, Amazon's streaming application is now open to all developers of applications and games, the company said on Thursday. This will allow all developers, including those working on OS X , to build and run streaming applications through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon AppStream allows developers to stream resource-intensive applications and games from the cloud. The service was first launched in November last year. The previews were not available to Mac users at the time, a restriction that the company has now lifted. The most significant change from today's announcement is the introduction of the g2 instance type Elastic Block Storage (EBS). AppStream applications now run in a Windows 2008 R2 environment on an Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance and can make use of native Windows APIs and AWS resources such as relational and NoSQL (Amazon

Heartbleed: Serious OpenSSL zero day vulnerability revealed Heartbleed OpenSSL zero-day vulnerability. Summary: New security holes are always showing up. The latest one, the so-called Heartbleed Bug in the OpenSSL cryptographic library, is an especially bad one.Lets hope every company would try to increase their security measures While Heartbleed only affects OpenSSL's 1.0.1 and the 1.0.2-beta release , 1.01 is already broadly deployed. Since Secure-Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) are at the heart of Internet security, this security hole is serious. The flaw can potentially be used to reveal not just the contents of a secured-message, such as a credit-card transaction over HTTPS, but the primary and secondary SSL keys themselves. This data could then, in theory, be used as a skeleton keys to bypass secure serve

Microsoft releases a preview build of its mysterious 'Project N' Summary: Microsoft's 'Project N,' now officially christened '.Net Native' -- a new compiler for building faster Windows Store apps -- is available now as a developer preview. Microsoft has released a first developer preview build of .Net Native , the technology formerly known by its codename "Project N." .Net Native allows Windows Store/Metro-Style apps to start up to 60 percent faster and use 15 percent to 20 percent less memory when compiled with .Net Native, according to Microsoft officials. In short, NET Native compiles C# to native machine code that performs like C++. "Our compiler in the cloud compiles the app using .Net Native in the Store, creating a self-contained app package that’s customized to the device where the app will be installed," explained officials in an April 2 blog post. Microsoft officials showed off a brief sneak peek

Microsoft Office for iPad sets the gold standard for tablet productivity Summary: It took four years, but Microsoft has finally released full-featured Office apps for the iPad. As expected, the new Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps are free to install but require an Office 365 subscription to unlock the full set of features. Here's what you can expect. Microsoft today released native iPad apps for its flagship Office programs—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The three new apps join the existing iOS apps from the Office family: OneNote, Lync, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and an OWA app for Exchange-based email. Gallery: A closer look at Microsoft Office for the iPad After four years’ worth of speculation and anticipation, today’s releases are a welcome arrival for longtime Office users who’ve had to deal with incompatibilities and unsatisfying alternatives every time they picked up an iPad. Make no mistake about it: These th

3D printed drone ushers in era of disposable aircraft Summary: Low cost UAVs such as this could be sent on one-way search or reconnaissance missions, say engineers. The 3D printed drone at the University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre A disposable 3D printed drone had been developed which could be built and flying within 24 hours. Engineers at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield have printed the 1.5m-wide prototype as part of research into 3D printing of complex designs. The researchers said the low cost of printing such 3D aircraft could see them used for one-way flights for search, reconnaissance or even deliveries. The engineers said the polymer craft could form the basis of cheap or disposable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which could, for example, be built and deployed in remote situations. While earlier versions of the craft required significant amounts of support material around comp

Microsoft offers users $100 toward Windows 8 devices with XP trade-in offer Summary: As the end of Windows XP support on April 8 approaches, Microsoft is making available a new trade-in offer for those willing to switch their XP machines for Windows 8.1 ones. Microsoft is offering Windows XP users $100 toward their purchase of a Surface Pro 2 or other select Windows 8.1 PCs worth more than $599. The offer runs from March 20, 2014 until June 15, 2014 , or "while supplies last," according to the offer page on Microsoft's online site. The offer is available in select Microsoft retail and online stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada. ARM-based Surface 2s are not included among the machines that qualify. There's a one device limit, and the $100 credit isn't available on prior orders or purchases. Those who take advantage of the offer also get 90 days of free support for their new Windows 8 devices from Microsoft. Microsof

Microsoft to integrate new social, machine learning technologies into Office 365 Summary: Microsoft will be making some big changes as to how Office 365 looks and works later this year with the addition of new Office Graph and 'Oslo' technologies. Microsoft is about to make some big changes as to how Office 365 looks and works. At the company's SharePoint 2014 conference, which kicks off on March 3, executives will preview some of these coming changes -- specifically ones involving social and machine-learning technologies that Microsoft is baking into its cloud suite of Office apps. Once these technologies begin rolling out later this year, the lines between Exchange, SharePoint and Yammer will be blurred, and social collaboration will become more of a centerpiece of the more tightly-integrated suite. Microsoft has built what it's calling the "Office Graph," which is the machine-learning piece. The Office Graph analyzes content, user inte

Google, Samsung 'express concern' over Microsoft-Nokia deal: report Summary: Google and Samsung are reportedly concerned patent licensing fees may increase should the software giant acquire the Finnish phone maker's devices and services unit. Google and Samsung have reportedly joined Chinese phone makers Huawei and ZTE in "expressing concern" to China's state regulators that the Microsoft-Nokia deal may result in higher patent licensing fees. The news was first reported by Bloomberg , citing two government officials familiar with negotiations. According to the report, both Google and Samsung asked China's Ministry of Commerce to ensure the transaction would not lead to higher fees, particularly in wireless technologies, where such patents remain highly competitive and sought after. There is also concern Microsoft may get a boost in the smartphone market and could abuse its patent position, the government officials were

Security 2014: The holes are in the apps, not the operating systems Summary:  Security firms FireEye and Secunia say Windows continues to be the most-targeted OS and businesses can expect to be attacked by malware once every 1.5 seconds. Yes, some operating systems are more secure than others. Some, such as  OpenBSD , make a real point of protecting you from attackers. Others, such as Windows, have had a bad reputation, but have gotten better over the years. Still others, such as Linux and Mac OS X are known for being secure, but in Mac OS X's case, at least one major security flaw, the SSL goto bug, has seriously damaged its reputation. When all is said and done, however, the real security problems in the 20-teens, according to security firms  FireEye  and  Secunia,  are not in our operating systems but in the applications we run on them. Secunia reports that in 2013  76 percent of security holes in the 50 most popular programs on private PCs in 2013 affected thi