Ed Oswald

Microsoft is betting on Windows Phone and is leaning on close partner Nokia to execute that strategy. Details have leaked of the latest Windows Phone-powered device from the Finnish phone maker, dubbed the Lumia 900. To be sold in the United States as the Nokia Ace, the device will be the Windows Phone flagship.

Smartphone news site Pocketnow says that the smartphone will sport a 4.3-inch WVGA screen, 512MB of RAM, 8-megapixel camera, and 1830 mAh battery. Compared to the Lumia 710 and 800 -- which were Nokia's first Windows Phone powered devices launched in October -- the screen is much larger although its camera is the same resolution as the 800.

Continue reading →

This is the first year Apple will operate without its co-founder and leader Steve Jobs. To move forward without him, what does the company need to do in the new year? While I've never fancied myself a prognosticator, I do have a few suggestions on what the Cupertino, Calif. company needs to do.

Some have to do with changing the way Apple works and does business; others require some hard decisions on Apple's product lines. Either way, 2012 will give us the first glimpse whether or not Apple can move on from its past and iconic leader.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday is not until January 10, but the company is not waiting to patch a critical flaw in computers with the ASP.NET framework installed. The issue affects all currently supported versions of Windows, according to a security bulletin from the company.

According to Microsoft's description of the flaw, an issue exists in how the framework handles certain web request. If an attacker sends a request in a certain way, it could allow for elevation of privilege that may result in the execution of arbitrary code. The flaw is not easy to exploit, however, as the attacker needs to know some information about the victim.

Continue reading →

Verizon's claim of being the nation's most reliable network sure took a hit this month. At least three separate outages occurred during December, frustrating customers. The carrier's statement, however, could not be more non-committal, as it blames the outages on the perils of building out its 4G LTE network.

"Being a pioneer comes with growing pains", the carrier says in a statement. "The recent issues that affected our customers' 4GLTE service were unforeseen despite careful, diligent planning, deployment and ongoing upgrade programs". Each of the three outages were blamed on different issues, which engineers have since remedied to prevent those issues from occurring again.

Continue reading →

There were quite a few new iPods and iPhones under the Christmas tree this year, so that makes a new phishing scam making the rounds this week all the more dangerous. Security firm Intego says that it is receiving reports of faked Apple emails asking users to update their billing information. They started around Christmas Day.

The message comes with the grammatically incorrect title "Apple update your Billing Information". The email itself though looks almost identical to a genuine message from the Cupertino, Calif.-based company, complete with a grey page-like background with the Apple logo in the upper right hand corner. The email warns that the user's billing information is out of date and needs to be updated, also with uncharacteristic bad grammar.

Continue reading →

Christmastime is coming soon, Santa's on his way. As jolly old St. Nick makes his rounds of Silicon Valley this weekend, which tech CEOs will be on his "Naughty" and "Nice" lists this year? We here at BetaNews are secret elves, and we'd like to help out the man in red by giving our opinion on who should get what they asked for, and who needs a big lump of coal.

Some of our picks are pretty obvious, while others may surprise you. Our list is intended to make you think and to spur some discussion on the trends in tech during 2011. Either way, we want to hear from you on who you think deserves to be on this list. We'll follow up Friday with your responses.

Continue reading →

It is a move sure to change the dynamics of the Consumer Electronics Show, and one the tech media may not have expected so soon. Microsoft announced Wednesday that CES 2012 is the last it will maintain a significant presence. After this January? No keynotes, no booth. Attendees won't even know the Redmond, Wash.-based company is there in 2013. If you want to gawk at a CEO Steve Ballmer CES keynote, next year's show is your ticket, and the last.

"We won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing", says Frank Shaw, head of corporate communications at Microsoft. "It feels like the right time to make this transition".

Continue reading →

Verizon 4G customers are experiencing issues with connectivity for the second time this month as the carrier struggles to restore the network. Issues are being reported throughout the company's nationwide 4G LTE network, although the cause is not immediately known.

"Verizon Wireless 4G LTE service is returning to normal this morning, after company engineers worked to resolve an issue with the 4G network during the early morning hours today", the company says. "Throughout this time, 4G LTE customers were able to make voice calls and send and receive text messages. The 3G data network operated normally".

Continue reading →

It's no secret that Mozilla needs Google. The Mountain View, Calif. search company provides a significant source of revenue for the software company, as it is the default search in Firefox. That deal has been extended an additional three years, the two companies announced on Tuesday.

"Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come", Google's search chief Alan Eustace says. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it may be safe to assume that it will contribute somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million yearly to Mozilla's bottom line.

Continue reading →

With details emerging on what exactly T-Mobile USA gets as a result of the dissolution of the merger between it and AT&T, it appears in at least the short term the struggling carrier will receive a much needed boost. AT&T is entering in to a seven year roaming agreement with T-Mobile that dramatically increases the carrier's coverage area.

"Coverage will be extended to many regions of the U.S. in which T-Mobile USA previously had neither its own high-speed mobile communications network nor the associated roaming agreements", Deutsche Telekom says. AT&T will award T-Mobile USA a significant amount of AWS spectrum, which will help T-Mobile USA dramatically accelerate its 4G deployment.

Continue reading →

Owners of Samsung's Galaxy line of tablets and smartphones won't wait long for Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich", according to an announcement the company made today. Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note will receive ICS in the first quarter of next year, followed by other Galaxy devices throughout 2012.

The new version of Android's operating system is a significant upgrade over previous releases, including enhancements such as "face unlock", improved multitasking and notifications support, and a updated user interface.

Continue reading →

AT&T ended its nine month bid to acquire T-Mobile on Monday, but not before taking parting shots at both the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice in a tersely worded statement. Those agencies' actions "do not change the realities of the US wireless industry", the company says, and do not address the biggest issue facing all carriers -- spectrum -- a problem that must be addressed "immediately".

The deal hit its first major roadblock in August, when the Justice Department said it was suing to block the merger. The FCC added fuel to the fire in November with chairman Julius Genachowski proposing hearings on the deal, and an unnamed official leaking a comment to the media saying a combined entity "would result in a massive loss of US jobs and investment".

Continue reading →

Microsoft is set to get a little more pushy ensuring you have an up-to-date browser and will automatically update Internet Explorer to the latest version on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 beginning in January. This will occur for those who have enabled Automatic Updates within Windows Update, the company says.

The move echoes a trend started with Google's Chrome, which automatically updates itself by default: other browsers (such as Firefox and Opera) prompt before updating. Chrome's update strategy is why a previous version loses market share quickly when a new version comes out.

Continue reading →

Microsoft debuted two new apps for Apple's mobile platform. The new apps are iOS versions of popular Kinect game Kinectimals and Windows Live SkyDrive, its online storage service.

SkyDrive is free, although Microsoft is charging $2.99 for Kinectimals. The game is the only app that the company currently charges for. The two apps follow the release of an Xbox Live app earlier this month and OneNote for the iPad, and Lync for the iPhone.

Continue reading →

Carrier IQ is once again making headlines, this time over reports that it is giving information to law enforcement. Complicating matters more, the FBI denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last week asking about its own use of Carrier IQ technology, saying the release of such documents "could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings".

The FBI's admission in the letter that documents do exist raises concerns that Carrier IQ is using its technologies more than just for customer experience purposes, but actual spying as it is being accused of by many pundits. The company is moving quickly to quell this latest round of criticism.

Continue reading →