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At the Microsoft Management Summit on Thursday, Microsoft announced the release of Windows Embedded Device Manager 2011, an extension for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 that allows IT to manage Windows Embedded Standard and POSReady devices such as thin clients, digital signage, and, of course point of sale terminals.

Microsoft is accelerating the evolution of enterprise embedded devices, and today's announcement of Windows Embedded Device Manager 2011 follows the release of Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1 earlier this month.

Today, one of the largest wireless tradeshows anywhere comes to a close. Perhaps Consumer Electronics Show in January or Mobile World Congress in February stole some thunder, because CTIA Wireless 2011 doesn't feel as exciting as it should during a year when smartphones and tablets are such hot commodities. Too much of the show is about the future, and that's a problem shared by the other events.

Gartner essentially has declared 2011 the year of the smartphone, while IDC forecasts 50 million tablet shipments, with at least 35 million of them going to Apple. With competition so fierce and demand so hot, shouldn't there be more coming out of CTIA Wireless, particularly as the show takes place when nearly one-quarter of the year is over? Here's some of what I see missing:

Tawkon, makers of a mobile application that measures cellular radiation, have been blocked from releasing their app for iPhone. In response, the company on Wednesday released the tawkon app for iPhone via the Cydia jailbreak.

Apple's GSM iPhone 4 has been highly criticized for its antenna issues, and the relative ease with which users can completely block its reception with the "death grip." Journalists coyly referred to the resulting fallout from this issue as "antennagate."

HTC and Microsoft are in their third year of creating smartphones in the "HD" product line, and the two companies look to have finally hit their stride with the new HD7S, which is a slightly revamped version of the four-month-old HD7, completely ready for a world where T-Mobile USA no longer exists.

In early 2009, the HTC Touch HD was unveiled, a 3.8" WVGA touchscreen device which was obviously a post-iPhone device in chassis design, but was powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 which mandated a stylus and resistive touchscreen. By 2009, this was already something of a doomed interface in the smartphone category.

I know this is a frivolous post, but I'm a sucker for good marketing -- and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play promo videos are among the best seen for a long time. If you haven't tasted the fun, fury and frenzy, now is the time. If these videos can't help sell Xperia Play, Sony Ericsson should pack it up and go away.

Surely the handset manufacturer needs something to liven sales. During 2010, Sony Ericsson fell out of the top-5 cell phone manufacturers, as measured by end-user sales, according to Gartner. Market share fell from 4.5 percent in 2009 to a puny 2.6 percent in 2010. Unit shipments also declined from about 52 million units to nearly 42 million. How the mighty has fallen.

It is fair to say that there is no shortage of to-do list apps and services, but finding one that is genuinely useful and easy to use means working with a much smaller list. One of the best known apps is Things, but weighing at $49.99 (and additional costs for the iPhone and iPad editions), the price tag is off-putting to many potential users. By comparison, Springpad is a comprehensive data management tool that can be used on iOS and Android devices, as well as on desktop computers -- thanks to a browser extension. Best of all, it is completely free of charge.

Despite its popularity, Things is actually much more limited than Springpad. The service can be used in a number of ways, from creating basic shopping lists or to-do reminders, to gathering information for a project you are working on. One of the major advantages of using Springpad is the fact that any data added to the mobile app is automatically synchronized online so it can be accessed through the Springpad web site or synchronized with another device.

Diskeeper Corporation has released a brand new version of its commercial defragmentation utility. Diskeeper 2011 comes in three editions for home users depending on computer use: Home for light users, Pro for everyday use and ProPremier for high-end, heavy users. All three editions feature two major new features -- IntelliWrite fragmentation-prevention technology and InstantDefrag, which anticipates which files are about to be accessed and defrags them if necessary.

Also new in Diskeeper 2011 is a Performance Report for each drive that clearly states how much gains have been made by the program's optimization, while Pro and ProPremier users also get two additional features: Efficient Mode, which cuts overheads by prioritizing "problem" files that require urgent fragmentation, plus a new engine for consolidating free space.

It's no secret that good hard drive management is a vital part of PC maintenance, and this is just as true with virtual machines. But a lack of compatible tools means it can be difficult to get your virtual disks in order.

There is an easy solution, though, in Paragon Software's Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines. It's a full stand-alone version of Partition Manager, optimized for virtual disks, that includes all the drive management features you'll need: partition tools, defrag, backup and restore, a host of essential troubleshooting and disaster recovery tools and much, much more. Best of all, it's free.

Viewing PDF files in your web browser can be a troublesome experience. Your PDF viewer (typically Adobe Reader) might have trouble accessing certain web-hosted PDF files, causing your browser to hang and force you to quit and start again. Then there's the question of sharing or archiving web pages on your computer. PDF is a quick and convenient format for both purposes, but your existing PDF creation tool (typically a free solution that installs as a basic PDF printer driver) is unlikely to be able to do a reasonable job of retaining the original web page's layout and content.

PDF Download is a plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer that aims to fix all of these problems and more besides. Once installed, it can be used to display web-hosted PDFs in your browser without the need for a third-party viewer (configure this from the Opening PDF tab of the plug-in's Options dialog). You can also opt to convert a PDF file into a HTML file -- use the Viewing PDF tab to set this up -- when attempting to view it.

This week, T-Mobile lit up its highest speed HSPA+ networks in Orlando, New York, and Las Vegas, promising a theoretical maximum speed of 42 Mbps downstream. The company expects to deliver this level of service to 25 major U.S. markets by mid-year.

On the CTIA show floor today, we've pitted T-Mobile's 3G and 4G networks against one another on two devices which are nearly identical in design: the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant and the Samsung Galaxy S 4G.

Oracle further muddied the future of Intel's Itanium platform, saying late Tuesday that it had decided to discontinue all development for the server chip. It is only the latest to do so, behind Microsoft last year, and Red Hat in 2009.

"Intel management made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life," the company said in a statement. Intel disagreed with Oracle's claim however, saying it remained "committed" to the platform.

The "father" of Mac OS X is leaving Apple, the company announced Wednesday. Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Mac software engineering, will be replaced by Craig Federighi, who worked under Serlet and managed the Mac OS team for the past two years.

Serlet is believed to be leaving the company to pursue career options in science after Apple. One of the crowning achievements of his 14 years with Apple is the development of Mac OS X. He is widely credited with being the driving force behind the creation of the platform back in the late 1990s.

At the Microsoft Management Summit on Wednesday, Microsoft rolled out the final version of Windows Intune and provided information on the betas of a handful of its management solutions.

Windows Intune is Microsoft's new cloud-based PC management solution for small and medium sized businesses. As Microsoft promised in late February, the software is now available in 35 countries and comes with a 30-day trial subscription for small companies looking to try out the browser-accessible remote management suite.

Suddenly Internet Explorer 9's 2.35 million downloads in 24 hours doesn't look so impressive. Yesterday, Mozilla officially released Firefox 4, which more than doubled IE9's impressive first-day downloads. That's not as many as Firefox 3's debut, but still damn good. Mozilla has long used slogan "Take back the web!" to promote Firefox. FF4 shows that despite Apple Safari and Google Chrome making usage share gains or Microsoft launching IE9, Mozilla's browser has staying power. As I post, Firefox 4 downloads exceed 7.1 million.

"I think Firefox 4 proves once again its popularity," Betanews reader Comet writes in comments about three hours ago. "In less than 24 hours it has already surpassed the 4 million download mark. What surprises me the most is that Firefox doesn't have the support of big companies like Microsoft or Google that literally waste millions of dollars trying to get you to download their browser. As long as a non-profit organization can keep its popularity high perhaps there is still hope for a non-corporate controlled web. Big thumbs up for the browser wars yet again. Overall all browsers are moving forward quite well."

We got to take a look at some of the features of the LG G2x, T-Mobile's first dual-core smartphone, its fourteenth HSPA+ ("4G") device, and an important release for Korean electronics manufacturer LG.

The G2x is powered by a dual core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and is definitely being presented as a gamer-friendly device. In addition to being packed with a handful of games, the G2x (formerly known as the Optimus 2x) includes the Tegra Zone app which is Nvidia's games-only app store which focuses on the titles that take greatest advantage of the processor's dual core capabilities.