Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie is set to open the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles with his morning keynote address that is expected to cover Microsoft's efforts in the cloud with new online services.

Ozzie will be joined by Amitabh Srivastava (Internet services platform), Bob Muglia (Server and Tools) and David Thompson (business software). We will be live-blogging the keynote as it takes place. Refresh this page for updates.

Continue reading →

Although some Apple developers are airing a lot of frustration lately, mDialog's Greg Philpott wants it known that he's basically happy about creating software for Apple platforms.

While iPhone software applications like Podster and Murderdrome have gotten nixed by Apple's App Store, thousands of others are indeed up there for download. A "social video" application from mDialog, available since the App Store's launch on July 10, is driving considerable new business for mDialog, said Greg Philpott, the company's founder and CEO. In an interview with BetaNews, Philpott also shared some tips for other developers interested in getting their software into the App Store.

Continue reading →

Get ready for the first concrete news on the next version of Microsoft Windows, the next edition of Visual Studio, and what could very well be the first Windows product to serve applications "in the cloud." PDC is all this week.

LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - It's apparent even from before the get-go that the theme of this year's Microsoft Professional Developers' Conference is winning back the marketing momentum, and bringing back developers' enthusiasm in Windows as a brand. Certainly many of them are already enthusiastic about the technologies they work with -- ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, C#, LINQ, the new dynamic languages like F#. But in the last round, that enthusiasm didn't translate into Vista, the consumer brand.

Continue reading →

A new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would, according to some industry groups, kneecap the tech-manufacturing industry's "just-in-time" cost-management strategies.

The SAFE (Security and Accountability For Every) Port Act of 2006 is best known to many tech folk as the bill that hamstrung most online-gambling sites. However, US hardware manufacturers may soon feel the hurt, as new efforts to address potential attacks via the nation's ports and borders lead to claims that the changes the US Dept. of Homeland Security wants will add costs without raising safety.

Continue reading →

Where did everybody go? Recent Nielsen Online statistics reveal that the social-networking congregating online may not be hanging out where you think they are.

Nielsen's September numbers for thirteen sites with a significant social-networking aspect provide stirring testimony to the ability of many of us to do anything but work on our computers -- and, obliquely, a look at how the hype still outstrips reality in many cases.

Continue reading →

She isn't accused of homicide, exactly, but a woman in Japan could spend five years in jail on charges related to "murdering" her virtual husband in revenge for a virtual divorce.

Police in Japan suspect that a 43-year-old woman grew enraged after her online husband "divorced" her in the interactive Maple Story game -- so much so that she virtually eliminated him.

Continue reading →

The US Department of Justice has completed its review the RFID Consortium's joint patent-licensing arrangement that covers essential technologies in UHF RFID, and have deemed it pro-competitive.

The RFID consortium and VIA Licensing issued a call over two years ago to pool all the foundational patents for Ultra High Frequency RFID that were either necessarily infringed, or necessary to make, use, or sell a product in compliance with the applicable UHF RFID standards.

Continue reading →

For those of us who not only need to keep dozens of Firefox tabs open at once but need to see them to remember they exist, Tab Mix Plus' upgrade to Firefox 3 compatibility is some of the week's best news.

Tabs are a great way of managing the multiple threads one follows in the course of a day, but if you operate on an "out of sight, out of mind" basis, Firefox's current horizontal scroll tends to lead to confusion (and, often, resource-wasting tab duplications).

Continue reading →

With Microsoft picking up the pace in both the development and marketing of Windows 7, it's also finding itself moving ahead with the next amendment package for Vista not too long after the release of SP1.

In an early piece of news that we had expected to hear on Monday, Microsoft will release the first beta editions of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista to private testers on Wednesday, October 29. Those testers will be among the first, according to a blog post from Windows 7 corporate VP Mike Nash this afternoon, to test burning data directly to Blu-ray Discs using only the Vista OS.

Continue reading →

The EU anti-piracy directive that would let intellectual property holders get information about file sharers has been implemented in a Swedish bill, which this week received approval to be presented to Parliament.

Sweden's English-language news site The Local reports this week that the Lagrådet Legislative Council has green-lighted a bill that would make file sharers' IP addresses available to copyright holders.

Continue reading →

Time Warner's Cartoon Network is in the final stages of developing its own massively multiplayer online game (MMO) called FusionFall, and is seeking beta testers to help iron out any problems.

Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall has been in a limited closed beta, but the channel is now expanding the test before the game's official launch this fall. All participants must be 18 years of age or older, due to the non-disclosure agreement that must be agreed to.

Continue reading →

Apple iPhone users are slightly more into gaming, but users of both Android and iPhone phones like to play games, shop, and find out about music and the weather, according to an analysis of application downloads issued this week.

At least nine Android apps are already faring very well with consumers, even though Android Market only offers 10 percent as many software applications as Apple's App Store did on its own launch this summer, a new study indicates.

Continue reading →

Intel execs at this week's Developer's Forum made derisive remarks about the ARM chips used in most smartphones -- including the iPhone -- saying they made devices "not very smart." Another executive then issued a retraction of sorts.

Shane Wall, VP and director of strategic planning, platform architecture and software for Intel's Ultra Mobility Group; and Pankaj Kedia, director of ecosystems of the Ultra Mobility group, engaged in a discussion after Wall's keynote at IDF on Tuesday. There, the execs blamed the deficiencies of both the Apple iPhone, and smartphones as a whole, on ARM chips.

Continue reading →

Apple this week issued a new, two-part NDA to take the place of an initial agreement abandoned after iPhone developers barraged the Internet with messages signaling their discontent, sometimes using colorful language.

Acknowledging that the first non-disclosure agreement had turned out to be "burdensome" for developers, Apple announced about three weeks ago that it would drop the old document in favor of a new one, while also telling developers to keep complying with the old one in the interim.

Continue reading →

In another indication that the American information technology industry is better suited to riding out the economic storm than other sectors, Microsoft's forecast for the rest of this year is for slightly slower growth.

Prior to the on-shore strike of an approaching hurricane, you're likely to hear many meteorologists use the phrase, "I'm not a fortune teller," as a way of downplaying expectations about the confidence one may have in their predictions. Over the last week of quarterly earnings reports, the keyphrase uttered almost invariably has been, "We're not economists."

Continue reading →