Software | featured news

Judge dismisses $1B lawsuit against Microsoft

Novell Inc. sued the software giant in 2004, claiming Microsoft duped it into developing the once-popular WordPerfect writing program for Windows 95 only to pull the plug so Microsoft could gain market share with its own product. Novell says it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2 billion loss.

 

Amazon answers critics with Kindle Fire update

Kindle Fire Software Update

The New York Times reported that Amazon will roll out a Kindle Fire update "in less than two weeks." The cause for the update? Fixes for problems that have concerned many early users.

Senh: Great, Amazon's providing updates to the Kindle Firer to fix lots of issues, except for the one I care about the most: the ability to turn off one-click shopping on the device so my kids won't accidentally buy a bunch of apps and other stuff from Amazon.

 

HP donates WebOS to open sourcers

HP Touchpad

Hewlett Packard donates its mobile system software, WebOS, to the open source community and says it will continue to invest in the project. The tech company acquired the software when it bought the smartphone maker Palm for $1.2bn (£767m) last year. HP used the code to power its short-lived range Touchpad tablet computers before it abandoned the product line.

 

Google Currents, Rival to Flipboard, Finally Debuts

Google‘s long-awaited answer to Flipboard, the “social magazine” exclusively on Apple‘s iPad and iPhone, just debuted today. Google Currents offers a similar appearance, except it works on Android devices as well as iPads and iPhones. It’s the latest in a long string of applications, most recently Yahoo‘s Livestand, that seek to turn online content into something resembling print magazines, but without all those dead trees and with 20th century innovations like, say, video.

 

Ten billion downloads for Android

Android App

More than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from Google's Android Market store, says the search giant.

 

Apples claim of Android rip-off awaits U.S. trade agency ruling

For two years, Apple has told the world that phones running on Google Android operating system are iPhone rip-offs. Now Apple is about to learn whether a U.S. trade agency thinks its claims have merit.

 

Microsoft Updating Xbox Interface; Adding Voice Search

XBox 360: Netflix

Microsoft is launching a new interface for the Xbox 360 game console, borrowing the tile-based “Metro” look that started on the Zune music players, moved to the Windows Phone software and will spread to PCs next year with the arrival of Windows 8. The new version of the software will be downloaded to all users starting December 6.

 

iPhone virtual assistant Siri has her flaws, but she's learning

Apple iPhone Siri

Apple's voice recognition app operates in the Internet cloud. Commands are processed on a Web server and software developers can monitor Siri's responses, tweaking the program to improve it.

 

PC-friendly version of Android released

Android

Android developers have released a version of 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that can run on chips found in most personal computers, from netbooks and laptops to desktop towers.

 

Smartphone 'surveillance' app row

Carrier IQ threatens and then drops legal action against a developer who claimed that the company's code could be used to monitor smartphones.

 

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