TechStew

From the mouth of the babes! So, folks you heard it from the biggest Microsoft authority Bill Gates himself - the Windows Phone strategy is a mistake! I have been saying that in this blog for a while now especially in regards to Nokia whose fortunes tumbled since it bedded Microsoft in 2011 .  "There's a lot of things like cellphones where wedidn't get out in the lead early. We didn't miss cellphones, but the way that we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership." It is not very often that the heads of giant corporations speak the truth, nor even hint at it, so we have to take Gates' statement for more than just its face value. Admitting that Microsoft failed with its ill-recieved mobile operating system reverberated like an A bomb through the tech community drawing glee from its competitors and scores of denial from its supporters and astroturfers. The question of course remains: will Gates demand Ballmer's removal as Microsoft...

MS should not have competed with Android and Apple in the smartphone and tablet arena but should have reinvented the PC, the medium that it ruled for good 3 decades. There is a lot of talk circulating the web about a Surface tablet, both the RT and Pro versions and Windows 8 which powers them. The Internet is replete with comments and blogs praising the features of Nokia Lumia 920 or HTC X8 smart phones. However, the sales of such items are clouded in mystery although some indicators recently published point out that only 10,000- 15,000 units of Nokia Lumia 920 were sold in the United States per week. Far cry from iPhone 5 and especially Samsung’s Galaxy S3, which are sold in millions on weekly bases in the North American market alone and are currently the top selling cell phones on Amazon.

Metro UI - live tiles in 'action' Live tiles? Not so lively So the as whole array of various new iterations of MS Windows hit your screens, be it your desktop, cell phone, or laptop you may be wondering what live tiles are. Essentially, live tiles are just graphically simplified widgets. There sn nothing ‘live’ about them; the fact that different tiles display a number of newly arrived text messages, emails, and missed calls is nothing new, better looking widgets on iOS or Android do the same thing. The so-called ‘People’ tile keeps flipping pictures of your contacts incessantly without a single purpose; no relevant information is being displayed. Microsoft wants you to think that picture flipping is somehow ‘live’ whatever that may mean. The weather hub on HTC Windows phones does not update the weather information so the ‘live’ status here is a mute one. In Windows phone 8 you can resize the tiles and move them around anyway you wish which results in your screen beco...