Microsoft has released more solid information about its anticipated Surface tablet with Windows 8 Pro, including tech specs, pricing, and availability. The Redmond, Washington-based firm also unveiled a new Surface with Windows RT configuration, as well as a few accessories.

The Surface Windows 8 Pro (aka Surface Pro) will be available for purchase on 9 February in the US and Canada. Since the Surface Pro runs Windows 8 Pro, it will work with your corporate infrastructure, as well as any older apps that you used on Windows XP to 7. The Surface Pro will also support other browsers, not just Internet Explorer as on the Windows RT version.

As anticipated, the Surface Pro will be slightly thicker than the Surface with Windows RT, and will weigh about 910g. The Surface Pro also has a metal “VaporMg” construction, kickstand, and is compatible will all the accessories that the older Surface tablet can use, including all Type and Touch covers.

The Surface Pro comes with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory, 802.11 a/b/g/n dual band Wi-Fi, a stylus for pressure-sensitive input, dual 720p HD webcams, a full-sized USB 3.0 port, microSDXC slot, and mini DisplayPort.

The 64GB version will go for $899 (£570), while the 128GB will run $999 (£630).

In addition to the Surface Pro models, Microsoft also announced a 64GB version of the Surface with Windows RT that doesn’t come with a Touch Cover. This model will also be available on 9 February for $599 (£380). This configuration saves you $100 (£60) over the 64GB version with black Touch Cover, letting you choose which colour suits you, or lets you skip the cover entirely.

Speaking of Touch Covers, new limited-edition Touch Covers will let you personalise your Surface tablet. Designs include Year of the Snake (Orange), Skulls (Blue), and Flowers (Pink). All three covers work with Surface with Windows RT and Surface Windows 8 Pro, and all three are priced at $129 (£80).

Last, but not least, Microsoft has released a Surface-specific version of the Microsoft Wedge Touch Mouse. This $69.95 (£45) mouse is compact, and has a multi-touch surface that lets you bring up Windows RT and Windows 8 functions like the Charms Bar, while letting you use program functions that require a mouse or cursor (like mouse over text and the like). The sides of the Wedge Touch Mouse match the finish of the VaporMg metal on the Surface tablets.
by Joel Santo Domingo

A US court has approved the sale of Kodak’s digital-imaging patents to a group of technology interests which include Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

The other members of the collection that bought Kodak’s patents include Adobe, Research In Motion, Samsung, a unit of HTC, Fujifilm, Facebook, Huawei, a unit of Amazon, and Shutterfly – which purchased Kodak’s online photo services last year for $23.8 million (£14.8 million).

The $527 million (£328 million) deal, which should take about 45 days to close, was settled for much less than the company wanted, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Kodak originally hoped to take home $2 billion (£1.2 billion). As a result, Judge Allan Gropper of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan called the deal “disappointing.”

“The amount in transactions, which are complicated and integrated, are the highest and best value available to the debtors,” said a Kodak lawyer.

The sale of 1,100 Kodak patents is expected to help the company pull itself out of bankruptcy in the first half of 2013. The patents include 700 related to digital camera LCD viewfinders and 400 for image capture and manipulation and network-based services.

“With the Court’s approval of the sale of our digital imaging patent portfolio, we have achieved one of Kodak’s key restructuring objectives, while positioning our Commercial Imaging business for further growth and success, and enabling Kodak to repay a substantial amount of its initial lending,” a company spokesman said.

On 19 January, 2012, the famed photography and film brand announced that it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as well as sue Samsung for patent infringement in an attempt to restructure debt.

“After considering the advantages of Chapter 11 at this time, the board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak,” CEO Antonio Perez said last January.

In August, Kodak announced that it would sell its film business. A month later, the company cut 1,000 jobs.

In the year since, Kodak has fought an ongoing battle with Apple over digital imaging patents, with both companies claiming they owned the patents in question. Kodak reported $3 billion (£1.9 billion) in earnings from licensing the patents, while Apple said it owns 10 of the patents due to work the businesses conducted together in the 1990s.

by Stephanie Mlot

The moves suggest Microsoft is seeing some demand for its first own-brand computer in the crucial holiday shopping season, although it has yet to divulge any sales figures.

“The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see,” said Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft’s Surface project, which forms part of the company’s Windows unit.

“We’ve increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface,” said Panay, but gave no details of how many extra units were being produced.

Panay did not mention names of retailers that will sell the Surface, but separately office equipmentretailer Staples Inc said it would stock the tablet from Wednesday.

He said the Surface would also be on sale at retailers in Australia from mid-December, with more countries to follow in the next few months.

Since launch in late October, the Surface has only been sold by Microsoft itself, in its own brick and mortar stores in the United States and Canada and online in Australia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

The only Surface model available now – officially called Surface with Windows RT – runs a version of Windows created to work on the low-power chips designed by ARM Holdings, which dominate smartphones and tablets but are incompatible with old Windows applications.

It starts at $499 for the 32 gigabyte version plus $120 for a thin cover that doubles as a keyboard.

A larger, heavier tablet – called Surface with Windows 8 Pro – will be introduced in January, running on an Intel Corp chip that works with all Microsoft’s Windows and Office applications. Microsoft plans to price the new Surface from $899 for a 64 gigabyte version.

The world’s largest software company also said it would keep its chain of ‘pop-up’ holiday stores open into the new year and will convert them into permanent retail outlets or what it called “specialty store locations”.

Microsoft’s recent push into physical retail – following Apple’s great success – has resulted in 31 permanent stores plus 34 holiday ‘pop-up’ stores in the U.S. and Canada.

If Microsoft converted each of the temporary stores into permanent outlets it would have 65 stores, still well below Apple with almost 400 worldwide.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle, Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore)

A California-based lawyer is suing Microsoft for not providing the advertised amount of storage space on its Surface tablet.

Andrew Sokolowski filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court after discovering that his 32GB Surface tablet did not actually allow users to load 32GB worth of content. About half of the tablet’s storage is consumed by pre-loaded apps.

“Mr. Sokolowski’s lawsuit against Microsoft is about protecting consumers as we head into the holiday shopping season,” Sokolowski’s lawyer, Rhett Francisco, announced in a statement. “Microsoft is misrepresenting the storage capacity and capabilities of its Surface tablet, and consumers should know about it.”

Francisco said Sokolowski is not asking for damages. “We have only asked that Microsoft correct its unlawful practices by providing consumers with notice of the true characteristics of the Surface tablets and that Microsoft refund profits from sales it obtained as a result of misrepresenting the characteristics of its Surface tablets.”

A Microsoft spokeswoman said “this lawsuit is without merit.”

“Customers understand the operating system and pre-installed applications reside on the device’s internal storage thereby reducing the total free space,” she said. “Surface with Windows RT customers benefit from the ability to attach additional storage via the integrated microSD slot or full-size USB port.”

Francisco, however, claims this is deceptive. “The consumer is going to be forced to upgrade the Surface tablet by buying a peripheral device that expands the Surface’s memory to what the consumer initially thought he or she purchased in the first place. That’s simply unfair to consumers, that’s a violation of the law, and Microsoft knows it.”

Tech-savvy shoppers are likely aware of the storage constraints on their modern-day gadgets. If you buy a new 16GB iPhone, for example, you won’t get all 16GB for your apps and music. My 16GB iPhone 5 is currently using 9.2GB of storage, but I only have 4.2GB of available space, or 13.4GB in total. The same applies to other smartphones, tablets, and PCs on the market today.

Microsoft has an FAQ on its website about the Surface storage space, but Francisco said it is not easily accessible. “The alleged notice is actually intentionally buried by Microsoft deep within their website, under the ‘Support’ section,” he said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Sokolowski has a solo practice in Los Angeles that focuses on “protecting consumers’ and employees’ rights.”

by Chloe Albanesius

Windows 8 has been out for about a month now, and Internet  Explorer 10 came along with it. Not only does IE10 have better standards  support, but it features substantially better performance. The good news is that  now those of us still using Windows 7 get to join in the fun thanks to the fact  that Microsoft has just released IE10 on Windows 7 Preview. I’ve  run some tests, and this is a substantial improvement from the previous version,  but how does it compare to Chrome?

First off, I did all of the testing on a fully patched Windows 7 installation  on a 2.5GHz Core i5 iMac with 16GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM and an AMD Radeon HD  6750M with 512MB of RAM. Each test was done without any browser extensions  running, and with a cache wipe between every benchmark. I wanted to know how IE10 compared to Chrome and IE9, so I did three different  tests: SunSpider JavaScript performance, HTML5 compliance, and page  load times on live websites.

JavaScript

Using the SunSpider 0.9.1 benchmarking tool from the developers of WebKit,  the three browsers are given an overall score depending on how long it took them  to execute a suite of synthetic JavaScript benchmarks.

For this test, the lower the score the better. IE9 finished running the  performance test in 814.4ms, give or take 0.6 per cent. Chrome 23 was able to  complete it in just 183.2ms, give or take 1.7 per cent. Most impressively, IE10  was the fastest at a mere 127.2ms, give or take 1.5 per cent. IE10 bested Chrome  by 56ms, but it absolutely destroyed IE9 by 687.2ms. That’s a huge difference  that will make for much improved performance when using complex web apps.

HTML5

HTML5 compliance is a bit hard to test because the W3C, the web standards  body, has yet to agree on the complete specification. As of now, we’re working  using its draft spec. Currently, the HTML5 Test is one of the best ways to test if your browser  supports five hundred different HTML5 features as well as bonus features not  defined in the spec, such as multiple codec support for video playback.

IE9 scored a measly 138/500 with five bonus points. Chrome 23 scored 448/500  with 13 bonus points. IE10 scored somewhere in between with 320/500 with 6 bonus  points. The HTML5 Test is not perfect. It doesn’t test how well your browser  performs its tasks, but it does check to see if your browser can perform them,  so it’s good to know where your browser of choice stands.

Load times

In this test, Chrome 23 and IE10 go head-to-head with real-world load times.  Using a stopwatch, I timed how long it took from pressing enter in the URL bar  until a page was in a readable state with all of the text in place. I used three  websites here, ExtremeTech, PCMag and Geek.com, and all were tested three  separate times on both browsers, and then averaged out. On IE10, ExtremeTech  loaded in 1.43 seconds, PCMag loaded in 2.00 seconds, and Geek.com loaded in  2.03 seconds. On Chrome 23, ExtremeTech loaded in 1.17 seconds, PCMag loaded in  1.50 seconds, and Geek.com loaded in 1.23 seconds. On average, Chrome loaded  pages faster, but not by much. In fact, individual tests on the same browser  varied more than the difference between browsers. In the real world, you won’t  likely notice a difference in load times between either browser.

Summary

After seeing how well IE10 compares next to IE9 and Chrome 23 on Windows 7,  the picture is clear. If you’re using IE9, drop it and move to the IE10 Preview.  Chrome users, go ahead and try out IE10 to see if you like it. We’re finally  getting close to the point where we can pick which browser we use simply based  on personal taste instead of basing that decision solely on performance.

Much of the progress made can be attributed to Mozilla for using Firefox to  light a flame under the browser industry, Google for picking up where Mozilla left off, and  Microsoft for taking responsibility for the quality of its product at long last.  Finally, Internet Explorer can hold its head high and compete head-to-head with  other modern browsers.

by Grant Brunner,                           

The first Microsoft Surface devices have been welcomed by reviewers, although the Windows 8-based Surface does have its quirks. But businesses that run mostly or entirely on Windows PCs may find Surface an attractive alternative to iPads or Android slates, possibly with better integration with other parts of the Microsoft ecosystem.

Already, though, doubts have started to emerge about how well Surface will integrate into the workplace. Those doubts centre on its security, and the ability of IT teams to write or customise applications for the device.

Research commissioned by SecureData, and conducted by polling organisation Vanson Bourne, suggested that 12 per cent of IT security managers are worried that Surface and Windows 8 could be a “major threat” to enterprise security.

That might not be a large percentage, but the fact that security specialists have concerns at all over a newly-launched, flagship product should worry Microsoft. SecureData found that moreIT managers were likely to deploy iPads than Surface over the next two years, perhaps because, from a security point of view, iOS is now tried and tested.

But security managers also pointed out that the Surface Pro version of Microsoft’s slate, which runs the regular version of Windows, is likely to be more at risk than the ARM-based RT version of the device.

Much of the concern centres around the ease of employees downloading or buying Windows applications separately from the Surface – as well as the vulnerability of Windows to malware. “More open devices will lack the closed security benefits of the Apple [ecosystem]“, said the report.

Microsoft, and the security companies, are likely to address the issue over the next few months with tools to integrate Surface into IT security systems, including malware detection, patch management and data loss prevention. But whilst Surface is so new, the real security risks remain largely unquantifiable.

Problems with customising or writing applications for Surface, though, are already coming to the fore; the combination of Windows 8 and IE10 – which will also be on laptops and Windows 8 phones – has already thrown up some anomalies. One large UK educational institution, for example, has found that its students cannot access its commercial e-learning application from IE10, forcing them either to use an alternative computer, or a browser such as Firefox.

Netbiscuits, a company that helps businesses develop web-based, mobile applications, has already warned of issues around Windows 8 and IE10, especially around the way the new browser handles website mark up. At the very least, web application designers warn that companies that want their applications to run on Surface will have to carry out a fair amount of testing.

Any good web development team should be testing its public-facing applications and websites for compatibility on an ongoing basis: new platforms, whether it is Windows 8, iOS 6, or even smart TVs, can require design or functionality tweaks. But it is bespoke or customised internal business applications that could be a real challenge for Surface users.

Surface has a lot of potential in the enterprise. But if users, or IT departments, think that Surface can just slot in to a gap left by Windows XP gear, they face a rude awakening.

By Stephen Pritchard

Price as reviewed:£332 ex VAT for 32GB; £399 ex VAT for 32GB with Touch Cover; £466 ex VAT 64GB with Touch Cover

The news was confirmed to the Verge ”through several sources close to Microsoft’s plans.”

Office Mobile will reportedly be launched in the form of separate free apps that will offer support for Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, respectively. Before downloading the apps, one will first have have a Microsoft account.

However, these apps will only allow users to view the documents. An Office 365 subscription (which will be available as an in-app purchase) will be required in order to gain editing functionality, though, according to the report, it will be quite basic and “won’t go very far in attempting to replace regular full use of a desktop Office version.”

The Verge recently reported that a “recent Microsoft press release from the company’s Czech Republic subsidiary” unveiled that Office Mobile would arrive on iOS between late February and early March, and on Android in May.

However, Microsoft denied the rumour, saying “the information shared by our Czech subsidiary is not accurate. We do not have anything further to share at this time.”

Rumours concerning the Android and iOS versions of the Office suite have been in circulation for some time now, with previous reports pointing to a November release of the product.

by Aatif Sulleyman

Of course, we now know that Microsoft has split its ecosystem with two similar, but distinct, operating systems: Windows 8 for tablets, laptops, and desktops, and Windows Phone 8 for smartphones. It turns out that I was partially right, though: Windows Phone 8 has the same core kernel and libraries as Windows 8, meaning there’s a lot of shared code between the two operating systems and that (new-style) Metro apps are mostly cross-compatible. For the most part, the only real differences are the name (which is important for licensing reasons), and slightly different Start/home screens.

In recent weeks, though, I have been thinking about another possibility: What’s to stop OEMs from releasing a Windows 8 device with a smartphone form factor? Or, vice versa, a tablet device with Windows Phone 8?

While Microsoft has never officially gone on the record, the one key differentiator between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 is display resolution. Windows 8 Store apps will not run at resolutions below 1024 x 768, and to receive Windows Logo certification (official approval from Microsoft) devices must have a resolution of 1366 x 768. Windows Phone 8, on the other hand, supports the much lower resolution of 800 x 480.

Now, when Microsoft began development of Windows 8 back in 2009, these resolutions made sense. 1366 x 768 was (and is) the most common PC display resolution, and smartphones were still idling around the 480 x 320 mark. In hindsight, it probably would’ve been more sensible to draw the line of demarcation at a specific screen size, but even then, devices like the Galaxy Note 2 have shown that it’s hard to say where smartphones end and tablets begin.

Today, of course, smartphones have almost closed the resolution gap. The current bleeding-edge phones have resolutions of around 1280 x 720 (six times the pixel count of the iPhone 3GS in 2009), and many laptops and netbooks are still sitting at 1366 x 768. There aren’t yet any 1366 x 768 smartphones on the market that could run Windows 8 – but really, it’s only a matter of time. Case in point: ZTE is spreading a rumour[Chinese] that it will release a 1920 x 1080, 5.9in Windows Phone 8 device next year. We’re a little bit sceptical about this one, as WP8 is meant to have a max resolution of 1280 x 768, but would a ZTE bigwig publicly lie about such things?

Four legs good, two legs bad

Really, if you take the physical form factor out of the equation, there is virtually no difference between Microsoft’s homemade Surface RT tablet and the latest smartphones. You could even argue that Windows Phone 8 smartphones, with a minimum requirement of a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, are more powerful than Windows 8 ARM tablets.

So, what’s to stop the emergence of Windows Phone 8 tablets and Windows 8 smartphones? Not a whole lot. Windows Phone 8 would probably work quite well on larger screens – and as an added bonus, the license for WP8 is cheaper than Windows 8, meaning cheaper tablets. Microsoft keeps a tight rein on Windows Phone 8, though – and considering it’s explicitly designed for the smartphone form factor, it probably wouldn’t scale gracefully to tablet screen sizes without Microsoft’s blessing (which isn’t likely to happen).

The much more interesting possibility is the possible arrival of Windows 8 smartphones. Windows 8 lacks a phone dialler, but it does support cellular networking. Presumably it would be easy enough to provide a third-party Windows 8 dialler app – but even if it isn’t, there’s always Skype.

Beyond that, there’s no reason to believe that Windows 8 or RT wouldn’t work well on a smartphone. OEMs probably aren’t rushing to provide Windows RT on a smartphone – and their licensing agreements with Microsoft might physically prevent them from ever shipping a Windows RT/8 smartphone – but next year, with the arrival of Intel’s next x86 smartphone SoC (Medfield’s successor Merrifield), this might change. In 2013, there may be Merrifield-powered Android smartphones that you can root and install Windows 8 on.

Imagine if you had a pocketable device that ran full, x86 Windows. Imagine if you could plug it into a second or third display, or attach a wireless keyboard or printer, and settle down to do some work. Rather than having access to your documents on the move, you would be able to do everything on the move. You might even be able to play Crysis 3 on your smartphone. I told you, the smartphone is the PC of tomorrow.

by Sebastian Anthony