operating system

The Six "Wow" Features of Windows 7

Kate Rockwood — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0500

"We set out to ask: What's the Windows way to do something?" says Sam Moreau, Microsoft's head of user-experience design for Windows 7. "We had to make sure that we took care of Windows as having an authentic soul." He knows you may be snickering, especially if you use Vista. "Vista tried to do a lot of things, and the places where we didn't finish the job are the places people feel," he says.

Bada, Samsung's New Open-Source Operating System: What's the Beef?

Addy Dugdale — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:25:43 -0500

This week's big mobile news is the launch of bada, Samsung's own-brand operating system. In the few days since the news hit, however, there's been an awful lot of rumors, disinformation, misinformation and general blather. Does the world really need another OS? Well, that's not the point, really.

Windows 7 Gets Its Big Day

Kit Eaton — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:34:17 -0400

BeOS Lives Again

Chris Dannen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:14:27 -0400

Almost twenty years ago, a little company called Be created the BeOS, a robust little system that was light-years ahead of Windows and the MacOS. But the BeOS never had a future--until now.

Apple's Snow Leopard Is an Unlikely Green Beast

Kit Eaton — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:10:00 -0400

Apple's Snow Leopard upgrade to OS X has many subtle behind the scenes powers that assure it'll remain cutting edge for a good while, but it also seems to have unexpected green skills: It could save the world 50GigaWatts of power.

Google's CEO Is Serious About Chrome OS: It's Not a Windows Rival

Kit Eaton — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 05:38:08 -0400

The Internet's been alive with supposition, speculation and inspired guesses since Google's Chrome OS news hit this week. That's possibly why Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, stepped up and talked about things. He's serious about Chrome.

Windows 7 Pricing Out, and It's a Vista Re-Run

Kit Eaton — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:37:19 -0400

It's official: Windows 7 is due October 22, and will cost you at least $120 to upgrade from a Vista or XP machine. Microsoft just released its price list, which is sure to be a disappointment for some, due to the high cost. Luckily, a limited number of pre-orders will cost much less.

T-Mobile Confirms Tablet PC Powered by Google Android

Kit Eaton — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:26:26 -0400

I wrote about the possible expansion of Android devices beyond smarphones just the other day. But now it looks like Android is definitely on the up-and-up: T-mobile has confirmed "several" different Android gizmos are on the way. And one may be a tablet PC.

Microsoft Unleashes Windows 7 Beta As Free Download

Kit Eaton — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:10:44 -0500

As part of his CES keynote speech yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer surprised the crowd by announcing that Windows 7 is now available as a Beta test version for free download.

MSDN and TechNet subscribers can get it immediately, and it'll be available to everyone to "test-drive" starting early January 9th.

XP Just Won't Die, So Microsoft Sorta Gives Up On Vista

Kit Eaton — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:25:25 -0500

While Apple is busy trying to protect its current-generation operating system, Microsoft has been trying to kill off its elder one. Windows XP use has rumbled on far longer than Microsoft would've wanted (original termination was scheduled for January 2008) thanks to poor reception of Windows Vista. And now Microsoft has caved a little further, and extended the deadline for incorporation of the OS into new PCs from original equipment manufacturers until May.

Palm's New OS To Go Nova at CES, Possibly on New Hardware

Kit Eaton — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:32:41 -0500

Palm was once king of the PDA, but the rise of the smartphone and Windows-powered PDAs led to its crown slipping a long way. But this year the hot-hardware Centro smartphone helped bring Palm more success, and now there's news that Palm really has a new OS on the way, codenamed Nova, and due for unveiling at CES.

Sony Ericsson To Launch An Android Phone

Kit Eaton — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:20:36 -0500

T-mobile's G1 cellphone was the first handset to use the Google-friendly Android open-source OS, but now the Open Handset Alliance has gained a powerful new member in Sony Ericsson.

Red Hat Buys Virtualization Company

Chris Dannen — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:11:32 -0400

Red Hat [NYSE:RHT], makers of open-source software, has entrenched itself a little deeper into the virtualization market today by purchasing a company called Qumranet, the Israeli-based firm that developed open-source kernel-based virtual computing. The deal cost $107 million USD, according to PC World.