Microsoft had the idea and could have monopolized the smartphone market if they brought the idea to final product. In 1991, they had an idea that was revolutionary and way ahead of it’s time. A product similar to modern day smartphones, complete with email and GPS capabilities. This was before Windows 95 was even a twinkle in Bill Gates eye. Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft employee dishes it all out in a Men’s Journal interview worth reading.

Who knows, if this was released and refined in the 90’s, perhaps the iPhone would have never been released. Microsoft has had some amazing ideas in the past, and many of them have been scrapped into the dumpster for no apparent reason. I’ve seen some amazing things come from the Microsoft labs that just seem to disappear with no more mention.

But believe it or not, Myhrvold also wants to be taken seriously. At 53, he isn’t satisfied with going down in history as the biggest lobe in Bill Gates’ brain trust, or even as an eccentric Renaissance man with a dinosaur in his house. He wants a legacy he can call his own. And instead of focusing on one big thing, he’s hedging his bets: The lab where we’re dining isn’t just an experimental kitchen for his landmark book but a 20,000-square-foot research center for the exploration and creation of new technologies. It houses obscure inventions like “an incredibly exotic antenna that will one day revolutionize communications” and a refrigerated closet full of mosquitoes for vaccine experiments. “In fact, if you come this way,” he says, during a guided tour, “we actually have a system where we can shoot mosquitoes out of the sky with lasers.”

Office 15, Internet Explorer 10, Windows Phone 8 – all part of the leaked roadmap for Microsoft products. According to this, IE 10 could be released very soon, Office 15 early next year and Windows Phone 8 later this year. Good news, but nothing is shown for Windows 8 other than the long passed Developer Preview.

So, Windows Phone 8 later this year – which means Verizon should have it by 2015…. sounds about right with Verizon. IE10, hopefully allows me to set the installation directory as I have issues running it with an SSD with my Program Files on a separate drive.

Microsoft has begun sending out a roadmap that shows some details about its future software products such as Office 15, Internet Explorer 10, and Windows Phone to some of its partners. One of them, CEO of Meetroo Maarten Visser, shared part of it over Twitter, revealing said details. Dated December 22, 2011, the images weren’t password-protected. Considering the date, the Windows roadmap doesn’t mention anything past the Developer Preview and certainly not the Consumer Preview that launched on February 29.

Yes, it’s true. With a $25 app, Windows 8 on a desktop, and an Apple iPad, you can stream your Metro apps to the iPad via Splashtop. While it’s not a replacement for a Windows 8 tablet, it does allow developers and enthusiasts to preview the applications using gestures and a real touch screen device. As Windows 8 tablets are not available (Windows 7 tablets are, and they run Win8, but not native Win8 tablets), this is about the only way to go at this time. I’d really like to see some development devices come out from Microsoft to allow developers to program for Windows 8 running on native Windows 8 hardware. Without it, I’m thinking another Vista may be coming. Hardware manufacturers aren’t ready, Microsoft is rushing to get Windows 8 out the door, and there are a lot of developers that are developing for non-existent hardware.

The Win8 Metro Testbed program allows app developers to test how their touch screen features work. It supports swiping from the left of the iPad to switch between Windows 8 apps and also supports swiping from the right to view the Windows 8 Charms menu. The app lets developers test the Windows 8 "snaps" feature which allows two Metro apps to run side by side along with pulling down an app from the top of the screen to close it.

Skyrim, the highly popular RPG from Bethesda, is set to get some new features in the form of Kinect integration and voice commands. I’m glad some developers are including Kinect users in their standard games, it makes the Kinect a get piece of hardware that I can actually use!

Presumably, all 24 of the Dragon Shouts will be available via voice commands. Other voice commands will include menu options, such as the ability to save and load games as well as commands for accessing inventory. The voice commands will also support a number of commands for followers and hotkey equipping. The full list of voice commands is expected to be the released by developer Bethesda in the coming weeks.

Today marks the day that Microsoft ends mainstream support for Windows Vista. Extended support goes another 5 years, until April 11th, 2017. For those without an extended support contract, it may be time to look ahead and upgrade to Windows 7 or wait it out and upgrade to Windows 8 on release. XP has already passed the Mainstream support period and is nearing it’s final death toll, ending the extended support in 2014.

Every Windows product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it’s no longer supported or sold. Knowing key dates in this lifecycle helps you make informed decisions about when to upgrade or make other changes to your software. Here are the rights and limits of the Windows lifecycle.

While not directly related to Microsoft, I’m sure Microsoft has a lot to thank Mr. Tamiel for – from Commodore to Atari, he was a great man. A great loss. This man went through a lot. If you have any interest in video games or computing, I suggest reading about this man. I read about him in a history of video games book as well as a book called “Commodork”.

In America, Tramiel founded a typewriter repair business. Staying on the forefront of technology, his typewriters morphed into calculators, and later computers. In 1982, Commodore International launched the Commodore 64, which went on to the best-selling personal computer of all time. Tramiel also founded Atari Inc. in 1984.

Sounds like my Grandpa wrote this article. Apparently, Microsoft is hip again with all these new fangled companies getting some bogus news stories. Bummer, Daddy-o. As long as they don’t start attracting the hipsters, we’ll all be good. That’s one thing Microsoft doesn’t need is a lot of poseur hipsters writing novels (playing Farmville on Facebook) on their new Dell sitting at Starbucks sipping their vegan vente cappuccino.

Which brings us to the other aspect of Microsoft’s renaissance: good timing. The once-hipper than Microsoft foes, Google and Apple haven’t looked so good these days. Google, the once beloved search company, has users uneasy with its Google+ integration, privacy issues and anti-trust concerns. Even Googlers aren’t too sure of Google’s mission, these days.

The next version of the Kinect for Windows will be available late May, according to Microsoft. Several new features were announced, from Kinect Studio, a new seated or 10 joint skeletal system. Still available at $250, it is a bit rich for my blood unless an onslaught of Kinect for Windows software is forthcoming. Also, later this year a $149 academic version is going to be released.

Eisler also promised four new languages for speech recognition – French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. On that front, Kinect for Windows will also get new language packs that take into account how a language is spoken in different regions – like American vs. British English or France vs. Canadian French.

Microsoft China has made the prediction that the Windows Phone 7 will overtake the mighty iPhone in the Chinese market. While the iPhone only has 12% of the market share in China, Microsoft’s phone is only at 7.5. Cheap phones, advertising campaigns and more will attempt to take over the iPhone, and remove some of the huge 70% market share from Android. Can they do it? Are they being overly optimistic… Again?

“The Windows Phone ramp-up in China won’t really begin until the second quarter, so the numbers are still low,” Wong said. “From next year the ramp-up will be more rapid.”

By 2016, Windows Phone is forecast to have a 20 percent share in China, ahead of Apple’s 16 percent and trailing Google’s 60 percent, Wong said.

Apple users usually say they dislike Microsoft because they are the “Evil Corporation” and they love Apple because they do good. Well, Microsoft has made it on the list of the most ethical companies – but Apple did not. Microsoft hasn’t been the evil corporation, and the time when it was cool to hate Microsoft is over. Do you think Microsoft deserves the designation or Apple should get some recognition for their “efforts” in ethics?

The World’s Most Ethical (WME) Companies designation recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business "ethically" and translate those words into action. WME honorees not only promote ethical business standards and practices internally, they exceed legal compliance minimums and shape future industry standards by introducing best practices today.