Microsoft may be looking to bolster their tablet business by buying out the Nook line of slates and eReaders, in an attempt to rival Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iBooks offerings.

According to TechCrunch, Microsoft are looking to double down on the £200 million that they've already invested in the Nook tablets, aiming to buy the company out outright. Microsoft already have a 16.8% stake in the company.

The report claims that Microsoft are looking to spend £640 million to acquire the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the separate Nook spin-off company that spread out from Barnes & Noble last year.

"In this plan, Microsoft would redeem preferred units in Nook Media, which also includes a college textbook division, leaving it with the digital operation -- e-books, as well as Nook e-readers and tablets," reads the report.

Though Nook devices would live on, internal documents show that the Android arm of the business is set to be discontinued by 2014 in favour of a "third party partner". The obvious partner here then would be Microsoft with a Windows-based Nook, a theory that would be certainly strengthened were Microsoft to complete the buyout of the company.

Though Microsoft remain tight-lipped over just how many Surface tablets they've managed to flog around the world, new research from analytics firm Strategy Analytics suggests that the company's Windows 8 software has at least inspired consumers to take a punt on Windows tablets.

Looking at the tablet market during the first quarter of 2013, the report shows that Windows tablet demand is on the up, with 3.4 million slates packing the Microsoft OS (from numerous manufacturers) shipping during the period.

That gives the Microsoft OS a 7.5% tablet market share, trailing behind Apple's iOS iPads (48.2%) and the multitude of Android tablets (43.4%) from basically every consumer tech company in the world that isn't Apple. Though only a small chunk of the pie, 7.5% share after 5 months release against two well established tablet giants isn't half bad.

Keep in mind that Strategy Analytics aren't explicitly defining what constitutes a Windows 8 tablet here - with the operating system in its many guises working across tablets and convertible touchscreen notebooks, it's possible that these figures are also taking in sales of those machines too.

Windows 8 is a grower: you'll be frustrated with it at first, seemingly moving things around just for the sake of it, but give it time and you'll find it a pretty comfortable progression from Windows 7. For many though, that "Metro" Start screen is still an issue, with plenty hoping to be able to just jump straight to the standard desktop view after booting.

With a leaked version of the Windows Blue update now in the wild, Russian Blog Microsoft Portal are suggesting that this feature may indeed soon be offered by the Redmond company.

They've spotted a revamped twinui.dll file that will check either a registry key or policy setting to set whether or not a user wants to see the divisive Start screen, with the value tagged CanSuppressStartScreen within the DLL.

So why would Microsoft perhaps be thinking of offering the option to skip entirely the most-publicised addition to their latest operating system? It seems it will be to appease enterprise users, who need to milk every working second they can get, rather than getting to grips with a new interface. IT Administrators may be more open to upgrading systems to Windows 8 if the Start screen can be skipped.

Even without a simple UI option to implement the Start screen skip, it's still possible to jump straight to the desktop view in Windows 8. Users need only add the Explorer.exe to the CurrentVersion\Run registry key.

The Windows 8 Blue update is expected to land before the end of the year, with a public preview likely following Microsoft's annual developers conference in June.

Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth has left the company following last week's "deal with it" comments in regards to the potential always-online requirements of the rumoured Xbox 720 console.. The news comes via Polygon, who confirmed with two sources that Orth has departed.

Game Informer are reporting that Orth resigned, though it's not yet been officially confirmed by either party whether the decision was voluntary or whether perhaps Orth was pushed.

Orth's departure seems to have been a direct result of a series of tweets he posted last week in response to rumours that the Xbox 720 console would not work unless hooked up to a constant internet connection.

Many found Orth's responses to verge on flippant: Orth told his followers to "deal with it", noting that "I don't get the drama around having an 'always-on' console. Every device is now 'always-on.'" There was a definite sarcastic tone in some responses however, with Orth posting "Sometimes the electricity goes out. I will not purchase a vacuum cleaner," seemingly trivialising his followers' concerns.

Microsoft gave an official statement the following day:

"We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers."

It's been a relatively slow start for Microsoft's Surface tablets, but that doesn't mean the Redmond company's enthusiasm for the line has been dimmed. According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, the company are working on a new line of the slates, including a 7-inch version set to enter mass production later this year.

Speaking to the ever-useful "people familiar with the company's plans", Microsoft hadn't initially intended to build a 7-inch device, but have had to follow the market in the wake of the popularity of the iPad Mini and Google Nexus 7. Beyond the size however, those people don't seem all that "familiar" with Microsoft's roadmap, as they offer scant few other details.

A 7-inch Surface makes sense. While the original Surface was a little lacking, the Pro model turned out to be a very worthy device. The main hurdle to adoption seems to be cost, which is prohibitively high on the Pro at, sitting at around the $950 mark in the US for the entry level model, or roughly £620. While we're still waiting for a UK or European release, a smaller Surface would be cheaper, and likely far more attractive for those looking to get Windows 8 in a tablet.

We'll be keeping an eye on Microsoft's tablet plans over the coming months, but smart money's on this rumour being true. At the very least, it suggests that Microsoft haven't given up hopes on own-branded gadgetry yet.

Microsoft have confirmed in a blog post that the forthcoming Windows 8 "Blue" operating system update is on its way, but will land under a different name once it's officially released.

Frank Shaw, the company's VP of corporate communications, told the world that the Blue labelling is only an internal concern with "the chances of products being named thusly are slim to none."

The update is expected to further close the gap between the Windows 8 and mobile Windows Phone 8 operating systems, tying services across the two together. As such, a Windows Phone 8 "Blue" update is also expected at some point later this year.In terms of pricing, the update is also expected to be far cheaper than the generational-upgrade to Windows 8. Taking a lead out of Apple's Mac OSX book, Microsoft are now looking to update the OS on an annual basis, requiring a user to cough up only a small chunk of money for a host of new features each year.

What will those features be though? A leak over the weekend gave us our best indication yet, which included far greater customisation options over Windows 8's Start screen Live Tiles, improved split-screen multitasking and the inclusion of Internet Explorer 11.

Microsoft are hosting their annual Microsoft's Build developer conference over 26 - 28 June at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Expect some more concrete details to arrive then.

Windows Blue, the forthcoming update to the Windows 8 operating system, has been leaked in a series of screenshots at WinForum, giving us a good look at what Microsoft have planned next for their latest OS.

Among the changes coming is greater control over customisation of the Start tiles interface, letting you resize app tiles to be even smaller - handy for those lesser-used applications.The Snap Views option will also be expanded, letting you share a screen 50/50 between different apps, as well as doing the same across multiple monitors.

Sky Drive integration gets updated too, including automatic camera uploads and further back-up options. There will also be a new tab-sync option, letting you check out what tabs you have open on other Windows 8 device browsers.Windows Blue will also see the introduction of Internet Explorer 11, but beyond the logo screenshot above little else about the new web browser is revealed.

No word yet on the Windows Blue release date, but the public preview is expected to land in the next few months. Safe money is on a release around late Autumn.

Microsoft wants to put it's Xbox 360 Kinect motion control system into laptops and tablets, hinting at the possibility of a Surface tablet with Kinect motion controls embedded.

It's the "dream" of Craig Mundie, senior advisor to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who told The Verge that Microsoft is looking into shrinking Kinect down in size and exploring ways to manufacture it more cheaply price so that it can be popped inside mobile devices such as the Surface tablet, Windows Phones and laptops.

"It's not gonna happen tomorrow," he said, "but we can see a path towards that sort of thing."

However, with tablets, laptops and smartphones designed primarily as portable devices, Microsoft are encountering difficulties in getting Kinect to work when outdoors.

"It turns out it's infrared so when you go out in the sunlight the sun is a big infrared source that drowns it out," Mundie explained.

"There's a whole bunch of problems, not just miniaturization, in designing the sensors so they actually do what you expect them to do in all of the environments."

Kinect is expected to feature heavily in the forthcoming Xbox 720 next-gen console from Microsoft. Rumours suggest the device will be smaller and thinner than the current Kinect unit, as well as being far more accurate and able to work effectively in smaller play spaces. There's also a strong chance that the Kinect 2 will come embedded within the console, and that it will be an "always-connected" requirement of play with the Xbox 720.

Microsoft's long-awaited Surface Pro tablet, seen by many as the company's first fully-fledged hardware device, will have its international availability expanded in the coming weeks, alongside its less-powerful Surface RT sibling.

Most importantly for Tech Digest readers, the Surface Pro tablet will be available in the UK in the coming weeks, moving beyond its US and Canadian launch territories, as well as being made available to new consumers in China, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

The Surface RT will also be made available to 15 more markets, including Japan, Mexico, Russia and New Zealand.

No specific release date information has been given yet, but reports suggest the wait will be just a matter of weeks, rather than the months stated by Microsoft's current promotional materials.

The Surface Pro, packing in a full-fat version of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, went on sale in the US and Canada back in February and quickly sold out over its opening weekend. Apple-style launch queues were reported outside stores selling the tablet, though its not yet certain if the quick sell outs were due to overwhelming demand of low numbers of stock to being with.

Hotmail is finally ready to be killed off in favour of Microsoft's new-look Outlook.com webmail service, with Outlook leaving its "preview" period ready for Hotmail users to migrate to.

It should be a painless process for existing Hotmail users, who will have their mail archives transferred to the new service automatically, and will retain the same log-in information and @hotmail.com email address they currently use. They will however benefit from an improved user interface, with the migration expected to be completed by the summer.

Microsoft bought Hotmail in 1997 for around $400 million dollars from its founders Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, and for a long time was the go-to webmail service until Google launched the superior Gmail.

Microsoft look to combat the popularity of Gmail with Outlook.com, which through beta testing alone has already become the fastest growing email service, wracking up 60 million active users.

It's a big year for Microsoft's communications products. Not only will there be the transition from Hotmail to Outlook.com, but the Messenger service is also getting the chop in favour of Skype. It's a process of unification for Microsoft, which will see Windows Phone, Windows, Xbox, Outlook.com, Office, Skype and SkyDrive users log-in to each service through a single account. Microsoft are taking the fight to Google and their one account method for accessing web products.

We doubt there will be many tears shed for Hotmail however. It's been looking a little long in the tooth for some time now, and Outlook.com has made some significant, intuitive changes to Microsoft's webmail that many will quickly embrace.

They've done the whole 10-inch tablet thing with the Surface RT and the recently released Surface Pro, and it looks as though Microsoft are now ready to test the waters in the 7-inch slate market.

Speaking at a Q&A session during the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein revealed that, with the software side of their tablet ecosystem now shipped and stable, they're ready to meet whatever hardware demands consumers make:

"We've done a lot of the hard work in the developer platform. We are well set up to respond to demand as we see it."

With the Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets sitting at the top end of the tablet market in terms of pricing, Microsoft are missing out on the blossoming market developing around the cheaper 7-inch slates, a market currently dominated by Amazon with the Kindle Fire line and Google with the Nexus 7. Profit margins here may be tighter, but strong sales in this competitive area suggests that, despite Steve Jobs' defence of the original iPad's size, perhaps the 7-inch size really is the sweetspot for tablet technology in consumers' eyes.

For now however, Microsoft's focus rests with the Surface Pro. A 10.6-inch device with full HD display, it's running Windows 8 Pro off a dual-core 1.7GHz Intel Core i5, backed by 4GB of RAM. Arguably the first true tablet/laptop hybrid, it should be up to many of the tasks you take for granted on both a laptop and tablet.

Microsoft have today revealed Office 2013 with 365 Home Premium, the latest evolution of the company's massively popular application suite.

Office 2013 and the 365 Home Premium options looks set to be one of the most different instalments of the suite ever to launch. Including desktop staples Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint, it now features online cloud storage and backup of documents, keeping up-to-date copies of files across up to five licensed devices, including PCs, Macs, Windows Phone smartphones and Windows 8 tablets. Documents will also be accessible through a web browser, seeing Microsoft directly challenging Google and their web apps in a space that the search giant has dominated thus far almost unchallenged.

"Today's launch of Office 365 Home Premium marks the next big step in Microsoft's transformation to a devices and services business," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.

"This is so much more than just another release of Office. This is Office reinvented as a consumer cloud service with all the full-featured Office applications people know and love, together with impressive new cloud and social benefits."

Office 365 Home Premium will be available as a subscription service too, letting users access the apps for £7.99 a month or £79.99 a year. Physical editions of the software suite will also be available. You can browse all the options here.

With the software now cloud-based, major updates are expected to land far more regularly than with previous editions of the suite, which have traditionally ran on three-year update cycles.

"This is a major leap forward," said Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division.

"People's needs change rapidly and Office 365 Home Premium will change with them."

The subscription deal is sweetened further with 20GB of SkyDrive storage a month, 60 minutes of international Skype calling credit, with the voice and video calling application making its debut as an Office suite app following Microsoft's purchase of the company back in May 2011.

Click here to check out the Microsoft Office website and grab a 30-day free trial.

Microsoft are claiming that Google are preventing YouTube from putting together a fully-fledged Windows Phone YouTube app.

Currently, users of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS have a limited YouTube app that is little better than the lowly mobile web service that YouTube already offer, while Android and iOS both have bespoke, feature-rich apps for accessing the wealth of video content hosted by YouTube.

Microsoft believe that the team at YouTube are willing to go all out and make a solid Windows Phone app, but are being held back by owners Google who will not allow the platform access to the full YouTube API.

"Microsoft has continued to engage with YouTube personnel over the past two years to remedy this problem for consumers," said Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner.

"As you might expect, it appears that YouTube itself would like all customers - on Windows Phone as on any other device - to have a great YouTube experience. But just last month we learned from YouTube that senior executives at Google told them not to enable a first-class YouTube experience on Windows Phones."

Heiner falls just short of calling the whole thing an anti-Microsoft conspiracy on Google's behalf. But that wouldn't explain why Google allowed a strong YouTube app to be available on the Xbox 360. The reality is probably that, while Google indeed don't want to bolster a platform that rivals their own Android operating system, Windows Phone has yet to reach a large enough audience to justify allocating the YouTube team's resources to in any significant way.

Though Heiner's public statement may speed up matters, there's still no word yet from YouTube as to when a revamped app for Windows Phone users will become available.

Via: AllThingsD

Microsoft's Surface RT tablet has impressed reviewers, but the Windows 8 slate hasn't enjoyed massive sales. Yet. Rather than this being down to public disinterest, Microsoft believe this is down to poor distribution, something they're now looking to rectify.

"The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see," said Panos Panay, general manager, Microsoft Surface. "We've increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface."

Aiming to put the tablet in a wider array of stores worldwide, Microsoft will also extend the lifespan of pop-up Christmas shops created to promote the tablet during the holiday rush. Some of these shops have proved so successful Microsoft are even considering making them permanent retail spots.

This contradicts an earlier rumour that, due to poor demand, Microsoft would be slowing production of the Surface tablet. Windows 8 tablets across the board seem certainly seem to be struggling, with Asus, Samsung and Dell's Windows 8 tablets staying put on shelves, with sources describing their sales as "weak". Asus' chief finance officer even previously admitted that "demand for Windows 8 is not that good right now," despite the company investing lots in the new software.

Microsoft's expansion plans for the Surface will hit the US and Australia first, with those territories the first to get the expanded list of stockists during mid-December. UK expansion will take place in the coming months, while the tablet is still available direct through Microsoft online for £399 for the 32GB edition.

Newly uncovered code in SkyDrive suggests that, as teased by the Redmond company, Microsoft will be adding cloud streaming of personal tunes to their online storage system.

An internal testing version of SkyDrive reveals new media player controls and references to a music player being featured as an internal part of SkyDrive have been uncovered. The leak suggests similar functionality as iTunes Match and Google Music's Scan and Match, letting you personal library of songs be mimicked in the cloud by Microsoft's own catalogue where possible, as well as uploading your own tracks.

Microsoft have previously stated that cloud functionality for personal tunes will be coming to Xbox Music:

"Available in the coming year, a scan-and-match feature will take you beyond the 30 million tracks globally offered through Xbox Music. It will add all the music you own to your Xbox Music cloud catalog, including music acquired through other services. This means you can add almost any content you have to your personal Xbox Music collection, even if it's not available in the Xbox Music catalog" said Microsoft.

It's still uncertain whether or not the newly unveiled code will be implemented in either SkyDrive or Xbox Music, or even both however. What seems most likely is that over the coming months the two services will be brought closer together, with shared functionality linking the two services.

No word yet on the new cloud feature's release date, nor which platforms it will eventually land on.

Via: LiveSide

Things don't seem to be going too well for the Microsoft Surface RT Windows 8 tablet. The Redmond-based company's first full push into the hardware market has been met with a consumer response so muted that the company are now said to have halved their order from the supply chain, according to DigiTimes.

Microsoft, who had hoped to shift 4 million of the devices by Christmas, have now requested just 2 million extra units from their manufacturers.

DigiTimes haven't got the best track record when it comes to accurate reports, but the news does chime in tune with earlier reports suggesting that Microsoft found initial Surface sales to be "disappointing". Indeed, Steven Sinofsky, the man in charge of Windows 8 and its push into the tablet market, left the company unceremoniously following Windows 8's launch.

Windows 8 tablets across the board seem to be sharing similar problems, with Asus, Samsung and Dell's Windows 8 tablets hardly flying off shelves, with sources describing their sales as "weak". Asus' chief finance officer even previously admitted that "demand for Windows 8 is not that good right now," despite the company investing lots in the new software.

Microsoft are now banking on the Surface Pro tablet (which runs full-fat Windows 8) to be a success, which is set for a January release. A post-Christmas launch however is never a good time for consumers' wallets, and recent reports of the Pro edition's lacklustre battery life will have to be overcome too.

Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer has laid into his competition in the mobile space, calling Apple's iPhone and iPad ecosystem "highly priced" and "highly controlled", while he considers Android to be "wild" and "uncontrolled".

Speaking to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a boisterous Ballmer called out Android's fragmented app strategy as being problematic. He said that from "an app compatibility perspective, maybe in a way that's not always in the consumers' best interests".

Apple's premium pricing strategy also came under fire:

"Maybe because we live in a country where every phone is subsidised you might forget it. But in Russia last week, you had to pay $1,000 for an iPhone. So in Russia, you're not going to sell many iPhones."

Ballmer also took time to highlight the merits of Microsoft's own Windows Phone 8 operating system, saying that it has "the quality" without being stuck "at the premium price", with a policed app ecosystem that is "controlled, but maybe not as controlled," as Apple's.

Ballmer praised Windows Phone 8 as being "the most personal smartphone", stating that "when you whip out your phone, you really see the things that matter to you. And just moving things back and forth among Windows devices will be appealing to a lot of people,"

Via: TechCrunch

UPDATED 16:18 GMT:

We've just received the following statement from Skype:

The original story follows:

Russian hackers have uncovered a security flaw in Microsoft's Skype video calling service that allows unsavory web users to easily gain control of a user's account.

The issue rests with Skype's password reset procedures. Exploiting the flaw, a hacker merely needs a user's username and email address that Skype is registered to in order to kick-off a five-step process to gain control of the account.

Though we wont post details of the hack here, we've independently verified that it indeed works. Both The Verge and The Next Web have also verified the hack.

It's an incredibly simple hack, but does rely upon your email address being common knowledge. If it isn't, you're safe, and if it is, you should probably go about changing the address your account is registered to.

As a precaution while they look into the problem, Microsoft have temporarily disabled Skype's password reset controls. Skype have also released the following statement.

"We have had reports of a new security vulnerability issue. As a precautionary step we have temporarily disabled password reset as we continue to investigate the issue further. We apologize for the inconvenience but user experience and safety is our first priority"

Via: The Next Web

You may want to unplug your Kinect from your Xbox 360 console, lock it in a box and bury it amidst the graves of the old Indian burial ground under cover of darkness and a lightning storm after reading this post: the Microsoft motion sensor may be poised to become one seriously scary bit of kit.

A patent filed by Microsoft last year, but only revealed to the public this week, plans to turn the Kinect instrument into a way for large companies to monitor your living room and the way you consume media.

Specifically, the patent details a way that the camera unit could be used to enforce licensing agreements for movie rentals that, instead of being sold on a pay-per-view basis for a license that lasts a number of days, would scan your living room for the number of people watching the screen, and charge a fee based on the size of the audience:

The technology, briefly described, is a content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis. Content is distributed to consuming devices, such as televisions, set-top boxes and digital displays, with an associated license option on the number of individual consumers or viewers allowed to consume the content. The limitation may comprise a number of user views, a number of user views over time, a number of simultaneous user views, views tied to user identities, views limited to user age or any variation or combination thereof, all tied to the number of actual content consumers allowed to view the content. Consumers are presented with a content selection and a choice of licenses allowing consumption of the content. In one embodiment, a license manager on the consuming device or on a content providers system manages license usage and content consumption. The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.
Though the Kinect isn't explicitly mentioned, it's the best fit in Microsoft's current hardware arsenal to perform such tasks.

As Kotaku commenter The Squid humorously points out, " I don't think this is the plan, but it's a great way to get people to stop using Kinect."

Sounds like a horrible idea, we're sure you will agree. It'd take all the spontaneity out of popping on a movie, especially if you have to ask your collected friends to empty their pockets in order to be able to sit and watch with you. And imagine the new social faux-pas of bringing a pal unannounced to a movie night? You'll have to charge on the door!

Then of course there is the issue of an invasion of privacy. You'd want to think twice about cuddling up with your other half in front of a rom-com if you thought someone was monitoring your actions somewhere.

No sign yet of when or even if Microsoft will capitalise on this patent plan. Here's hoping the rumoured Xox 720 doesn't have a built-in Kinect sensor, which would make de-activating such monitoring techniques far more difficult.

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You buy a tablet with 32GB of storage slapped on the box and, with allowance for the operating system, a few built in apps and the slight binary loss of usable storage space, you'd expect to find something at least close to 32GB of usable storage space for the end user, wouldn't you? 28 or 29, maybe even 25 gigabytes would be acceptable. But 16GB of user storage from a tablet sold as a 32GB model? That's a joke.

And it's a joke being played on owners of a Microsoft Surface RT tablet. Once Windows RT, Microsoft's Office apps, 8GB of other pre-installed apps, 5GB of Windows recovery tools and that binary storage loss has eaten into the built-in storage allowance, all you're left with from a "32GB" Surface RT tablet is roughly 16GB.

Compare that to iOS, which leaves a 32GB iPad with 29GB, and Android, which leaves a 16GB Nexus 7 with 13GB, and you're left with a far bigger storage footprint from Microsoft's software.

Seeing as the 32GB size at a price lower than Apple's comparative 32GB iPad is one of Surface's main selling points, it's an issue that should be communicated better to potential buyers. Sure, the Surface RT supports microSD cards and Skydrive cloud storage (among other cloud-based services), but that'll come as small comfort to those feeling duped by Microsoft's marketing.

Via: ZDNet