An image of the handset waspublished in November by @evleaks, showing a Lumia style device with no apparent capacitive buttons for navigation. We’re told that Normandy supports Android applications like Skype, and other popular top apps.Nokia has been developing the Android powered phone despite Microsoft’s plans to acquire the company’s handset business. It’s now unclear whether Nokia will release the handset before the Microsoft deal is finalized, or whether Microsoft...

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Microsoft is considering making Windows Phone and Windows RT available free of charge to device makers. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans have revealed to that free future versions are under serious consideration by OS chief Terry Myerson. We understand the plans aren’t fully set in stone, but they’re part of broader changes Myerson is planning for the future of Windows. Microsoft is currently planning and developing future updates, including aThreshold update...

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So is Nokia really working on an Android based phone and would Microsoft really go ahead with such a device? The answer to the first one is definitely yes, and, surprisingly, the answer to the second question may be yes as well. As reported by the Verge and also confirmed to by sources at the Finnish phone maker, the Normandy project has survived despite Nokias plan to sell both its Windows Phone unit and the low end mobile phone business to Microsoft. As to whether Microsoft will let the...

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If you dont like the idea of people spying on you, you really shouldnt be using any console from this or the previous generation, mate. If you believe Kinect is the mega corporate demon spy machine, youre totally blind. Your iPhone, Android, PS3, Xbox 360, Facebook, Twitter, ISP, cellphone company – they all have clauses in their T&Cs that say they are able to monitor usage including video, audio and text. So wake up Plug your kinect in and use it – its brilliant. Stop being such...

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Windows SuperSite Paul Thurrott blogged earlier this week that his sources had indicated Microsoft might be planning to make two key user interface changes to a coming version of Windows. One of these is the ability to float Metro Style Windows Store apps on the desktop. The other was to bring back the Start Menu, alongside the recently re introduced Start Button. Ive seen a number of commentors wondering why Microsoft might reintroduce the Start Menu, since the Windows 8.x Start screen the...

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the possibility of an outsider dark horse candidate emerging in the race to become CEO of Microsoft. Now, it might be more of a possibility than ever before, tracking on sources inside the company that have consistently said that there is a male tech executive in the running who has not been named publicly as yet. Said one person about this candidate: He is in tech, someone folks are excited about, but not a done deal. By definition, the term dark horse is...

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After previous revelations about Windows Threshold, a release we might think of as .2, some more information has emerged about Microsoft plans for the future. And if you were worried that Windows 8.1 didn't go far enough in appeasing desktop users on traditional PCs, I think I have some good news for you. I first discussed Windows Threshold last week in Microsoft to Take Windows to the Threshold. According to Mary Jo Foley, Threshold is a wave of updates that will bring Windows 8.x, Windows...

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When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced hed be stepping down back in August, I had a chance to ask him about his biggest regret during his CEO tenure. His short answer was Longhorn, the repeatedly delayed and ultimately recast operating system that finally was released as Windows Vista in January 2007. When Ballmer and I talked last month about defining moments of his 13 year CEO tenurefor a piece I wrote for Fortune,Longhorn came up again. Ballmer said he considered it one of four defining...

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