Microsoft is planning to release its first update to Windows Phone 8.1 soon, and the company has started detailing some of the upcoming features to phone manufacturers. One of the main visual changes with Update 1 is the introduction of folder support, allowing Windows Phone users to drag one Tile on top of another and create a folder to organize apps. Its a feature both Android and iOS have had for years, so its encouraging to see Microsoft is finally close this gap. One of the more interesting...

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The huge Chinese market has a bunch of different expectations and needs than the US or other countries—so while Cortana nicknamed “Xiao Na” generally works the same way in China as the US and the rest of the world, China did get some “special features”. As you’d expect, in her notebook, she displays what she is tracking for you, so you can see and control it. You can set reminders and quiet hours with her. She understands the whole internet so she readily...

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The second handset is codenamed Tesla, and recently appeared in leaked images. Elop described the Tesla handset as an affordable high end phone with a PureView camera. Tesla will likely debut as a Lumia 720 replacement, and it mark a new effort by Microsoft to push PureView down to even lower price points. The handset looks similar to the squared Lumia 930, but we understand it will be thinner and less bulky. Elops revelation at Microsofts annual company meeting event indicates that the device...

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With .1 starting to dribble out to users via the ever slow wireless carriers, tech enthusiasts have already turned their attention to Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1. To date, there been very little information about this update, beyond the fact that it was a bucket of sorts for features that didn't make the original 8.1 cut. But thanks to a nice leak from—you guessed it—Microsoft, we now know quite a bit more. The leaks were made by Microsoft to its OEM partners, those companies that...

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$300 "Sharks Cove" board with Intel Atom CPU targeted at Windows developers.

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One of the benefits of Cortana is that we can make updates behind the scenes on the servers that light up new capabilities without the need for a software update. We added the ability for Cortana to predict the winners in popular soccer matches in Brazil courtesy of Bing magic earlier this month. Starting today, Cortana will now proactively showcase local recommendations from Foursquare on devices running Windows Phone 8.1 in the U.S. To turn this on, go to Cortanas Notebook and then Interests...

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The quest to play on just about everything wont be over any time soon, it seems. A team of Australians has torn open and modified an ATM to play id Software classic first person shooter using some of the bank machine built in controls. This isnt hardest hack in the world ATMs like this run Windows XP, after all but it still required custom software and logic, including a circuit board that can remap buttons meant for deposits instead of demon slaying. What you see in the video below is just the...

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Microsoft is keen to get its tiled OS on as many devices, from as many hardware makers, as possible. It introduced the license free Windows with Bing back in May as part of this push, but prior to that, at Build 2014, it announced it would be offering Windows for free to OEMs and ODMs on all tablets smaller than nine inches. The dream of an army of smaller devices running Windows 8.1 has suffered a major setback now though with news that one of the largest Windows device makers, Lenovo, has...

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