Microsoft

For the first time in several decades, Microsoft has released a new version of Windows without Internet Explorer being set as the default browser. Instead, the company is pushing users towards Edge, the company's 'new' browser that they hope will put up a solid fight against Chrome and Firefox.

Edge, while technically a new brand, is really a heavily reworked version of Internet Explorer. The engine driving the browser is still Trident but other than the name, there is not much else that is the same between Edge and Internet Explorer.

We’re just 2 days away from Windows 10’s official launch. Ahead of the release of its new operating system, Microsoft has been releasing a lot of security updates for Windows 10 Build 10240 lately. Unsurprisingly enough, there’s a new update today as well – the latest update is KB3074683 and there doesn’t seem to be anything new other than under the hoods improvements. It’s worth noting that the latest update replaces KB3074681 which caused File Explorer to crash for some users — meaning that the latest update fixes the crashing issues for File Explorer.

Reports have emerged stating that Microsoft is to drop $US320 million in cash for Israeli cloud security startup Adallom.

Adallom – founded in 2012 with just 80 employees – provides security tools for cloud applications. News of the acquisition broke in Israel where Adallom is based, before being reported by Reuters.

We knew that Microsoft's quarter was going to be a rough one after it announced a $7.6 billion write-down of the Devices and Services division it purchased from Nokia last year, and so it has come to pass: on revenue of $22.2 billion, the company had a gross margin of $14.7 billion, an operating loss of $2.05 billion, a net after-tax loss of $3.20 billion, and a $0.40 loss per share.

Microsoft just issued a fix for an alarming security hole in Windows that could allow attackers to remotely take over a computer.

Microsoft writes in a security bulletin writes that the vulnerability exists in Windows “when the Windows Adobe Type Manager Library improperly handles specially crafted OpenType fonts.”

Digital Constitution, a website devoted to how Microsoft is fighting government surveillance and working to protect online privacy in a digital world, was hacked to promote online casinos.

ZDNet, which captured a screenshot, reported that the “site appears to have been modified around 9:15pm ET on Wednesday.” The attacker “injected text with keywords” like “online casino,” “poker, “craps, “roulette” and “blackjack.” Additionally, some new pages were “injected to show content that embeds content from other casino-related websites.” Microsoft has since taken that down.

 Microsoft's website dedicated to fighting the US government on matters of policy and surveillance has been hacked.

The site, which was launched in mid-2013 months after the Edward Snowden revelations were first published, soon became a platform for Microsoft's corporate views on government surveillance and a new case dedicated to fighting an international search warrant.

But the site appears to have been modified around 9:15pm ET on Wednesday, and remains affected at the time of publication. It's not clear who is behind the attack.

There have been many reports recently suggesting that Microsoft is going to release two high-end Lumia smartphones later this year. It has been a while since the company launched a high-end Windows Phone device, it has stuck with mid-range and low-end devices for the past few months now so it’s about time that a flagship arrived. Fingerprint scanners might be fashionable these days but rumor has it that the Microsoft Lumia 940XL will instead offer an iris scanner.

Microsoft just gave us an accidental preview of its new WiFi service, which will let users connect to millions of WiFi hotspots across the globe.

Microsoft WiFi looks like a revamp of Skype WiFi, which lets subscribers access the hotspots that pop up in coffee shops, hotels and train stations from lots of different providers using one log-in.

This includes Boingo, Xfinity WiFi and Gowex hotspots in the US, and access points from BT and The Cloud in the UK.

"Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10." That was the message from Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist speaking at the company's Ignite conference this week. Nixon was explaining how Microsoft was launching Windows 8.1 last year, but in the background it was developing Windows 10. Now, Microsoft employees can talk freely about future updates to Windows 10 because there's no secret update in the works coming next. It's all just Windows 10.