Microsoft, which has come under heavy criticism for its present mobile offerings, is expected to unveil its next-generation Windows Mobile 7 operating system at the Mobile World Congress in in February. Likewise, the company's CEO Steve Ballmer said at CES that additional details on the future of the platform would be unveiled next month. Microsoft is also said to plan enhancing its "go to market approach," and getting more involved with mobile original equipment manufacturers. For Softpedia, it does not come as a surprise that Microsoft is also considering making more changes to its mobile strategy, considering that …

In the middle of the gadget scrum that is the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Hearst is quietly showing its first e-reader. The Skiff Reader will be supported by Sprint, but a release date or retail price have yet to be set. Specifics and aesthetics aside, MediaMemo insists that "the driving idea ... is to create a platform for producing, distributing and selling magazines and newspapers on a variety of devices." The big question remains how the Skiff will fit into the "Hulu for magazines" consortium that Time Inc. announced last year, and of which Hearst is a …

What technology gets Mark Cuban's attention these days? "Anything 3-D-related, anything cellphone-related," the billionaire entrepreneur tells The Journal's Digits blog from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Also, says Cuban, "I'm particularly interested in seeing what types of products are being made for interactive television ... what companies' plans are for DTV spectrum, what happens if the FCC takes it back, what if they don't take it back, and what kind of opportunities that would present." At CES, in particular, Cuban says he likes to explore the small booths, "just to see if there's something that surprises me ... …

Nothing is more important to the success of Google's mobile future that its ability to sell Android phones, according to the company's "open source guru" Chris DiBona. "This is going to sound really cynical, but the only thing that really matters is how many of these we ship -- how many Android phones," DiBona said on Web TV show Cranky Geeks. "There is a linear relationship between the number of phones you ship and the number of developers." Still, DiBona acknowledges that the company's approach to building a mobile operating system has caused difficulties for developers, with unfamiliar …

Call it sheer honesty, insanity, or a brazen sense of job security, but Carol Bartz gave herself a B-minus for her first year as chief executive officer of Yahoo. For starters, Bartz admits she could have moved faster to reorganize the struggling company, and strike a Web-search deal with Microsoft. "It was a little tougher internally than I think I had anticipated," Bartz tells Bloomberg. "I did move fast, but this is a big job." Since becoming CEO, Bartz has cut her staff by 5%, shuttered underperforming businesses such as the GeoCities Web-hosting site, installed her own management …

With or without Yelp, Google seems determined to deliver ever better time-sensitive, location-based consumer guides. In that vein, the search giant just made its "Near Me Now" service live on iPhones and Android smartphones, which, quite simply, helps users retrieve timely information on nearby services and establishments. "Clever stuff," writes Fast Company, "but a lot of location-based App Makers will be furious." Fast Company also questions Google's motives behind offering a service that is already readily available in any app store. "No, sorry Google: You're telling us this is all to make things easier for users, …

As expected, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer debuted a tablet device during his opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show Wednesday night -- but not the would-be Apple tablet-killer, codenamed "Courier," that many expected. "There's another contender in the emerging tablet-computer war," wrote USAToday.com, under the headline, "HP enters the tablet-computer fray." "It's a Windows 7 touch device, so it's nice in an accessible, netbooky (yeah, I'm guessing relatively cheap) context," writes Gizmodo. "But it's not exactly the Courier we have lusted after from Microsoft in our dreams."

Breaking all previous records, more than 2 million consumers have downloaded the beta for Microsoft Office 2010 over the past seven weeks, which leads a seemingly cynical ReadWriteWeb to ask: "In the face of so many free options, why are people so loyal to Microsoft Office?" Well, the name "Office" might say it all, i.e., the software remains an enterprise standard nationwide, or as one consumer says: "A lot of the free options simply aren't suitable for corporate use." Still, Microsoft should be worrying about the mobile arena, where it has so far failed to establish itself, and …

Put down your iPhone, your cheese Danish and your low-fat latte, because fully functional computer monitors are coming to a dashboard near you -- and you'll need to keep at least one finger on the steering wheel. That's right, despite warnings from safety advocates, automakers and technology companies remain bent on bestowing fourth-screens upon drivers. In the not-too-distant future, built-in navigation features are expected to be standard equipment in a wide range of vehicles. And, while they prevent drivers from watching video and using some other functions while the car is moving, they can still pull up content …

Facing continued criticism over its spotty national coverage, AT&T appears to have embraced Verizon's motto, "It's the network." Talking to The Wall Street Journal, David Christopher, AT&T's chief marketing officer, now says that improving its network is the phone carrier's top priority. "It's job one and priority one to make the best network possible." The pronouncement follows comments made by AT&T late last year, which were largely interpreted to mean that the company was more interested in persuading customers to cut their data usage than in improving its own network. Seemingly still on the defensive, however, Christopher adds: …