Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Microsoft, Fox Team Up to Create Worst Episode of Family Guy Ever
The last time Microsoft was featured in an episode of “Family Guy,” it was the butt of Zune joke. Peter Griffin’s father-in-law asked Bill Gates to help him program his Zune and then taunted the Microsoft chairman, noting that he owns an iPod “like the rest of the world.” This time it’s going to be different. That’s because Microsoft is paying to make it so. The company has teamed up with Fox to sponsor a “Family Guy” special built around Windows 7.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Weekend Update 09.26.09–The Cougar Hunter Edition
Kara was half James Bond, half Indiana Jones in the cities and jungles of BoomTown this week. She jet-setted, jet-lagged and still managed to report on a genuine cougar fight.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Perhaps if You Bundled the Zune With Windows?
“For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got. The satisfaction for the device was superhigh.” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said that of the Zune in October 2007. Boy was he ever wrong. MarketWatch reports that revenue at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices unit, which manages the Zune and Xbox 360, fell 42 percent to about $211 million in its most recent quarter.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Do You Have a Reservation at the Virus Bar or Are You Here for the All-Day Workshop on Printer Drivers?
Apple and Microsoft have long competed for market space. And soon they’ll be competing for retail space as well. In remarks at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference today, COO Kevin Turner said Microsoft has settled on a location for the retail stores it announced earlier this year: Right next to Apple’s stores. There goes the neighborhood, right?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Stink the Pink
As if the Zune weren’t embarrassing enough… Microsoft and Verizon are reportedly discussing a touchscreen multimedia cellphone that could launch on the carrier’s network in 2010. The project is codenamed “Pink” and will apparently involve some ungodly combination of Windows Mobile and Zune software.
Verizon, Microsoft Working on Smart Phune?
Verizon Wireless is reportedly working with Microsoft to develop a new smart-phone. Plus, layoffs at Nokia and Microsoft’s “societal network.”
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Your Phone Has Just Committed an Illegal Operation and Will Now Shut Down
“Microsoft is not doing a phone.” That was Redmond’s terse denial of a report that it is preparing to launch a branded cellphone in the second half of this year. Put forth by analysts from Broadpoint.AmTech, the report speculates that the device would tightly integrate hardware and software, much like Apple’s iPhone, and that Microsoft may uncrate it at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month. The Broadpoint research note in its entirety after the jump.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Zune to Be Forgotten
Overlooked in the carnage of Microsoft’s second quarter was the performance of the company’s Zune platform. Which was, quite simply, atrocious. Seems that $10 to $20 holiday discount didn’t do much good at all.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
CES ’09: Microsoft Yawnote
With little in the way of exciting news to announce, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s CES keynote address tonight promised to be a lackluster, if not downright wearisome affair–even if you’re unnaturally excited by the idea of Windows 7. And so it was, by and large. With the beta version of the operating system widely leaked last week, there wasn’t all that much to reveal. Unless, of course, Windows 7 PCs–like Vista PCs before them–ship with XP downgrade rights…
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Zunesday [UPDATED]
Call it the Z2K9 bug. At approximately midnight EDT on Dec. 30, a number of first generation 30 GB Microsoft Zunes failed en masse. According to accounts posted to Zune forums around the Web, the players seized up during the initial boot process and became unresponsive to the standard reboot or reset commands.
Not true, the President-elect uses an iPod.”
– An Obama spokesman makes quick work of the Zunegate scandal
Featured Digital Daily Posts
Latest Digital Daily Videos
View All Jobs | Post a Job Job Listings
Digital Daily Posts by Date
Digital Daily Posts by Category
About John
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Ethics Statement
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
alt.misc
- Godzilla’s Food, Exercise, and Dream Diary
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183. - Scenes From An Alternate Universe Where The Beatles Accepted Lorne Michaels’ Generous Offer
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
- The Golden Age of Video
Best video mashup ever.
- I’m not dead yet
A Facebook Memorial
- Pulp Fiction Audio Mix
Wow.
- A world without the Internet
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
- Google Wave Cinema: Pulp Fiction
Excellent.
- Dead Fly Art
Flughumor!
- Happy Birthday Monty Python …
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
- ‘You are being shagged by a rare parrot’
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.





