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Microsoft claims its Windows Phone 7 smartphones get things done in fewer steps than rival mobile operating systems. "Microsoft based its claim of greater efficiency  that WP7 requires up to 20% fewer steps to perform common tasks -- on its own internal research comparing tasks among smartphone users," a Microsoft spokesperson told ComputerWorld.

Avast has published a blog post warning computer users about the increasing number of malware
attacks targeting USB drives and Windows' AutoRun feature. During the last week of October, the security company recorded some 700,000 attacks on computers that voluntarily submitted data, and one out of every eight (13.5%) came from USB devices

Dell CEO Michael Dell recently spoke at an event in Hong Kong and declared that it was easier to develop for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 than it was for Google's Android platform. That's great news for Microsoft, given how important it will be for the company to build developer interest if the software giant's platform is going to successfully take on Apple and Google with a completely new platform.

Sophos has released a free antivirus product for consumers using Mac OS: Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac. Although commercial antivirus products for Macs have been available for some time, Sophos' offer is one of the very few free ones.

The Internet security firm took its existing enterprise antivirus software and slimmed it down to reduce complexity. Interestingly, the company has no plans to release an equivalent free version for Windows. Windows threats are in the millions while the number of strains of Mac malware
is in the thousands.

We have heard rumors about Chrome OS smartbooks from Acer and HP, and even a tablet variant from HTC, but it looks like Google will be the one getting things started for the web-centric operating system. According to DigiTimes’ “sources from component players,” the Internet giant is set to launch an own-brand smartbook this month running the new Chrome OS. The ARM-based smartbook is allegedly being built by Inventec and will not be selling through retail channels.

The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, is working on making gadgets 10 times more efficient when in use, and almost eliminating energy consumption when idle. The project is called Steeper, after the novel transistors it is focusing on, which get their name because of the abrupt change they exhibit when switching between on and off states.

The worldwide mobile phone market grew 14.6 percent in the third quarter of 2010, the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, according to IDC. Vendors shipped 340.5 million units this past quarter compared to 297.1 million units in the third quarter of 2009.

Diving into specifics, Apple passed Research in Motion to become the fourth largest cell phone vendor in the world. Last quarter, Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones, grabbing 4.1 percent of the global market. RIM meanwhile sold 12.3 million units over the same period and slipped into fifth place globally. This is bad news for the BlackBerry maker since this past quarter the company introduced its next-generation operating system, BlackBerry 6, and also launched the Torch, its first touchscreen/QWERTY hybrid handset. Furthermore, the gap will likely widen next year with the expected introduction of a CDMA iPhone model.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed software for mobile phones that can track your facial features in real-time. Eventually it will be able to tell who the user is, where they are looking and even how they are feeling.

The method is believed to be unrivalled for speed and accuracy and could lead to facial recognition replacing passwords and PIN numbers to log into internet sites from a mobile phone.

'Existing mobile face trackers give only an approximate position and scale of the face,' said Dr Phil Tresadern, lead researcher on the project.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed software for mobile phones that can track your facial features in real-time

Google bought Android back in 2005 for an undisclosed sum (estimated to be around $50 million). Now, five years later, Google's vice president of corporate development, David Lawee, told attendees at the Stanford Accel Symposium this week that the acquisition was the company's "best deal ever," according to VentureBeat. Most of Google's acquisitions haven't been anywhere nearly as successful, so we're not too surprised Android got first place.

China has built the world's fastest supercomputer, stealing the crown from the United States, according to the New York Times. The National University of Defense Technology's Tianhe-1A PC has 14,336 processors from Intel and over 7,168 M2050 graphics cards from Nvidia ($2,500 each). This gives it a horsepower equivalent of 175,000 laptop computers, according to Nvidia. China says the Tianhe-1A, which is under supervision from the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education, will be used by scientists across several fields and will also be made available to other countries.

The supercomputer race is extremely competitive and is a source of national pride. China's 2.507 petaflop supercomputer, which is 30 percent faster than the world's second most powerful supercomputer, was built by the National University of Defense Technology using the government's money and is now located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin. America's fastest supercomputer is in Tennessee, where it's been since 2004 when the US grabbed first place back from Japan. The ranking is based on a standard test used to gauge how well the systems handle mathematical calculations. Out of the top 10, seven of the world's most powerful computers are in the US, two are in China, and one is in Germany.

Microsoft has posted a record high $16.2 billion revenue with a profit of $5.41 billion for its fiscal 2011 first quarter ending September 30. That's an increase of 25% from the same period last year. "This was an exceptional quarter, combining solid enterprise growth and continued strong consumer demand for Office 2010, Windows 7, and Xbox 360 consoles and games," said Microsoft CFO Peter Klein. In fact, the company reported yearly growth across all business segments.

Microsoft CFO Peter Klein

During the summer quarter, Microsoft saw a 15% growth in revenue from Office 2010, which hit stores in June. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 grew 38%, outselling competing consoles for four consecutive months, and Bing continued to gain ground -- not least because of Redmond's partnership with Yahoo. Microsoft also noted that it witnessed a "healthy and sustaining business PC refresh cycle," with companies steadily adopting Windows 7, Office 2010 and other software products.

Samsung has announced that it has sold more than 5 million Galaxy S smartphone handsets since the series' launch in June, according to Reuters. Korea Newswire meanwhile specifies that number includes more than 2 million units in the US and more than 1 million units in Korea.

The Galaxy S is Samsung's best-selling smartphone model; Samsung aims to sell another 5 million Galaxy S handsets in the current quarter. The Android device is available on all major US carriers; though on each it sports a slightly different name (but the Galaxy S moniker is present on each) and set of features. All of them still boast a 4-inch AMOLED touch screen display, 1Ghz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor, 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video capture, six-axis sensor for gaming, up to 16GB of internal storage, Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi.

Samsung, the world's number two phone maker and number four smartphone maker, has a real winner with the Galaxy S. A close friend of mine has the device, and it's definitely one of the best phones I've seen. Its screen alone makes it worth the money. As we emphasize in our latest Buying Guide, however, competition is heating up. Even the Galaxy S is going to be outdated in a few quarters.

By Emil Protalinski, TechSpot.com

During a keynote at CTIA today, Verizon revealed its 4G rollout plans for the US. The telecom giant expects to flip the switch on LTE connectivity in 38 major urban markets by the end of the year, covering 62 airports and 110 million Americans -- a figure that will increase to 200 million by the end of 2013.

The company says customers will see speeds of 5Mb/s to 12Mb/s for downloads and 2Mb/s to 5Mb/s for uploads -- seemingly faster than Clearwire/Sprint's WiMAX. Verizon's LTE will halve the latency of 3G at about 30ms and will cope better with intensive tasks such as two-way video and multiplayer gaming.

We haven't seen anything about pricing or plan options, but the company did announce that a slew of LTE devices are on the way. Come CES in January, Verizon will "show half-a-dozen smartphones and tablets from the top OEMs in the world." Those devices will be available in the first half of next year.

By Matthew DeCarlo, TechSpot.com

As announced last month, Microsoft has now changed its licensing terms for Microsoft Security Essentials, making it available for small businesses on up to 10 PCs. That means small business owners that operate outside of the home will be able to download and install Microsoft Security Essentials legally and for free to protect their computers from malware.

Windows Phone 7  still isn't out. That's not stopping key industry players from eagerly giving their opinions and predictions. The latest to give their two cents are John Gruber, Motorola, and Gartner.
John Gruber is a huge Apple fan and often writes about the company and its products on his Daring Fireball blog. His comments on Windows Phone 7, however, came from a podcast he co-hosts with Dan Benjamin: The Talk Show. At about 54 minutes in, he starts talking about his experience after playing with a Windows phone prototype for five minutes at a cocktail party after the Web 2.0 conference in New York last week.

One more Sony detail has leaked out: pricing. There will be four models initially available, as already rumored: 24-inch, 32-inch, 40-inch, and 46-inch (measured diagonally). These Internet TVs will have the following model names and pricing, according to Sony Insider: NSX-24GT1 (unknown), NSX-32GT1 ($1299.99), NSX-40GT1 ($1499.99), and NSX-46GT1 ($1899.99). While the 24GT1's price is unknown, we have our fingers crossed that it will cost under one grand.

In related news, the NSZ-GT1 (Sony Internet TV Box) was listed on an internal website. We now know it will have an eject button (Blu-ray player anyone?), WLAN module, and an included HDMI cable.

Google has already told us about Google TV quite a lot but the hardware details remain with partners like Logitech and Sony. The former is already taking preorders and the latter is holding its official Google TV event on October 12. That's when we'll likely learn all the juicy details, including why the remote is so ugly.

By Emil Protalinski, TechSpot.com

In its effort to tackle botnets, Microsoft has offered a potential solution that would prevent botnet-infected computers from accessing the Internet. In a blog post this week, Redmond's Scott Charney described a "global collective defense" and compared his vision to modern public health in a paper titled "Collective Defense: Applying Public Health Models to the Internet"  (PDF). Charney said that while traditional protection mechanisms such as firewalls, antiviruses and automatic software updates can reduce risk, they're not enough.

Pen Drive Linux has made it easy to turn your USB drive into a Live bootable Linux instance, allowing you to easily sample a Linux flavor or create the free, open-source tool you need. 

The group also provides another tool called MultiBoot USB that allows you to take multiple Linux ISOs and utilities with you on a single flash drive. There are a few scenarios out there where it would be really handy to have a specific Linux tool (like GParted, Clonezilla, antivirus rescue CDs, DBaN amongst others) available and this tool allows you to fit all of those onto a single USB drive, assuming the drive can hold them all.

 

When Windows 7 landed, Microsoft boosted early sales by offering a discounted bundle of three Home Premium licenses. Instead of $120 per Home Premium Upgrade license (or $200 per full retail copy), the Windows 7 Family Pack let users upgrade three XP/Vista machines for only $150, making it easy for friends and families to take advantage of Microsoft's latest operating system. Sadly, that deal expired in December and anyone looking to upgrade was stuck paying the full price.