This past October many Sidekick users lost their data temporarily. This include contacts, pictures, downloads, etc. This led to several people suing Danger Inc., T-Mobile, and Microsoft Corporation (the owner of Danger). Since the time of that incident, Sidekicks were pulled from the shelves and were no longer being sold. This week Danger, T-Mobile, and Microsoft have started selling the Sidekick phones once again.
For those who were not able to access their data, T-Mobile offered them $100 gift cards. Sidekicks were slightly cheaper when they started selling again this week. The high-end LX model of the Sidekick was priced at $175, now it is priced at $175.
When a Sidekick’s battery dies, all personal data could be lost which is uncommon from many other phones. But Microsoft servers are able to restore that data. After the servers went down in October, any Sidekicks that had a dead battery had a higher chance of losing data.
Everything was going casually at the Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, California but all of a sudden “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas started playing on the speakers and all of the employees started doing a synchronized dance. The staff at the store looked like they were having a ball while doing the dance. Other blogs are calling the dance creepy but I honestly think that these employees are having more fun than Apple store employees right about now. As a matter of fact the Microsoft Store experience is one of the reasons why Brad Slavin has decided to go back to a PC from a Mac.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) made deals with companies such as Porsche and Pepsi that will enable the companies to integrate their brand into the operating system. The branding may include borders and sounds.
The advertisements could also extend to the Internet Explorer 8 browser that comes with Windows 7. Internet Explorer 8 would have add-ons that link to the homepage of the brand. There is also a version of Office called Office 2010 Starter Edition which is limited and is funded by advertisements.
Interestingly Apple Inc. filed a patent recently that revolves around advertising on an operating system. The operating system would limit functions until the advertisement is done.
About two weeks ago, Microsoft Corporation laid off their “ambassador to startups” Don Dodge because of a broad workforce reduction. Dodge decided to come to Silicon Valley to do some interviewing shortly after.
Google extended an offer to Dodge and he accepted. Now Dodge will become the evangelist to Google Apps. He will be reporting to former Microsoft executive Vic Gundotra. Gundotra worked at Microsoft for 15 years with the most reaching position being the General Manager of Microsoft developer outreach efforts.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a new game that was developed by Infinity Ward and was published by Activision. Even before the trailer was released, there was a lot of hype about the release. All the hype paid off because the game earned $310 million in the first 24 hours that it was released. That dollar amount is just paid on sales in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The company sold 4.7 million copies of the game in 24 hours. This game beat the record of Grand Theft Auto: IV which sold 3.6 million copies on the first day. The game setting is based on a military conflict between Russia and the United States.
In the single player mode, the game player assumes the role of U.S. Army Ranger Private Joseph Allen and he helps Afghan city that has been taken over by militants. Allen ends up being killed by a Russian militant and is scapegoated for a massacre of civilians in Russia. Russia views this as a terrorist attack and attempts to invade the United States. This game is guaranteed to be an action-packed thrill ride. At least that’s what it looks like in the trailer.
Microsoft has just released a wireless N adapter for the Xbox 360. Now it is selling in stores for $99.99. As a matter of fact, GameStop has it in stock right now. The N adapter has two antennas and supports 802.11a/b/g/n too. The older wireless adapter model will probably be spun out of production and will only be available as used goods in the near future.
Wow. This is hands down one of the best game trailers I’ve seen. I just had to share it. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be released on November 10.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) decided to take Jonathan Mann’s Bing jingle and teach it to a bunch of middle school students in Pennsylvania. Mann won a $500 content that Microsoft held for creating a song about Bing. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler criticized the song so Mann retaliated by making a song about the editor.
I literally cried a little bit when I saw this video. On the one hand I’m happy I was able to provide some kids with an excuse not to do school work for a few hours. On the other hand, not sure how I feel about these kids being indoctrinated into the cult of, well, whatever. It’s kinda creepy. But on the other-other hand, the kids do look damn happy. So…oh well?
Hopefully the students at Keith Valley Middle School get some sort of compensation for synchronized singing and dancing Microsoft services. Especially because the school cheerleading instructor spent about 12 days teaching 6th graders the dance.
Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) and The University of Michigan are now working together on a project that involves bringing cloud systems to cars. The service would be an add-on to Microsoft and Ford’s partnership on the Sync system. Sync is an in-car communications and entertainment system. Sync allows you to command your car to perform certain tasks using your voice.
The project between The U of M and Ford has the code-name American Journey 2.0. This will give U of M students the opportunity to work with a development operating system that could possibly benefit future Ford customers. “Already with Sync we have proven that we can access information in the cloud,” stated Ford head of infotronics Venkatesh Prasad. The infotronics division at Ford is part of the Research & Advanced Engineering department. “This research gives us the opportunity to harness the power of student innovation to explore beyond those capabilities and develop what’s next. We want the students to get creative and develop ways to responsibly connect the car to communicate and share with the outside world.”
“What excites me about this project is that it gives our students the opportunity to unleash their creativity using cutting-edge technologies that connect the vehicle and the cloud,” added U of M associate professor Dr. Jason Flinn.
American Journey 2.0 will be divided into two phases. The first phase involves testing and attempting to break the system by running several applications. During the second phase, an in-vehicle connectivity platform will be built.
After the platform is done, a competition will be held. The judges of the competition include representatives from Microsoft, Ford, the U of M, Maker Faire, and several others. The winning application developers will install their software in a Ford Fiesta at the Maker Faire DIY convention.
In this picture Linus Torvalds is giving Windows 7 a thumbs up in Japan. Torvalds is the man behind open source Linux operating system. Why is he doing this? Perhaps Torvalds wants to keep it classy unlike the Apple CEO when he flipped off the IBM building. Sometimes these pictures come back to haunt you many years later. Another theory is that Linus is pointing out that only one copy has been sold off the shelf.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made a deal with Twitter and Facebook. The deal is non-exclusive. Facebook and Twitter will both integrate real-time feeds of status updates and tweets into the Bing search engine service. Twitter hit about 5 billion tweets yesterday and Facebook has the most number of status updates than any other service. Facebook sends out an estimated 40 million status updates per day.
Microsoft Bing’s market share will benefit from this deal as real-time news is becoming a preference for people. Traditional news agencies are suffering from this and are cutting staff and newspaper circulation. Google will have to step it up if they want to retain their customer base.
Facebook users will be allowed to decide whether they want their status updates to be public or not. The financial details of the deal are undisclosed, but it is expected that the Redmond-based software company will be paying both Facebook and Twitter millions of dollars along with revenue-sharing deals. Microsoft owns about 1.7% of Facebook through a venture capital deal and has an exclusive advertising partnership with the social network.
Every once in a while, Microsoft attempts to make viral videos in order to gain the attention of an existing product or service. In this case they decided to make a humorous video honoring rejected mobile applications for the Windows Marketplace. By putting this video together, Microsoft indirectly knocks on the Apple App Store application approval process. Take a look and let us know what you think about the video in the comments.
Many people have lost data as the result of a Danger Inc. server outage. Danger Inc. is the manufacturing company behind Sidekick devices and is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Two lawsuits have been filed at the federal court in Northern California this past Wednesday. The outage caused many Sidekick users to lose their address books, calendars, and contacts.
Microsoft and T-Mobile indicated last week that the data might be permanently lost. However on Monday night the companies announced that some people may be able to get their information back. One of the lawsuits claims that Microsoft and Danger did not take reasonable care of the data and indicated that the Sidekick was falsely advertised.
One of the prosecutors is Maureen Thompson. Thompson’s daughter is an aspiring model and songwriter that uses the phone to store personal and business contacts. She also used the phone for storing music lyrics that are not saved anywhere else. Thompson bought the phone because T-Mobile promised that the data would be protected no matter what.
“Further complicating the data loss is the fact that Sidekicks, unlike iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones, are not designed to sync locally with a user’s personal computer without additional software and hardware,” stated the filed lawsuit. “This means that most users were not able to backup their data locally, but were encouraged and required to rely on Microsoft/Danger.”
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been airing commercials that feature a young Asian-American girl named Kylie to promote their new operating system called Windows 7. In the commercials, Kylie points out all the “happy words” that reviewers have been giving about Windows 7.
To get a further boost in publicity, Microsoft is hiring Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein to put on a variety show. MacFarlane is the creator of the animated series Family Guy. Borstein is one of the voice actresses for Family Guy, best known for playing Lois Griffin. The variety show will be aired on November 8 without commercials.
The deal was made between Microsoft, The Family Guy cast, and ad agency Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. Media agency Universal McCann brokered the deal. Crispin and MacFarlane worked together on a deal in the past for creating Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. The series was uploaded to YouTube and was sponsored by Burger King initially. The series is now being sponsored by Priceline.com.
The variety program sponsored by Microsoft will feature Family Guy musical performances, celebrity guest appearances, and Microsoft product placements. “You’ll see us deeply integrated into the content … you’ll hear a lot about how Windows 7 can help you simplify your PC — it’s simple, fast and easy to use,” stated Microsoft general manager of consumer engagement and advertising Gayle Troberman. “Think about metaphors and examples we might use, talking about how simple things are. We’ll be evoking the cast of ‘Family Guy’ in some interesting ways that integrate the product messages.”
Update: Below is a video sneak peek from Win741 of how Windows 7 will be used by Family Guy:
T-Mobile announced last night that they may have a chance to retrieve data that was lost on Sidekick devices. The data loss was originally caused by a server failure by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) subsidiary Danger Inc. “Recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible,” stated a report by T-Mobile.
For those of you whose data is permanently lost, there will be a $100 customer appreciation card towards T-Mobile products or services. The customers that have lost data will be notified in the next 14 days whether that can be any retrieval. T-Mobile and Danger worked diligently throughout the work-day yesterday to retrieve the data.
During the Sidekick’s instability period, T-Mobile halted the sales of the device. While Danger and T-Mobile worked on restoring the servers, Sidekick users were encouraged not to take out the battery from the device or reset it.
