Operating systems

A public beta of Windows 8 will launch in late February of next year, says tech news site The Next Web.

Citing "sources close to Microsoft," TNW pointed to February for the beta's debut but said the release date for the final version of Windows 8 remains a mystery, though it's expected to ship next year.

Mary Jo Foley of CNET sister site ZDNet said she's heard that the beta would appear after next month's Consumer Electronics Show, which runs from January 10 to 13, but Foley said she isn't aware of any … Read more

The fate of WebOS will be decided in the next couple weeks.

"We should announce our decision in the next two weeks," HP CEO Meg Whitman told French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview (translation) published today. "This is not an easy decision, because we have a team of 600 people which is in limbo."

Although Whitman didn't indicate whether she's leaning either way in her decision, she did say that HP needs "to have another operating system," seemingly indicating that WebOS could stage a comeback.

HP announced in August that it … Read more

People frustrated by the upgrade and setup process in prior versions of Windows may find a more user-friendly experience in Windows 8.

Ensuring that Windows installs properly across a variety of hardware and software configurations has always been a major challenge, and one that Microsoft has never solved to the satisfaction of all users.

Microsoft has already taken some big steps forward in this respect with Windows 7. Its next version of Windows promises further improvements, as described in the latest edition of the Building Windows 8 blog by Christa St. Pierre from Microsoft's setup and deployment team:

Apple recently issued an update for Thunderbolt-equipped Mac systems that addresses the intermittent black screens some people have been seeing when using Apple's external Thunderbolt display.

The 53.23MB update is for systems running Snow Leopard, and should be available via Software Update (in the Apple menu), but can also be downloaded from the update's Web site.

The update includes new drivers for all supported graphics controllers from Intel, Nvidia, and AMD, but it also includes components of Apple's OpenCL framework that are specific to the AMD graphics chipset, which suggests this issue stems from a poor … Read more

When it comes to virtualization on OS X there are three basic solutions: Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, and VirtualBox from Oracle. While VirtualBox is developed more as a free hobby and experiment package by Oracle, the other two are commercial packages that have been neck-and-neck in competition in the areas of speed, stability, and compatibility.

In its past few versions, Parallels Desktop has been significantly faster than VMware Fusion for a few tasks, which Parallels has regularly blogged about.

Today VMware released a new version of its Fusion virtualization software (available through its built-in updater) that in part offers a … Read more

Apple has released an update for its latest MacBook Pro systems that resolves an issue where systems running under wall power may unexpectedly shut down under heavy workload if the battery is at low levels. Apple does not specify exactly what revisions of the MacBook Pro this update is for, but it will only install on those for which it applies.

The update is a small 730KB download either from Software Update or from the Update's Web page, and requires OS X 10.6.8 or OS X 10.7.2 or later. The update will require you to … Read more

If you plan on running multiple operating systems on your Mac, one route you can take besides a direct installation like Windows in Boot Camp is to use a virtual machine, which installs the OS within OS X so it and its applications will run alongside your OS X applications.

There are several virtualization options for OS X, including VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, both of which offer robust solutions for running multiple operating systems that integrate the guest operating system well with the Mac OS. Recently, Parallels released an update to its latest version of Parallels Desktop that, in … Read more

With the release of OS X Lion, a number of owners of the 15-inch MacBook Pro from mid-2010 found that their systems began showing regular black screens when performing some tasks like manipulating graphics and waking from sleep. We reported on this when it first became an issue and also when OS X 10.7.2 was released.

A short while ago Apple issued a knowledge base article mentioning that it was aware of the black-screen issue with the affected machines, and was working on a fix.

I suspected that this was a hardware-based problem since people affected by it … Read more

Even though we said the fall CTIA was a little smaller than usual this year due to the absence of Samsung and Google, we still found plenty to cover.

Here are all the product announcements, hands-on looks, and news posts we wrote in San Diego. (See Day 1 and Day 2 wrap-ups for information on each day's coverage)

Product announcements T-Mobile touts two 4G Android tablets: Springboard, Galaxy Tab MetroPCS debuts Kyocera Presto, LG Beacon RIM introduces NFC-based BlackBerry Tag app Plantronics announces the Voyager Pro HD AT&T releases five new Android handsets Sonim adds three new rugged phones … Read more