The Insider News

Infoworld[^]:

Indications of desperation at Samsung, chaos at HTC, and reduced focus at Google suggest Android faces rough sailing.

Information Week[^]:

We work in the most transformative profession of our day. Despite the deep dysfunction in most organizations, we have no business being disgruntled.

Wired[^]:

When Google and NASA announced plans to boot up an honest-to-goodness quantum computer at NASA’s Ames Research Center, it seemed like the beginning of something very big.

All Things D[^]:

A new nonprofit called Code.org wants to bring computer science into schools. Its first initiative will be a worldwide “Hour of Code” during the second week of December, with materials provided that include coding tutorials from Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

Engadget[^]:

In a move that's about as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, BlackBerry has issued an open letter to customers and partners designed to quell their fears. Despite a recent spate of well-publicized ill fortune, the company claims that its loyal customers "can continue to count on Blackberry."

MSDN Blogs[^]:

This post announces a standalone release of the .NET portable class library reference assemblies that can be used on any operating system. It was written by Rich Lander, a Program Manager on the .NET Team.

Infoworld[^]:

The backdoor could be used to modify a router's settings -- a dangerous vulnerability

All Things D[^]:

One of the more intriguing concepts in the recent speculation about who will be the next CEO of Microsoft was raised recently: The difficulty of selecting between an exec who has business chops and one who is a tech product visionary.

ReadWrite[^]:

Nirvanix customers learned first hand what happens when cloud services go out of business. Here's how you can be prepared.

Infoworld[^]:

The toolkit can be used to keep IE11 off Windows machines without disabling Automatic Updates for all other Microsoft software

Forbes[^]:

It is safe to say that most people reading this probably don’t respect Microsoft very much. Asked to name the most innovative tech company, they’ll say Apple or Google. And they’ll do it with a straight face, while sitting in a chair made by Microsoft.

BetaNews[^]:

Steve Ballmer's departure from Microsoft will be a series of epitaphs written over the coming months. Many arm-chair pundits and analysts will scrutinize his 13-year tenure as chief executive, and you can expect him to be the scapegoat for all things wrong with Microsoft. Most assuredly, Ballmer could have done many things better, but he also contended with forces out of his control: government oversight for anti-competitive practices conducted under predecessor Bill Gates' leadership; maturing PC software market; and rise of the Internet as the new computing hub, among others.

Cliff Simpkins[^]:

Following today’s announcement of Windows Phone 8 Update 3 (8.0.10512), I’m pleased to introduce Windows Phone Preview for Developers, which will kick off later today. Windows Phone Preview for Developers gives you, our developer community, access to prerelease builds of Windows Phone updates on your dev phone before operating system updates generally are available to consumers. With the update in hand early, we hope that you can use the time to exercise your code on the update and verify that your app works as you expect. If you find issues, you can fix your app and get an update into the Store before your customers get the OS update.

TNW[^]:

It has only been three years since Apple introduced the iPad, and it has been a tremendous success ever since. That makes it all the more interesting to hear Steve Jobs convincingly dismiss tablets, at the first All Things Digital conference in 2003, ten years ago, to Walt Mossberg.

Charles Stross[^]:

I hate Microsoft Word. I want Microsoft Word to die. I hate Microsoft Word with a burning, fiery passion. I hate Microsoft Word the way Winston Smith hated Big Brother. Our reasons are, alarmingly, not dissimilar ...