MICROSOFT

Tobacco-related deaths have nearly tripled in the past decade and big tobacco firms are undermining public efforts that could save millions, a report led by the health campaign group the World Lung Foundation (WLF) said on Wednesday.

Mobile phone users in China have got in their basket of offerings two much-awaited smartphones. Japanese phone manufacturer Sony has just announced the upcoming availability of its first Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone, Sony Xperia neo L MT25i. And Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC Corporation has made available its HTC Eternity from today, the first Windows Phone device to officially reach the country.

Apple’s new iPad is here with its stunning Retina display, zippy processor and 4G LTE support. To make the most of it you should have some good apps running on your device.

Beginning in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year (July), Apple will pay a $2.65 per share dividend.

Oracle Corp beat Wall Street's earnings estimates as new software sales came in at the high end of the company's forecast, offsetting a sharp drop in hardware revenue.

After three years of negotiations, the BBC has finally struck a deal with Microsoft and will be streaming its iPlayer service on Xbox 360 devices in the U.K.

Microsoft’s newest update, Windows 8, will be available to users in October, according to Bloomberg News. The operating system, tailored to the tablet-heavy market, will be finished over the summer and available in the fall.

With the help of programmers worldwide, Kaspersky researchers were finally able to identify the Duqu Trojan's mystery code. Part of the malware was created with a little used programming language, which prompts researchers to believe it may have been written by experienced, old-school programmers. The Duqu Trojan is an espionage tool that drew lots of attention last year because it has many Stuxnet-like features.

According to a new Bloomberg report citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, Microsoft plans to wrap up its Windows 8 this summer, just in time for PCs and tablets with the new OS to go on sale around October. The sources wished to remain unnamed due to confidentiality issues.

Rumors are rife that Microsoft is hard at work on the highly anticipated next-generation Xbox 720. Reports flooding the internet have suggested that the new Xbox 720, which reared its head back in 2005, will arrive later this year.

QuestBack, a fast-growing Norwegian developer of feedback software, is making a play for the U.S. market by opening an office and beefing up local personnel.

Apple (AAPL) shares soared on Monday, breaching the 600 mark a few times before finally settling on 601, after the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech company decided to share some of its $100 billion in cash with its investors. Apple announced it would reward shareholders by launching a quarterly dividend and a stock buyback program that will pay out about $45 billion over three years, set to go into effect later this year.

Apple (AAPL) is feeling generous. After a record-breaking quarter announced in January and a record-breaking launch weekend for the new iPad, Tim Cook decided to share some of Apple's $100 billion in cash on Monday to fulfill a deep-seated desire of investors, announcing a quarterly dividend and a three-year shares buyback program to go in effect later this year.

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), the No. 3 software developer and No. 1 in databases, is scheduled to report third-quarter results Tuesday. Last quarter, it missed estimates and the shares plunged 15 percent, shaving as much as $5.3 billion from the net worth of CEO Larry Ellison.

Gone will be the days when the mainstream tablet market would be just confined to Android and iOS credibility or on the less thriving RIM's Playbooks.

The newest version of Android is called Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich, an OS released back in 2011 and is yet to feature on most Android handsets. The way things are shaping up, many users might have to wait months to get the new update. And in a worst case scenario, many might never get it as this is a what manufacturers have been doing in regards to Android for years. Luckily, HTC announced 16 devices that will get the Ice Cream Sandwich update in the coming months, and hopefully other de...

Apple Inc. -- the world's most valuable publicly traded company by its market capitalization of $545.97 billion -- will conduct a conference call to announce the outcome of discussions concerning its cash balance on Monday at 9 a.m. EDT, which is before the U.S. equity-market open.

iPad 3 has a target on its back now that competing manufacturers know what its strengths and weaknesses are. Just because the new iPad has a super-high resolution display and a few HD apps some people will want, doesn't mean people will pay $500 for it. That's where companies like Amazon, Google and Nokia come in because they have the best chance to put out a far cheaper tablet that takes dead aim at the iPad.

Recently, Nokia staged a comeback in the high-end smartphone market with its Windows-based Lumia phone lineup. Now, it is rumored that the Finnish cell phone giant will be first to bring out a Windows 8 tablet that may pose a threat to the new iPad.

James Whittaker, a Microsoft executive who recently left Google after about three years, posted his Why I Left Google tell-all on a Microsoft blog a day before Greg Smith had his scathing Goldman Sachs op-ed posted in the New York Times. The Smith op-ed has taken the Internet and news world by storm in the first 24 hours since being posted. A London based executive director for the investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, Smith fired off a searing report March 14 on the company's toxic and des...

Finnish cell phone giant Nokia has a Windows 8 tablet in the works that is expected to be released later this year.