kin

Microsoft on Wednesday began cutting a small number of jobs from its workforce, a source confirmed to CNET.

As previously reported, the layoffs are not expected to be the start of mass cuts, but are more similar to the types of reshuffling that the company does each year as it begins a new fiscal year. Microsoft started fiscal 2011 on July 1.

Microsoft has declined to comment on the cuts or say how many jobs are affected. However, a source told CNET that, even with the cuts, the company still expects to grow its ranks overall this year as it … Read more

Microsoft may eliminate some jobs as it begins a new fiscal year, however the company is not expected to undergo massive layoffs along the lines of what it did last year, when thousands of jobs were eliminated, according to a source.

The cuts currently being considered are along the lines of the company's historical pattern, in which it undergoes a yearly reshuffling that sometimes results in jobs being cut in some areas at the same time new positions are added in other areas, the source told CNET.

After shedding jobs last year, Microsoft added around 1,800 jobs in … Read more

A killer Microsoft smartphone may always be out of reach. And Microsoft should understand this better than anyone.

Manufacturers and consumers of highly interactive computing devices--be they PCs or smartphones--naturally congregate around a common, widely supported operating system. Of course, that has been Windows or Apple software in the personal computing--i.e., laptop/desktop--world. Now it's Google's Android and Apple's iPhone OS in the smartphone space.

The instant demise of Microsoft's Kin phone is one facet of the challenge Microsoft faces. The broader issue is that Redmond is up against the same kind of juggernaut in … Read more

Some of us at Crave are waiting in line for the new "Twilight" movie, so it falls to those of us who hate sparkling vampires (read: me) to bring you our weekly roundup. It'll be someone else's turn when "Tron 2" comes out this winter.

• iPhone 4 problems? Use a rubber wristband.

• The world of "Futurama" like you've never seen it.

• Those "clacky" keyboards of your youth are back.

• And check out the sexiest keyboard (a lot) of money can buy.

• Microsoft Kin, we hardly knew ye.

• Great deals now on the Kindle DX. … Read more

There's a fix coming for the iPhone 4's antenna problems: Apple will make the signal strength meter go higher, no matter what. Seriously? Yes. Also, Steve Jobs did not say, "It's just a phone," Microsoft doesn't care which way you insert your batteries, and there is no space dust on Hayabusa.

Microsoft's Kin only survived a few weeks, but a tribute Web site has been set up to make sure that Redmond's phones are not soon forgotten.

The KinRIP.com site features pictures of the twin phones as well as places for people to leave their own testimonials and light a virtual candle to the social-media oriented phone that Microsoft discontinued earlier this week. And be sure to have the sound turned on to hear the incredibly sappy rendition of "Gone Too Soon."

"It was the Pontiac Aztec of cell phones," wrote Mark Cordova in … Read more

It was a tough week for smartphones.

Amid anemic sales, Microsoft has decided to halt work on its Kin phone less than two months after the product hit the market. The social media-oriented phone will not make its planned European debut, and Microsoft is shifting the entire Kin team to work on Windows Phone 7, the Microsoft smartphone operating system due out later this year.

The Kin, which made its debut just two months ago at an event in San Francisco, was the result of several years of work by Microsoft and stemmed from its 2008 acquisition of Sidekick maker … Read more

This week brought news that Microsoft was pulling the plug on its teen-focused phone, the Kin, less than two months after its launch. Microsoft announced that the phone wouldn't be making its way to Europe after all and that the team that designed it would be moving over to the Windows Phone group for the forthcoming (and long-anticipated) Windows Phone 7.

While we found the Kin to be lacking in certain areas (no calendar? really?) it wasn't a bad product. That said, why Microsoft would have another phone platform to go alongside the Windows Phone 6.5 never … Read more

Well, it looks like the Kin's kin is also getting the ax.

T-Mobile confirmed to CNET on Thursday that it plans to stop selling the two existing Sidekick models.

"As T-Mobile looks to further innovate and raise the bar for the next generation of the T-Mobile Sidekick, as of July 2, the Sidekick LX and Sidekick 2008 will no longer be available through T-Mobile, including retail stores, care, telesales and online," the company said in a statement.

Existing customers will still be supported and the company seems to suggest that it is not done with the brand, … Read more