Windows Phone 7: Success! (as far as mobile office is concerned at least)

For those of you who have been using Windows mobile for awhile, get ready to learn it all again.

The new Windows mobile operating system is a completely clean slate, especially the new mobile office layout. Documents now appear as if they were being viewed on a PC and the phone comes with an office icon on the home screen  giving you quick access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files.


When the home screen locks after a period of dormancy, your next appointment is shown on the bottom as are the number of unread e-mails and missed calls.

A large app bar appears at the bottom of Office screens offering navigation tools relevant to the open file. A predictive keyboard allows you to type relatively quickly. The phone will make an educated guess at the word you want based on the context but if it gets it wrong, a list of other suggested words appears in a small bar.


When you open an Excel spreadsheet, it maintains much of the look of the original file, including graphs and other features. The same is true of PowerPoint files, which retain most of their animation, audio and other features. Word Mobile supports the table of contents, thus making it easier to navigate long documents

On the whole the Office experience is cleaner and faster, and more compatible with the files generated by Office 2010 applications. A great improvement on previous versions.


However it is not without its faults. A glaring omission on Windows Phone 7 is cut and paste, an oversight Microsoft representatives said would be corrected in early 2011 with an over-the-air update. 


Once the cut and paste problem is fixed the office component of the Windows Phone 7 is sure to be an industry leader.  

Yahoo buyout?

Rumors around a potential Yahoo buyout drove the tech giants stock price higher today. 

Yahoo shares were up almost 6% to close at $15.25, a high of late. They're up to $16.20 in after-hours trading today amid the rumors of a possible buyout. 


While there are no definitive offers on the table as of yet. The major players have been closing in on Yahoo accessing the situation. News Corp and AOL are said to be two major parties in line for the buyout. 

Sources said the key players in the growing interest around Yahoo are the executives who run Yahoo-affiliated companies in Japan and China. Masayoshi Son of "Yahoo Japan" and Jack Ma of the "Alibaba Group."

Yahoo owns big, lucrative stakes in both companies, assets which make up a big part of the company's current valuation.

Yahoo PR refused to comment on the stock rise. 

"Back to the Mac": Apple to release New OS X and MacBook Air?

It turns out Mac OS X will be getting its own special event October 20.

Invitations to a special Apple event titled "Back to the Mac" have shown up in tech press e-mails, featuring the above image of a lion peeking out from behind the Apple logo. Besides what we can assume will be an introduction of new Mac hardware, the invitation promises a peek at the Apples new operating system. Past versions of the operating system have been nicknamed after large cats, it appears that "Lion" may well be the next version. 

But what else will Apple be revealing?  

1) A re-designed Mac Book Air seems to be on the cards for Apple. With the existing version being largely unchanged since its 2008 release. Rumors of a 11.6" version of Apples paper thin notebook have been circulating to compete with the vast array of "net-books" already on the market. The specs on the Mac Book Air are also likely to be bumped up.   

2) New versions of iLife and iWork could also be in store, which will be well timed with Microsofts release of the new Microsoft Office.

3) With the 13" Mac Book Pro being the only remaining computer (apart form the Mac Book Air) in the Apple range without the range new intel processors (Core i3, i5 and i7) it is likely Apple will introduce the 13"with an updated core i3 processor or even an i5.  

4) There has been talk of a re-designed Mac Book/ Mac Book Pro range but I am not 100% convinced that this is on the agenda just yet. Although Apple is good at surprises. 

All will be revealed at 10 a.m in Town Hall on Apple's campus in Cupertino, Calif.