Tag: EUROPE

Microsoft, citing Google's tyrannical 95% share of the European search market, has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission. It's not like Microsoft is breaking any ground here -- the European Commission has been investigating Google's alleged violation of European competition law since November 2010 -- but there's no doubt that the addition of Microsoft's gravitas will affect the ...

Proving the Old World can still be positively refreshing when it comes to some things, the unstoppable decline of Internet Explorer in the motherland has finally left Firefox with the European pole position. Internet Explorer, across all versions, lost about 8% of its market share between December 2009 and 2010. Firefox, on the other hand, by losing just 3% of its share, has ended up on top. ...

Microsoft has announced a new expansion for Zune services. The news is a touch bittersweet for me, since it didn't involve the arrival of Zune Pass in Canada. Maybe next time... Those of you who live in the U.K., France, Italy, and Spain, however, can now enjoy the Zune Pass music subscription service for £8.99 or 9.99 Euros per month. That's only a tad pricier than the $14.99 U.S. ...

Google's turn-by-turn GPS navigation software for smartphones has today been enabled in western, continental Europe... and Canada! If you've not used it before, Google Maps Navigation, despite carrying Google's omnipresent 'Beta' tag,' is as good as GPS navigation gets. It might not be quite as refined as commercial, big-bucks navigation systems, but the sheer number of awesome features easily ...

How about this: the much talked-about browser ballot is a website! BrowserChoice.eu, to be precise -- check it out. Hit F5 and watch the order randomize. Scroll right and check out the lesser-known browsers such as Sleipnir or Flock. Finally, hit the Install or Tell me more buttons and be whisked off to the browser's website! The analysis is interesting though -- check out the wording, ...

You know how we told you last week that you could pick up some versions of Windows 7 in the UK for half the US price? It sounds like that's going to change pretty soon. Basically, Microsoft has decided to offer full versions of Windows 7 in select areas at similar prices to the upgrade version in the US. That was because Microsoft was not planning on offering the upgrade version of the ...

There are plenty of good reasons to use web-based mapping tools besides simply finding directions from point a to point b. For example, let's say you're taking a holiday to Cork and you want to know where the good swimming spots are. Fortunately for you, Microsoft and the European Environment Agency have just the thing for you. The Eye on Earth Water Watch does exactly that for countless spots ...

The European Commission appears to be a few steps closer to forcing Microsoft to provide customers with a choice of web browsers as part of an antitrust measure. European regulators took similar measures a while back by requiring Microsoft to offer a version of Windows sans Windows Media Player. But simply unbundling Internet Explorer is a bit more complicated, since, as many readers pointed out ...

Sometimes it may seem like there are only two or three web browsers that matter. Most computer users surf the web with Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari. But there are a ton of other options, including Opera, Google Chrome, and Sleipnir. Still, most people continue to use Internet Explorer, and one of the main reasons for that is because it's the web browser that comes bundled with Windows, ...

Microsoft is apparently throwing around some of the money it didn't spend on buying Yahoo! or Facebook this year. Steve Ballmer recently pulled $486 million out of his wallet to acquire Greenfield Online, the German company that runs price comparison and shopping portal Ciao. The move could help Microsoft make inroads with European internet users. Ciao receives over 26 million unique visitors ...

We have two bits of probably unrelated news about digital music in Europe to share today. First up, Apple has announced plans to establish uniform pricing for iTunes downloads throughout Europe. Right now, UK residents are paying more for their music than customers in any other country in Europe. The reason for that is because Apple has to pay record labels more money to distribute music in the UK ...

After nine years, Microsoft has given up its fight against European Union regulators. Essentially, the EU says Microsoft is a monopoly, and as such should take certain measures to give consumers more options and open up its source code a tiny bit to enable interoperability with third party software. Microsoft has decided not to appeal the latest EU court ruling, which means the company will fork ...

A few months back we realized that we don't know Kentucky from Kansas thanks to Statetris, an online game that combines geography with Tetris. At the time, all we could do is bungle the placement of US states. But now that Statetris has gone international, we realize just how little we know about world geography. There are new versions of Statetris for Africa, Europe, France, Japan, the ...

There's good news and bad news for Microsoft today. The bad news is that the European Court of First Instance has upheld a 2004 court decision finding Microsoft guilty of violating antitrust laws. The god news is that if anyone can afford a $690 million fine and 80% of court costs, it's Bill Gates. But somehow we doubt he'll see it that way. The Court upheld portions of the 2004 ruling that ...

Leading photo blogging website Fotolog, has been bought up by the leading Europen interactive company Hi Media based in Paris, for a little less than the competition. But does it really matter when you can monetize the service better? Fox acquired Photobucket for about $250 million earlier this year, and this deal with Fotolog was only for about $90 million. Sure Fox has deep pockets, but Hi ...