Some phones have “kill switches” built into them that allow the companies to remotely delete software. When you buy a video game from Best Buy, you don’t give the retailer the right to barge into your house whenever it wants. So why do we give that permission to software companies? Most popular smartphone operating systems and other electronic gadgets include what security researchers... 

Microsoft Corp. is in talks to buy Skype Technologies SA to gain the world’s most popular international calling service and its 663 million customers, according to two people familiar with the matter. A deal would value Skype at about $8.5 billion and may be announced as early as today, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private, Bloomberg reports. Analysts... 

Nokia is almost Finish(ed), due to its stubbornness to switch to Android, is now set to cut 4,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2012. Mobile phone maker Nokia to cut 4,000 jobs worldwide from its 65,000-strong workforce, including 700 in the UK Nokia, once indisputably the world’s largest mobile phone company, will lay off 4,000 people worldwide by the end of next year as it attempts to cut costs... 

Look what we’ve found! This is the first image you’ll see anywhere of the early fruit of Microsoft and Nokia’s budding new partnership. We have it on good authority that the technicolor phones on show are conceptual devices produced by the two companies. You shouldn’t, therefore, go jumping to conclusions about retail hardware just yet, but hearts should be warmed by the familiarity... 

Donors: Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and rock star Bono are among some of the Global Fund's high profile supporters. A multi billion dollar global health fund backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is being probed for widespread fraud after it emerged grant money to developing countries had been ‘eaten up by corruption.’ The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria... 

Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has issued a decree calling for Microsoft to be taken off all government computers and replaced by Linux. While weirdie beardie open saucers will be cheering, it is worthwhile to point out that Putin is jolly cross with Microsoft at the moment. For a while he had a cracking good method of dealing with people who didn’t like him much. Coppers would appear... 

Leaked screenshot of future Windows 8 In its most concrete comments yet about the next version of Windows, Microsoft said in a blog post on its Dutch Web site that Windows 8 is about two years from hitting the market. Microsoft is working on the next version of Windows, the blog says in Dutch, but it will be about two years before Windows 8 is on the market. Microsoft’s Dutch subsidiary posted... 

Microsoft is vastly expanding its efforts to prevent governments from using software piracy inquiries as a pretext to suppress dissent. It plans to provide free software licenses to more than 500,000 advocacy groups, independent media outlets and other nonprofit organizations in 12 countries with tightly controlled governments, including Russia and China. With the new program in place, authorities... 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave La Raza over $6 million in 2002. A 2002 annual report breaking down money doled out by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation reveals the foundation provided a grant to National Council of La Raza. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is arguably the largest “charitable” organization in the world. Gates gave $6,661,364 to the racist organization... 

Companies found hiring hundreds of under-aged, unregistered workers, and forcing them to work overtime Two Guangdong-based factories contracted to global giant Microsoft have been found guilty of illegal labor practices, including the employment of more than 300 16- to 18-year-old workers without registration. The companies will face administrative penalties if they do not change their work practices... 

Customers of Microsoft’s Windows 7 in the EU will have to install their own Web browsers after the US software giant said regulatory wrangling has prompted it to strip Internet Explorer from its new operating system. “We’re committed to making Windows 7 available in Europe at the same time that it launches in the rest of the world, but we also must comply with European competition...