Morning Tech Wrap: Microsoft, Twitter, Apple

Steve Ballmer; Image via Wikipedia

Microsoft CEOSteve Ballmer has confirmed Windows 8 will hit the shelves in 2012. He made the announcement at a Microsoft Developer Forum in Tokyo yesterday, reports PC Mag. “As we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there’s a whole lot more coming,” Ballmer was quoted as saying, including “slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors.”

Despite rumors about new features for the OS, Ballmer would only comment on the user interface: “Today on a PC, it’s file open blah, blah, blah, respond, reply, forward. I can’t just say to my device, ‘get me ready for my trip to Tokyo’.”

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Twitter is buying mobile and desktop application Tweetdeck for over $40 million, according to CNN Money which cites sources close to the situation. Although the deal, which is reportedly worth between $40 million and $50 million, is yet to be announced, the finalizing papers were signed on Monday.

Twitter has focused itself on developing compelling Twitter interfaces like TweetDeck, following a management shakeup that saw co-founder Jack Dorsey reinstated as head of product. TweetDeck has reportedly been in the midst of a tug of war between Twitter and UberMedia, a developer of apps and web-based services for Twitter users, which also tried to buy TweetDeck back in February.

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Apple has hit back at patent company Lodsys’ claims of patent infringement, signaling Apple’s intent to defend its license rights against patent trolls. Lodsys had written to a number of app developers over allegations of patent infringement, claiming to have a patent that covers in-app upgrades. The Guardian reports that Apple replied with a blunt letter, showing that it did not want to see its app ecosystem threatened. Despite Apple’s eagerness to defend itself against the Lodsys allegations, a separate set of patent lawsuits filed by MacroSolve are still outstanding. Lodsys has yet to reply to the letter, which was penned by Bruce Sewell, the head lawyer in Apple’s legal department.

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Mobile payments start-up Square has announced a new service that allows consumers to pay for purchases by just giving their name to a merchant. Square till now has focused on turning smartphones and tablets into credit-card terminals that can be swiped–now the company wants to make credit cards obsolete too, the New York Times reports.

On Monday, Square CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced that shoppers would be able to use a new feature or Square’s iPhone and Android apps called Card Case to make payments, while merchants can use the Register feature to ring up and track purchases.

Square hopes to replace to cash registers and point-of-sale terminals, challenging companies like Verifone that make them.  Shoppers can use the Card Case app to search for businesses that are also using the service, then use the app to pay their bill, by giving the merchant their name. The merchant will see a photo of the Square user for confirmation of their identity.

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Sony says it expects to report an annual loss of $3.2 billion when it unveils its results on Thursday, with the recent network breaches costing a total of $170 million. Along with the security breach on its PlayStation Network, Sony’s bottom line has also been affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, USA Today reports. Sony reportedly lost an estimated $268 million in sales this year because of the earthquakes.

Sony is expected to use June’s Electronic Entertainment Expo video game convention to regain its footing in the market. With the PS3 losing ground to Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter was quoted as saying, “they have to drive home the notion that a breach won’t happen again.”