Microsoft’s annual conference for web developers and designers, MIX 11, took place this week (12-14 April) at the Mandalay Bay hotel, Las Vegas. The company didn’t only showcase the next version of the Windows Phone operating system (OS), but some other tech as well. Having launched its latest browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), exactly a month ago, the company this week made the IE10 Preview Platform 1 available to developers.

 

 

IE9 only supports Windows Vista and Windows 7 and not Windows XP, while it looks like IE10 will only support Windows 7 and higher, and not either Windows XP or Windows Vista.

 

The company also announced the immediate availability of the beta for Microsoft Silverlight 5. Silverlight is a free plug-in, powered by the Redmond-based company’s .NET framework and works with multiple browsers, devices and operating systems.

 

New capabilities include hardware video decode, for enhanced video quality and performance, as well as “Trickplay”, which enables variable-rate video playback with audio pitch correction.

 

 

 

At the beginning of the month details and video tutorials of the forthcoming BlackBerry Touch and BlackBerry Bold Touch were leaked. This week it was the successor to the BlackBerry Torch 9800’s turn to be exposed. 

 

Photos and a lengthy specsheet of the smartphone hit the interwebs, showing a device that very closely resembles the current Torch. This new smartphone will boast a much faster 1.2 GHz processor, double the amount of on-board storage (8 GB), 768 MB of RAM, 5 MP camera (supporting HD video recording) as well as a higher (640 x 480) resolution touch-screen. There are no news about a possible release date.      

 

 

 

Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei and long time partner Motorola, have kissed and made up. Huawei filed a lawsuit against Motorola at the beginning of the year, looking to prevent the American company from completing the sale of its wireless network division to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN).

 

According to the New York Times, the two companies on Wednesday stated that they have agreed to settle a pair of intellectual property lawsuits. This agreement is expected to lead to the completion of the sale by Motorola Solutions of its networking division to NSN, but at a reduced price.  

 

The previously stated amount NSN would pay ($1.2 billion) has been reduced to $975 million, with neither Motorola nor Huawei providing any reasons for the lowering of the price. As part of the settlement, Motorola Solutions will pay an undisclosed amount of money to Huawei, in order to compensate the Chinese company for its technology, which makes out part of the sale to NSN.