Dead or alive? Reports surfaced on Monday suggesting that Microsoft had pulled the plug on its Zune media player, but those were quickly written off as a mistake. On Tuesday, Microsoft did pull the plug and and said in an official death certificate that Windows Phone would be the “focus of [its] video and music strategy moving forward.” However, as of Wednesday, Microsoft’s support team suggests the statements published yesterday were in error as well, and the original statements have since ...

Verizon Communications chief executive Lowell McAdam has gone on record in suggesting that the company’s biggest rival, AT&T, should be allowed to complete its proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. “That match had to occur,” McAdam said at an investor conference on Wednesday, warning that the government has no choice but to allow such mergers unless it can focus on getting telcos the increased spectrum they need to operate. He continued, “We need to be very thoughtful...

Netflix updated its Android application on Friday with support for any smartphone running Android 2.2 (Froyo) or Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Netflix launched an Android app in May of this year, but it initially only supported a handful of high-end devices. Netflix slowly added support for a few more devices over the past couple of months, but anxious users were turning to leaked .APK files to try to get the service up and running on unsupported devices. Now, thankfully, getting the app on your Android phone wo...

During the IBC trade show in Amsterdam on Friday, Adobe officially took the wraps off of its new Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 which will allow iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to access Adobe Flash content. Apple, which has long rejected Adobe’s Flash technology, doesn’t need to approve the tech for it to work, either. “With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple ...

It may seem that Google’s other Android partners would be upset by the search giant’s decision to acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion but that’s apparently not the case. Execs from HTC, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson spoke in support of the purchase earlier on Monday, and now HTC has issued a second statement on the deal. “We are supportive of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility as this is a positive development to the Android ecosystem, which we believe is beneficial to HTC&...

Google updated its Google+ iOS application on Monday with support for the iPod touch and the iPad. The search giant initially launched Google+ on Android and followed-up a few weeks later with an iPhone release, but other iOS users were left out in the cold. Google has added Huddle settings and aggregated circle add notifications to the app. We’re big fans of the Google+ “Circles” feature, which allows you to control who sees what, so if you haven’t given the new social network a try y...

Research In Motion originally said that its QNX-powered BlackBerry PlayBook tablet would be capable of running Android applications through a virtual player this summer. While early builds of the software have already been leaked, we’re nearing the end of the summer and PlayBook owners are still Android-less. Unfortunately, Engadget has learned that the BlackBerry maker has delayed support for Android applications until ‘late fall.’ There’s no word on an exact date, but the sooner RIM ...

House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith wrote a letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, on Tuesday expressing his support of AT&T’s planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. Smith said he believes the FCC and the Department of Justice have only heard “one side of the story” from members of congress who provided “limited information” during recent briefings. Smith also said that his committee has “he...

J.D. Power and Associates announced on Thursday that Verizon Wireless ranked highest in the company’s 2011 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, Volume 2. The carrier’s overall score was 770/1000, which was above the average 761 score in the ‘full service’ category. T-Mobile came in second place with a score of 766, followed by Sprint (752) and AT&T (751). J.D. Power and Associates also noted that non-contract customers have shorter wait times than customers with contracts (5.5...

Michael Dell is toying with the idea of using Google+ Hangouts for Dell’s customer support. The service allows users to initiate a video chat session with multiple people inside their Google+ circles. “I am thinking about hangouts for business. Would you like to be able to connect with your Dell service and sale teams via video directly from Dell.com?” he posted on his Google+ page on Sunday. The idea was an instant success: 556 people had given the comment a +1 as of Tuesday morning and hun...

Motorola began issuing the Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) update to Wi-Fi XOOM owners on Tuesday. The patch reportedly adds support for the tablet’s SD card slot and also features a new screen zooming feature that will allow users to resize mobile applications so that they fit the screen appropriately. Android 3.2 will also add support for smaller tablets with 7-inch screens, many of which currently run older versions of Android such as Gingerbread. Google also announced that it is releasing parts of the Andro...

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission, Microsoft and other companies expressed their support for AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. “Many policy-related efforts will not be able to quickly address near-term capacity needs,” the letter stated. “The FCC must seriously weigh the benefits of this merger and approve it.” Other big names, such as Facebook, Research in Motion, Oracle and Yahoo!, have also voiced sup...

Earlier this week we reported that a firm named Lodsys had started to send out letters to Apple developers claiming that they were infringing on a Lodsys patent related to in-app purchases. Apple stepped in and claimed that, since it licenses Lodsys’ products and services, its developers were also entitled to use the technology. Now it appears that Lodsys is also going after Android developers for the same reason. “We recently implemented in-app purchases for our Android application and several we...

Mac users have recently been targeted by a phishing scam that falsely claimed their computers were infected with a virus. Upon being redirected to an illegitimate website, users were instructed to install “Mac Defender,” which was malware masquerading as an antivirus application. Until recently, Apple had reportedly instructed its AppleCare support reps to deny any existence of the problem and said reps should “not remove or uninstall any malware” found on a computer. On Tuesday, how...