Microsoft’s latest purchase scheme comes after two senior Democratic senators proposed a 2% tax on corporate stock buybacks as part of a bid to help fund a $3.5 trillion U.S. budget bill. The potential tax, announced on Friday, was released by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod…

Since the era of ex-Windows lead Terry Myerson, Windows itself hasn’t had a seat at the big boy table within Microsoft. However, that has now changed. Chief Product Officer Panos Panay has taken up a new role as an Executive Vice President (via Bloomberg), joining recent appointee Xbox lead Phil Spencer at the senior leadership table,…

Here’s a video explaining the processor. I don’t quite see how this will help detect fraud in real time since fraud detection requires smart software. Current software has trouble detecting fraud and frequently produces false positives that create a hassle for consumers. I guess the proof will be in the pudding. The processor itself looks…

The Redmond, Wash.-based company reported financial fourth-quarter sales of $46.2 billion after the bell Tuesday, up around 21% from the year-prior period. It generated a $16.5 billion profit for the period ended June 30, an increase of 47% year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street expectations. Analysts expected $44.1 billion in sales at a profit of $14.6 billion.…

The top-line increase of 3.4%, IBM’s biggest gain in three years, comes as the company is undergoing extensive changes, including the planned spinoff of some of its legacy IT activities that remain a multibillion-dollar business. Revenue in the second quarter rose to $18.75 billion driven by its cloud, software and services businesses. The company reported…