The Philippine Online Chronicles

Microsoft Office running on Windows Phone 7 looks promising. In demo videos, Microsoft is showcasing Office’s integration into the company’s next generation phone platform. We guess it’s safe to say that it looks really good. The process of going from an email to the editor is pretty seamless, and it’s probably one of the first parts of the OS that’s been completed. The Office app is very well integrated with the calendar as well. It is probably one of the best productivity suites for a mobile device, and it’s not even final yet. It’s very polished, and it looks good too. Microsoft is targeting a broader and more mainstream audience with Windows Phone 7, but it can’t deny its enterprise roots and that can only be good for the suits who may be looking for new phones when WP7 devices come out. You can see the great videos here.

In other news, an eBay auction was set for a couple of iPod Touch players with cameras on their backsides. It appears to look like the ones which were leaked last year right before Apple introduced the third generation iPod Touch. If you remember, there were plenty of rumors back then that the next Touch would get a camera. Instead, it was the entry-level fifth generation iPod Nano that got a camera that shot standard definition videos and nothing else. This time, the rumors are starting to spread again. The eBay listing was quickly taken down. Of course, we don’t know if it’s the real thing, but with next iPhone having been leaked and all we can never be sure. Apple will probably release the next-generation iPod Touch some time later this year so we’ll find out by then if Apple has indeed decided to equip its best-selling PMP with a camera.

The saga of the lost iPhone prototype continues. Since Gizmodo broke the story sometime last week, the internet has been buzzing with comments about whether what Giz did was legal or not. Some were even accusing Giz of using the phone for a grandiose publicity stunt. Now, even the Police want to be involved. A source from the Santa Clara County Police department told CNET that a “computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office” is starting its own investigation regarding the matter.

Yikes.

It is of course not known whether anyone would be charged. Heck, it’s not even known if anyone could be charged. There is no precedent for this incident, and the US law regarding the selling of lost goods is pretty vague. It’s even more complicated because of the fact that the next iPhone is (or should have been) a piece of top-secret intellectual property.

When we think about it though, it seems foolish to make anyone criminally liable for what is basically an honest mistake. Look, the guy was partying on his birthday, maybe drank one beer too much, and forgot his phone. It just so happened that that phone was the next iPhone, but still, no one got hurt, no one died, and it’s not like people are going to want to get the new iPhone any less when it comes out in June. If anything, it’s free publicity for Apple, and just adds to their unbelievable hype machine.

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Screenshot of Windows Phone 7 Series Start screen used under Fair Use