In a milestone moment for both the news media and the mixing of the digital and print worlds, Microsoft Tags areheaded to the print pages of the USA Today, a leading US newspaper. Microsoft is enthused about the partnership, as it brings big potential market share to their Tag system. “We’re excited that USA TODAY is using Tag to engage with readers in a more interactive way. Microsoft Tag makes the world around you clickable, and now with the scan of Tag, customers will get a richer, more enhanced experience from the pages of the newspaper,” said the director of Tag, Bill McQuain....

Contrary to what many thought, Zune is not dead, and is in fact about to expand into Canada. According to Microsoftthis morning, both the Zune Marketplace and the Zune Pass will be available in Canada starting October 3rd. Also on that day, the Zune Pass itself will be retooled and improved. Microsoft will offer a new, cheaper plan that will cost $9.99 (USD and Canadian), that will include the usual ‘all you can eat’ music element, and also support the streaming of “tens of thousands” of music videos....

The era of 7 is over. The era of 8 is upon us. Gone now is Windows 7 as the product in the limelight; it has been upstaged by Windows 8. And now Windows Server 8 is stealing onto the scene, causing ruckus as it goes. Today at its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft gave the world a small peek at Windows Server 8. This is what we know: That is the feature list as we know it today....

Big, terrifying changes are afoot: there’s going to be a new default font in Microsoft Word. Please, don’t panic. You can riot, sure, butno panicking. This decision was announcedon Microsoft’s blog. In the piece, the company explains that it has commissioned five different fonts that could potentially replace the current default, Calibri. The piece itself provides a balanced view of all these different options, going into an admirable amount of depth about why they may be suitable to become Microsoft Word’s next default font....

When a product cycle is measured in years, migration between versions can be a tricky topic. Microsoft, still dealing with its self-induced Vista hangover, is in a tough spot: It needs to get the enterprise sector to drop Windows XP, as it’s now nearly a decade old (akin to using Windows 95 in 2005, for example), and move to Windows 7. What is the matter with that, you might ask? Well, this pesky damn new product called Windows 8 that you might have heard of....