This year at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin vendors introduced and demonstrated a plethora of ultra-high resolution TVs, hybrid tablets based on Microsoft's upcoming operating systems, as well as the first device based on Windows Phone 8.

If you're longing impatiently for the much-hyped features of Apple's rumored new TV, you don't have to wait. They're already here.

The Japanese electronics maker said in a statement that it's not introducing tablets based on Windows RT due to delayed components "that would make a timely launch impossible." Instead, Toshiba will focus on bringing Windows 8 devices, which run on chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), to market.

Microsoft has named the first wave of manufacturers signed up to produce tablets for Windows RT, its first operating system designed for processor based on designs by the British company ARM, which dominates mobile computing.

Qualcomm is providing chips for new devices from Dell and Samsung Electronics that run Microsoft's Windows RT operating system, people familiar with the matter said.

Qualcomm has lowered its forecast of global cellular device shipments for 2012 due to a gloomy economic outlook, though it expects device sales to surge in the fourth quarter because of upcoming products, a likely reference to Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's Windows 8 tablets.

Nearly everyone is familiar with multi-touch screens, which allow users to make several finger gestures at once on the screens of their smartphones and tablets. Now, Microsoft is trying to push that technology into the world of desktop computing and beyond, with the acquisition of Perceptive Pixel.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) said it will hold off selling tablets based on ARM technology when the next version of Microsoft's Windows operating system debuts later this year.

Microsoft has delivered a blow to its partner Nokia that may slow down Nokia's fragile recovery and now takeover chatter is in the air.

Microsoft and Samsung continue to fend off rumors that they have any intention of purchasing cell phone maker Nokia.

Facebook is paying Microsoft US$550 million for some of the patents it recently bought from AOL.

Steve Jobs last war, the magazine argues, could do his company more harm than good.