Two-in-one devices like Microsoft’s Surface 3 are on the rise. Sarah Tew/CNET Apple CEO Tim Cook once compared a tablet-laptop combo to mashing up a refrigerator with a toaster. The resulting Frankenstein device would do an equally lousy job of chilling your food and warming it up. That was three years ago. Today, these tablet-laptop …

Sway, now out of its “beta” phase, is available for Windows 10 devices and Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Microsoft Microsoft’s latest example that it can make a cool app: A new presentation program. Called Sway, the free app is a modern take on slideshow software that lets you drop in photos, text and videos from your personal collection or from …

Now playing: Watch this: Microsoft opens a new Windows to the world 2:00 Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, head of the software operating systems group, is in Redmond, Washington, Wednesday preparing to press a very important button. Once pressed, it will send a notification around the world reminding hundreds of millions of people that Windows 10, Microsoft’s flagship software, is ready to …

Microsoft’s Cortana, a personal virtual assistant, can crack jokes about the Halo games (where the name Cortana originates) and tell country and language-specific jokes. Josh Miller/CNET We live in a world where we’re starting to talk to our computers, but it still feels like the device on the receiving end is a machine. Microsoft believes it’s begun solving that with …

The Lumia 640 XL is one of many budget phones that Microsoft says it is still committed to offering. Dave Cheng/CNET Taking a look at Microsoft’s mobile device strategy, it’s a wonder the company hasn’t just given up. The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant was a pioneer of the smartphone industry, creating software that powered phones years before Apple’s iOS or …

3D Robotics co-founder and president Jordi Munoz sees liftoff for the drone market through apps. Nick Statt/CNET SAN DIEGO — What separates a drone from a smartphone? Well, other than the fact that your iPhone can’t fly (yet), drones don’t have an equivalent app store. At least not for the moment, says Jordi Munoz, co-founder of the largest US commercial …

HTC’s Vive headset was developed in partnership with software maker Valve. It’s expected to go on sale later this year. Nick Statt/CNET SAN DIEGO — HTC wants to ease the public into virtual reality before it launches Vive — one of the most advanced virtual-reality headsets — later this year. So it’s loaded up a truck with demo stations and …

Warcraft’s orc warchief Orgrim Doomhammer, played by actor Robert Kazinsky, in a still from the upcoming film. Legendary Pictures SAN DIEGO — Virtual reality is back at Comic-Con, and this time it’s taking you to a faraway fantasy planet called Azeroth. The annual flagship comics convention that’s expanded over the years to include film, television, video games and, now, virtual …

Game-Labs doesn’t plan to change the content of its game Ultimate General: Gettysburg.Game-Labs Apple has waded into the Confederate flag debate. The iPhone maker is removing mobile apps from its App Store that depict the Confederate flag in “offensive” and “mean-spirited ways,” according to a report Thursday from TouchArcade. Many of those apps, however, are Civil War-themed strategy games, like …

Microsoft Office makes its way to Android phones after arriving first on tablets. Microsoft Don’t own an iPhone or Windows Phone, but rely on Microsoft’s Office for writing, building presentations and crunching numbers? No problem. Microsoft’s venerable suite of applications, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel, is finally making its way onto smartphones powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system, Microsoft …