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"Welcome to this morning's edition of \u201CFirst To Know,\u201D a series in which we keep you in the know on what\u2019s happening in the digital world. We\u2019re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.\nMicrosoft Prepares Windows 8 for Battle Against iPad\nAt Tuesday's Microsoft Build conference, Microsoft will unveil its new operating system, Windows 8. The next generation OS is designed for PCs and tablets. Sources tell us that the device will be manufactured by Samsung but has been designed meticulously by Microsoft in an attempt to create the iPad alternative.\nNew Facebook Feature Reduces Email Notifications \nFacebook is testing a new feature that lets users group their email notifications into summary emails, which is ideal for users who receive dozens of daily friend requests or are frequent participants in Facebook conversations.\nHow Digitally Connected Are the U.S. News Top 20 Colleges?\nThe U.S. News list of top ranking national universities and national liberal arts colleges came out Tuesday. The rankings take several factors into account, including tuition, acceptance rate, retention rate, class size, SAT scores and graduation rate. We decided to add another factor for review: social media connectedness. We looked at Twitter feeds encompassing university life, official Facebook Pages and YouTube channels, not to mention the follower count for each official university/college account.\nFurther News\n\n\u201CiPhones are not that cool anymore. We here are using iPhones, but our kids don\u2019t find them that cool anymore,\u201D said Martin Fichter, acting president of HTC America, during the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle\nAfter numerous patent lawsuits from Apple, Samsung has responded with another lawsuit of its own \u2014 this time in France. The Korean manufacturer claims that Apple has infringed on three of its technology patents regarding UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and \u201Cnot on the design of the tablets.\"\nEuropean astronomers have discovered 50 new planets, including 16 so-called Super-Earths, one of which is potentially habitable.\n\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/09/13/microsoft-facebook-top-colleges/>