Video: Microsoft's Debuts Windows 8 New Look

 

By: Kareem

Microsoft unveiled a whole lot more about their next OS Windows 8 at D9 this year. Including a video demo of the new look and some of the new features.

The biggest and most prominent change is in the whole UI. Microsoft has decided to do away with anything that looks remotely comfortable for a desktop and create a tile based interface like the one on WP7.  Honestly it dosen’t look like it’s going to be uncomfortable on anything besides a tablet.

One pretty important point not mentioned in the vid is that Windows 8 is apparently going to be scalable on everything from ARM processors to I5’s. Which really makes me suspicious that Microsoft is really giving up on the desktop and banking heavy on the mobile market.

There is no release date (although most people are hoping next year) and no word on whether they’ll be an option to make the interface more ‘normal’ or if Microsoft plans on ramming their Zune/Wp7 interface down everyone’s throats.

Check out the video below:

 

More On Windows 8 Coming Soon

HTC Getting Charged By Microsoft Per Device

By: Kareem

According to reports, Microsoft is getting $5 off of every device that HTC sells. This is due to a previous settlement the two companies made during the latter’s lawsuit against Google.

So here’s how it started due to the fact that most of Microsoft can’t outright go after Google to get at Android, they go after the much smaller and easier to settle with device manufactures. Around the end of April last year they decided they would go after HTC for using Android to infringe on their Intellectual Property. HTC, presumably not wanting to end their relationship with Microsoft (they do make Windows mobile devices after all) decided to settle with the company. Turns out that one of the terms of that settlement is that HTC pay Microsoft a $5 royalty fee on every Android device they sell, be it phone or tablet.

Microsoft didn’t just go after HTC either, the big M is also suing Barnes & Noble for using Android on their Nook eReader’s. And they want to up their take from HTC as well. According to reports Microsoft is looking to get between $7.50-$12.50 from the manufacturer for each Android device they sell. Presumably they will want the same from Barnes & Noble as well if they decide to settle.

• What really dosen’t seem to make sense to me is:
• Microsoft is suing Android over infringing on it’s IP
• Microsoft claims that IP is a companies most prized possession and therefore almost priceless.
• Android is free and Google is not charging companies to use it

If IP is important and Android is free then why is Microsoft profiting off of someone else's IP? I thought that if a company made software free and open source than no other company could profit off the code. I thought that HTC’s profits came from hardware, not software, Shure they make sense. But a skin is a far cry from an operating system.

Seems to me like Microsoft is using it’s lawyers to scare HTC into paying an unnecessary royalty fee that they don’t deserve for an OS they had nothing to do with by threating to not allow the company to make anymore Windows Phone devices.

The real kicker here is that if Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and all the other companies suing other companies for using Android keep making settlement and getting their undeserved cash than Android might end up being more expensive than WP7 and become basically worthless.

It works like this, Microsoft gets $5-$12 for every Android device, then let’s say the trend continues and Apple wins a lawsuit, now Apple gets $5-$12. So now you have to pay between $10-$24 per device you sell. If more companies join in and keep getting more and more sooner or later it’s just not worth it. You end up having to pay these huge costs or just license from another company that allows you to put their software on your devices. This is where it gets a little interesting.

Microsoft has apparently though this pretty well through, during my research I found out that although Microsoft charges OEM’s to license WP7, they guarantee that the manufacturer will get their money back from advertising and other channels. So in essence WP7 is free, just not open source. Not being open source can also be beneficial to a manufacturer as they can count on timely updates and less fragmentation between devices the make.

Related Stuffs:

• Source: Top Tech Reviews

• Business Insider: HTC Pays Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone, Says Citi

• Seattle Times:  HTC pays Microsoft $5 for every Android phone

• Semi Accurate: How much do phone makers pay for Windows Phone 7?

Video: Keynote From Microsoft’s TechEd 2011

 

Here’s the Keynote vide from Microsoft’s TechEd Keynote yesterday, Enjoy!

Source: Microsoft's The Ed Website

A few Specs On The New WP7 Mango Build

Microsoft is showing off it’s latest WP7 build, codenamed mango at this years TechEd 2011 in Atlanta.

So what’s new in WP7 Mango?

For starters Microsoft is offering users the ability share documents via their cloud services Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive. That’s pretty handy for people who have tons of documents and can’t store them all locally on their devices.

On the social side of things there will be improved Twitter integration which is good news for the many many people complaining about WP7 lack of a decent twitter app. Facebook/AOL chat is also getting an overhaul and being made more accessible.

There are also some new security features being announced at the reveal, such as complex password support and Information Rights Management capabilities that protect emails and docs from being stolen or unwantedly accessed.

Microsoft is also planning to add new functions for developers which will allow them to target their app distribution and a huge push for HTML  support.

There was no mention however on how or if they plan to leverage their recent Skype acquisition to add any new features, but I’m hoping they’ll mention something coming in the near future.

Microsoft seems to be playing it pretty smart, some people might say their being slow, but I think it’s a smarter idea for them to release things that can compete with the current kings of mobile operating systems (Android and iOS), rather than just rush things to the market. Microsoft has built a pretty good foundation with WP7, they have plenty of tools that make it easy for people to develop on their OS and there are already quite a few Silverlight, .Net, Visual… developers that can use what they already know to get a decent start on WP7 so the future is looking pretty bright for Microsoft mobile. Despite the fact that they’re struggling in market share and install base now.

So with all that Microsoft is hoping to attract more developers to the platform so they can start competing with the Apple and Android App store and Marketplace. Something they’re going to have to achieve if they want to be taken seriously in the mobile space, and repair their damaged reputation there.

Related Stuffs:

• Source: TG Daily
• Article: Microsoft's New iOS To WP7 API

Quick Hit: Microsoft Gets Skype For $8.5 Billion

Microsoft is finalizing the details to acquire the VOIP service Skype to the tune of $8.5 billion.  It should be interesting to see how Microsoft integrates VOIP into it’s current technologies.

The big question is, what will Microsoft be doing with Skype. They have a lot of interesting choices, Microsoft could integrate it into the already fairly popular Xbox live video chat, make it an integral part of Windows 8, or a number of other interesting things. The most reasonable expectation is that Microsoft will continue to grow the platform, add new features and just generally build upon Skype’s already pretty huge base.

Steve Ballmer is saying that Skype will become a business inside of Microsoft and that Skype’s CEO Tony Bates will be the new president of Skype in Microsoft.

Microsoft said that they will continue to support Skype service across all platforms (meaning Mac, iPhone, Android, Linux etc.…) so there's no reason to be concerned that you might be losing access to the service if your  not using windows.

Some people are concerned about Microsoft buying Skype, there are security concerns coming from both sides, Skype has been notoriously hard to keep secure and Windows still remains the most vulnerable OS on the market. There are also concerns that Microsoft will let Skype ‘float’ around and never do anything new or interesting with it. Those people think that Microsoft is just looking for a way to increase it’s income and market share and have no interest in trying to make Skype any better for it’s users.

What do you think about Microsoft buying Skype?

Related stuffs:

Source: Wall Street Journal

Video:

Microsoft Announces New iOS to WP7 API Mapping Tool

By: syeed@techsual.com

Microsoft announced on the Windows Phone Developer blog yesterday that they’ve released a new iOS to Windows Phone 7 mapping tool that makes it easier for iOS developers to port their code over to WP7.

The tool basically allows iOS developers who want to develop for WP7 to load their code into Visual Studio and find the equivalent classes, methods and notification events in WP7. According to the blog:

“A developer can search a given iOS API call and find the equivalent WP7 along with C# sample codes and API documentations for both platforms. The code samples allow developers to quickly migrate short blobs of iOS code to the equivalent C# code. All WP7 API documentations are pulled in from the Silverlight, C# and XNA sources on MSDN.”

Microsoft hopes to attract more iOS developers with this new tool, but it’s probably going to take a lot more than what they have now before developers start seriously thinking about dedicating time and effort into porting their code. Not to mention the fact that WP7 has no where near the install base of iOS yet.

The good news however is that they see this as a work in progress and intend to add a lot more functionality in the future.

Source: Windows Team Blog

Is Android Nokia’s Biggest Threat

Although the iPhone is currently raking in the profits for Apple, the numbers don’t seem to mean much to Nokia’s CEO who told the Financial Times he sees Android as the biggest threat to his companies future.

Android is on tons of phones and has enjoyed tons of success. There is no question Google will keep supporting it and it will only get better with time. Apple makes one phone, but it sells and people who want it will do with nothing less. Some say Android is fragmented, it’s too differentiated and there are too many updates. A lot of the apps that run on Android 2.2 wont work right in 2.1. Plus With the number of Android phones available you can buy a phone without really noticing what version it’s running and end up with a dated device that won’t do what you expect, it’s kind of a mess. But Google is working it out. Apple dosen’t have that problem, they make one phone one mobile OS and update both yearly.  Both OS’ are great, I use Android but I respect iOS. Which one is better? That’s a matter of choice. Why is Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO worried Android might be the next king of mobile OS'? Here’s what I think.

I think the thing you have to take into consideration here is that Nokia makes phones, they still make Symbian, but since their deal with Microsoft, they won’t be doing that anymore soon, so the only thing they’ll be left with is designing and manufacturing phones. Where they used to be a software/hardware developer like Apple, their now just making hardware like HTC and Samsung. So I can see the shift in focus, he told the Financial Times that Nokia has been very clear that their number one “competitive consideration” is Android. They not only have to compete with Apple but all the other companies designing phones and tablets using Android not to mention other OS’ like WebOS. So Nokia has some catching up to do if they want to bring WP7 up to speed.

So once Google works out the kinks and starts releasing yearly updates rather than chaotically whenever they have something new to show off, Android is going to be a force to be reckoned with, not only on phones but on tablets as well, which Nokia is going to have to start thinking about sooner or later in my opinion.

• By: kareem@techsual.com
• Source: Financial Times

Xbox TV a Possibility

There were reports yesterday that Microsoft is currently trying to woo top television networks into bringing their content on the Xbox 360 here in the U.S.

As it stands Xbox 360 users currently spend about 40 percent of their time on the console watching the video content that’s currently already available via Netflix, Zune and the ESPN channels. So it would stand to reason that the content providers would want to add their content to the console, not only would it benefit them in terms of reaching a slightly wider audience they would also be getting the benefit of targeted advertising since Microsoft, y’know spies on Xbox users practically every second of the day. Hell if you own a Kinect it’s not at all impossible for advertisers to target ads for clothing in your exact size.

Anyway enough paranoia for now, although there hasn’t been any official announcement but one of the suits over at Microsoft has commented that they are ‘very interested in delivering great content to consumers.’  E3 isn’t too far away so there probably just ironing things out for an announcement there.

There’s also mention that if Xbox 360 gets television stations they might be coming to you through Verizon’s new data centers which have apparently been optimized for exactly what the rumors are rumoring, provide high definition video over the web as reliably as any cable or satellite provider. Verizon is Fios TV will be the first to take advantage of the new centers but they will be available to any retailer looking to become an online multiservice operator.

UK Sky Cable subscribers already get the use something like what people think Microsoft is planning here in the states. So the picture up top is an example of what it might look like.

• By: Kareem@techsual.com
• Source: Toms Guide

Kinect For Windows SDK Beta Details

The new Kinect for Windows SDK that will release later this Spring can do a lot more than just control an armchair, Microsoft recently released a few new details on the SDK that will no doubt help boost the Kinect’s currently slim game library.

According to Microsoft “With this SDK, you’ll be able to take advantage of:

• The latest advances in audio processing, which include a four-element microphone array with sophisticated acoustic noise and echo cancellation for crystal clear audio.
• Sound source localization for beamforming, which enables the determination of a sound�s spatial location, enhancing reliability when integrated with the Microsoft speech recognition API.
• Depth data, which provides the distance of an object from the Kinect camera, as well as the raw audio and image data, which together open up opportunities for creating richer natural user interface experiences.
• Highly performant and robust skeletal tracking capabilities for determining the body positions of one or two persons moving within the Kinect field of view.
• Documentation for the APIs and a description of the SDK architecture.
• Sample code that demonstrates how to use the functionality in the SDK.

This SDK is intended for non-commercial use to enable experimentation in the world of natural user interface experiences, with new state-of-the-art features planned for future releases that will continue to provide new ways to experiment.”

 

• Source: Microsoft
• By: kareem@techsual.com

Microsoft Shows off at MIX 11 With A Kinect Powered Chair

Image VIA crunchgear

Sure there have been tons of Kinect hacks that do things from let you play a very tiring game of Street Fighter to saving doctors thousands of dollars on body mapping hardware, and at MIX 11 Microsoft showed off  an armchair that can be controlled by the Kinect, and could this be the evolution of wheelchairs?

Microsoft, unlike Sony didn’t go out and sue people for getting creative with their hardware, they didn’t mind the open-source drivers that allowed you to hook up your Kinect to your computer and possible play pirated games, most likely because they understand that stealing software isn’t the only thing on every hackers mind and when you let ‘em have at, amazing things happen.

Hell they even decided to go all out and release an SDK for the Kinect to make it easier for people to hack the ish out of the motion-sensing-dual-camera badass little device. They used the upcoming Kinect PC SDK to create the armchair you see in the picture above.  The SDK supports development in Visual Basic, C++, and C#.

According to crunchgear the chair is only a proof of concept, controlled by hand motions and Microsoft will be releasing the source code with the SDK.

• Source: Crunch Gear
• Author: kareem@techsual.com

Microsoft Plans Big Window Phone Upgrade, Just Not Anytime Soon

Microsoft seems like their ready to step up their Windows Phone game, they’ve announced in a non-specific way at MIX when developers and users can expect to start playing with the new version of the OS.

Developers can expect to get the tools in next month (may), with the consumer upgrade coming by the end of this year. It seems like Microsoft is waiting to let Nokia get their hardware out before they make any big changes, hopefully they’re working together on something big and are just waiting for it to be perfect before they release it. Who knows? Maybe the two are working on a Tablet. The current market for WP7 phones is pretty sad, and the only remotely exciting WP7 phone announced is HTC’s sweetness coming AT&T. It’s almost as if their purposely keeping their own product down.

The latest version of Windows Phone, which is codenamed ‘Mango’ makes some pretty big upgrades to what is probably one of the weakest mobile OS’ with a share in the market. Some of those upgrades include such ‘revolutionary’ new features as; multitasking, integration with Twitter, motion sensing and camera integration with apps. Things that are already commonplace on Android and iOS devices.

Although these upgrades pretty much only catch them up with their competition, at least Microsoft is trying. WP7 is a nice OS, I like the tiles and I’m pretty anxious to see what Nokia does on the hardware side, so if things go well next year we might have some pretty good choices between three really really polished and well developed OS’.

I like corporate competition.

• Source: Bits Blog
• Author: kareem@techsual.com

Windows 8 App Store Rumors

 

A flood of rumore recently hit the web about Microsoft’s next big OS, Windows 8. The newest of these rumors comes complete with a screen shot of what might be a new App Store.

The picture above is rumored to be of Windows 8’s new app store, which according to reports is going into beta testing within Microsoft very soon. Keep in mind that the OS is still in the early stages of development and these rumors and reports are totally unsubstantiated, still, it never hurts to imagine does it?

If the rumors are true and Microsoft is planning a new app store in Windows 8 then it could help boost WP7 sales by simplifying the whole smart phone - PC relationship in much the same way Apple has with their app store’s integration into all their OS’.

Microsoft knows the importance of tablets in the future, so an app store would make sense if their planning on diving into that form factor with any sort of serious effort.

I would say this is a big step for Microsoft but I think with Android and iOS already offering pretty damn good PC – Smart Phone integration and specialized OS’ for tablets. This would only serve to catch Microsoft up to their competitors in a market their currently only a tiny part of.

Time will tell if the App Store makes it into the Windows 8 final build, it seems like a pretty natural addition to the OS, what with Microsoft making more and more moves toward the mobile market.

I just hope that Microsoft has learned it’s lesson from Windows 7 and dosen’t make one gigantic kernel and expect to shoe horn it onto every device possible.

Source: The Next Web

Microsoft's Mix 2011 to Focus More on WP7

Microsoft’s annual mix conference in Las Vegas Nevada, which traditionally has been more web-dev-centric is starting next week and it’s going to be big on WP7.

Microsoft’s mix conference is a week long event in which developers' can go hear talks and learn how to better develop on Microsoft’s software. Last year it drew 1,000 developers and as in years passed was very web focused. Most of the talks and conferences were on Azure, Silverlight and Microsoft’s other web technologies.

Microsoft currently barley makes a mark on the smartphone market with it’s WP7 OS, but it is new and they do have a pretty bad mobile record. However this week, mix is hoping to attract more developers to the platform and teach them a thing or two on the way.

There’s going to be workshops on building WP7 apps, boot camp sessions meant to get developers up and coding quick, and Microsoft’s corporate VP with Microsoft’s mobile business is expected to give a keynote speech on Wednesday.

Along with all the Windows Phone 7 craziness there will also be talks and workshops on all the good old things we’ve come to expect from mix, Azure, HTML5, and Silverlight.

Source: Seattle Times

Windows 8 Rumors

Over the weekend some supposed screenshot links of of the new windows 8 UI (user interface) were revealed. The new screenshots show a ‘ribbon’ interface like the one Microsoft used on office 2010, some people liked it, some hated it most just dealt with it or found a way around it.

The ribbon interface looks pretty cluttered to me, I never really liked the one on office 2010, but I did like being able to get rid of it, and the drag and drop customization. In the leaked pictures the interface looks way to cluttered and honestly pretty pointless. I don’t see why Microsoft has to always try and change or reinvent the way Windows looks. I like the Aero look and would rather Microsoft put their effort into better security, maybe upgrade their file system or shrink the kernel like the did when they went from Vista to 7. I want a faster Windows not a more cluttered one. Especially if their going to be shoehorning this onto tablets, which they no doubt will be.

I have to stop myself here to remember that Windows 8 isn’t expected until 2012 so there is a pretty good chance these screenshots are not an example of what the UI will look like, but if these pictures are legit than it pretty disheartening to see Microsoft even considering such a messy interface.

Source: Windows 8 News

Google Expected Microsoft Anti-Trust Allegations

 

Yesterday Microsoft made a statement to the European Commission adding it’s complaints to others filed by smaller companies suggesting Google is unfair in it’s search results.

The claim from Microsoft and a group of smaller companies is that Google uses their 90 percent search engine dominance in Europe to unfairly promote their own products and and monopolize access to other things such as out-of-copyright books. They’re also complaining that Google is making it hard for other companies with competing search engines to sell advertising space. and that that the company is unfairly restricting how Bing and Windows Mobile phones access YouTube.

Google made a public response today that said they’re “not surprised that Microsoft has done this, since one of their subsidiaries was one of the original complaints”. The subsidiary Google is talking about is Ciao.de, Microsoft’s German price comparison subsidiary.

Google also said that their discussing the case with the European Commission and that they’re happy to explain to anyone how their business works.

Source: The Telegraph

Death of the Zune

Bloomberg ran a story yesterday that says Microsoft is planning to stop supporting the Zune hardware. Microsoft still plans to support the software. However according to an anonymous tipster they will no longer be making video or music players.

The Zune was released back in 2006 and never could really compete with the iPod, despite Microsoft’s best attempts at making it a contender, the support was just never there. The Zune software however has been doing fine on the Xbox360 and WP7 and with Microsoft’s recent partnership with Nokia they have no good reason to stop supporting the software, at least it’s not bleeding money like I can only assume the Zune hardware was.

Check the ink for the Bloomberg article.

Article: Microsoft is Said to Stop Releasing New Models of the Zune.

User’s Steal Thousands Worth of Microsoft Points

 

A promotion offered by Microsoft that gave users 160 Microsoft points (worth $2) and a48-hour subscription to Xbox live kind of blew up in their face.

Last weekend some savvy Xbox live users discovered a flaw in a Microsoft promotional code that allowed them to create falsified albeit real key’s, they were then able to steal 1,000’s of dollars worth of Microsoft points.

Microsoft puts the estimated loss between $1 and $3 million, however math and common sense put the number at about $140,000. Microsoft also said that they’ve taken steps to identify and ban the offending users, which means their real loss is about the cost of whatever was downloaded with the stolen points.

Check the link for an article over at ArsTechnica.

Article: Xbox LIVE points hack cost Microsoft thousands, not millions

Internet Explorer 9 Releasing March 14th

 

Microsoft has announced that the final version of Internet Explorer 9 will be released on March 14th. The new version of IE includes some much needed support for HTML5 and CSS3, which are the current working web standards used by developers. The new version of Internet Explorer will also have some security improvements, a new really fast JavaScript engine and hardware accelerated graphics.

What does all this alphabet soup mean to you? Well I’ve used the recent release candidate for IE9 and I can tell you from first hand experience that it is fast, it’s got a much smoother Chrome-like interface and seems to be well beyond what I think people are expecting.  The added security and web standards adoption means that users will have to download less plugins and be able to search with confidence and ease.

Check the link for an article over at ZDnet.Article: Microsoft promises final IE 9 to be downloadable on March 14

Nokia Makes Deal With Microsoft

Nokia announced today that they will be dropping their own Symbian OS in favor of microsofts new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

The move comes after a leaked memo (first published by Engadget) from Nokia's CEO in which he made comments how Nokia is not innovating enough and is on a "Burning platform" .



Nokia's move doesn't pigeonholed them into any particular operating system on their tablets. So I hope they find a way to get WP7 on a tablet, that would be a very interesting device.

Check out this very corporate style video announcing the alliance.



The move upset some of the 1500 Symbian engineers enough to walk out on their jobs today.

Check the link for a full article by the NY times.
 Article: Nokia to Use Microsoft’s Cellphone Operating System

Here's some more detailed information from Engadget.
Article: Nokia and Microsoft enter strategic alliance on Windows Phone, Bing, Xbox Live and more

Kinect Saves Doctors Tens of Thousands Of Dollars

 

Who ever said games never helped anybody.

Doctors are using the Xbox Kinect in order to create 3d scans for surgical robots. This technique usually costs around 50,000$, however doctors are getting practically the same results with a 150$ Kinect and a little hacked software.

Check the link for the full article.

Article: Turning Microsoft's $150 Kinect Into a $50,000 Piece of Surgical Equipment

Technorati Tags: Kinect,Microsoft,Surgical Robots,Robotics