Archive for the ‘Microsoft’ Category

Window XP Reprieved until 2010

Microsoft has announced that , which was expected to reach the end of its life later this month, has been given a and will continue until 2010. However, before fans start celebrating it’s worth reading the small print. It turns out that MS is basically extending the deadline for manufacturer’s to sell licences for , mainly for use on low cost and ultra-compact laptops like the eee and (one per child project). There’s also provision for to continue on low-cost desktops or ‘nettops’, which are essentially simple -surfing machines. On the plus side this means XP will be supported for a while longer, probably well beyond 2010, but the chances are the next over the counter or mail order you buy will have pre-installed, but there’s nothing to stop you wiping the disc and installing , if that’s what you really want.

Tour Space With Microsoft

teleskopIt’s okay, hasn’t bought , at least not just yet, but Microsoft is giving away a virtual tour of with a new -based application called Worldwide Telescope. Be warned, you’ll need a reasonably quick , preferably with a dual-core CPU, and ideally running , though it will still plod along under . The images are stunning and based on actual ground and spaced based , you can zoom in on astronomical features, explore the solar system and warp across the Milky Way. Okay, so it’s a bit like Sky, but there’s a bit more depth to it, better controls and it looks like it could become a very useful educational tool.

XP Gets All the Love, Just Leftovers for Vista

microsoftIt’s nothing but love for and all scraps, crumbs and leftovers for . One inherent consequence of having an operating system dig its roots into the market for five years, is the creation of not only a loyal user base, but also of a community of developers that find it equally difficult to transition to a new platform. Additionally, has virtually changed the rules for developers with the introduction of the User Account Control, forcing them to rethink products in order to run with standard user privileges. This has caused developers to steer clear of , as long as still has a strong grip of the operating system market, a situation illustrated amply by Evans Data’s , North American Survey. Read More »

Introducing the Popfly Game Creator

Introducing-the-Popfly-Game-Creator , like it or not, remains a territory largely off limits as it involves hard coding. And if this is the general rule, offers the exception. The Redmond company has evolved its and mashup tool in order to accommodate creation. Now, the fact of the matter is that users won’t be able to create their very own sequel to a preferred title, but Popfly will enable the creation of simple, casual without writing a single line of code. This is now possible through the addition of the Popfly Creator.

“Popfly is about more than mashups and pages. It’s about making it fun to build things and share them with your friends. And one of the things we’ve heard loud and clear is that are the kinds of things that people would like to try to build. What kinds of can you create? Just about any kind of two-dimensional , a category that includes things like the original Mario, Frogger, Asteroids, and a host of other old arcade ”, revealed a member of the Popfly team. Read More »

Gateway ships retail PCs with 64-bit Windows Vista

vista64You knew it was coming. Gateway, to our knowledge, has become the first large vendor to ship most of its retail PCs with the 64-bit version of Home Premium. The refreshed product line also brings back an quad-core processor, which had been dumped by the company in the previous product cycle.

When we wrote about Gateway’s spring retail PCs back in January of this year, it was quite obvious that, at least for that product cycle, Gateway had thrown out ’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor in favor of an Phenom X4 chip. Back then, company representatives assured us that an quad-core would return soon. It took some (four months), but an chip is back, but only for the pricey “FX” version. Read More »

Introducing Zune 2.5

Introducing-Zune-2-5 continues to hammer away at its digital and the services built around the device, but the evolution is largely a case of going where has already taken the and . On May 5, 2008, introduced the latest update to , not only adding new features and enhancements to the device itself but also evolving the , Social and the Marketplace. The focus of the update is to build on top of what the company started with “ Social” in November 2007, namely to extend the social created around the device.

owners are pretty passionate, and they had a lot of great ideas for making the community more valuable to fans. And I definitely fall into that category myself - the main reason we’re all here is we love the ,” stated Brian Seitz, a Group Marketing Manager for . Social offers users the possibility to interact in terms of discovery, comments, playlist browsing, with the update bringing to the table additional capabilities including the ability to send messages to friends, explore their collections and even drag-and-drop Cards. Read More »

Windows Live Hotmail Joins Windows Live Messenger

Windows-Live-Hotmail-Joins-Windows-Live-Messenger Live has joined in order to extend the support of the “i’m” initiative. debuted “i’m” back in 2007 as a way to enable users to have a say as to where would a portion of the Redmond company’s advertising revenue from its client would go. A year after the initiative was launched, no less than ten social cause organizations around the world received a total of over $1 million because of the users who started conversations with “i’m.” As of May 5, the “i’m” initiative is no longer restricted to , having migrated from the client to Live . Read More »

Microsoft Gives Free Taste of Madonna’s Hard Candy

is gearing up to deliver a taste of ’s Hard Candy via . The Redmond company will offer access at no charge to ’s performance at New York City’s Roseland
Ballroom on April 30. Via Control Room and , fans will be able to the singer’s concert streamed live, with promising that the event will feature the No.1 single “4 Minutes,” from the Hard Candy released on April 28.

is a legendary performer, and we’re thrilled to be bringing this live online broadcast to her fans on the heels of her Hall of Fame induction, her -breaking 37th top-10 single ‘4 Minutes,’ and in conjunction with the launch of this hotly anticipated new ,” revealed Aaron Grosky, Control Room president. Read More »

XP SP3 Brings Nothing New for Gaming

gaming

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is a case of “much ado about nothing” when it comes down to . was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2008, almost two months after the RTM date of Service Pack 1. But if SP1 does bring to the table advances that will affect the experience of end users in comparison with the original version of the latest client, will not do the same for SP2 users. This is, of course, due to the fact that has virtually ignored the graphics components of in the move from XPSP2 to .

With , SP1 delivered .1, an incremental update from . In fact, has continually referred to version 10.1 as a superset and a minor update to the component which is shipped by default with . Read More »

Watch Out Windows

epoq, , , player, , 
 been there done that, but just when you thought there wasn’t anything else that could be shoehorned into a , think again. A company called has managed to fit a copy of onto one, which you drive using a 1.4-inch OLED screen, and just for good measure the EGP-98B has built in 1.3MP , , and a 4-band . Now, it might all be a wind-up (pun intended) because details and are all very sketchy, and good images are also hard to find. Read More »