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Microsoft and Barnes & Noble hook up for NOOK e-publishing joint venture

News

  • April 30, 2012 at 6:02 am

0

B&N Nook Color charging

The saying goes that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and it seems that Microsoft, from software giant fame, and Barnes & Noble, the operator of brick and mortar bookstores but also of the NOOK digital reading platform, are ready to put their past differences behind and get together in a joint venture.

Yeah the two companies had been entangled in a number of patent disputes, relating to B&N’s NOOK devices, and B&N has also been firing antitrust claims against Microsoft. Well the two past enemies have just announced today that they will forming a new company, with Microsoft taking up 17.6 percent for $300 million and B&N will be left with the remaining 82.4%.
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Windows 8 Consumer Preview is out, here’s how to get it

News

  • February 29, 2012 at 3:45 pm

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Over the past several months we’ve been closely following the development of Microsoft’s next version of Windows. Windows 8 offers a ton of improvements and changes over Windows 7 and since September, developers were able to try out the new operating system in the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

Now anyone can download and install their own preview copy of Windows 8 with the Consumer Preview. Microsoft is not officially calling it a beta, though it will, hopefully, help shape the finished product. Microsoft claims to have made over 100,000 code changes following feedback it has received so far since the Developer Preview.
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Microsoft shows off Windows 8 SkyDrive cloud integration: Metro style app, sync and large file support

News

  • February 20, 2012 at 2:05 pm

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Windows 8 SkyDrive integration - Metro style app

We’ve been following the development updates from the Windows 8 team for a while now and we had no doubts that Microsoft would be adding some sort of cloud integration into the new operating system. We are users of Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage service and although you can already mount it as a network drive on Windows PCs you had so far been limited on the functionality and use.

Windows 8 will be offering much tighter integration with SkyDrive, actually in pretty equivalent terms to what Apple is doing with iCloud in the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion.
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Betta fish swims into Windows 8 Consumer Preview waters

News

  • February 4, 2012 at 2:29 pm

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Bing page for Windows 8 Consumer Preview - betta fish

We’ve been covering the next version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system for quite a while now. Windows 8 will be big, with a truckload of improvements over Windows 7. Installing or upgrading to Windows 8 will be easier and faster, it will offer a touch-friendly boot experience with 30-70% faster boot times. The new operating system will have a smaller memory footprint, able to run on just 1GB of RAM, and of course is built for a mobile future, to run on both desktops, laptops and tablets.
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Windows 8 engineered for a mobile future: instant Wi-Fi reconnects, better mobile broadband and cost saving abilities (video)

News

  • January 20, 2012 at 5:09 pm

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Windows 8 reduced connection time: PC can reconnect to Wi-Fi network from standby in about a second

Microsoft has put a lot of attention on making things simpler, smarter and faster in its next personal computer operating system. We have no doubt that Windows 8 will be a huge improvement over the already excellent Windows 7.

One the most confusing and frustrating things, on any computer, centers around wireless connectivity. Microsoft, in its latest post on the official ‘Building Windows 8’ blog, tackles all the improvements we’ll see with regards to Wi-Fi and mobile broadband (3G and 4G) connectivity. It’s also a recognition that we are moving towards a mobile future and Microsoft has re-built the wireless networking stack from the ground up.

In short, Windows will show all Wi-Fi and mobile broadband networks in one user interface. You can prioritize Wi-Fi networks over usually slower and perhaps costly mobile networks, so when your computer discovers a favored Wi-Fi network, it will disconnect you from mobile networks and power-down the mobile device to save you power. Connecting to a mobile network should now be as simple as Wi-Fi connectivity, just insert a SIM card and Windows should handle the rest. You can also manually turn individual radios on and off and disable all radios at once in the new “airplane mode”.
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Windows 8 setup to be easier and faster, designed for online delivery

News

  • November 21, 2011 at 4:29 pm

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Windows 7 vs. Windows 8 time to upgrade

I still wake up at nights running cold sweat from nightmares of past Windows setup experiences. Installing Windows was an extremely time-consuming and painful experience, especially if you wanted to keep your files or settings instead of doing a fresh install. Although the process has been improving with each new version of Windows, with Windows 7 making the experience much easier, it’s still very time-consuming and you need to keep a tech-minded person handy for help.

Microsoft has been keeping us deeply involved in the Windows 8 development process through an official blog, and their latest post deals with improvements made in the setup and upgrade process. Microsoft promises that the new install process will be easier, faster and extremely stable.

Microsoft faces a huge challenge when it comes to managing the install and upgrade process for a new version of Windows. Windows is designed to run on personal computers with millions of different configurations. Users’ demands may also vary widely, someone might want to do a clean and customized install whereas another would just want to upgrade a previous Windows installation with the least user interaction.
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Xbox 360 successor and PS4 coming in 2012

News

  • November 17, 2011 at 11:48 am

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The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim concept art

Gaming magazine Edge just dropped a bomb. Some game developers have already abandoned work on the Xbox 360 and PS3 and are instead focusing on the next generation of game consoles from Microsoft and Sony, which should be released next year; just in time to take some of the joy away from Nintendo and its upcoming Wii U.

Some game developers are working with PCs based on the specifications for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor. The ‘target boxes’ include a custom AMD GPU which will find its way in Microsoft’s upcoming console. Ubisoft Montreal is one of the developers working on these target boxes. Developers should receive genuine devkits before Christmas and Edge is speculating that a finalized Xbox 360 successor should be released in late 2012.

Now on the PS side, it has been revealed that a Sony owned studio has shifted its focus to the successor of the PlayStation 3 and is involved in the development process for the graphics technology of the console.
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The Zune HD portable media player is no more

News

  • October 10, 2011 at 6:42 am

1

Zune HD

We first reported that Microsoft would stop development of new Zune devices, although it would continue producing existing devices, back in March, together with our thoughts.

Well, after a bit of a roller-coaster ride, with Microsoft pulling the Zune HD from its website but then reinstating it, official word has come from the “Windows Phone Radio” podcast, that Microsoft will stop making the Zune HD. At around the 12:35 mark of episode 45, the comment made is: “we have the announcement that we’re not going to be making the Zune HD anymore”. We agree with the rest of the comment, it’s a bummer as there are a lot of fans out there.
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Windows 8 to have a smaller memory footprint be able to run on just 1GB of RAM

News

  • October 7, 2011 at 12:46 pm

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Windows 8 (right) vs. Windows 7 SP1 (left) memory footprint

Windows 8 will do things better, faster and look nicer than Windows 7. The good news is that if you’ve bought a PC in the last couple of years you will probably be able install and take advantage of Windows 8 — note you can download your preview copy to give Windows 8 a try now. Microsoft has already said that Windows 8 will be able to run on previous generation machines, even an ATOM-powered netbook with just 1GB of RAM.

Well today Microsoft is showing us how it was able to reduce the system footprint, in order to be able to get Windows 8 to run smoothly on such a low-end netbook, while leaving memory available for other applications to run. In the image above you can see task manager memory usage on the same system, in Windows 7 SP1 on the left and Windows 8 on the right. To achieve this reduction, Microsoft has made hundreds of specific changes to minimize OS memory use in Windows 8. Hit up the link after the break for the full lowdown by Microsoft’s Bill Karagounis on the Building Windows 8 blog.
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Official: Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update coming in 1-2 weeks

News

  • September 21, 2011 at 1:33 pm

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HTC Titan with Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango"

Microsoft decided to end any speculation and just announced that Windows Phone 7.5, code-name Mango, will be rolling out to existing Windows Phone 7 handsets in one or two weeks. Obviously not every country, manufacturer and carrier will be getting the update as the same time. Microsoft will be keeping us up to date on the roll-out, at “Where’s my phone update“.

In order to get the update be sure you have the latest version of the Zune software for Windows PCs and Windows Phone 7 Connector for Macs.

Microsoft’s Eric Hautala is also warning users:
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Microsoft previews Windows 8, our quick overview; plus you can download your copy today

NewsThe Lab

  • September 13, 2011 at 5:15 pm

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Windows 8 Start screen

Microsoft just showed-off the next big version of Windows, to a room packed full of developers, at the BUILD conference. Windows 8 features two interfaces, one resembling the current Windows interface and a more touch friendly Metro-style interface — which you can see in the screenshot above. This allows Windows 8 to feel at home on normal desktops, touchscreen all-in-ones, tablets, laptops, you name it.

However Windows 8 is not just a change of appearances, the new operating system features a lot of improvements, we’ve already seen how Windows 8 will speed-up your boot times, and new features compared to Windows 7. We’ve compiled below a list of features which we think are interesting, from today’s official preview.
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Windows 8 to offer much faster boot-up speeds

News

  • September 9, 2011 at 2:46 am

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System boot times, Windows 8 compared to Windows 7

Information on Windows 8 has been trickling from the official development blog, “Building Windows 8”, over the past few weeks, giving us an insight of what we should expect from Microsoft’s next operating system. The engineering team tackles one topic at a time, discussing the underlying issues and motivations, the challenges and what has been done in Windows 8 to address this. We can only say that this is a very engaging way of learning about Windows 8.

Today, Gabe Aul, takes us through what has been done to improve Windows cold boot-up times; that is, the time until you have a workable desktop from the completely off state — not from hibernate and not from sleep. Microsoft has been able to deliver significantly faster boot-up times in Windows 8 compared to Windows 7.

A quick search on YouTube will land you with tons of videos comparing Windows to MacOS boot speeds, an obviously important issue for the overall user experience and a benchmark of how “well” an operating system performs.

Although hibernating your Windows PC already leads to faster boot up times, a lot of users like to completely shut down their computers in order to start fresh.
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Zune 4.8 update paves the way for Windows Phone 7 Mango

News

  • August 28, 2011 at 4:30 pm

0

Zune software update 4.8

This one had slipped between the cracks, Microsoft has released an update of its Zune software which is used to sync and update Windows Phone devices and the Zune players. Update 4.8 includes a number of under-the-hood improvements and tweaks of the software, but most importantly, as Microsoft states on its official Windows Phone blog, the latest Zune software was released to pave the way for the WP7 Mango update. As we understand it, running Zune 4.8 is essential so that your Windows Phone can be updated to Mango from your PC when it is released.

To update, go to “Settings” > “Software” > “General” and click “Check Updates” in the Zune software, or hit the download link below. Mango is expected to bring Windows Phone to more languages and countries and Zune 4.8 has been updated accordingly with support for 22 display languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. No support for Mac OS yet however, Zune Software remains Windows only.
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Microsoft sues Barnes & Noble and its manufacturers over Android based Nook

News

  • March 21, 2011 at 4:27 pm

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Nook Color by Barnes & Noble

We already knew that Barnes & Noble’s Nook line, and especially the Nook Color, was creating some waves and it didn’t take long for Microsoft to take aim at the largely popular e-reader. Microsoft has filled legal actions against Barnes & Noble and its Nook device manufacturers, Foxconn and Inventec.

The Nook runs on Android and the claimed patent infringements relate to the key Android user experience such as interacting via tabbing through various screens and interacting with documents and e-books.
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