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Windows Live on the iPhone

Microsoft: iPhone app? Simple answer is yes

A Windows Live application for Apple’s iPhone and better support for Hotmail on the device is being considered by Microsoft as it rolls out the latest raft of changes to its online software and services.

The Redmond based company is releasing its third wave of Windows Live software, and Senior Director of Social Networking Jeff Kunis told TechRadar that matters like easier access to Hotmail from a mobile device and applications that make Windows Live more popular on all devices are very much on the roadmap.

“The simple answer is yes,” said Kunis when asked if better support for the iPhone was on the way.

Staggered

“It’s a staggered approach; right now there is a Facebook application that allows you to have Live Messenger from within your Facebook account and with status integration as well.

“Secondly there are applications out there that you can download to your iPhone and have access to your Windows Live Hotmail in a native way and we expect those to get richer as time goes on.

“Thirdly, is that for a long time pop email has only been available for those people with a subscription, but that’s now being opened up to everyone on Hotmail – so that’s a huge win for the consumer.

“The roll out of pop email – essentially allowing people much easier access to their Live Hotmail – will be occurring in all markets in the next few months confirmed the Live team.

Model we subscribe to

Windows Live Senior Director Ryan Gavin reiterated Kunis’s comments adding: “You’ve heard from Jeff about the apps that are already out there for things like Facebook and you can certainly expect that model to continue on other big platforms that are gaining traction like the iPhone.

“That model is absolutely one that we subscribe to in terms of where you are and the services you are getting to the things you need.”

Windows Live app for iPhone on the way | News | TechRadar UK

Tags: WindowsLive, iPhone, Apple Store

Windows 7 could be out next year

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Microsoft has two release dates for Windows 7: early 2010 according to its corporate PR stooges and sometime around mid 2009 according to everyone else. The reason for the padding is a fairly transparent attempt to avoid the public opinion fiasco resulting from Vista’s chronic delays. Now Ina Fried over at CNET has it from Microsoft Director, Doug Howe, that Windows 7 should be ready for general consumption by the 2009 holidays. According to Fried, Howe’s WinHEC presentation covering Microsoft’s Velocity program to improve PC quality seemed to imply a mid-year Win7 launch. Apparently, a slide said that the Vista Velocity program would run through next spring and then continue on with Windows 7. Afterward, in an apparent direct response to the launch date question, Howe told Fried, “Definitely the holiday focus is going to be on 7.” Using the Vista launch as a guide, that would put the new OS in the hands of OEMs and big business IT staff by mid-year, about 3-months before consumers if Vista’s timeline holds true. This also aligns nicely with Microsoft’s stated plan to launch the public beta early next year followed by a hinted, single release candidate prior to release for manufacturing. So go ahead, just make it official already Microsoft. You had us at pre-Beta.

Source: Engadget

Tags: Windows7, Microsoft, Vista

Microsoft offers free software for start-ups

Source: CNET news

Tags: Microsoft, BizSpark, Dan’l Lewin , start-ups

Windows 7 installed on a new MacBook Pro

It’s a next-generation operating system and mirror all in one!

Source: Engadget.com

Microsoft’s Windows 7 Pre-Beta Leaked Onto Torrent Sites

When Microsoft recently aired exclusive details of the upcoming Windows Vista successor, Windows 7, with the release of its pre-beta to a select developer crowd at the Professional Developer Crowd, Microsoft wanted public attention for the new OS. 

However, the pre-beta has found its way into the torrent community and is burning up the download queues as everyone wants to be the first to preview the new OS.  The OS was available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions on The Pirate Bay and Mininova as of Friday night.

Many of the copies had over a thousand downloaders.  One particularly active 32-bit copy had more than a thousand uploaders and about 7,000 downloaders.  Apparently some of the copies also weren’t the ones that the developers received, according to claims.  While these copies were indeed Windows 7, they were an earlier build that did not include the taskbar updates. 

One problem plaguing downloaders was the lack of people seeding the file and the accompanying slowness of the downloads.

Some people who downloaded the build were also unimpressed by it, despite the glowing media reception.  One user stated, “There is nothing (sic) new in it.  I wouldn’t recommend this to download. Waste of time. Happy with Vista.”

Others cautioned downloaders to be more reserved in judging the pre-beta.  One commented, “Seriously people. This was just a PRE-beta release that was given out at a trade show so writers would write about the new version. This SHOULD NOT be downloaded with the intent of using it as an everyday system. It is just so writers could get a feel for what was to come.”

Some are saying the best is yet to come, though, for Windows 7.  Many users, like Peter Menadue, who holds the role of global director of solutions and technology, Microsoft solutions business within systems integrator Dimension Data, are most excited about the upcoming business-specific bits of Windows 7.  These include revamped application security, data security, and application deployment, according to rumors.

Mr. Menadue states, “I was in Redmond three weeks ago and had a sneak peek.  I think they’ve done a stellar job. Sinofsky’s a genius,” referring to Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of the Windows and Windows Live engineering group.

According to Menadue, another key perk is Microsoft’s increased commitment to virtualization.  He is also happy with Microsoft’s promise to maintain driver compatibility with Vista.

Jo Sweeney, adviser at analyst firm Intelligent Business Research Services, says the full featured nature of Vista will appeal to consumers during this troubled economy.  He states, “What tends to happen (in times like these) is that IT professionals get much more focused on proving and not improving.  People will (move to) Windows 7 because if they can put greater management features into it, it will solve some of the problems of desktop computing.”

Appealing features like the network id management should help to cut day-to-day costs, which account for 80-percent of the standard IT budget.  Windows 7 will allow the separation of user profiles and applications from the base operating system, so that you can see someone user profile anywhere on the network.  The key question, according to Mr. Sweeney, is how the IT administrators who have already implemented these features react to the new OS.

Source: DailyTech news

Tags: Windows7, Microsoft, Windows 7 torrents, new Windows OS

Windows 7 super cool details

Microsoft’s Windows 7 announcement earlier today was followed up by an extensive demo of the new features during the PDC keynote, and since then even more info about the new OS has flooded out, so we thought we’d try to wrap up some of the more important bits here for you. Microsoft seems to have done an impressive job at this early pre-beta stage, folding in next-gen interface ideas like multitouch into the same OS that apparently runs fine on a 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM, but we’ll see how development goes — there’s still a ways to go. Some notes:

* Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new “jump lists” of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can “peek” at the windows you’re pointing at.
* Gadgets now appear on the desktop — the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent.
* Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty.
* The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should — everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined.
* User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained — you can set them by app and by level of access.
* They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC — it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging “what is this good for / that’ll get old fast” concerns weren’t really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There’s also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again — could be amazing, but we won’t know until it’s out in the wild.
* We’ve always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his “personal” laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We’re guessing it was running a VIA Nano, since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.)
* At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs.
* Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors — it’s a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well.
* Media Center has been tweaked as well — it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There’s also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you’re playing music.
* Devs got a pre-beta today; a “pretty good” feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it’ll be released to market apart from that “three years from Vista” date we’ve known forever.

That’s just the good bits — hit the read links for piles of more info and screenshots, and we’ll keep our eyes out for anything else interesting. Exciting times!

Read - Keynote videos on the PDC site
Read - Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough
Read - Laptop Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Windows 7 Media Center revealed

Source: Engadget.com

Tags: Windows7, Microsoft, touchsmart, PDC, Windows 7 beta

Windows 7 to get device hub, animation API

Source: Electronista.com

Microsoft’s formal unveiling of Windows 7 at the Professional Developer Conference on Tuesday will show several key infrastructure changes, journalist Mary Jo Foley has revealed ahead of the event. The replacement for Vista aims to solve a common Windows problem of integrating with peripherals through Device Stage, a central repository for external devices; users will have a central location to manage and sync cameras, cellphones, media players and other hardware supported by the platform.

The software should also have multiple architectural changes. In addition to expanding use of the ribbon interface, multi-touch support and a tighter integration of the taskbar with the Windows shell through unknown means, Windows 7 should also receive a new animation framework for customizing animation in the operating system. It’s unclear whether this is a parallel to CoreAnimation in Mac OS X or relates to the Avalon presentation layer first shown for Vista.

More features should also be shown on stage that won’t be immediately available to developers, Foley adds.

The reporter further supports claims that the operating system will quickly become public. A public beta version of the platform will allegedly be available in mid-December and represents a relatively quick turnaround for the operating system, which has been rumored to be finalized as early as mid-2009 and so could ship slightly ahead of its publicly stated early 2010 goal.

Separately, the platform is also expected to solve issues with performance for netbooks. The company has until now been forced to use Windows XP on most of the low-budget systems due to their reduced hardware and in many cases has lost sales altogether to Linux, which is both free and consumes less resources than Windows.

Tags: Windows7, Microsoft, PDC, ribbon interface, GPU acceleration

iPhone vs BlackBerry Storm vs BlackBerry Bold

Tags: iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold, 3G, Apple, RIM

The Wait is Over: T-Mobile G1 now available

Now that T-Mobile’s systematic discrimination against non-T-Mobile customers (how dare they?) has come to an end, we can all exhale, pull out our credit cards and get to maxin’ out the plastic. That’s right — the Android-powered G1 is now available for sale from T-Mob’s website to all comers, though we’re only seeing the black and bronze models listed at the moment and both are tagged with an ominous “extremely limited availability” label which tells us they probably won’t be there long. $179.99’s the price on two-year contract, and if they do sell out online, don’t sweat it just yet — sweep your local stores today.

Update: Full press release with all the details just hit the wires. Remember, all T-Mobile retail shops will open early at 08:00AM if you  want to get your G1 on before the rush to the office.

Source: Engadget.com

Tags: Android, G1, T-Mobile, Google Phone

New Apple MacBooks

Apple’s taking all that new MacBook Pro love and shrinking it down to size for the all-new MacBook. The laptop includes those same NVIDIA 9400M graphics and fancy glass trackpad of its big sibling, but does it with a 13.3-inch LED-backlit screen and typically friendly MacBook pricepoints. The base model weighs in at $1299 with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, while $1599 gets you 4GB of RAM and a 320GB HDD. There’s also an SSD option if you’re really looking to splurge. If none of the new speed or style appeals to you, Apple’s also slashing its existing low-end MacBook to $999.

Source: Engadget

Tags: Apple, Apple MacBook, Brick, MacBook Pro, NVIDIA