The Windows release of Kinect is coming up in a couple days, but for most people that won’t be a major event: the Kinect they have is sitting on their TV or in a drawer, waiting to be taken out for an impromptu Dance Central 2 party. Of the 10 million Kinects out there, the only ones connected to computers are the ones being fiddled with by the various hackers and students making science projects out the things.
But according to the Daily, Microsoft is hoping to remedy this particular situation by building Kinect sensors right into your laptops. TechCrunch alum Matt Hickey got to handle a pair of prototypes, which were confirmed to be official, not just one of the many experiments that hide within Microsoft’s various lairs. → Read More
Back in May, BlueStacks, the startup that has developed software to let Android users run their apps on all Windows PC, tablets, and laptops, raised a $7.6 million series A, pre-launch. In October, the startup followed up with a $6.4 million series B from AMD, Citrix Systems, with participation from existing investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Ventures, and more.
Its series B round followed closely on the heels of the alpha launch of its App Player for Windows, which is basically a free software download that will give users one-click access to Android apps on any Windows PC, tablet, or laptop. (And the ability to view these apps in full-screen.) Complementing the App Player, BlueStacks also released “Cloud Connect”, a cloud-based service that allows PCs to become a veritable extension of any Android-based mobile device — and vice versa. → Read More
Our own Josh Zelman grabbed some video of the new Windows Phones announced today, including the $50 Samsung Focus Flash. These are Microsoft’s initial stabs at attacking the mid-range market in advance of Nokia’s upcoming WinPho models.
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Back in May, BlueStacks raised $7.5 million in series A financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Ventures, Radar Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and more. This was all pre-launch. Why that kind of money for a startup that hasn’t launched a product yet? Because approximately 630 million new Windows PCs will be shipped by the end of this year, and because BlueStacks has designed downloadable software that will enable Android apps to run on (hopefully) all of them.
And today, to put that money where its mouth is, BlueStacks is announcing the release of the first products that will be a part of its ongoing quest to do just that. For starters, the company is making available the alpha version of its app player for Windows that is basically a free software download that will give users one-click access to Android apps on any Windows PC, tablet, or laptop. (And the ability to view these apps in full-screen.) → Read More
Remember Connectify? The downloadable software that turns PCs into Wi-Fi hotspots in just a few minutes? It looks like the company now has a new investor: In-Q-Tel (IQT), which just so happens to be the strategic investment firm that seeks out new technologies for the U.S. Intelligence Community, including the CIA.
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The single most interesting thing I noted when watching Windows 8 at Build last night was the insistence that the Windows 8 devices were all PCs. Windows 8 on a desktop? PC. Windows 8 on a touchscreen laptop? PC. Windows 8 on an ARM slate? PC. Anything with Windows 8 code on it is a PC while anything that makes calls is a Windows Phone.
A decade ago, Microsoft was all about tablets. There was a period of a few years where Microsoft was trying to sell tablets to users and, after failing miserably, they gave up. Why? Because they kept shoe-horning Windows onto a slate and called it a tablet while the nascent smartphone and declining PDA market ran circles around those ridiculous technological chimeras that Microsoft gave up flogging years ago. → Read More
Today, Microsoft has announced quite the milestone for Windows 7: since its launch in October 2009, a full 450 million licenses have been sold. The numbers are somehow more impressive when broken down; just a hair over 650,000 licenses are sold each day.
Sales of Windows 7 have been on the upswing over the past two months to boot; it seems all that back-to-school prep has given Windows 7 a kick in the pants. The folks in Redmond are fond of calling Windows 7 “the fastest selling version of Windows ever,” and it turns out the claim may not just be a load of marketing fluff. → Read More
Over the past two days, I’ve been working with a prototype Windows 8 tablet – really a PC – and finding that instead of a disappointing mish-mash of Windows XP and some strange touch UI that the Windows Metro/desktop system is actually quite cool and quite intuitive. The next Windows 8 is, in one way, nothing like the Windows versions that came before and, in other ways, an iterative improvement over what we know as the Windows Desktop.
There is no post-PC world. Everything that runs Windows 8 is a PC. That’s right – this tablet is a PC. In one way, this nomenclature allows Microsoft to avoid the “better than iPad” argument entirely and, on the other hand, it’s an ingenious way for the company to invigorate the faltering desktop market. → Read More
On one hand, you have to give Windows chief Steven Sinofsky some credit, he’s being very open, proactive, and engaged leading up to Microsoft’s unveiling of Windows 8. And that’s great. But on the other hand, you have to wonder if he’s in the process of burying himself in a very big hole.
Over the past couple of days, the Internet has let out a collective “gasp” at the sight of the new Windows Explorer. So today, Sinofsky has responded with his own thoughts about the design of Windows 8. The theme he wants his post to have is very clear: “no compromise” — he says it four separate times. Unfortunately, the theme that actually comes across is the exact opposite. → Read More
The Building Windows 8 development blog has been an interesting read for a while. Hearing straight from developers and then seeing unfiltered responses from users and secondary devs is refreshing, even if the topic isn’t particularly compelling or I don’t agree with their design choices. Today is perhaps the most extreme example of this so far. The discussion of their new Windows 8 file manager is worth reading — but is the file manager worth using?
The new ribbon UI for the explorer window is so cluttered with different-sized buttons, labels, multi-part icons, and tabs that I can barely parse it. It’s more like a hall of mirrors than a task-oriented workspace. Is this really the new, streamlined Windows? → Read More
Last month, Fujitsu in Japan unveiled the IS12T, announced as the world’s first cell phone running on Windows Phone 7.5 aka Mango. And the country’s second biggest mobile carrier (and exclusive provider of the handset) KDDI au, didn’t lose much time: the IS12T became available today over here (here‘s Fujitsu’s official press release in English from today).
As we reported previously, the Mango handset comes with a 3.7-inch LCD with 800×480 resolution, a 13.2MP CMOS camera, a water- and shock-proof body, 32GB internal memory, a microUSB port, IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (no tethering), DLNA support, GSM/CDMA, etc. → Read More
Is Silverlight really dead, or is it the future of Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Windows Phone? This is a question weighing on the minds of legions of Microsoft developers right now – developers who were once promised that Silverlight was the answer to their cross-platform, cross-browser compatibility woes, only to be later informed that JavaScript and HTML5 will be the tools used to build Windows 8 applications. HTML5 is also supported in the IE9 browser, coming soon to Windows Phone “Mango,” due out this fall.
Does that mean HTML5, then, is the future of the Microsoft platform? Maybe not. A new, unannounced platform called “Jupiter” may soon have Microsoft developers leveraging their existing skills to write applications for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Which means, of course, apps that run on all platforms – not just PCs, but tablets and phones, too…and even the TV (via Xbox). → Read More
Windows 7 is now the most prevalent – if not most popular – desktop OS with Gartner estimating that 42% of current PCs will run the OS while 94% of new machines will run Win7.
In comparison, OS X got 4% of the pie while Linux is firmly at 2%. Even IT departments are starting massive roll-outs of Win7 to their desktops, a move that has pushed the fairly new OS into the car bird seat. However, Gartner expects this to be the last time a standalone OS image is installed on business PCs as IT departments move towards hosted computing and virtualization.
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Our sister blog Engadget is still doubting it, but it’s been confirmed officially: in May, Fujitsu announced the LIFEBOOK TH40/D, a convertible Windows 7 tablet for the Japanese market that was to be released in June. But that didn’t happen for reasons unknown, and Fujitsu pushed back the sales date of the device indefinitely. → Read More
As a non-ashamed Windows user and straight up Rdio fan, this makes me happy. Rdio has expanded its product suite with a native app for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
To be fair, I’m likely not going to use the desktop app much, as I’m mostly using Rdio on my mobile phone and iPod touch, as well as via my Sonos system.
But it’s great to have options – I have always lamented Spotify for not having a browser-based application. → Read More
Microsoft has chosen to take the semi-exclusive route when it comes to tablet software. While Google’s Android operating system is a free-for-all platform for OEMs, and Apple’s iOS is completely closed off to manufacturers, Microsoft has plans to fall somewhere in between open and closed. Specifically, the PC maker will limit the number of initial hardware makers that can employ the Windows OS on tablets to five, pairing each OEM with a chip maker selected by Microsoft, according to unnamed WSJ sources familiar with the matter. → Read More
If this doesn’t point to a coming refresh of Xbox 360 hardware I don’t know what does. Starting May 22, Microsoft is offering a free XBox 360 (with 4GB of storage) to folks who pay $699 or more for a Windows 7 PC – note they do not say “laptop,” which suggests that makers like HP and Dell are trying to boost their waning, post-PC sales.
Obviously this is a great deal students but it definitely points to a bit of a fire sale when it comes to the smaller, less memory-studded Xboxen along with the PCs that are currently mouldering on shelves thanks to the relative success of tablets. While I believe that the belief that tablets are eating into PC sales is correlation without causation, I do think that the race to the bottom in PC prices and netbook sales has negatively effected PC makers who are now facing a customer – of their own making – who expects more for considerably less. As a result, sales and profits are down catastrophically. → Read More
A few details have emerged at MIX11 regarding Kinect for Windows—“few” being the operative word. For example, the beta SDK will include support for two-person skeletal tracking, making two-player games or Windows applications a distinct possibility. → Read More
With a tide rapidly shifting towards mobile and tablet devices, it should be no surprise that work is well already underway on Windows 8. An early build circulating apparently hints at a more unified OS to combat what Apple is doing with OS X/iOS and what HP is doing with Palm webOS. And some screenshots are starting to leak out. And a few appear to include, what else, an app store.
WinRumors posted the shots this morning while noting that they’re unverified. But actually, the shots in English were previously out there, what’s new are the ones in Chinese that Cnbeta found that seem to verify the design. And what a design it is — I swear this looks familiar… → Read More
There’s nothing new about virtualization software, per se, but BlueStacks might be worth checking out. It brings the Android operating system to Windows-based computers via a virtualization layer, much like how you can run Windows “inside” your Mac using Parallels. Why, exactly, you’d want to run Android “inside” your Windows PC, I’m not exactly sure, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with giving it a go. → Read More
