Category Archives: Microsoft

Microsoft Kinect For Xbox 360 Brings New Interactive Learning Content With Sesame Street & Nat Geo

Microsoft announced yesterday that they are working with Sesame Street, Sesame Street Workshop, National Geographic and other leading academics and learning research institutions in order to bring new interactive learning content on the Xbox 360 platform. This content will be made interactive by Kinect. Microsoft seeks to turn the TV in to an immersive learning experience for the kids and adults alike. Disney is also apparently on board for another family game that is currently code-named Rush. This will be one of the multiple additions that Microsoft seeks to make to their family gaming titles portfolio.

In association with experts from Sesame Street and Nat Geo, Microsoft is producing individual series like

“Kinect Sesame Street TV,” “Kinect Nat Geo TV” and code-named “Project Columbia”

These are endeavors that seek to inspire kids to collaborate be active and learn all at the same time. These seek to engage the kids and provide a more effective learning environment for them. The Kinect Sesame Street TV is a special interactive show being produced jointly by Microsoft and Sesame Street. The sessions will be driven by the Kinect’s motion tracking and gesture recognition features, allowing children to use natural movements and just develop motor skills.

The Kinect Nat Geo TV also seeks to engage kids and transform their TV watching habits in to more active ones. But the most exciting of them all is probably what has been code named as Project Columbia. Developed in association with Sesame Workshop Curriculum Team by Microsoft, this is a project that seeks to bring books back to kids. This one of a kind project uses the Xbox 360 platform and Kinect’s features in order to bring stories to life like never before. It allows kids to become part of the stories themselves. This not only fosters reading habits but it also challenges their minds by creating an role-playing environment. Kids will interact with illustrations and words and thus freely enter a learning environment and participate actively in it.

For anyone with young children at home, creating an environment where they can learn and have fun at the same time can become challenging. Microsoft has right pointed out that the promise of interactive TV and learning has not been delivered by any one so far. All the programming out there cannot really involve kids without some kind of an interface like the Kinect. Hence, this experience from Microsoft is definitely going to be the first of its kind.

The Sesame Street shows will feature popular characters from Sesame Street who will play their own roles in helping the children learn the alphabets, numbers and basic maths like addition, substraction, etc. The Nat Geo shows will contain programming from Nat Geo WILD and will help children learn about animals. The shows will have children friendly user interfaces that children will be able to to use intuitively instead of being forced to learn something new. Look at the video on the Press Release to get a better idea of what Microsoft has in store for the little ones.

Microsoft Wastes no time in Launching Skype Site After the Acquisition

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Microsoft launched its new Skype website today.The new site mentions what all new things are going to be introduced,and how Microsoft will take it to another level.

Microsoft announced that Skype is an entirely new business division within Microsoft. Steve Ballmer said that “Skype is a phenomenal product and brand that is loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world” and that Microsoft “look forward to working with the Skype team to create new ways for people to stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues — anytime, anywhere.”

Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Skype Division of Microsoft immediately, reporting directly to Ballmer. The Skype division will continue to offer its current products to millions of users globally. Longer term, Skype will also be integrated across an array of Microsoft products to broaden Skype’s reach and accelerate its growth as a fundamental way people communicate online. Skype employees will continue to be located around the world in offices including Estonia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.“By bringing together the best of Microsoft and the best of Skype, we are committed to empowering consumers and businesses around the globe to connect in new ways,” Bates said. “Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s goal to reach 1 billion users daily,” Bates said.

Microsoft had already promised on making Skype available for its Windows Phone 7 users Mango update and it seems that they will eventually fulfill their promise.However, Microsoft has wasted no time adding Skype to its wide range of products although, if you want to download Skype you will realize that it still directs you to old Skype page.

Checkout the Microsoft Skype Site

Microsoft Surface 2.0 to be released in January 2012

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When Microsoft offered a preview of the second generation of ‘Surface’, the multi-touch system designed for interactive computing experiences,it appealed to a lot of people. Since, the original Surface hardware was a bulky piece of equipment, the newer version was still large but much sleeker, bringing in a number of technological advancements, also the ability to mount the display on a wall, in addition to the original ‘table-top’ configuration.

In fact,the Surface 2.0 hardware is a system owned by Samsung known as the SUR40. Its aptly named SUR 40 due to its 40-inch 1080p display which is capable of handling fifty simultaneous touch inputs, and is protected by the largest sheet of Gorilla Glass ever applied to a screen. The display uses Microsoft’s new PixelSense technology, which essentially infuses each pixel with both optical and infrared sensors that enable the screen to recognize fingers and other objects that interact with it without the use of cameras.

Well this has been all about the exteriors,On the inside, it’s nothing but a PC, with an AMD Athlon X2 245e 2.9GHz processor and a 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6750 GPU, along with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 320GB hard drive, while the Surface 2.0 software is built on top of 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

At the time of Surface 2.0’s unveiling in January, Microsoft promised that it would be made available “later in 2011” in over twenty markets across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. The Microsoft Surface website still stands by that commitment, but ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley has revealed confirmation from Samsung that the availability of the SUR40 has been pushed back to January 2012.She suggests that some developers for the Surface platform had hinted at issues with the underlying system software, and that these may be, at least in part, to blame for the delay.

Microsoft had introduced its software development kit (SDK) for Surface 2.0 back in July, to allow developers to create new applications for the updated platform.

If and when it arrives it surely won’t be a cheap piece of equipment, the SUR40 is expected to sell for $7,600.But this is still considerably cheaper than the original Surface product, which had a starting price of over $12,000.

source: Neowin

Microsoft requests companies to Upgrade to Windows 7

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A few months back Microsoft made a request on its official site for all of the companies using the older versions of OS to upgrade to Windows 7.Now a new post on the official Windows blog mentions both, the celebration of Windows XP on the eve of its 10th anniversary while at the same time asking businesses once again to strongly consider updating to the Windows 7 operating system.

The post, written by Microsoft’s Rich Reynolds, appreciates Windows XP for its many features which are now standard for anyone who wants to get work done on a PC. He states, “Windows XP offered a new user interface that helped people more easily find what they needed. One of the most notable advances was it democratized digital photography. Windows XP made it easy to get images from digital cameras, manage and print pictures from your PC, with broad support for a range of cameras and photo printers. Wireless also became the given with built-in support; plug and play became the standard. It was a great OS for its time.”

For businesses reluctant to take a leap,he lists out the benefits of making the switch by saying,

We have a wide variety of resources and tools that to make your migration smooth:

The Springboard Series on TechNet includes a lot of great in-depth advice to help you with your deployments.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) is also very helpful to accelerate your deployments.

The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) products that we launched in August. Includes Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM) to simplify BitLocker Drive Encryption provisioning and provides compliance reporting that can help you quickly determine the status of the entire organization.

You might also want to consider Windows Intune for PC management and security via the cloud, plus upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise. This is a great solution for companies that have groups of lightly managed or non-managed PCs. Next week we’ll make the next release of Windows Intune available, which includes new features like software distribution.

So, now is the time to accelerate your Windows 7 Enterprise deployments and consider an Office 2010 deployment at the same time. Moving to Windows 7 and Office 2010 will make your employees more productive and secure today and will get you ready for the future.

He also adds,“With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organizations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8.” He goes on to recommend: “Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8.”

Credits: WindowsStreamblog

Online Games Firm “Twisted Pixel” acquired by Microsoft

Run Android Apps on Windows PC Courtesy BlueStacks

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Did you ever imagine running Android apps on your Windows PC?Well this has indeed been achieved thanks to this latest application to hit the market from BlueSatcks.The BlueStacks App Player for Windows PC is a free ware that allows Android users to run their favorite apps on Windows PC.

BlueStacks running on Windows 7

The applications can run full screen on a desktop PC using a new type of virtualization.It allows Windows users to run a maximum of 10 pre-loaded applications.According to the company,it took ten engineers, two years to build this technology.It also allows graphically advanced games like Angry birds and Fruit Ninja (built for ARM) to run full-screen without any special developer porting for the first time.

Bluestacks is aiming to accumulate around 1 million customers downloads and is founded by former McAfee CTO and Cloud.com board member Rosen Sharma. The BlueStacks App Player will also interact with the company’s Cloud Connect software for Android.On installing a gadget onto a Windows 7 desktop the App Player can be operated. The gadget then provides access to the variety of inbuilt Android applicationsand the ability to download additional apps.

This approach by BlueStacks has attracted some strong initial partners too. Pre-loaded applications in the alpha release of the software include Bloomberg, LivingSocial, Huffington Post and Creative Mobile. Furthermore,the company hopes to attract more developers in future thanks to its unique proposition. A lot of app developers will see this as an opportunity to get their Android apps into the hands of millions of Windows users.

This is an early look at the company’s work but the firm is looking for substantial feedback for future software updates. There’s also a Mac version of the application in process. “The openness of Android is enabling innovation around the world. We are grateful to Google and others for their contributions. This is also a social equalizer in the US and countries like Brazil, India and China, where a large percentage of the population who can only afford smartphones can now enjoy and benefit from the ubiquity of apps on the Android platform,” said Rosen Sharma, President and CEO of BlueStacks. “We look forward to getting feedback from our users on the alpha release.”

Download the first alpha release of the software at bluestacks.com.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nus9-Tu_J9k]

Image Credit:cnet

Microsoft discusses changes in Windows 8 Start Screen

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The new start screen in Windows 8 has been the topic of discussion on the Building Windows 8 blog since the launch of Windows 8 developer preview.So in order to discus various issues and get feedback from the users Microsoft has started a new series of posts on its blog.

So why suddenly Microsoft felt the need to move to a fullscreen launcher? What were the problems with the current Start Menu in Windows 7? According to Microsoft’s gatherings, the usage of the Start Menu actually decreased from Windows Vista to Windows 7. The evolution of the Windows taskbar directly impacted the Start menu. What once was locked behind a menu suddenly came closer to you. The most obvious advancements were the introduction of Quick Launch by Internet Explorer 4.0’s Windows Desktop Update in 1997, as well as the more recent taskbar pinning in Windows 7.

Fig:Change in Start menu feature usage between Windows Vista and Windows 7

Pinning Explorer by default to the taskbar and populating its Jump list with common folders makes it even easier to access system folders like Documents (not surprisingly, use of Documents in Start has also dropped, as shown below).

As Steven Sinofsky summarizes,” the taskbar has evolved to replace many aspects of the Start menu. You can even say the taskbar reveals many of the weaknesses of the Start menu and that the menu is no longer as valuable as it once was long ago. Search and access to All Programs are still unique strengths of the Start menu that we know you depend upon, but when it comes to the apps you use every day, one-click access from the taskbar is hard to beat. In fact, we sometimes even referred to the taskbar in Windows 7 as the “Start bar,” since it became clear that most people now start with the bar, rather than with the menu.”

Image Credits: Building Windows 8 blog

Microsoft retires Windows Live Gallery

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After being a one stop shop for Windows users for such a long time,Microsoft has decided to retire Windows Live Gallery one of its premier site.Launched in 2006,it had gained popularity amongst Windows users for the variety of software, plug-ins and other applications.

But as reported earlier today The Windows Live Gallery has been retired, so that the development team can work seamlessly on the upcoming new features,so to concentrate on the new things it’s better off to do away with the old things,so from now on there won’t be any submissions for new Gadgets.But keeping in mind the users demands the popular gadgets would still be available over the Gadgets page.

Windows Developer Preview allows you to leverage your existing skills and code assets so you can create great experiences for your customers. Gadget and web developers can now use their HTML5 and CSS3 skills to build native Windows apps. .NET Developers can use XAML, C#, and Visual Basic to build beautiful Metro-style apps. Game developers can use the power of DirectX 11.1 to build amazing, immersive gaming experiences. Driver developers benefit from increased productivity with the new, integrated Visual Studio development environment.

So we can expect lot more feature apps in the Windows Store when the Windows 8 final version releases we are in for a treat from the developers :D

Canada based Security firm claims “Windows 8 anti-virus has a long way to go”

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When Microsoft unveiled the Windows 8 Developer Preview two weeks ago,one of the thing to grab most of the attention was it’s built-in malware protection. Senior Security Advisor at Sophos(Software Security Firm) Canada, Chester Wisniewski, tested Windows 8?s anti-virus software against a number of malware threats. Wisniewski pointed out Microsoft’s lack of virus warning messages in Windows 8 while testing the new software. Wisniewski tested Microsoft’s inbuilt Windows Defender software with the basic EICAR test file which produced an error at launch but failed to notify a virus warning. “I was very confused and began to wonder whether Windows 8 really had anti-virus at this point,” said Wisniewski in a blog post .

He also tested an array of real world malware samples and concluded that Windows 8 detected around 50% of the malware samples tested.He also tested Mac, Linux and Windows malware to determine whether Windows 8 detected cross-platform malware. And so he says,“It did successfully pick up quite a few fake anti-virus samples for Mac and Windows, as well as some copies of Linux/RST-B. It also recorded some events under the Windows Defender category in Event Viewer for the detection it alerted me to.”

To add more to that he said,”Microsoft does need to fix the detection of EICAR. The way things work currently will only encourage people to take unnecessary risks with real malware samples for testing.If you are testing Windows 8 on a live network, I would recommend you install a third-party anti-virus program as well. While Windows Defender caught some samples, it isn’t ready for prime time yet.”

Microsoft is planning makeover for its Windows Defender product for Windows 8. Microsoft will periodically deliver a set of malware signatures via Windows Update. Defender will now include real-time detection and protection from malware using a file system filter. Defender will also interface with Microsoft’s secure boot technology in Windows 8. Windows PCs with UEFI-based secure boot will be able to take advantage of Microsoft’s Windows security to make sure the firmware and firmware updates all remain secure. Microsoft is able to achieve this by loading only properly signed and validated code during boot.

Microsoft is has also planned to add SmartScreen filtering for Windows. Windows 8 will also protect its end users by carefully checking applications and URLs with its reputation-based database.

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