Hasta La Gadget!

You remember Hover, right? If you’re one of our many, many readers born after 1995, you probably don’t. But that’s OK: we’re here to educate you, dear millennials. The game, which came installed on Windows 95 in the “Fun Stuff” folder, is making a comeback: Microsoft just came out with a web version that’s been optimized for IE11, but will work inside any current desktop browser. As ever, it’s a cross between bumper cars and Capture the Flag, with three hovercraft options, and a choice between single- and multi-player modes. What’s especially neat is that Microsoft kept all the same levels; it just brought the graphics into the WebGL era. Naturally, too, you can use either shortcuts or touch gestures. If all this sounds dandy, we suggest you hit up the source link below sometime during your lunch hour. And, not to spoil an easter-egg, but be sure to type in “bambi” when you get to the “single player” / “multi-player” page — someone at Microsoft’s got a sense of humor, we’ll say that much.%Gallery-slideshow99760%

Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Microsoft

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Source: Hover

As promised, Internet Explorer 11 is making its way to Windows 7, slowly but surely. Almost a month after we got our first serious taste of Microsoft’s latest browser, currently available on Windows 8.1 only, the developer preview version for Win 7 has hit the web. Obviously, there’s a lot less Metro-flavored flash, but the most important features and improvements should still carry over. The biggest news is the improved performance and load times. Microsoft is quite proud of the enhancements it’s made to Chakra, it’s JavaScript engine, and claims it’s significantly faster than Chrome, Firefox and Opera. As always, though, you can take these self-administered benchmarks with a grain of salt. There’s also support for WebGL and advanced HTML5 video features, like those powering the next-generation Netflix player. And, seeing as how this is a developer preview, the package wouldn’t be complete with out some updated tools for building sites and web apps, in the form of an overhauled F12, that borrows heavily from Visual Studio. If your’e looking for some more fine-grained details or just want to download it for yourself, hit up the source link.

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft

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Source: MSDN

Few would say that consistency is good for its own sake. Microsoft certainly agrees — it just revealed at Build that Internet Explorer 11 will reverse the company’s previously cautious stance on WebGL. The new browser will support the 3D standard from the get-go, joining the likes of Chrome and Firefox. IE11 should improve plain old 2D as well, as there’s hardware acceleration for video streaming through MPEG Dash. All told, Internet Explorer should be a better web citizen — and deliver a speed boost in the process.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

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Source: IEBlog

We probably don’t need to tell you that one of the first things we did upon finding out that Windows Blue had leaked was download that sucker. (Sorry Microsoft, we can’t help ourselves.) Well, after some finagling we got it up and running in a virtual machine and gave spin. Even at this early stage its pretty obvious that Blue is going to be a relatively minor, but welcome upgrade Windows 8. And, while we encountered plenty of rough edges, we’d say they’re more than explained away by the fact that this is an early build and VirtualBox can introduce its own set of problems. But, if you’re just looking for a sneak peak at what Microsoft has in store for Windows in 2013, head on after break and check out the gallery of screenshots below.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

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We’ve known for some time that Microsoft was working on bringing Internet Explorer 10 to Windows 7 — in fact, the company published a blog post promising the preview version would be ready sometime in mid-November. Then, we heard it could be available today. Well, looky here! It is! The Release Preview is indeed now available to download from Microsoft’s site. As you’d expect, the Win 7 build has the same look and feel as the Windows 8 version, with full-screen browsing, hardware acceleration, deep multitouch support and a predictive “Flip ahead” feature that guesses what page you want to see next (page two of a story, the next round of search results, et cetera). If you own a Windows 7 PC that doesn’t have a touchscreen (and that’s probably the case), you should still be able to pull off multitouch gestures in IE using a trackpad, assuming you have the right drivers. If all else fails, though, you can still use the browser with the ol’ mouse and keyboard.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7, download the preview now originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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