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Windows 8 is continuing its slow climb up the charts in market share, finally surpassing Windows Vista to claim 5.1% of all desktop operating systems during the month of June, while Vista settled for 4.62%. Windows 8 has been steadily gaining ground month by month, gaining almost an entire percentage point from May. However, while

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“The [story behind the history of Home] was about making an experience that flows through friends and people. We saw three ways that we could do this. One, we could go and build an operating system. Second, we could dig into Android deeply in order to see how we could we fundamentally change / fork Android to make it different. Or, we could build an app to make it different.” Those were the words just spoken by Cory Ondrejka — the director of mobile engineering at Facebook — here at D: Dive Into Mobile in NYC. This, in fact, confirms that Facebook not only gave thought to actually crafting its own operating system in order to usher Facebook Home into the world, but moved forward with prototypes.

Host Kara Swisher asked the duo how far along things actually got, to which Ondrejka replied: “The OS path was the least fleshed-out of the paths. Mark [Zuckerberg] talked on launch day that he wanted to build something for everyone. It’s hard to get to the type of scale that’s necessary for us [when building an OS]. We wanted Home in front of hundreds of millions of people — even a successful OS would only give that experience to a few of them.”

The two continued to talk about Facebook’s internal shift into mobile. At this point, the company has broken down most every wall between desktop and mobile, and Home is the first major product to ship under this new scenario. “You can see the engines throttling up,” Schroepfer said, speaking of how fast updates will soon be coming to iOS, Android and beyond. In fact, he confirmed that the first major update to Home was coming “during the second week of May,” while international users will start to get Home access on select Android phones today. And, while Facebookers have been testing Home on tablets, it wants to truly nail the experience on phones first before pushing it elsewhere.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Facebook

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Who would have thought that the mobile operating system scene is big enough to accommodate yet another player to the market, where this time around, it would hail from China, courtesy of Hammer Technologies (no, this has nothing to do with the fictional Justin Hammer in the Iron Man film), where they have made attempts to push their latest smartphone operating system that is known as the Smartisan OS.

Of course, the Smartisan OS is not exactly a brand new operating system per se, but rather, it is a new user interface that is based on the Android platform, although the entire user interface as well as its core apps have been given a makeover. Just in case you figure out that this modus operandi is rather familiar, this is because Xiaomi’s MIUI also did the same, which means the Smartisan OS will play nice on current Android devices. While some might say that it is travesty for the Smartisan OS to be heavily inspired from iOS, the developers themselves refute this, touting that it has been simplified to include fewer icons per page, and lacks the kind of text that describes just which apps are associated with a particular icon. Will Smartisan OS catch on? I have my reservations, but stranger things have happened in the past.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Gameloft Announces Official Iron Man 3 Game For iOS And Android, Sprint And Softbank Promise Not To Use Chinese Equipment, Will Replace Huawei Products In Clearwire’s Portfolio,

This week we’re hearing a whole lot about what Microsoft’s first big update to Windows 8 will be doing for the operating system, hearing how this so-called “Windows Blue” will change the company’s fortunes for the better. What Windows Blue is, for those that haven’t heard of it, is a polishing of the less-then-fantastic bits and pieces of Windows 8, especially where it concerns the operating system’s user interface. Have a peek here at several of the finer points that’ve been leaked in early builds thus far.

At the moment you’re not going to be able to get Windows Blue without downloading it illegally or finding your way into a developer build. If you’re an average citizen, you’ll just have to wait – and we’re not sure yet when that wait will be over, but we’re hoping soon. Cross your fingers!

Real half-screen app snap

One of the most interesting discoveries you may have already made in Windows 8 is your ability to “snap” 2 apps at once, allowing yourself the ability to work with both at full-screen essentially simultaneously. The only bad part about it is the instant 75/25 share size – one app takes up most of the screen while the second app is so small you can barely use it. As PC World says so eloquently, “that particular design decision was… bone-headed.”

With Windows Blue, the default is 50/50, a much more realistic half-and-half situation for those of you that love to keep two things open at once. Along with this is the push for more touchscreen-friendly settings.

Computer Settings become touch-friendly

When you’re looking to change the settings on your Windows 8-toting machine, you find it a bit less than intuitive before Windows Blue. When the Windows Blue build comes to you, you’ll find the “modern” user interface to have been brought with a fury to your standard settings galore. Before Blue you had to head back down to your standard desktop mode and tap through (if you had only touch) with teeny-tiny hotspots until you had nothing more than pre-Windows 8 UI never intended for touch at all – fix, yes please.

Live Tile options expansion

As it was with the change-over between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8, this update to Windows 8 “Blue” will allow you much more control over your Live Tiles. Here you’ll be able to choose between 4×4 size, 4×2, 2×2, and 1×1. You’ll also be able to change the color of your standard tiles, and – believe it or not – one option has been erased from your options altogether. That is the quick-push of a tile from one location to another.

That option has gotten in our way more than it’s ever helped. That’s the option where you hold down on a tile and move it to a different location on your home screen – if you’ve tried to flick between sets of tiles and hold just a bit too long in Windows 8, that tile will fly to the other side of the screen (wherever you leave off with your finger, that is). With Windows Blue, you’ll have to right-click (or otherwise hold down with your finger) on a blank portion of your screen to activate a “Customization” option before you do any flicking – nice touch!

New Built-in Apps

With Windows Blue, as with all great massive operating system updates, there are a few app additions to entice those of us who would otherwise just ask “well yeah, but what do I actually GET when I update?” Here you’ll find some oddities, bits and pieces like a new calculator, alarm clock, and sound recorder – note how these would go great on a tablet or – how about that – a smartphone!

Personalization

For those of you that love to change the look of your user interface, the Personalization options panel has been pushed up to the forefront. Instead of having to dig down deep in the tunnels that are the old UI, here you’ll find this panel – touch-friendly and everything – up above your Tiles option – pull in from the right on your home screen and hit the settings – and go forth!

Windows Blue: 5 features that make Windows 8 worth the switch is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If there’s one technological breakthrough China’s government thinks it needs right this second, it’s their own operating system. Or more control over the internet – but that’s (perhaps) besides the point. Today the big news is the Chinese government signing a deal with Canonical, the creators of the OS Ubuntu, to create their own home-grown operating system to “wean its IT sector off Western software in favor of more home-grown alternatives.”

According to the BBC, this collaboration will be the home of a brand new Ubuntu-based operating system by the name of Ubuntu Kylin, and it’ll be released as soon as April. This is also the timeframe for the next regular version of Ubuntu, which leads us to believe that Canonical may be considering releasing more than one country-centric version of its operating in the future, should the need arise. This deal is also part of a 5-year plan China is inflicting in order to get more of its citizens to use open-source software (believe it or not).

The creation of this operating system will be done in a single laboratory in Beijing filled with engineers from both Canonical and a series of Chinese R&D agencies. There will be more than one version of Kylin, the second being one worked on by Canonical to work on servers for online shops, hosting firms, and webpages of all kinds can use the software both online and off.

The first wide release of Kylin will be pushed to both desktop and laptop computers, with additional devices in mind for the future. In the future, it’s been noted (similar to the US), that Ubuntu Kylin will be released for tablets, smartphones, and everything in-between. This Kylin version of Ubuntu works with Chinese character sets natively and will, according to the BBC:

“Also do more to support the way Chinese people interact with computers as well as reflect China’s date conventions.” – BBC

In the future, Canonical and the Chinese government will be releasing versions of the operating system with connections to Baidu maps, Taobao shopping service, and new versions of image management tools and office apps created specifically for this market.

Have a peek at the timeline below to see other recent China homegrown news to see how odd we find it that the country will be pushing an open source operating system to its citizens, and let us know what you think!

Official Chinese OS in works as government signs with Ubuntu is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.