Hasta La Gadget!

All signs point toward the impending general availability of Windows 8, what with the upcoming OS launch event, the Surface RT finally hitting the FCC, and Paul Allen letting the world knows what he thinks of it. In light of this, the Redmond company has announced a final update push to the built-in apps you’ll find in Windows 8. The Bing update will be first out the gate tomorrow — it promises richer search results for local content — with the rest rolling out through October 26th. Also of note is Music, which touts “expanded music services” as an update (Xbox Music, anyone?). If you’re itching to know what built-in apps will be updated, you can get the full and extensive list after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft announces updates for Windows 8 built-in apps, just in time for October 26th launch

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Microsoft announces updates for Windows 8 built-in apps, just in time for October 26th launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 21:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew we were going to get to spy some sleek new devices from AT&T today, but the company sprung a bit of a surprise on us at the last moment by announcing that it would also have a few Windows 8 tabs on hand running on its “blazingly fast” LTE network. The Samsung ATIV SmartPC, which has also gone under the name Series 5 Slate in a few other circles. The 1.5GHz Clover Trail chip inside hummed along in our brief hands on, chewing through the gorgeous don’t-call-it-metro UI with relative ease and loading a few apps and webpages with nary a pause. With 64GB of storage on board there should be plenty of room for basic productivity apps and a view movies. Though, if you’re a serious MP3 hoarder, we wouldn’t expect to carry your whole music collection with you.

Continue reading Samsung ATIV SmartPC for AT&T hands-on (update: video)

Filed under: Tablets, Samsung, AT&T

Samsung ATIV SmartPC for AT&T hands-on (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 18:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks at AT&T are hitting it off big this week with device after device popping up on their network – the newest of these appearing today is the Samsung ATIV Smart PC, a device that can act as a tablet or a clamshell notebook with Windows 8 onboard. This device will be appearing with AT&T here in the United States sometime between when Windows 8 is unleashed on the 26th of this month and the end of the year – sometime in 2012!

What we’ve got here is a device that we’ve had some hands-on time with in the past – though this final iteration may prove to be a slightly different beast than what we saw back at IFA 2012. This iteration has an 11.6-inch HD PLS display working with an Intel Clover Trail 1.5 GHz dual-core processor under the hood and 64GB of internal memory right off the bat. It’s not yet known if you’ll be able to expand memory with a microSD card as many Android-based tablets are prone to be – we’ll see!

This device works with a detachable keyboard-docking system that makes it into a notebook, not unlike a collection of devices have been doing over the past couple of years – see our ASUS Eee Pad Transformer review (the original) for an early favorite. this Samsung device takes on a form factor that’s not entirely unlike the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 with its forward-facing speakers and has its very own prevalent Windows 8 icon center bottom for your enjoyment.

This device will be coming with Windows 8 installed, complete with trail versions of several Microsoft Office 2013 apps for productivity galore. This package includes Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as well. Of note is the fact that AT&T does not mention what kind of connectivity this device will have – a good guess would be 4G HSPA+ or 3G nationwide – again, we’ll see soon! This device will likely be coming out either at the end of this month or the start of the next, so stay tuned!

AT&T snags Samsung ATIV Smart PC with Windows 8 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Less than a week after the Windows 8 operating system release event takes place in New York City, Microsoft has let loose today that they’ll be holding their Windows Phone 8 event in San Francisco. This event will be taking place on October 29th and will begin at 10AM PST – save the date! We’ll likely see some final details on the mobile operating system and will quite likely have some more hands-on time with the OS right before it hits stores.

This invite foretells not one whole heck of a lot of information as it’s not really an invite so much as it is a Save The Date. This type of letter is sent out before wedding plans are finalized – this means that Microsoft is indeed engaged to Windows Phone 8, but that it doesn’t necessarily have its location, live band, or fancy new dress picked out. It does look pretty solid that it’ll be inside the SoCal area.

For those of you looking for information on what Windows Phone 8 will bring, you’re pretty much going to find all of it in our Windows Phone 8 tag hub. This mobile operating system has been all but revealed already in its fullness save for its extra connections to the desktop/notebook/tablet based Windows 8 OS. For that, we’ll just have to wait a bit longer.

With the Windows 8 event sitting on the 25th on one end of the country and the Windows Phone 8 event sitting on the other, we must assume that there’ll be some sort of awesome high-five party right in the middle at some point. Of course there’s no real knowing until the day! Stay tuned and stick with SlashGear for the big events – all of them!

Windows Phone 8 “wedding invites” tip October 29 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft’s been doing its best to get Windows 8 ready for public consumption. After dogfooding the OS to employees and IT pros and getting unsolicited feedback from company co-founder Paul Allen, the time has come for its official unveiling. Microsoft told us to save October 25th on our calendars for a Win8 celebration, and now the invites are out. Naturally, we’ll be there in New York City reporting on the event live, so come on back in three weeks to get your full Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface fix.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software

Windows 8 launch event gets real, the celebration starts October 25th originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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