Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft’s already shown with the Xbox 360 and Kin that it’s looking to take its Zune platform beyond Zune-branded hardware, but we can’t say we expected it to go quite this far — Microsoft has now teamed up with United Airlines to offer “Zune inflight audio” to passengers. That apparently won’t involve any new hardware in the planes — Microsoft or otherwise — but it will give passengers 21 new playlists “programmed by Zune” to choose from, including options like Classic Rock, Contemporary Pop, Opera and Piano Jazz. Not many more details than that, unfortunately, with United only saying that it looks forward to “working with Zune and Microsoft to create new onboard experiences.” Sure, it might not sound like much, but it should at least go some ways towards improving the Zune’s name recognition. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading United Airlines offers up ‘Zune inflight audio,’ no actual Zunes

United Airlines offers up ‘Zune inflight audio,’ no actual Zunes originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Check back at 8:00AM PT!

Continue reading Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie live from D8

Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie live from D8 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The Onkyo DX1007A5B notebook is why I flew 7,800 miles to attend Computex. It doesn’t feature the fastest processor or break new ground in terms of the platform. And to be honest, I didn’t even know Onkyo made PCs until I saw this system in the Microsoft booth. But this is exactly what I expected to find at the show, and it doesn’t disappoint.

Hardware-wise, the system is nothing special: AMD Athlon Neo CPU, 4GB of RAM, 320GB HD, and Windows 7 Home Edition. But the cool thing is the displays, plural. Two 10.2-inch displays are mounted horizontally, so you can extend your desktop horizontally. Since that would be kind of awkward to carry, they collapse down into a standard form factor for travel.

But wait, there’s more! Twist the screen around, and the system works as a tablet. Albeit without a touchscreen, but still pretty neat.

Practical? Probably not. But you got to love the effort. Check out the video to see it in action and tell me you don’t agree.

Looks like it’s blowhard season up in Redmond these days, as the latest word from Microsoft on its Live Essentials suite of apps has been accompanied by the brash pronouncement that it’s now markedly superior to Apple’s efforts in Mac OS X — at least when it comes to photos. This verdict was delivered by Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live, and is backed by a laundry list of new features we can expect by the holiday season of this year. Windows Live Photo Gallery and Movie Maker will soon be able to link up directly to sites like Flickr, Facebook and YouTube — which will allow for painless uploads as well as pulling in any additional tagging done on Facebook. New photo stitching and retouching abilities, along with face recognition (rather than mere detection) are also being touted, but the ultimate arbiter of the new software’s utility will obviously be the real hands-on experience for users. We shouldn’t have to wait too long for that, as a beta version of the freely downloadable (on Vista and 7, XP holdouts are no longer being served) suite should be making the rounds in the coming weeks.

Continue reading Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’

Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  Windows Team Blog  | Email this | Comments

Google made some waves earlier this week by reportedly moving employees off of Windows and onto Mac OS X and Linux machines — although the company wouldn’t confirm the switch, the move was said to be precipitated by security issues after Chinese hackers attacked the search giant back in January. Now, that wasn’t the only reason mentioned in the report — Google apparently also wants employees to use home-grown products like Chrome OS, and it’s sort of weird for Google to buy tons of software licenses from a major competitor — but the implication that Windows isn’t secure enough for Google seems to have raised Microsoft’s hackles: a new post on the Windows Team Blog says the irony of the move is “hard to overlook” as Gmail and Google Docs have privacy and security issues of their own, offers a point-by-point breakdown of all the ways Windows 7 is more secure than the competition, and goes on to suggest that a recent piece of shady Mac OS X malware is “a future sign of things to come for Apple and security.” Meow. Now, we honestly think the real story is as simple as Google not wanting to write Microsoft a really big check, but we’re not going to say no to a little fight here — Eric, Steve, you have anything to say?

Microsoft responds to Google moving away from Windows, calls it ironic originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Windows Team Blog  | Email this | Comments