Hasta La Gadget!

Well this is something. According to Peter Kafka at All Things D, as well as a few tipsters, Microsoft has all but confirmed the existence (and likely actual launch) of the Courier tablet. In a post on the site by Thomas Kohnstamm (or The JobsBloggers, hard to say) touting Microsoft innovation, this passage was originally posted:

Do you already know everything about Project Natal and the Cloud? Is Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ jaw-dropping TED talk on augmented-reality Bing Maps and Photosynth last month’s news? Then check out some of the online chatter surrounding new releases of Window Phone 7 series handsets, Internet Explorer 9 and the upcoming Courier digital journal.”

That last bit — you know, about the Courier — was linked to our recent post which revealed a handful of images, video, and possible factoids on the device. Though that bit of the writeup has been canned, you can see that the post was tagged “courier,” and the original text is still hanging around RSS (as seen above). So, does this mean Microsoft is getting close to actually giving us some meat on this thing? We can’t know for sure if the info above is 100 percent solid… but it’s certainly telling that this device is on the lips of Microsoft employees who also happen to work on PR campaigns for the company — and they moved quickly to get it offline. What do you guys think?

[Thanks, Ian]

Microsoft Courier existence confirmed on the company’s JobsBlog? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink All Things D  |  Microsoft JobsBlog  | Email this | Comments

250GB Xbox 360 hard drive now available for $129.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Joystiq, Major Nelson  | Email this | Comments

This article was written on February 02, 2007 by CyberNet.

Eight months ago, and together with three partners, Microsoft started and funded an Open XML Translator project. Version 1.0 of the plugin has been released with plans for a spreadsheet and presentation translator plugin ready for previews in May, and a final release in November, 2007.

This plugin facilitates the conversion of documents from one format to the other.  For example, if you are using Microsoft Word with the plug-in, you can choose to open and save documents in ODF instead of the Opem XML format, the new industry standard.

Tom Robertson who is the general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft says,

“We believe in delivering interoperability by design; in this case, by working with partners and members of the open source community we have achieved that goal.  The translator project has been built to be independent of any one application, and has proved to be useful for both Microsoft and our competitors in solving an interoperability challenge for customers.”

The plug-in can be downloaded at SourceForge.net, and since the project started, it has been downloaded over 50,000 times. Many small businesses who can’t afford Microsoft’s products usually select OpenOffice.org as an alternative.  If you receive a document from someone who uses OpenOffice, you won’t have to worry about how you’ll open it by using the ODF Converter.

People that use OpenOffice most-likely save their documents in Word format to begin with, just to make sure it works for everyone. However, every now and then you’ll come across documents that would be nice to open up without needing an additional application which is when this plugin would be useful.

It’s good to see Microsoft taking interoperability seriously and providing funds and resources to make it happen.

The official Microsoft press release can be found here.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Free Online Translator Offered From Windows LiveTalk More Like a 12 Year-Old…CyberNotes: What is a .docx file?Google Talk Can Now TranslateOffice 2007 SP2 to Include Save as PDF & ODF Support

Microsoft’s not going to allow HTC to cover Windows Phone 7 Series with its Sense UI overlay (which is going to be an interesting thing to watch in and of itself), but there’s no question that the homegrown user interface has made a-many Windows Mobile phones look and feel a whole lot better than stock. Sense is also gaining traction in the Android realm, a sector where it’s far more likely to either make a huge impact or be overlooked entirely. So, the question we’re posing here today is this: if you were granted an HTC badge for a day, how would you change Sense? Are you satisfied with the quickness? Does anything simply get in the way? Any quirks that you just can’t figure out? Any tweaks that you’d love to see made? We aren’t always serious when we say that these companies are listening to you, but trust us when we say that design folks from HTC might just give your comments a once over. Here’s your chance. Don’t screw it up.

How would you change HTC’s Sense? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Microsoft’s MIX 10 Windows Phone app demos were highlighted by a robotic t-shirt cannon entirely controlled by a WP7S app, and the code monkeys behind the project are now back with a full breakdown of how things were achieved — the bot was built on a standard battle-bot chassis, which was then modded with the cannons and an HP Envy laptop for control purposes. Just to drill in the point about how familiar development for the new mobile OS will be, the MS guys point out that outsider assistance on the project was recruited under the pretext that what was being built were “out of the browser” Silverlight apps for the desktop. Very crafty. We’ve got video of the cannon in action waiting after the break, along with an image of the Phone controls.

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Series T-shirt cannon gets detailed, redefines ‘mobile warfare’

Windows Phone 7 Series T-shirt cannon gets detailed, redefines ‘mobile warfare’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink tech autos  |  MSDN Blogs  | Email this | Comments