Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on June 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

In less than ten days Windows XP will no longer be an option when purchasing most computers, despite the fact that over 208,000 people requested that the XP deadline be extended even longer. It’s time to move on people, or is it?

After the deadline manufacturer’s will only be able to offer XP on machines that are taking advantage of Vista’s downgrade rights. That means the customer will have to purchase a machine with either Vista Business or Ultimate, and then they will get a copy of Windows XP Professional as well. You’ll likely have to pay a surcharge to get a copy of XP Pro from the manufacturer, and to comply with Microsoft’s regulations XP Home is not an option.

Dell has already begun preparing their line of business and consumer machines to offer the downgrade service as an option. Above is a screenshot of what you’ll see when selecting an operating system on your new Dell computer, but you may not see it if you’re hunting around for a consumer computer. For consumers Dell is limiting this option to their gaming machines only, which means it is only available on the XPS 630 and XPS 720 H2C desktops and the XPS M1730 laptop. The Vista/XP Pro bundle is free from Dell until July 7th.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the end, but we already know for sure that low-cost desktops and notebooks can continue to use XP for several more years. Looking around at the other manufacturers it looks as though most aren’t even offering XP anymore, which makes you wonder whether XP has truly reached the end of its life?

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryEverything You Read About Fold.com Is WrongiPhone Activations Fall Below Analyst ProjectionsYour Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryCyberNotes: Our Favorite Friday CyberNotes Articles

This article was written on March 14, 2008 by CyberNet.

If there’s one thing that I can give Microsoft credit for it’s getting me excited about the future of technology. Even though Bill Gates disappointed me with his “future” segment at CES 2008, I would say that Microsoft has redeemed themselves with a presentation that they gave at MIX08.

I’ve embedded the video below, and its purpose is to show you what technology advancements in the health care field would mean for employees and consumers alike. Almost everyone in the video has unreasonably thin devices that they carry around, and nearly every table and wall is an interactive touch screen computer. I don’t think that we’ll be seeing this stuff in hospitals for a little while, but it’s intriguing nevertheless…

One of the most interesting parts that I found in the video was shown towards the end with about 40 seconds left (3 minutes and 25 seconds into it). It’s the digital wallet that is a single card, and after unlocking it with your fingerprint you can flip through your credit cards to choose which one to use. There was an uncontrollable amount of drool flowing from my mouth after seeing that.

Something I always like to point out with videos like this is that they are a lot like concept cars. To actually implement something like this would cost an insane amount of money, but by showing this to consumers Microsoft can figure out what areas they find the most important and useful. Then they can work at finding an affordable way to implement those things.

[via istartedsomething]

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Hilarious: Microsoft Predicts Your FutureNissan Will Be Implementing The Xbox 360 Into A Concept CarMicrosoft Developing a Wearable Mouse?How Does Google Really Feel about Microsoft?Bungie and Microsoft Breaking Up?

Microsoft has decided to stop supporting first-generation Xbox games and consoles on its Xbox Live service, Microsoft disclosed on Friday.

Microsoft “did not make this decision lightly,” the company’s Major Nelson blog said, but it’s apparently final: gamers who used the Xbox Live matchmaking service for games of “Halo,” for example, will have to find another way to connect with their friends. The prohibition also applies to Xbox games played on Xbox 360 consoles.

Why did Microsoft make the change? According to Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten, the company plans upgrades to the Live service that are simply incompatible with the older games and consoles.

Whitten did not reveal the proposed upgrades, but mentioned Microsoft’s Project Natal, scheduled to be rolled out by the holiday season of 2010. I believe we’ll look back on 2010 as a landmark
year in gaming and home entertainment, and I couldn’t be more excited
about what we have in store with “Project Natal” and LIVE,” Whitten wrote
in a blog post.

 “We will contact the Xbox LIVE members directly impacted by this change and if this includes you, I encourage you to check your LIVE messages and associated e-mail account over the coming weeks for more details and opportunities,” Whitten wrote. “We view you as a partner in this process.”

You had to know Microsoft would respond to former VP Dick Brass saying the company didn’t have “a true system for innovation” in the New York Times this morning, and it looks like Redmond’s VP of corporate communications Frank Shaw is on the move: he’s just posted up a reply on The Official Microsoft Blog. Frank says that what matters is “innovation at scale, not just innovation at speed,” and that “it is not sufficient to simply have a good idea, or a great idea, or even a cool idea. We measure our work by its broad impact.” Frank also points to OneNote in response to Dick’s claim that Tablet PC was doomed because the Office team refused to make a version of Office designed around stylus input, and then refers to the Xbox 360 as an example of Microsoft’s leadership — and says Project Natal is a “magical experience” that’ll keep the trend alive. That’s pretty much exactly how we would respond, although we’d also argue that Dick’s individual criticisms are less important than his larger thesis about systematic innovation — and we’d love to hear what Frank has to say about that.

P.S.- Can we all please stop calling everything “magical” for a minute, though? Thanks.

[Image from Robert Scoble]

Microsoft responds to Dick Brass: ‘We measure our work by its broad impact’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Ina Fried  |  The Official Microsoft Blog  | Email this | Comments

It’s a sad tale, if you hear Dick Brass tell it. In a new op-ed for the New York Times, the former Microsoft VP explains how he thinks the Microsoft corporate culture has “never developed a true system for innovation,” and that while the company is obviously strong at the moment, he doesn’t see the company retaining its dominance if or when the Office and Windows revenues die down. His own anecdotes are a little heartbreaking: his team developed ClearType (first announced in 1998), but due to infighting and jealousy within the company, was kept from shipping as a default until 2007 with Windows Vista. Similarly he argues that the Tablet PC was much restricted by an Office team that didn’t believe in the concept, and therefore never developed a version of Office that was stylus-friendly. Dick left the company in 2004, and he says the tablet group at Microsoft has since been eliminated, and that almost all the executives in charge of “music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade” have also left. The man isn’t out to get Microsoft: he sees the company as important, and its profits have obviously gone to great philanthropic ends through Bill Gates and others, but if what he says about the anti-innovative corporate culture is true, it sounds like Microsoft has some work to do before it can return to its place of preeminence as an innovator, instead of the fast and effective follower it seems to be becoming in many areas.

Former Microsoft VP Dick Brass weighs in on why Microsoft ‘no longer brings us the future’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  New York Times  | Email this | Comments