Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on May 21, 2008 by CyberNet.

In about another month Windows XP will no longer be an option for people and businesses looking to buy a new computer, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition wanting to keep XP alive. In Israel today Steve Ballmer told the press that Vista is selling very well, and that it is the operating system of choice for nearly 100% of new consumer PC’s. Well, duh! Trying to find retailers that are still selling computers with XP is rather tricky, but you would expect that after a new operating system has been available for a year and a half.

The real dagger for Microsoft has got to be the fact that, according to Ballmer, 45% of businesses are buying new computers with Vista on them. It doesn’t sound all that bad when it’s worded that way, but it means a majority still find comfort in running a more mature operating system. He cited application compatibility as the main reason Vista has had a bit of a rough start, but went on to say that’s changing as the programs are getting upgraded.

What will be interesting to see is whether there is a surge in computer purchases as the end of June 2008 rolls around. Are businesses going to push to get new computers before the looming XP deadline is reached? Should we all be stocking up on retail licenses of XP to sell on eBay after the deadline hits?

In my eyes this is all a natural progression of technology. If everyone always had the chance to stick with using XP then they would probably never upgrade, and ten years down the road we may not be any better off than we are right now. Hopefully the move to end XP sales will get the Windows community to unite and find solutions to the problems some Vista users are having, and we’ll be able to live in peace… until the next version of Windows is released.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Many have tried and failed to bring a 3D desktop interface to an otherwise 2D operating system, but that certainly hasn’t stopped others from trying. The latest example to crop up comes courtesy of none other than Microsoft, which recently received a patent for what it describes as a “method and apparatus for providing a three-dimensional task gallery computer interface.” In other words, it’s an interface intended to help you better manage multiple tasks, which the patent suggests could be done in a 3D environment with a floor, walls and a ceiling. Apparently, you’d be able to group multiple windows at various spots in the “room,” which would let you rely on your spatial memory to easily find a given task — with the room getting deeper and deeper to accommodate more tasks. In the patent’s claims, the only means described for navigating around that room is a set of icons that would adjust to suit the 3D environment, although it certainly seems like it could easily be adapted to accommodate gesture controls as well. Hit up the source link below for plenty more line drawings where this one came from.

Microsoft patent details a 3D desktop interface with a room for your windows originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 May 2011 12:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Last week, Newsweek sat down to interview Bill Gates for the launch of Vista.  He was asked about all of the typical questions regarding Vista like security, upgrading, and whether or not he was satisfied with the outcome of Vista. The one part that caught my eye was when he was asked how he felt about the infamous “Get a Mac” campaign that Apple has started with the most recent commercial showing the PC going in for surgery. This of course is in regards to upgrading to Vista.

Everybody takes the commercials differently. Some look at them and can’t help but laugh, others get infuriated over the serious jabs and sometimes untruthful lies that fill the commercial. One of the first things you’ll notice in any of the commercials is that the Apple is portrayed as a “cool stud” and the PC is portrayed as a “geeky dud.” This is the first thing Bill addresses. He was asked by Newsweek:

Are you bugged by the Apple commercial where John Hodgman is the PC, and he has to undergo surgery to get Vista?

I’ve never seen it. I don’t think the over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.

How about the implication that you need surgery to upgrade?

Well, certainly we’ve done a better job letting you upgrade on the hardware than our competitors have done. You can choose to buy a new machine, or you can choose to do an upgrade. And I don’t know why [Apple is] acting like it’s superior. I don’t even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you’re really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There’s not even the slightest shred of truth to it.

And finally, the last and probably the most interesting question addressed some of the features in Vista which are very similar to those in the Mac.

In many of the Vista reviews, even the positive ones, people note that some Vista features are already in the Mac operating system.

You can go through and look at who showed any of these things first, if you care about the facts. If you just want to say, “Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,” that’s fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. I mean, it’s fascinating, maybe we shouldn’t have showed so publicly the stuff we were doing, because we knew how long the new security base was going to take us to get done. Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine. So, yes, it took us longer, and they had what we were doing, user interface-wise. Let’s be realistic, who came up with [the] file, edit, view, help [menu bar]? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?

Now, perhaps I’m just under-educated with the Mac, but I haven’t heard about that many exploits. Every single day? Clearly hackers/attackers go after vulnerabilities in PCs because that’s where the market share is, but every single day a total exploit is found for a Mac? I’ve always heard people say that you’d never need an Anti-virus for Linux, simply because the general population is not using it, therefore creating viruses would be a waste of time. It’s a similar situation for Apple as well (although they definitely have more of the market share than Linux), but obviously, if what Bill Gates said is true, perhaps Apple needs to take a good look at their security.

There’s been quite the collection of these “Get a Mac” ads.  You can find clips of all of them here. And, if you’re interested in reading the entire interview with Bill Gates, you can find that here.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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There’s one big, table-shaped obstacle to developing apps for Microsoft’s Surface: you kind of have to own one. A new Surface 2 SDK, landing this summer, will sidestep that problem with an input simulator so devs can test their code on any Windows 7 PC. You can tap fingers, place tags, or paint “blobs” for your virtual SUR 40 to interact with, and even fake multitouch gestures by “stamping” a finger in one spot then moving a second one. If the Surface you’re programming for happens to be movable (though we’re not sure who would put a $7,600 computer on hinges) you can also alter the tilt of the display to trigger UI changes. You’ll still need access to one of these behemoths to make sure your wares work in the really real world, but at least the preliminary work can be done on any old laptop or desktop. Frankly, this is something we’d have thought would be included from day one — as they say, better late than never.

Surface SDK gets input simulator, opens doors to indie devs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 22:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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