Hasta La Gadget!

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

A core part of Microsoft’s strategy from days gone by was known as embrace and extend. With a reboot of their mobile platform due later this year, is it time for Microsoft to think about moving some of their services and applications to competitor’s platforms? To some degree, it’s already happening. Microsoft licenses the ActiveSync protocol which allows Android, iOS and other platforms to wirelessly sync with Exchange. It’s developed Bing and Live Messenger apps for iOS and also done a deal to bring mobile Office apps to Nokia’s platforms. One could argue that in some of these cases Microsoft has given competitors access to what could have been key differentiators for its own mobile efforts. I’m not sure I disagree with that analysis, but now that it’s happening, I think Microsoft should think even more broadly about porting some applications and services. Here’s what I’d like to see made available for other platforms.

Office Mobile: Sure, there are other solutions for viewing and editing Office documents on almost every platform, but none of them carry the Microsoft Office brand. A version of Office for mobile (including a touch-enabled version of OneNote) would be an instant best seller on every platform and a become the de facto standard for mobile office applications. A combination of free document viewers and a suite of applications at a reasonable cost would put Microsoft at the top of mobile productivity and at the same time help continue to drive Office sales for PCs and Macs.

Continue reading Entelligence: Time for Microsoft to once again embrace and extend

Entelligence: Time for Microsoft to once again embrace and extend originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just got a look at the new Kinect Dashboard-lite for the Xbox 360. In some ways, it’s pretty charming, with fun, jazzed up icons (when you hover over them they tilt and show off depth), a simplistic layout, and some great voice controls. The downside is this all comes at the cost of a brand new, fairly redundant interface for accessing functions that are already available with your Xbox 360 controller in the regular Dashboard. Still, there’s no denying the joy of waving a hand to log in, hovering over icons to select channels (though the wait-to-click mechanism strikes us as eventually frustrating), and scrubbing through media with very intuitive gestures.

The best part is the voice control, however, allowing you to speak “Xbox” and then a command like play, pause, back, forward, stop, Zune, etc. It’s ripe for abuse (pausing your S.O.’s seventh Netflix screening of The Constant Gardner ad nauseam), but Microsoft says it’s working on eliminating random commands that might seep into conversation. Our biggest worry is that we’re going to see confusion and fragmentation of functionality with the divergent UI requirements that Kinect apps and regular Dashboard apps require — we can’t imagine the Facebook or Last.fm folks being super thrilled at creating an all-new app just to support Microsoft’s whims, but we’re told just such apps are in the works. Is the existing Dashboard really so complicated that Kinect couldn’t control it? Check out a video of this puzzling Kinectasticness after the break.

Continue reading Kinect-optimized Xbox 360 Dashboard preview

Kinect-optimized Xbox 360 Dashboard preview originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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United Airlines and Microsoft announced in a joint press release today that Zune would be the exclusive provider of in-flight audio entertainment on all United Airlines flights, both international and domestic. If you’ve flown on United recently, you’ll note that the in-flight audio options are straightforward and standard across multiple airlines, including channels for classic rock, pop, and classical, and while those channels won’t go anywhere, the addition of music powered by Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace adds more variety and selection to your flight.

With the new Zune channels, United passengers will be able to enjoy music from movie soundtracks, a dedicated electronic dance channel, an opera channel, and a piano jazz channel that’s perfect for people anxious about flying. All of the playlists will be generated using music from the Zune Marketplace, and Microsoft is providing up to 21 different playlists of music with which to populate the new in-flight audio channels, and all of the playlists and channels will be listed in United’s on-board magazine, Hemispheres, for listeners to snag and take home with them if they hear something they absolutely have to download. 

Zune Pass already felt like a pretty sweet deal for music buffs — $15 per month for unlimited streaming and 10 DRM-free MP3s — and now Microsoft might be lowering the subscription price even further. Or so says Senior Product Manager Terry Farrell, who added, “it’s a very definitely a challenging business.” No indication what that new price might be, but just this past April, RealNetwork dropped Rhapsody’s monthly fee from $15 to $10. If it does come to fruition, the new price would surely be a welcome boon to an already-promising Windows Phone 7 launch — and maybe even Kin. Maybe.

Microsoft considers a Zune Pass price drop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 19:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No matter how weak or powerful the gadget, one brave soul will always broach the all-important question: can it play Doom? Just four days after hacking the Zune HD and unleashing the OpenZDK, the Zune community has received its answer. ZuneBoards forumgoer Netrix has opened the portal to the familiar alien hell, where gamers will writhe in agony as they struggle with tilt and touchscreen controls. Those who persevere regardless will find the app runs any of the original Doom WAD files. Full installer available at the source link; see OpenZDK’s power in action after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Zune HD: yes, it plays Doom

Zune HD: yes, it plays Doom originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 22:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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