Items tagged with Windows-8
A product is only as good as its creators say it is, and in the case of Windows 8, it looks as if it's not going to hit store shelves until those within Microsoft's walls test the heck out of it. A new blog post today over at the company's site details the story of deploying Windows 8 within Microsoft, which it fondly refers to as "dogfooding." Basically, it's the forced act of eating their own dogfood. It's a pretty strange, potentially graphic visual, but it goes to show that the company isn't taking the launch lightly. According to Microsoft, it "enables the IT department to help Microsoft’s product teams deliver higher quality products and services to customers, both near-term and long-term."...
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Hot on the heels of the introduction of a new quartet of all-in-ones, HP announced several new consumer and business PCs designed for Windows 8. For consumers. there’s the HP Pavilion Sleekbook 14 and 15 notebooks, which feature 14- and 15.6-inch HD screens (respectively) and boast storage capacity of up to 1TB, HP TrueVision HS webcams, and “a full array of ports”, according to a press release. HP Pavilion ENVY m4 HP’s 14-inch ENVY m4 notebook is designed for optimal portability with a thin and light form factor and includes Intel Ivy Bridge processors and features that include HP ProtectSmart, HP CoolSense and HP SimplePass. HP ENVY Phoenix h9 New consumer-focused desktops...
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A keyboard made specifically for an operating system? Yeah, that's a thing now. Microsoft has just unveiled the new Sculpt Comfort Keyboard, a new typing apparatus designed with Windows 8 in mind. It's an ergonomic board that's sleek and subtle, with a litany of Windows 8-specific hot keys. However, the most prominent feature has to be the newfangled space bar. It's the first desktop keyboard to offer a split backspace-spacebar key. According to MS, it's research showed that "90 percent of typists use only their right thumb to press the spacebar, leaving a lot of unused real estate on the left side of the bar," and that the backspace key is the third most pressed key on the keyboard - behind...
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At the Intel Developer Conference this week, Intel is expected to (among other things) offer up some insight into its mobile strategy going forward. For as omnipresent as the company is in the world of processors, the tablet market is one where the competition is particularly fierce. ARM, Qualcomm, TI, and Samsung, for example, all stand in the way. We knew that Intel was planning to establish a presence with upcoming tablets running the new Windows 8 operating system, but a job posting for the chipmaker looking for software architects to develop a tablet platform really says it all: The Intel tablet SW team is in the early forming stages and presents an opportunity to play a key role in building...
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After Microsoft’s Surface tablet with its detachable keyboard debuted and ruffled the feathers of more than one of its Windows 8 hardware partners, many wondered how those OEMs would respond. Well, here’s one: In a development that has to make you chuckle a little, Samsung introduced a line of Series 5 and Series 7 slate PCs running Windows 8 that feature--wait for it--detachable keyboards. The keyboards are far more traditional-looking than the Surface’s, but it’s definitely the same tablet/laptop hybrid concept. The touchscreen devices also have a handy Samsung S Pen tucked away in an onboard slot if you’d rather use a stylus than your fingertips. Weighing in at...
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Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 has made its way onto most platforms worth gaming on, and today, NVIDIA debuted the game engine on another pair of platforms--Windows 8 and Windows RT. In a video on a blog post, NVIDIA showed off a demo of Unreal Engine 3 on an ASUS Vivo Tab RT, which has a quad-core Tegra 3 chip powering the system. (Never heard of it? Pop over here and check it out.) As you can see in the video, the demo is smooth as butter and looks terrific. Even better, this is a full PC implementation of Unreal Engine 3 instead of a mobile derivative, so game developers should be able to port their games to Window RT (and Windows 8) quickly and with ease. In the post, Epic Games vice president...
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One of the more enterprise-friendly features of the upcoming Windows 8 OS is Windows To Go, which essentially allows users to carry around Windows 8 on a USB stick. The specific definition is as follows, right from Microsoft’s mouth (er, well, the Windows 8 Enterprise page anyway.) Windows To Go is a fully manageable corporate Windows 8 desktop on a bootable external USB stick. This will allow IT organizations to support the “Bring Your Own PC” trend and businesses can give contingent staff access to the corporate environment without compromising security. Make sense? Cool. Windows To Go not only allows users to plug into any number of PCs around the company and run their own...
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As the long-awaited launch of Windows 8 and Windows RT draws closer, more details are emerging; today, Steve Sinofsky of the Building Windows 8 blog delivered several announcements, including which OEMs are making Windows RT devices. We already knew that ASUS, Toshiba, Acer, and Lenovo were making those ARM SoC-based RT devices, but the post stated that Dell and Samsung are in the game, as well. Thanks to the post, we also know that Windows RT has reached RTM (released to manufacturing) mark, so OEMs really are busily building machines with the final version of Windows RT in hand. Unnamed pre-release Windows RT PC The post recapped some of the main points previously revealed--that Windows RT...
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Outside of Microsoft's own Surface, Lenovo's transforming Yoga device may be the most interesting Windows 8 portable to surface. It's a convertible laptop/tablet hybrid that aims to be everything to everyone who may be considering either form factor, but according to ABC News, it may end up arriving with more than one operating system. The Yoga is "officially" scheduled to ship with Windows 8 -- as in, the full Windows 8 that will also ship on the ThinkPad Tablet 2. It's expected to ship alongside Windows 8 in late October, but the new nugget is that there will be two versions of the Yoga. One will have an Intel processor, and that one will run the full edition of Win8. The other will use an...
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Well, this is strange. It seems that "Metro," the design language that just about everyone associated with the 'tiled' system used in Windows Phone and Windows 8, can no longer be used to reference precisely that. As part of some trademark spat, Microsoft has seemingly been forced to ditch what is largely regarded as its most intelligent naming scheme in years for something else. And that "something else" is far less enticing. According to ZDNet, Microsoft is ditching Metro and will instead call those 'tiled' things... Windows 8. Confused yet? You should be. Windows 8 will now be used to refer to what was previously known as Metro. What will the "conventional" desktop be called in Windows 8?...
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Newsflash: Microsoft isn't just a software company. As if the Surface wasn't reminder enough that the company also knows a thing or two about hardware, it has just introduced new mice and keyboards designed specifically to play nice with Windows 8. Win8 is slated to hit shelves on Oct. 26th, and if you were worried about having kit around to take advantage of the bells and whistles, don't. The highlight of the new bunch is the Wedge Touch Mouse, a sleek little guy that's super tiny while supporting four-way touch scrolling and navigation. It also features BlueTrack Technology so you can use it on virtually any surface, and it includes Backpack Mode to power down and sleep along with the computer...
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With Windows 8 coming on October 26th, Microsoft has been publishing a number of insightful looks at some of the system's underpinnings. It's been pretty fascinating to watch. With prior Windows releases, there really hasn't been too much pre-release outreach with the public. But in a word where social media rules and communication is expected, these "Building Windows 8" columns act to give users of both avid and casual backgrounds an ability to see what's going on behind the scenes. The latest post involves a dear subject: graphics. It reminds us that Windows 7 added two new components to DirectX: Direct2D for two-dimensional graphics (shapes, bitmaps, etc.) and DirectWrite for handling text,...
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Big companies gobble up smaller ones all the time, for reasons ranging from talent grabs to patent portfolio protection to expanding into new markets. Microsoft’s acquisition of Perceptive Pixel wouldn’t be so notable except that Microsoft is in the midst of a semi-mysterious and very aggressive full-scale march on the tech industry. For example, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and the company’s own homemade Surface tablet are coming soon, and all show a departure for Microsoft. Adding Perceptive Pixel to the mix is an interesting piece of the puzzle. Perceptive Pixel makes large multi-touch workstations and wall screens including an 82-inch LCD monster. You’ve seen the likes...
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For the most part, users waiting patiently to upgrade to Windows 8 when it becomes available are expecting a smooth upgrade path, particularly those running Windows 7. Those with Vista or XP may be more concerned that a straight upgrade will be impossible. Details have emerged about the specifics of the Windows 8 upgrade possibilities. Here’s the scuttlebutt: If you’re upgrading from Windows XP (SP3) to Windows 8, you can do so, but you’ll only get to keep your personal files--no applications or system settings will come along for the ride. The same applies to those upgrading from a service pack-less Vista installation. If you have Vista (SP1), though, you can have your system...
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Now that Microsoft has much of the industry swooning (or in some cases, shrugging) over its Surface tablet and Windows Phone 8 announcements, the next slew of related and highly anticipated announcements will concern the devices that will run Windows Phone 8. Up first is leaked details of HTC’s upcoming trio of Windows Phone 8 handsets. The line starts with the Rio, a 4-inch (WVGA) device running a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus processor that features a 5MP camera capable of 720p HD, 512MB or RAM, 14.4Mbps HSPA. The mid-range phone will be the 4.3-inch Super LCD-equipped Accord (are these all going to be car names?), with an 8MP 1080p HD camera, 42Mbps HSPA+ capabilities, and NFC. It’ll...
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Boy, Microsoft is on a roll this week. Shortly after shaking up the tablet market with its new Surface tablet, the company offered up a preview of its latest mobile OS, Windows Phone 8. Unifying desktop and mobile platforms is clearly the way forward in the computing world, and with the impending release of both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, it looks like Microsoft is about to do a bang-up job of it. The big change between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 is that the former was built on the Windows CE core; WP8 will share the same Windows core and drivers with Windows 8. That’s a huge deal, because it makes unifying all your screens and apps simple and smooth. Windows developers are...
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At this evening’s much-ballyhooed press event, Microsoft--yes, stodgy old Microsoft--just shook up the whole tablet market with the introduction of an innovative new tablet called the Microsoft Surface, which of course runs Windows 8. Aside from the fact that Microsoft delving into the hardware business on the tablet side of things is a huge deal in and of itself, the Surface doesn’t look to be an also-ran tablet. The thing is intriguing. The feature that most differentiates Surface from other tablets is the cover, which is called the Surface Touch Cover. Like a certain competitor’s tablet cover, this one snaps on with magnets. Quite unlike the iPad, the cover doubles as a full...
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Microsoft is planning to make a big announcement on Monday, and all anyone seems to know for sure is that the subject will involved the company’s mobile products and/or strategy. Citing a source with knowledge of the company’s plans, The Wrap reported that Microsoft is indeed launching its own tablet to run Windows 8. Specifically, it’s expected that Microsoft will introduce an ARM-based tablet that will run Windows RT. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (Image credit: AllThingsD) If the rumors are true, Microsoft is taking a bold step. First of all, the tablet hardware market is an awfully tough nut to crack, and being a software company (it’s not called “Microhard”),...
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Want to try out the Windows 8 Metro interface on your Android tablet? Splashtop wants that for you as well. The company previously released a Windows 8 Metro testbed for the iPad back in April, and now it has one for Android devices, which is available in the Google Play Store. To try it out for yourself, you’ll need a PC with the Windows 8 Release Preview installed, but once you have that taken care of, you’ll be able to poke around (pun!) Microsoft’s new touch interface. Swipe from the left for multitask app switching Swiping slowly from the left will two apps side-by-side Among the features available for perusal is swiping to the left to switch apps, pulling up the Charms...
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At its big press event at the E3 conference, Microsoft boasted a tricked-out stage ideal for demoing games and invited a gaggle of celebrity guests that included Joe Montana, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Usher. The company unveiled a slew of new games from a variety of developers, so let’s just list the lot of them, shall we? Halo 4 Splinter Cell: Blacklist--Includes single player, coop, and spys versus mercs (spring 2013) FIFA 13--Uses Kinect to let players control certain events with voice commands Madden 2013 Fable: The Journey (holidays 2012) Gears of War Forza Horizon (October 23, 2012) Nike Plus Kinect Training--On Xbox Live, gives players feedback about form, workout times, and...
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After a few leaks and premature teases, the Windows 8 Release Preview is here. Microsoft had previously hinted that it would be available the first week of June, but the final pre-release is out and ready for you to download and try out. According to a blog post announcing the Release Preview, this release is the last one before the Release to Manufacturing (aka “RTM”) phase, and the Windows 8 team will continue to solicit feedback from users and tweaking the new OS before the final version is available. From here on out, Microsoft says that it’s focusing on reliability, security, peripheral compatibility, resource utilization, and fine tuning the user experience. The Release...
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Well, you can safely say that we're on the home stretch now. Microsoft has already released the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 into the world, and as the company gets closer and closer to the anticipated fall / winter launch of their next major desktop operating system, the next major step in that process is upon us. Speaking at an event in Japan, Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky announced that the Windows 8 Release Preview will be available in the first week of June. That's just over a month away, and we can expect a nearly-final, nearly-bug free version to hit the web for anxious PC users to test out and submit bug reports before it ships "for real" later this year. Excited about trying out a new...
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