Displaying items by tag: Windows 8

In the second half of 2012 most panel makers stationed in Taiwan expect their biggest orders to come from the rising tablet and notebook markets. Customers want more and more from mobile devices and as we know there are a lot of new tablets coming out just before the holiday season. AU Optronics said that they expect their shipments of small and medium size segments to grow even more in the last 2 quarters of 2012. Panels in near future will continue to have higher and higher resolution as well as reduced power consumption. As far as size is concerned most shipments will be of 7 to 10-inch panels as they are the most popular.

Starting today you can register to compete in Microsoft's Imagine Cup. The only condition is that you are a student and over 16 years old. The competition brings together young tech enthusiasts to try their best at solving the toughest challenges in the fields of Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship. This year will mark the 11th running of the Imagine Cup and Microsoft has decided to give the prize pool a boost. It is now more than double what it used to be, $300,000. After the national events are finished, all national winners will compete in St. Petersburg, Russia, where worldwide finals will take place. The finals will be held from July 8 to 11 2013. Microsoft has reported that more than 1.65 million students have participated in all of the previous Imagine Cups, and with that bunch of young innovative people you can expect big competition and even bigger results.

Another day, another Windows 8 misconception to kill. This time we are hearing from obviously uninformed journalists that Windows 8 is bringing the age of the Hybrid touch/keyboard PC to the world. The problem with this statement is that they are about 6 years too late. The hybrid PC has been around in quantity since at least 2006 and in limited existence going even farther back than that. Microsoft originally sought to build a “tablet” empire based on notebooks with touch screens and full keyboards. To accomplish this they enlisted the help of the usual suspects (Lenovo, HP, etc.) and tried to push them onto the market; unfortunately the concept did not take off that well.

After 25 years Microsoft has finally decided to change company's logo. This time it looks more appropriate for new the new Metro [Ed – or whatever it is called] philosophy of simple Swiss-like design. Microsoft stated that “This wave of new releases is not only a reimagining of our most popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning.“. They will release new versions of almost all of theirs products this year, from new Windows OS, both for PC and mobile, to Xbox services.

It seems that while Microsoft was busy trying to turn your desktop into a phone they might have skimped on security a bit. According to some very interesting research Windows 8 has a flaw in it that allows for someone to gain access to the list of user password hints directly from the registry in unencrypted form. The flaw, which was found by the gang over at Spiderlabs is not a massive game changer, but it is troublesome and gives a potential attacker even more information to help him or her gain access to your system.

Looks like Microsoft is seriously trying to boost sales of their peripherals, they have announced their Essentials Pack (wireless gamepad, HDMI cable, remote control and 3 months of Xbox Live Gold) for $79.99. In addition they will also cut down the price on Kinect. This device that allows you to make your body a controller has become very popular in a last few years since Nintendo launched Wii, and this price drop is sure to attract more new customers to this type of gaming.

A couple of days ago we covered some interesting news about EA and what appear to be steps to set themselves up for a buyout. In the original article we talked about the fact that they are buying back their own stock from investors as well as trimming down staff which puts them at a lower financial liability. At the same time they were doing all of this EA was talking up the future of mobile gaming especially in conjunction with the Windows 8 ecosystem. This happened in conjunction with OnLive selling to an unnamed company. Now we are hearing that EA owned mobile gaming company PopCap is cutting roughly 12% of the staff in North America.

Synaptics, the inventor of the touch pad back in 1995, is looking to revolutionize the touch industry again. On the 17th of August we had a conversation with Synaptics about their new innovation, the ForcePad, and how it and some additional technology could push the mobile and desktop experience to a new dimension. After looking through the all of the details and talking with Synaptics, we think there might even be hope for Windows 8.

“They've got the big screen, now give them the big picture.” is a good parable for Valve's new project. The Big Picture is basically Steam for TV and controllers. Users will be able to plug a PC into their TV and enjoy gaming on a big screen instead of pc monitor. You are probably wondering what has stopping you from doing that now, and the answer is nothing really, but dont you hate when you have to use keyboard and mouse to navigate, or when you transfer from a 20-something inch monitor to a bigger TV the icons seems too small? For many the overall experience feels a lot worse than just staying on PC.

Microsoft’s Windows 8 has been pushed to RTM and the lucky few with TechNet accounts already have this new software downloaded and installed. We are already starting to read the reviews and observations of people that are fascinated with the new UI and those that hate it. We will have our own review in a few weeks that will include traditional desktop, laptop and also a tablet PC. Still there is a lot of misinformation about the strengths of Windows 8 and also how it will fit into the market.  We were sent a link to what we have found to be one of the better comparisons of the pros and cons of Windows 8 and wanted to cover our take (based on experience in the IT industry) and also to add to their findings.