The Microsoft Menlo project, which is a 4.1" capacitive touchscreen prototype, was recently spotted running on what could very well be Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2. It was seen to run an example of an app known as Greenfield, where it utilizes an accelerometer and a barometer among others to deliver a more comprehensive in-building navigation capability. While the Menlo's other attributes were not mentioned, it is worth noting that the app itself will deliver directions involving stairs and elevators instead of mere 2D positioning. There is a possibility that the Menlo could be part or all of a future version of Windows Phone or Windows CE, but only time will tell whether this is so. How many versions of a mobile Windows operating system do you think the world needs?
It seems that the 250GB Xbox 360 S hard drive can be purchased as a separate accessory, according to this box shot of the 4GB Xbox 360, where it states under the accessories section that the new hard drive is 'sold separately'. Too bad what is printed isn't reality just yet, although we can more or less look forward to that happening when the 4GB Xbox 360 hits the market sometime next month. After all, with just 4GB of internal memory these days, you surely can't do much with that, which makes it a no brainer to bring home a 250GB hard drive as well. This is a pretty good marketing ploy to get gamers to fork out more dough, eh?
The folks over at Microsoft probably aren't going to be too happy with the date that they chose to announce its latest Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000v2, since Apple had just announced itsMagic Trackpad. While we do understand that normal mice and the Magic Trackpad are going to coexist for a long time more, you'd expect Apple's new offering to get more attention at this point in time. The Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000v2 sports rubber grips on its side to make it comfortable, and is usable by both left and right hands, while the USB nano receiver is small enough that you can leave it plugged into your notebook without having to worry too much about it. Battery life is rated at a good 10 months, with a power status indicator also present to notify you when it's running out of juice. Finally, this mouse sports three buttons, a scroll wheel, and 1000dpi for better precision. It's priced at £19.99 ($31).
Despite the spectacular death of the Kin, reports that Apple had surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization, and a dicey start to the Windows Tablet, 2010 may not be such a bleak year for Microsoft after all. The latest numbers actually show it smashing quarterly and yearly records as it continues to make money hand over fist with Windows 7. According to its earnings report, Microsoft generated $62.48 billion in revenue over the 2009-2010 fiscal year, a 7 percent increase from the year prior, and its highest revenue ever on the books. Not surprisingly, Windows 7 played a major part, driving revenue in Microsoft’s Windows division up 23 percent from last year to $18.49 billion. How many copies does it take to generate that kind of cash? A lot. In the nine months since its launch on October 22, 2009, Microsoft has sold 175 million copies of Windows 7 – about 638,600 copies every day – or in even more stark terms, seven copies every second. While Windows 7 was busy bringing home the bacon, other divisions weren’t quite as productive. The clearest loser was Microsoft’s Online Services division, including Bing, which brought in $565 million last quarter but managed to shovel $696 million out the door.
Technology giant Microsoft looks to be getting serious about making phones and other portable devices that can successfully compete with things like Apple’s iPad and iPhone: the company has just signed a major licensing deal with ARM Holdings that significantly extends the ways Microsoft can use ARM technology: for instance, now the company is free to develop its own microarchitecture based on ARM technology. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Microsoft is an important member of the ARM ecosystem, and has been for many years,” said ARM CTO Mike Muller, in a statement. “With this architecture license, Microsoft will be at the forefront of applying and working with ARM technology in concert with a broad range of businesses addressing multiple application areas.” Microsoft and ARM have worked together since the late 1990s, and Microsoft’s develops Windows Embedded and forthcoming Windows Phone architectures both target ARM architecture. ARM offers a number of technology licenses, including licenses for specific processor implementations as well as full-bore architecture licenses. Microsoft is paying for the latter, which puts it in a small group of major companies like Qualcomm, Marvell, and Infineon. Apple’s A4 chip—which runs the iPhone 4 and iPad—is based on the Cortex-8 ARM processor architecture, with a PowerVR graphics controller. Microsoft has not announced how it plans to use its ARM license, with Microsoft general manager KD Hallman saying only that the license will enable Microsoft to enhance its ARM-based research and development. Of course, speculation turns immediately to Windows Phone implementations, but so far Microsoft’s Windows Phone partners are all long-time OEMs like Asus, Dell, Acer, LG, and Samsung. Microsoft might also be eyeing the ARM processor architecture for follow-ons to its Zune platform, or other as-yet-unannounced devices aimed at the consumer electronics or gaming markets.
Apple remains the most valuable high-tech company by a fair margin. And, perhaps more importantly, when Apple exceeded expectations on Tuesday shareholders cheered, adding about $7 per share from the previous day, before the after-hours earnings report. Microsoft’s superb quarter was greeted, instead, with crickets. Shares in the company were actually down fractionally in after-hours trading. “It’s a great quarter — but does that matter?” Colin Gillis, analyst at BGC Partners, told Reuters. “We all knew the business refresh cycle was in place. This is the dilemma for Microsoft — how do they get the stock moving again?” The stock chart above tells the story: For the past five years Apple has screamed, and Microsoft has coasted. Fair? If you think the market is by definition never wrong, that’s not even a fair question.
Look at the picture above. It is a toned-down, 500x500 pixel version of an iconic picture. Had we had the audacity (or the facility!) to put up the full blown picture that this actually is, it would have taken you a couple of years to load this page on your normal broadband connection. One terapixels, yes, 1,000,000,000,000 pixels displaying the sky in all its glory and taking up a whopping 802 GB of disk space.
A gigantic effort (literally!) by Microsoft, this picture of the night sky is the largest and the clearestever. Under the Terapixel project, 1791 pairs of complementary red-blue captures were stitched, thanks to image data from telescopes in California and Australia collected under the Digitized Sky Survey during the past 50 years.
To know the extent of the huge-ness of this picture, gulp this - To view it in all its glory (read pixels), you would need 500,000 High Definition TVs in a grid. Even if you take the higher-DPI route of printing, the photo would be the size of a soccer field.
According to Microsoft, this is the recipe behind the Terapixel photo:
Image data was computed, or digitized, from the plates that were created directly from the telescopes. This raw data was processed by a computer cluster using 512 computer cores (How many does your ‘ultimate gaming-rig’ use? 4 huh?). According to Microsoft, this took about half-a-day. Sounds deflated, if you ask us.
The red and blue complementary pictures were then combined and the pictures were then touched up to correct the variations in brightness, colour saturation, noise and vignetting (darkening of corners). Three hours. Impressive again. We bet those computers weren't running Vista.
It took four hours then as the images were converted into the seamless panorama of beautiful stars.
We may not be able to savour the sight every night anymore through the blanket of pollution that lies over our heads. But at least they can now be seen on your computer, here.
First things first. We love the new ‘rupee’ symbol. Not just for its subtle roman ‘R’ but more for the fact that we hate typing ‘Rs.’. Really. $120 is way cooler than Rs. 120. And the patriot in us is super-proud, as this signifies that India IS shining. It also gives us the bragging rights over our neighbours, which is especially important, considering the fact that the currency of Nepal and Pakistan is also called rupee. The symbol has ours distinguished, and rightly so!
But analysts say that the readers and writers at Digit would have to bear ‘Rs.’ for at least two more years. OK. A little gyan is needed here. The symbol’s primary purpose was to be used as a ‘character’ in computers and other devices, and for that to happen, it has to join the ‘standard list’ along with all other symbols you see on your keyboard. This list, known as ‘Unicode Standard’, is managed by the Unicode Consortium, which must receive the application for the inclusion of ‘rupee’ symbol from the Indian Government. Now this part of ‘sending by the Government’ is our bet for the bottleneck in the process. If and when this is received by the Unicode Consortium, our currency symbol would be encoded and allotted a code point in the next version of Unicode Standard. Now when the new version would be released, is another issue altogether.
While we are expecting to see ‘rupee’ symbol on our keyboards, or keypads any day now, this is not the case. No vendor can use the symbol before it enters the Unicode List. After that, the vendors’ part begins. Microsoft and Nokia, two of the largest companies in the computer and handheld spheres in India, have welcomed the new symbol and would give it a home in the devices as soon as it gets its Unicode code point.
For the users, Microsoftsaid, there would be no need of buying new software and an update would be provided on their current operating systems (obviously!). However, we see room for exploitation of the naïve as far as hardware is concerned, which reminds us of the mess that Y2Kwas. Keyboard manufacturers will definitely try to lure the corporates by advertising new keyboards, with the rupee symbol on them. But we, at Digit, vow that we would not let this happen. (Feel like Superman already!) Well, software can change one of the symbols on your current keyboards to type the ‘rupee’ symbol once it is a Unicode character. And we shall provide that as soon as this happens.
