Windows Phone 7 Released in USA

By DustinPosted on

Microsoft has officially launched and released their Windows Phone 7 in the United States with a new campaign: challenging consumers to Get a Grip. I’m going to go see if I can get a hands on with this phone today, take some pics, and see if it would work for me. If so, I’m probably looking at an upgrade as soon as Verizon can get off it’s high horse and start offering its consumers what they want and not drag it out for a year or two.

As Windows Phone 7 goes on sale in AT&T and T-Mobile USA stores across the United States, Microsoft Corp. has commissioned and released the findings of a recent Harris Interactive® survey showing the surprising ways mobile phones have become a part of the fabric of Americans’ lifestyles — a point illustrated by the fact that 55 percent of all phone owners surveyed age 18–35 have used their phone in a bathroom. To commemorate the U.S. launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is challenging consumers to get a grip on their mobile phone habits.

How Microsoft Goes After Pirates

By DustinPosted on

I’ve never been a supporter of piracy, although I am a big advocate for making better product that people would pay for. Microsoft spends millions of dollars every year to combat piracy of its products, and they have some hard core ways of doing it. Of course, software piracy isn’t just software a lot of the times. Remember that next time you buy a pirated copy of Windows from the street: You could be supporting the drug cartels and kidnappers.

The police reached the house undetected, barreled in and found rooms crammed with about 50 machines used to copy CDs and make counterfeit versions of software like Microsoft Office and Xbox video games. They arrested three men on the spot, who were later released while the authorities investigate the case. “The entire operation was very complicated and risky,” says a person close to the investigation, who demanded anonymity out of fear for his life.

The raid added to a body of evidence confirming La Familia’s expansion into counterfeit software as a low-risk, high-profit complement to drugs, bribery and kidnapping. The group even stamps the disks it produces with “FMM,” which stands for Familia Morelia Michoacana, right alongside the original brand of various software makers.

Helping People Not Good?

By DustinPosted on

Of course, Microsoft is the bad guy again. They started offering Microsoft Security Essentials as an optional update on Windows Updates ONLY if they didn’t have any antivirus software already installed. How this is a bad move for Microsoft, I’ll never know. But, you know how people are… It’s Microsoft, the evil corporation, and they are offering something to its users to help them out if they don’t have protection.

I’m disappointed but not surprised by this kind of sniping. There are many things that you could argue are optional add-ons to an operating system, but security is not one of them. Poor security has plagued Microsoft for a long time, and the buy-it-as-optional-equipment model is one of the causes. It’s as if the car alarm makers of the world wanted a law that new cars had to be sold without any sort of locks or security systems. It doesn’t make any sense.

Kinect News

By DustinPosted on

First, the crew at iFixit has, in true geek form, ripped apart their launch day Kinect. Some awesome shots on how this thing was put together. Second, the $2000 bounty for hacking the Kinect should be claimed by these folks, who have successfully hacked the Kinect system even though Microsoft has said it would be extremely difficult.

The video below shows that a hacker has taken control of the Kinect system, which is a $149 add-on for the Xbox 360 video game console. Kinect allows users to play motion-sensing games without any game controller. The effort was undertaken at the urging of New York-based Adafruit Industries, which offered a $2,000 bounty for an open-source hack. Phillip Torrone of Adafruit provided the video to the Gizmodo gadget blog.

Copy & Paste Coming to WP7

By DustinPosted on

Windows Phone 7’s critics have said that it’s lack of multitasking and copy/paste features made it inferior to the competition. IIRC, Apple and Android didn’t have those features on release (and actually took a while to implement). Well, Microsoft is releasing an update in Early 2011 that addresses these issues, and more.

Microsoft Director of Project Management for Microsoft Project, Arpan Shah, has incidentally revealed in his personal Microsoft blog that copy and paste for Windows Phone 7 “will be available as an update in a matter of weeks (early 2011)”. According to WPCentral the rest of the update is also expected to bring task manager/hub multi-tasking, turn-by-turn navigation, clipboard and SkyDrive support.

Microsoft’s New Tagline: Be What’s Next

By DustinPosted on

While a new tagline isn’t really big news, I think that the first comment on the post hits it spot on. Microsoft has really lost it’s personality lately. I’ve never really thought much of Bill Gates, just never a fan, but he was excellent at bringing up Microsoft. It used to be the brand to hate because of Mr. Gates, their innovation, their personality. Now, it’s hard to pinpoint what Microsoft is all about. They really don’t have a clear vision of where Microsoft is or where they are going, or even who they want to be as a company. Perhaps a visit to the Microsoft campus in Redmond could change my mind.

A lot of companies have tarnished their reputation in many. Outsourcing their support, releasing mediocre products and updates, and just no sense of appeal anymore. Sure, the economy is messed up and they are trying to make money, but sacrificing company values isn’t worth it. I’d like to see company mission statements and how they’ve changed since the companies beginnings.

The quote below is the first comment.

Daniel Kornev

November 7, 2010 at 8:30 pm

Microsoft should really be “what’s next”, not just create a tagline. Tagline is too bureaucratic, and doesn’t reflect real feelings inside the company IMHO.

Still, to have something “real” instead of that tagline, Microsoft needs to have an exceptionally great technical visionary leader. Like Bill Gates, or Sergey Brin, or Larry Page – a someone who will set up a high-level mission, and will build a company, its organization around that mission; will build up an organization around a shared dream.

Eventually, not around money but around dream. Of course there will be money inside, but the big dream will attract great people. No big dream – no great people – no great results.

Dell Goes For Windows Phone 7

By DustinPosted on

Score another win for Windows Phone 7, as Dell has dumped RIM’s Blackberry platform for it’s own Windows Phone 7 device, Venue Pro. While Dell is making a good decision issuing it’s own employees their own product, they are also putting a lot of faith in Windows Phone 7 (which is awesome). The more these big businesses jump in, the more the enterprise and consumer market will trust the product. Expect to see a whole lot of Blackberries on EBay sometime soon!

One benefit of the move, says Dell, is that it will see a 25% savings in its mobile communications. That savings comes from ditching not only the BlackBerries, but RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server for email services. The WP7 platform natively supports Exchange ActiveSync for corporate email. Gladden admits that not all companies would see such significant savings, but points out that SMBs could benefit by getting rid of the BlackBerry servers.

Gladden says that the company plans to offer enterprises a way to pry BlackBerry out of their internal systems and switch to Dell’s new devices and services. “I’m not sure I care as much about the devices as the services,” he said. “There’s a services opportunity that we think is even bigger.”

Steve Ballmer Sells Out!

By DustinPosted on

Steve Ballmer is a sell out. Well, at least with a lot of his Microsoft stock. The big guy plans on selling  up to 75 million shares of stock by the end of the year. That’s a lot of stock, and a lot of money. He claims that he isn’t going to jump ship anytime soon, and it is a personal financial choice. Hey, the guy needs a new yacht, can you blame him!? Why have all that invested, and never touch it.

“Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion,” Ballmer said in a statement on the company’s Website. “I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology to change people’s lives, and I remain fully committed to Microsoft and its success.”

US Air Force Migrating to Windows 7

By DustinPosted on

The United States Air Force is migrating to Windows 7. This is a big deal, and it’s a good sign that 7 is ready for the big time whereas Vista had a very difficult time. It’s about time they upgraded from Windows 2.0… 🙂 Seriously, they were on Windows XP running IE6 and a few on Vista, so getting everything working with 7 and IE8/9 should be interesting and show others that it can be done (and definitely should be done!).

Windows XP users will see more changes. There is good and bad news in this process, said Lord. The good news is that Windows 7 will provide many new features, but the downside is that the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7 will force users to change all of their computer settings. “Just when they have their machines set up exactly the way they want it, we push a change,” he said.

Microsoft’s New Mouse

By DustinPosted on

Microsoft has a new mouse on the scene, with a radical new design. It would probably take some getting used to, and it’s not for everyone, but it does have a nice appeal to it. It does look like it would be a lot more efficient for graphic designers without a tablet to do fine lines.

It’s called the “eVouse” and sports a green LED light whenever in use and by flipping it over and grabbing it like a pen it changes character and instead of working as a mouse, it starts working as a pen instead. The grip is somewhat freaky in the beginning, I can imagine, but it’s one of those things to get used to. Do you remember the first time you ever used a mouse? Well, I could foresee that it’s probably the same thing.