Tagged: Microsoft

November 23, 2012

My Windows 8 review

I have been following the development of Windows 8 from the get go, just as I have with most of the other Windows releases in the past. And I was excited about it being released to consumers in some kind of beta stage.

Windows 8 Metro Screen — Windows 8 Start Screen

I had a good 8 month with it now from the Consumer Preview to the Release Candidate all the way to the final product and in general I like it. But let’s take it from the start.

Installation

Installing Windows 8 was a very painless process, especially when you are used to installing previous versions of Windows. Simply select the drive you want to install in on and it will do the rest.

I installed it on my 6 year old laptop, that recently got upgraded with a bit more RAM and an SSD drive and it is as fast as you can expect it to be.

Metro

Is it still called Metro? I got a bit confused with all the backwards and forwards. No it’s not. Call it Windows 8!

To get to the point – I don’t like the Windows 8 Start screen on my non touchscreen Laptop at all. When you have a lot of software installed on your laptop, there is a lot of scrolling left and right involved. I found myself reverting back to typing, which actually works really well. On the Windows 8 Start screen just start typing on your keyboard and all programs installed that fit the criteria will be sorted in real time.

I found that I spend a lot of time on the Desktop and I pinned all my frequent apps to the taskbar there, so I don’t have to go back to the Windows 8 Start screen.

One thing that I found really annoying are the Live tiles on the Windows 8 Start screen. At the office I still use messenger a lot to communicate with people that sit on the other side of the office. The Windows 8 messenger app comes with Windows now and is a native app that has its live tile and when you receive a new message you can see a little popup in the top right corner of your screen for a second. Now if you would have missed that and you are like me, spending most of your time on the Desktop, you won’t even know that you got a new message as there is no indication. Remember the old messenger app turning orange in the taskbar? So i ended up installing the old version of messenger.

Speed

I am sure it helps that I run everything of my SSD drive, but it seems that Microsoft really optimized everything regarding speed and I am liking it.

Windows Explorer is much nicer when you are copying lots of files all the time as you get a lot more information, you can pause and restart copy processes and if you run multiple at a time they nicely line up. The task manager is better structured and more intuitive and I personally like that Aero didn’t make the cut.

TaskManager and Copy — Copy process and Task Manager

The Start Menu

By now you are probably aware that Microsoft retired the Start button in Windows 8 and personally I think it was a mistake for business use. I was ready to switch back to Windows 7 until i discovered a little app called Classic Shell (here). You might have noticed that I have a start button in my screen shots and that is Classic Shell.

It basically behaves like your current start button, but is highly customizable. Since I installed it, I haven’t looked back. It also disables the Windows 8 Start screen on startup, but you can turn that off if you want.

You get all the new features of Windows 8 with the feel of Windows 7.

Conclusion

All up I am enjoying Windows 8 now that i found a way to get my start button back (and I am not the only one, Samsung included their own in some of their Win8 laptops) and I was able to turn off the Windows 8 Start screen.

Now I am not saying the Windows 8 Start screen is wrong, I am saying that it works on touch devices, but not on Desktops that you would use for business. I had a chance to try it out on Microsofts new Surface tablet and it works well there as it is easy to swipe and “pin” programs to a quarter of the screen etc.

If you have had your own experience, please let me know in the comments what you think of it.

@maniac13

March 27, 2012

future touch screens have no lag

Most touch panels and controllers today suffer from about a 100ms delay and while most people got used to it, I still find it really annoying.

And so does Microsoft as they are putting money into the task of getting rid of that lag. Microsoft Research has figured out a way to get the delay down to 1 ms.

check out the video below to see the difference.

Pretty awesome and I can’t wait to see this technology going mainstream and into all kinds of touch devices.

@maniac13

March 21, 2012

The Hunger Games and HTML5

How do those 2 fit together you ask? Microsoft has teamed up with Lionsgate to show off the latest HTML5 techniques (movie-like effect: stream, lens flare and video projections) and to promote IE9.

Check it out here

I had some issues getting onto the page, but I think it is because it is making the rounds in the internet and everybody is checking it out.

Nevertheless it is a pretty nifty and beautiful site and you have the ability to connect it to your facebook and your friends appear on billboards and screens.

The site also gives you some exclusive movie content and there are 2 easter eggs that reveal 2 never before seen clips.

1. In the Control Room you can type in “ivolunteer” on your keyboard after clicking on the map section
2. In the Avenue of Tributes you can click on Katniss and then Peeta to reveal a clip from the training center

I can’t wait for the movie to come out as it looks great and it looks like HTML5 is being pushed to its boundaries on this site.

Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it.

@maniac13

January 10, 2012

Control Windows 8 by looking at it

I am very excited about the forthcoming Windows 8 and I have been playing around with it since the Developer Preview was released.

We have a big touchscreen in the office here so it is perfect for the Metro UI, but I have to say that the mouse interaction on a laptop without a touchscreen is very average.

Along came Tobii and at first you think it is just another gimmick, but everybody on the net who has actually tried it is blown away by it.

Tobii comes with an eye control device, a rectangular glass obilisk that is attached to the hinge of the laptop. It requires a personal calibration and off you go. It also controls all the swipe gestures available in Windows 8.

But enough said, check it out in the video.

here is another video of it in action

can’t wait to try it out

@maniac13

November 23, 2011

Microsoft announces new Kinect Hardware for Windows in early 2012

Since the announcement of Kinect for Windows at the start of November, many have asked if there will be PC-specific Kinect hardware coming. Microsoft confirmed today that there will indeed be a new Kinect device for Windows PCs.

Simple changes include shortening the USB cable to ensure reliability across a broad range of computers and the inclusion of a small dongle to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals. Of particular interest to developers will be the new firmware which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters. “Near Mode” will enable a whole new class of “close up” applications, beyond the living room scenarios for Kinect for Xbox 360.

The full press release contains more details including the announcement of new support and mentoring programs for Kinect development.

Expect the new hardware in early 2012.

~@bradyohalloran

September 13, 2011

Free your mouse (or your desk)

having worked in IT before and now working on lots of cool emerging technologies and experiences, I always seem to have multiple PCs on my desk that I am simultaneously working on.

At some stage I had 4 keyboards and 4 mice on my desk and no more space for my lunch. So I am constantly looking for solutions for that and I have played around with software and hardware KVMs. Most of them are buggy and the hardware ones just add too many cables to my desk.

Today I came across a little tool build by a developer in the Microsoft Garage project called Mouse without borders.

Simply put it is a software kvm that can connect 4 of your PCs that are on the same network and you can use your 1 keyboard and mouse for all of them.

A simple installer and setup process and you are up and running. It works quite seamlessly and you can easily configure the location of your physical machine – just drive your mouse out of the screen towards the next and it will appear there.

Other feature are copy and paste, drag files across

you can download it here and try it for yourself.

let me know your thoughts in the comments.

@maniac13

February 27, 2011

Microsoft Research shows off the life after touch

By now we all experienced kinect one way or another and I personally really enjoy my kinect at home.

Kinect has been talked and hacked a lot and most people can see much more in it than just a game controller.

Looks like MS Research is thinking the same thing and in the video below they are showing off some cool things, like head tracking, glasses free 3D, gesture based interfaces and more.

As we all know from past experiences, these may or may not happen, but right now they are pretty cool.

thanks engadget

@maniac13

February 15, 2011

Kinect, Xbox Live and Windows Phone 7 – the future

this is a little video how Microsoft is envisioning Kincet working with Windows Phone 7.

Looks to me like my wife will have a lot of fun with that one

@maniac13

January 25, 2011

Amnesia Razorfish Announces Gesture Sharing for Smartphones and Tablets using Microsoft Surface (Press Release)

Amnesia Razorfish today announced the launch of Amnesia Connect – a software breakthrough, which allows instant and seamless sharing and transfer of any content such as photos, music or embedded apps between multiple handheld devices using a Microsoft Surface table using a single gesture.

Launched today, Amnesia Razorfish Connect can be viewed at: http://vimeo.com/18859503 and there is more information on the software at: www.amnesiarazorfish.com.au/

Amnesia Razorfish Connect has been developed entirely in-house at Amnesia Razorfish by the creative and emerging technology teams.

Following months of research and development, Amnesia Razorfish has replaced the typical ‘send and receive’ interface with a more natural ‘gesture-based’ interface. A smartphone owner can now move their content freely between two devices by simply dragging content off their phone onto a Microsoft Surface Table and back onto another device instantly.

Amnesia Razorfish Founder and Executive Creative Director Iain McDonald said: “The previous barriers which stood in the way of getting content on or off your phone have been completely removed with this software.

“In the past device integration like this has been mainly confined to Hollywood movies or smoke and mirror demos, so we set ourselves the challenge of making it real.

“It took a while to crack, but the result speaks for itself – all the buttons are gone and sharing content is now completely instinctive. In a world where smartphones are becoming omnipresent, this kind of software opens another world of ideas for brands.”

The smartphone user can transfer new free or commercial content from the table by dragging it directly to their phone with a single swipe – then before full transfer takes place, a preview instantly visible as a live motion tracked ‘lens preview’ through the phone display – similar to an X-ray through to the table.

For example, in less than a few seconds a photo can be taken on one device and dragged effortlessly onto the Surface table and then directly onto another device running on Amnesia Connect software.

“The new software promises a range of new possibilities for the retail and hospitality industries in particular. In the near future we envisage a Smartphone user being to complete commercial transactions for both physical and digital content,” McDonald said.

The Amnesia Connect software works with all Apple IOS devices and is being further developed to work seamlessly with Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry Smartphones.

Amnesia Razorfish Connect utilises a range of technologies including Wi-Fi, proximity detection, unique ID and phone accelerometer, depending on the type of phone and location.

For in-store transactions, NFC (Near-Field-Communications) has been proposed as one of several possibilities for payment transactions, although a pre-authenticated user account with credit card details could also be used.

Amnesia Connect has also been developed to work with the new Microsoft Surface 2.0 table, that was announced at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show.

Amnesia Razorfish Managing Director Michael Buckley said that Amnesia Connect is available immediately for the agency’s clients to utilise in projects and added existing clients that had seen the application were ‘very excited’.

Follow @amnesiafish on Twitter.
PS: Ask questions in the comments below – we will do our best to answer them!

Continue reading →

January 7, 2011

CES 2011 and here are my favourite things

As usual everybody seems to be waiting to announce their new products at CES and this year hasn’t been any different.

And again we are overwhelmed with information from everyone and blinded by all the new shiny products. I will have to get a 2nd job to be able to afford all the new gadgets I want now.

So below is a list of my favourites from the CES this year that I found on different blogs around the internets (maybe one day I will be able to go there in person)

So here I will be showing you tablets, 3D stuff, Microsoft hardware and some other cool stuff I came across

Continue reading →