When Steve Jobs introduced to the world the iPod for the first time, the crowd instantly knew a hit was in the hand of this CEO. No one really knew, though, that it would change the world. Today, everywhere you go, you can spot a biker, jogger, walker, and even an illegal use of the white headphones in the ears of a driver (at least illegal in here in California.) White cords dangle over just about everyones cloths today. The iPod changed the world.
Microsoft will do the same with Surface. With its advanced and broad feature set, commercial customers will take the brunt of the high price for the high appeal factor and through these purchases, bring down the price to a more affordable consumer price range fairly quick. Once the consumer market starts tapping into the table, the glass is sure to break open. What person doesn’t want the ease of setting your digital camera on the Surface and have it automatically download the images and instantly show you your images right there on the table? With its easy editing, filing, and even forwarding as an e-mail all with your fingers and gestures, sans a keyboard and mouse, many families and bachelors alike will surely justify the cost of purchase. Heck, Grandma may be even sell her Caddy in the driveway to grab one of these!
While I don’t see the Zune integration taking off too much, anything’s possible by the time these become common in living rooms across America. (Yes, I’m inferring that Zunes may become popular and usable with this. 
) Dragging and dropping songs from your music library to your Zune (maybe an iPod, too?!) is pretty darn sweet!
While the iPhone is sure to be a success, Microsoft has not done bad with its Windows Mobile platform and blending PDA use with Surface is just brilliant. To, again, drag tickets from a movie you looked up on the table and then have driving directions all import into your PDA that is sitting on the Surface is just how technology is suppose to work in the future…now.
Now I know most tables of America hold nothing more than feet and magazines and thus the complication lies with the Surface. But I think habits can be changed and I think Microsoft can change the world with its Surface if it plays its cards right. If Microsoft doesn’t kill it before it even clears the gates (no pun intended) like it did with the Zune, Surface has a great chance at becoming a great icon in technology history.
In Bill Gates last hurray project, Microsoft announced it’s $10,000 piece of furniture. Yup, ten big — huge — ones for a table! But this isn’t like any table you’ve seen before and it’s one you probably won’t want Uncle Fred putting his feet up on or Grammy’s tea set placed on the top of this table. What makes this table special is that it’s touch sensitive and much like the iPhone, it allows you to control everything on-screen with just your fingers and gestures…and even objects! The 30-inch display called Surface is a technical breakthrough without a doubt and is that very digital hub Steve Jobs keeps talking about! Irony on who has brought it to the world though, huh? 
Microsoft describes Surface likes this:
Microsoft Surface puts people in control of their experiences with technology, making everyday tasks entertaining, enjoyable and efficient. Imagine ordering a beverage during a meal with just the tap of a finger. Imagine quickly browsing through music and dragging favorite songs onto a personal playlist by moving a finger across the screen. Imagine creating and sending a personal postcard of vacation pictures instantly to friends and family, while still wearing flip-flops.
Surface also features the ability to recognize physical objects that have identification tags similar to bar codes. This means that when a customer simply sets a wine glass on the surface of a table, a restaurant could provide them with information about the wine they’re ordering, pictures of the vineyard it came from and suggested food pairings tailored to that evening’s menu. The experience could become completely immersive, letting users access information on the wine-growing region and even look at recommended hotels and plan a trip without leaving the table.
Due to the high price tag, you’ll first see Surface in retail stores and entertainment venues. T-Mobile will use it to allow customers to place a phone on it and Surface will give instant details on the device, its available plans, and cost. Harrah’s Entertainment’s Las Vegas properties, such as Caesars Palace, will allow guests to order tickets to an Elton John concert, browse a menu, and check out the various stores within the Palace.
Bill Gates may have closed the chapter, and book, at Microsoft with an amazing story that might be told for many years to come. The question is, will it be a happy ending?
(Newswire) Companies are being urged to exercise caution in planning for Microsoft’s new 2007 Office system according to a new report from Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.
The report, “Microsoft’s 2007 Office System: Should My Organization Upgrade?” is the first in-depth look at the new 2007 Microsoft Office system, which consists of new and redesigned applications and servers for word processing, spreadsheets, instant messaging, e-mail, mobile work, meetings, content management, online conferencing, and collaborative workspaces.
Basex’s analysts believe that there are good reasons not to rush into an upgrade. Depending on the organization, the minuses may outweigh the pluses.
“Microsoft has released dozens of new and redesigned applications and servers as part of its new 2007 Office system,” said Jonathan Spira, CEO and chief analyst, Basex and a co-author of the report. “Our research tells managers what’s really new and which of these tools is right for their organizations so that they can plan appropriately.”
Shavlik Technologies announced today that Microsoft Corporation has selected Shavlik to provide Microsoft’s customers with vulnerability assessment capabilities for those Windows systems that have traditionally relied upon Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) V1.2.1. Microsoft has retired MBSA V1.2.1 as of April 30, 2007, which currently provides vulnerability scanning and detection for several older Microsoft products not supported by Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
Shavlik NetChk Protect Limited for MBSA is now available for immediate download at no cost to Microsoft customers, and just like MBSA today, will identify needed security updates. Customers will also be able to upgrade to Shavlik’s enterprise versions of NetChk that offer more robust tools for full vulnerability management lifecycle needs such as automated remediation, intelligent patch targeting, and granular policy and compliance reporting.
“Shavlik Technologies was an easy choice for Microsoft to go to for providing continuity in supporting the complete detection for customers who are using some of the older products,” said Stephen Toulouse, Group Program Manager at Microsoft. “Shavlik has an intimate knowledge of security detection requirements since they helped develop the first version of MBSA for Microsoft.”
Shavlik and Microsoft have a history of working together to ensure a more secure computing environment, as Shavlik Technologies originally developed the core scanning and detection technology used as the basis for MBSA. First released by Microsoft as two separate tools back in 2001, as MBSA and HFNetChk, this capability was considered groundbreaking as Microsoft was the first OS vendor to offer network patch check tools.
“We are pleased to be able to continue our security relationship with Microsoft and offer customers solutions that complement and enhance the capabilities offered by Microsoft Update,” said Mark Shavlik, CEO of Shavlik Technologies. “Microsoft and Shavlik have worked together to ensure that we provide users of older products a single, familiar and easy-to-use solution to assess their security state.”
You’ve really got to wonder what’s going on up in Redmond when you hear Bill Gates say he doesn’t “get” the I’m a Mac commercials and Ballmer saying the iPhone won’t get, “Any significant market share. No chance.” Odd how he pointed out to USA Today’s David Lieberman that how he’d rather have 96% of the market than essentially be cool. “Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market?” to which he laughs at his own question. Of course Ballmer answered an iPod question (which by the way Steve, the iPod owns about 90% of the DAP market) with an operating system answer. But the best part is he follows it up with, “I want to have products that appeal to everybody.” Steve, let me repeat Lieberman’s question: “People get passionate when Apple comes out with something new — the iPhone; of course, the iPod. Is that something that you’d want them to feel about Microsoft?” Passionate is a much higher step above appeal.
Ironically, Ballmer basically admits that he wants to be like Apple. No matter how much spin he puts on numbers and applies apples to oranges (forgive the pun, but I had to,) the fact is Microsoft is not doing anything that really does appeal to everyone. Apple is. Sure, Microsoft owns the OS market but does that make it appealing? Heck no! Windows is a love-hate relationship for IT professionals like myself. It keeps us in business but we hate how crappy it is. I tell my customers daily how I work on PCs all day and go home and relax on my Mac at night. It gets great laughs, but man, it’s true! My Mac appeals to me. My PC running Windows of any sort never has. It has been a tool and only a tool. Nothing more. Ever. Tools are something you have to have but you can get stuck with a crappy tool that does the job but man, those Snap On tools — now that’s appealing!
Again, it is funny how Ballmer basically describes all the desireable qaulities of Apple in his dream of Microsoft. I think the top brass is so delusional in Redmond that they really do believe this. The ivory towers have kept them far above the chatter of the serfs and they no longer know what the peasants want. Of course, if they continue to point their deaf ear to the public below, every man, woman, and child will scale those walls and bring Ballmer and his crownies to the same fate that very well known queen in France suffered hundreds of years ago. Microsoft will find itself declining in what it once soared at. Look at Sony. Once the standard in portable music. Who owns a Walkman anymore? Or how ’bout TVs? I once wouldn’t even consider anything but a Sony TV. Now? I won’t even look at its offerings anymore. “Who cares?” I think as I look at the Sharps and other gorgeous plasmas before me at Best Buy.
That day is coming for you, Ballmer. But you know what, with those tongue tricks of yours you posses, Kiss may have an opening for you in its band line up. Well, if you don’t mind some make up and a wig.
Remember all the Mac users giving Windows users flack over Vista’s delay last summer? How everyone said Microsoft promised this and promised that and it once again was slipping? Well, where are all these same people now that Apple quietly announced that it would be slipping it’s next OS X release, Leopard, until October? Not a peep! In fact, some are sticking up for Apple! Please.
Two weeks ago on April 12th, Apple announced to the world that the iPhone had but a slight burden on the Cupertino-based computer company and that it had to “borrow” some engineers from the OS department. The statement read:
iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS® X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us.
If you haven’t taken a drive through Infinite Loop in Cupertino lately, you may have missed the ten huge buildings on Apple’s campus. Now, last I remembered, when I read Andy’s great book, Steve Jobs had little problem churning out the Apple II updates while creating a new department for the Mac back when it was still a dinky company. By Hertzfeld’s accounts, their working space was small and isolated from the rest of corporation.
So why now does Apple with all its millions of dollars for R&D and its claimed work of four years on the iPhone have to steal engineers from one of those ten large buildings? Well, because it doesn’t have to. It’s called the “we never were going to release Leopard in June and now we have a great excuse as to why.” Using the very same tactic Bill Gates and his borgs used in Redmond, Apple now is making statements of delay without remorse. Heck, Apple had even told Michael Gartenberg, analyst for Jupiter Research, a week before its statement of delay that everything was right on schedule. Errg.
After hyping up Leopard and telling Redmond to start its photocopiers, it appears upper-Washington can cool down the toner in those machines and maybe even get its first Service Pack release for Vista out before Leopard makes its prowl onto Macs. Microsoft may have more time than it — we — think.
You know, I don’t have problems with delays and such, things happen, I know that from my day job. But a company of Apple’s caliber doesn’t slip six months due to the development of a phone. Yes, I remember Steve saying the iPhone runs OS X; however, Vista wasn’t delayed due to the release of Window Mobile 5, the CE (Compact Edition) of Windows, was it? Microsoft may in fact be kicking itself now not realizing it could have used that excuse, too. No my compliant is that this is a blatant lie. Curious in light of Steve Woz’s comments in his book iWoz and how his dad instilled that lying was the worst thing you could do. I guess that attribute didn’t rub off on his friend and co-founder of Apple, Jobs, huh?
I’m sorry, after churning out updates in such a quick fashion since the release of 10.0, I just don’t buy the iPhone bit. With the limited amount of features of Leopard we do know about (as I wrote about last year,) this OS should have been in beta when the iPhone was sprung on us in January. Again, at Keynote, Jobs told the world that they had been working on this phone for years. How Tiger ever make it out the door, I’ll never know.
I hope, first, Mac supporters aren’t so quick to point the finger at Microsoft for its delays next time. Ya, ya, ya, I understand that this Leopard first slip; however, it’s the principal of the matter, not the quantity of slip. Second, Jobs should sit down with his old high school buddy and have Woz personally tell him the story about his dad and ethics. Jobs needs a little refresh. Third, Leopard better be amazing or, well, there may be a few pissed off people in the Apple boot camp.
NVIDIA and LG Electronics have recently announced their brand new line of LG Z1 notebook computers which will be equipped with Microsoft’s Windows Vista and the NVIDIA Preface Personal Media Display (PMD). Preface is used to enable Windows SideShow, which gives consumers access to all their favorite things, right on the notebook lid. SideShow can be enabled even when the computer is asleep or powered off, allowing users to see their media playback, calendar, email, slideshows of their favorite pics, all on the notebook lid. The new technology allows the operating system (Vista) to drive displays and NVIDIA’s Preface lets users link to the data/programs they want displayed.
One of NVIDIA’s general managers, John Milner, said this about the new notebooks equipped with Preface technology: “In the consumer electronics market, the line between work and entertainment devices has become increasingly blurred. The LG Z1 with NVIDIA Preface technology allows consumers to get more from the notebook experience—they can be more productive throughout their workday and enjoy personal media along the way.”
The LG Z1 looks pretty slick, what with it’s glossy black exterior and white keyboard. It comes with 1GB of DDR2 memory, an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, a 12.1 inch widescreen display, and of course the secondary screen embedded in the lid, equipped with Preface media platform.
Niveus Media, Inc., an award-winning manufacturer of digital entertainment solutions for the connected home, is one of the first dedicated media center manufacturers to support the HD DVD format and playback of native resolution 1080p (1920 x 1080) movies. The company’s 2007 line of Niveus Media Centers, including the new Summit Series’ Rainier and Pro Series, utilize the Intel® Viiv™ technology platform, and are now shipping.
HD DVD is offered in both of the recently announced additions to the Niveus Media Center line; the Pro Series – n7 & n9, a high performance rack-mount form-factor and the Summit Series – Rainier Edition, a living room form-factor system in a proprietary Niveus aluminum chassis. Both products are designed on the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center platform and include Niveus Glacier Passive Cooling™ and the proprietary Niveus ConvergencePanel™, making for installer-friendly integration.
“We are delighted that Niveus Media, the leading developer of award winning media servers, has announced the release of a media center solution with HD DVD,” said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager, Toshiba America Information Systems, Storage Device Division. “This announcement shows that yet another key industry leader has recognized the advantages offered by HD DVD’s backward compatibility, product feasibility and marketability. We welcome Niveus and look forward to its contributions to a winning format.” Read the rest of this entry »
Even though Bill Gates (as seen here) thought they had an iPod killer a year ago, he now realizes that brown nosing to Hollywood turned out to be a Zune killer more than anything. With the Zunes horrible DRM protection, poor PC software suite, heinous music store, and the bulkiness of the Zune itself, what’s left good to talk about? We previously called it Microsoft’s next Bob (and Infoworld agrees) and now it looks like even Microsoft’s own “Ozymandias” from the X-box team is knocking his boss’ iPod killer.
Andre Vrignaud bought his brother a Zune for Christmas and thankfully for his brother, he didn’t just gift it and run, ’cause it wasn’t an easy iTunes install and sync set up. Vrignaud found that Microsoft’s “most secure operating system yet”, Vista, to be a bit problematic when it came to installing the software for the new Bob, er, Zune. Vrignaud comments on his blog that, “it shouldn’t have been as painful as it was.” Mmm. Once those problems were worked out, then it was off to syncing. Too bad the Zune tried to sync all of the 500 GBs worth of music from Ozymandias’ basement server. I guess Bob — crud, I keeping doing it — the ZUNE doesn’t realize he’s only got a 30 GB drive and somewhere along the line he should inform the Ozy’ man that he’s got a bit more music than the average Bob and it ain’t all going to fit. Unlike iTunes which lets you specify between a full sync or selective sync, Zunes software won’t. Ozymandias wasn’t impressed by this when he goes on to say, “Even worse, there was no option to tell the Zune software to not automatically sync to the entire library - you had to go ahead, cancel the sync, turn off automatic syncing, and then reset/erase the Zune to have any control over what tracks you want on the device. Bah.”
The problems continued after Ozymandias and his brother worked out what to sync. Vista locked up once, the Zune another time, half of an album would only sync at times, and the sync software locked up. All your standard Microsoft features for its iPod killer.
Ozymandias wasn’t all bummed out about his boss’ elated music player as he did love the interface (which I agree is nice) and the ease of use. It was bit bulky for him but overall, he like the Zune itself. I’m sure that impression will be downgraded when he shares an original audio piece from a friend and finds it deleted from his Zune three days later.
I can’t help read Ozymandias’ blog and all the other poor reviews of the Zune and think just how incredibly blind Microsoft was during development of this digital music player (DAP). If Microsoft’s own disses this DAP, then you know it really blew it. Bill Gates was very vocal about how he wanted to create a true iPod killer but it seems that him and his team always had a preconceived idea of what that was and made it instead of what the buying public would want. It reminds me of the Mercedes Benz of the late ’80s when its tag line was mockingly changed by car fans to “Designed by engineers for engineers.” It wasn’t making a car for the regular guy, it made it for a car geek. Microsoft kinda did the same thing, but in this case, it was Hollywood it truly made it for. It ignored the regular guy.
The Zune was ramped up to be Microsoft’s biggest challenge to its competition since Windows95 took on the Mac and OS/2. It may have won that earlier battle, but this time around instead of just copying the competition, it completely lost touch of its consumer base and now will have its greatest upset since Bob.
RICAVISION International, Inc., a leading provider of home digital entertainment solutions, announced the launch of the RICAVISION Microsoft Windows Vista SideShow Media Center Remote Control early this month, which makes use of the Vista SideShow auxiliary display platform to allow convenient access to information received from a Windows Vista-based PC. The Vista SideShow Remote Control has a built-in 2.5 inch color QVGA LCD display that features Class 1 (100-meter) Bluetooth capability. Using Windows SideShow, applications can send data to an ecosystem of devices that can then send control commands back to the application on the PC. For example, an e-mail application can send the last 10 received e-mail messages to one of the devices, or the user can schedule a TV program to record on a Media Center PC.
RICAVISION Vista SideShow Remote Control package is also the only one that comes with an external USB RC6 receiver and with a Class 1 Bluetooth receiver. It turns the Vista PC into a Bluetooth computer capable of receiving data from any other Bluetooth device within a 100-meter range.
The RICAVISION Vista SideShow Remote Control provides a set of four Gadgets that will be an extension of the Media Center for Windows Vista:
• TV
• Music
• Pictures and Videos
• Now Playing
RICAVISION SideShow Remote offers more extensive Gadgets than ever, to enable the user to extract data from the Media Center in Windows SideShow XML format and send it through Windows SideShow to compatible devices, such as a remote control device, an LCD display panel, etc. It will also accept incoming navigation commands from the various devices and send them back to the Media Center. Read the rest of this entry »