Microsoft 3D desktop with Kinect concept revealed

Microsoft may be currently prepping Windows 8 for the world, but it has still found time to allow all of us a peak at what is to come in the near future, showing off a 3D desktop concept which uses Kinect functionality.

Shown off at its TechForum, the bods at Microsoft Research explained that the 3D-enabled desktop uses a see-through Samsung OLED screen and a Kinect sensor – combined they create a virtual desktop that can be controlled by swipes and gestures.

This isn't the first time we have seen a see-through OLED display from Samsung - it was also shown off in one of the company's own future-focused promos, where it was part of a flexible tablet concept.

Kinect, the best a man can get

According to the developers of the desktop, the Kinect sensor tracks all sorts of movement, including head and eye movement, as well as hand gestures.

Although the screen is 3D a normal keyboard is used for typing – so the desktop concept isn't completely motion-controlled.

It does look as if the future of desktop computing, however, is decidedly mouse-free.

Say what you want about Microsoft, the company has always been open about its future technologies – even if some of them never come to fruition.

We can only dream that Apple will one day operate the same way, but for now it looks as if Cook and co are very much working on their upcoming projects in a room with more security than the Pentagon.

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGa1Q7NvsI0#%21

Microsoft Demos Windows 8 on 82-inch Touchscreen

Microsoft is talking a lot about the importance of touch input to the Windows 8 experience in everything from tablets to high-end desktops. To show just how far you can go with touch, Microsoft demonstrated a PC running Windows 8 connected to an 82-inch touchscreen that can support up to 100 touch inputs (or 10 simultaneous users).

Gallery: Microsoft Demos Windows 8 on 82-inch Touchscreen

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Microsoft Demonstrates Windows to Go

Windows 8 supports installation to removable flash media via a feature called Windows to Go. Your apps, settings, and OS can all be installed to a USB stick and you can easily move that between platforms. Microsoft demonstrated Windows to Go by booting a USB stick with Windows 8 on a desktop PC that had Windows 7 preloaded on it. After the demo, Microsoft removed the Win 8 USB stick and booted a laptop using the same drive.

Although it won't be the most performant solution, Windows to Go can be an interesting solution to quickly deploying on new hardware on enterprise clients.

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Microsoft reveals a 'more accessible' Windows 8

Microsoft's president of the Windows Division, Steve Sinofsky, has revealed a number of new accessibility features in Windows 8, explaining in a blog post that the new range of features will make Windows 8 better for everyone.

Sinfosky points out that there are a number of key features that have been addressed in Windows 8 that should make it easier for people with disabilities to use.

These include improving the assistive technologies within Windows and providing better developer tools that have accessibility built in.

Broad spectrum

"Windows 8 is a product we design for an incredibly broad spectrum of people around the world," said Sinfosky in his blog post.

"One of the areas where we have worked to deliver an even greater level of innovation is in ensuring that Windows 8, particularly the new Metro style experience, is accessible to everyone regardless of their physical abilities."

Some key Windows features have been improved, with the blog explaining that the Narrator element has been updated with user feedback and new languages, as has speech recognition.

Another key feature that has been improved is the screen magnifier. This has been given a touch makeover so users are able to control the feature completely from the edges of the screen they are viewing Windows 8 from.

Head over to the Microsoft blog now for more information on how Windows 8 is shaping up in terms of accessibility – especially if you are a developer looking to get in on the action - and be sure to also check out our hands on Windows 8 review. And if that's not enough for you, you can watch our Windows 8 preview video below too.

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Gary Marshall: Should Microsoft save the Start button?

According to The Verge, Windows is about to lose something precious: the Start Orb, better known as the Start button.

We're already familiar with the new, touch-optimised, orb-free Windows 8 Metro interface, but it looks like the Orb's getting booted from the traditional desktop too.

There's no doubt that many people would like to see the back of it - we've had comments of the "OMG LOL YOU HAVE TO PRESS START TO SHUT DOWN YOUR PC BUY APPLE BUY APPLE BUY APPLE" variety since it was introduced in 1733, and there's no doubt that Metro looks much more modern and friendly than the ageing Windows UI.

But in the whoosh of Microsoft throwing out the bathwater, some people think they can hear the waaah of a baby.

Stopping Starting something

The rumours, I'm sure, are right: Microsoft has been making Windows 8's interface more Metro-y for some time, and killing off the Start button makes sense from that perspective.

The thing is, though, Microsoft isn't killing it: it's hiding it. When you move the mouse to the bottom corner the Orb magically appears again. You'll still be able to access the Orb from the Start key on your keyboard, too.

If we were living in a time of great pixel shortages, where gangs of graphics card manufacturers fought in the streets over packets of stolen pixels, hiding the Start Orb might be a great advantage.

However, we aren't, and as a result all that's really going on is that Microsoft appears to be making the classic Windows desktop a little bit more confusing, choosing to hide a key part of the user interface. Maybe once we get our hands on the Consumer Preview we'll think the new way is fantastic, but right now it looks like a step backwards in user-friendliness for no real benefit.

• Windows 8 beta: new features to expect

According to Windows boss Steven Sinofsky, "people 'in the know' who valued efficiency were moving away from the Start menu, and pinning their frequently used programs to the taskbar so that they could access them instantly in one click."

Program pinning is handy, but you can't pin everything to the taskbar or things start getting silly - and if you're in legacy mode rather than Metro mode, surely you want Windows to work like Windows always has?

Sinofsky says that the old Start menu is bad because it provides access to lots of programs and features people don't use very often, but for some of us that's exactly the point: we *like* having something that provides access to the things we don't use very often.

I'm imagining Sinofsky as a crazed vivisectionist here, cutting up cats and gluing their heads onto horses to make the cats better at showjumping.

Maybe, like cats and horses, Metro and classic Windows are best kept separate. Anyone fancy FrankenWindows?

Microsoft defends the Windows desktop

Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky has defended the Windows desktop, as the company looks ahead to a vital year for the grand old Operating System.

Speaking to TechRadar last week, Sinofsky outlined one of the key new Windows changes: the transition to work on ARM chips.

Windows on ARM (WOA) is a huge departure for Microsoft – it has previously focused on Intel's x86 platform – but the transition to new chips will not see a move away from the now familiar Windows desktop.

Touchtop?

In a blog post, Sinofsky outlined just why the Windows desktop would not be sacrificed any time soon, insisting that it was a compromise too far as touchscreen devices become widespread.

"Some have suggested we might remove the desktop from WOA in an effort to be pure, to break from the past, or to be more simplistic or expeditious in our approach," he blogged.

"To us, giving up something useful that has little cost to customers was a compromise that we didn't want to see in the evolution of PCs.

"The presence of different models is part of every platform. Whether it is to support a transition to a future programming model, to support different programming models on one platform, or to support different ways of working, the presence of multiple models represents a flexible solution that provides a true no-compromise experience on any platform."

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Considering the considerable interest in Windows tablets there is clearly still a desire for a desktop, and Microsoft is aware that familiar user interfaces are as much about serving up what a consumer expects as clinging on to the past.

TechRadar's hands on: Windows 8 review discusses the difficulties in balancing a traditional desktop and the touch-friendly modern Metro UI that runs over the top of it.

And even if that transition is still a little clumsy, it seems that ditching the desktop would be a step too far for many - including the team at Microsoft.

Microsoft Provides Windows on ARM Details

We've known that Microsoft has been planning an ARM-compatible version of Windows since well before we knew anything else about Windows 8, but the particulars have often been obscured both by unclear signals from Microsoft itself and subsequent coverage of those unclear signals by journalists. Steven Sinofsky has taken to the Building Windows blog today to clear up some of this ambiguity, and in doing so has drawn a clearer line between the version of Windows that will run on ARM, and the version of Windows that will run on x86 processors.

Up until now, we've operated under the assumption that a new version of Windows called Windows 8 would be released this year, and that it would run on both x86 (32-bit and 64-bit - throughout this article I'll use x86 to refer to both architectures) and ARM processors - Sinofsky's post makes it clear that the ARM version of Windows, officially referred to as Windows on ARM (WOA), is considered to be a separate product from Windows 8, the same way that products like Windows Server and Windows Embedded share a foundation with but are distinct from Windows 7. Windows on ARM has a "high degree of commonality" and "very significant shared code" with Windows 8 - much of the user's interaction with the OS will be the same on either platform, and much of the underlying technology we've seen in our Windows 8 coverage so far will be present in both versions, but they're distinct products that will be treated differently by Microsoft.

This post is quite lengthy and represents what is likely to be our best look at WOA for at least a little while - we'll get to see some of its features in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview when it is released at the end of the month, but for now Windows on ARM is only being tested internally, and on customized hardware that will be sent to some developers and hardware partners at about the same time. It will be a little while before we see anything remotely similar to shipping hardware.

The Windows Desktop, Office, and x86 Apps

One of the biggest recurring questions I've seen about Windows on ARM is whether the standard Windows desktop would be available for use on those devices as it will be on Windows 8 machines - the answer is yes, it definitely will be. The desktop can be invoked from the Start screen, and once there users can perform standard Windows Explorer operations, launch the desktop version of Internet Explorer, and other tasks either via touch (for which Explorer has apparently been optimized) or via keyboard and mouse input. The desktop will only consume resources when it is launched, meaning that there are no performance or battery life implications for users who stick with the Metro interface for everything - the desktop is there if you want it, but one of Microsoft's stated goals with the Metro interface is to make it so that you don't need to use the desktop as a fallback.

Microsoft will also be bundling versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote with Windows on ARM systems. These Office apps will be a part of the new Office 15 family of products (suggesting, but not guaranteeing, that we may see a full x86 version of that suite before the end of the year as well), but will be touch-optimized versions of the applications rather than ports of the standard suite. The Windows on ARM products will "maintain fidelity" with their x86 counterparts (meaning that a file created in Word or Powerpoint on an x86 machine will look the same on an ARM machine), but will otherwise be redesigned to fit the platform - an early version of Excel is shown above.

That said, Microsoft is firm in its insistence that it will not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86 apps on the Windows on ARM desktop - apps can only be downloaded and installed through the Windows Store, and only apps written to target the new WinRT APIs can be distributed through the store (however, the store will be able to distribute and update both ARM and x86 versions of apps in the event that the app uses any code native to either architecture). Microsoft suggests that current Windows developers should be able to take significant bits of their existing code and wrap them in a Metro layer, but acknowledges that bringing over existing apps will require a bit of work - WinRT is clearly the wave of the future where Windows is concerned, but it'll be up to individual developers to decide how, when, and if to bring their programs over.

Supported Devices and Release Date

Windows on ARM is being written to run on ARM SoCs from NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, and it will only be available on devices designed to run it - you won't be able to buy a license for Windows on ARM and install it on an existing tablet, or a tablet designed to run Android. Microsoft is working with partners to deliver compatible hardware, and the company's goal is to start shipping devices running Windows on ARM at the same time as x86 devices running Windows 8 (currently slated for late this year).

In addition to SoC type, Microsoft will have a set of broad guidelines for Windows on ARM tablets that are similar to those for current Windows phones (the "chassis specification," in Microsoft parlance) - likely a set of supported screen resolutions and a list of required hardware devices designed to provide a middle ground between the uniformity of the iPad and the diversity-to-the-point-of-insanity of Android tablets. On Windows phones, these requirements are in place to give consumers some choice while also limiting developer headaches and ensuring a standardized look and feel across different devices from different manufacturers - the requirements for Windows on ARM will have the same aims, and we'll talk a little bit more about some of the hardware that will be common to WOA devices later on in this post.

In treating Windows on ARM as a separate product, Microsoft has left itself some wiggle room to let its release date slip without holding up Windows 8 (wiggle room is very important to the post-Vista Windows team, and they generally don't give hard dates unless they expect to be able to hit them). Microsoft obviously wants to ship before the end of the year because, let's face it, they don't want to give Apple, Google, Amazon, and the rest another holiday season all to themselves, but at this point in the game a botched or half-baked release in time for Christmas could actually be worse for Microsoft's market and mindshare than a well-executed release a few months later. Expect a concurrent release with Windows 8, but know that Microsoft hasn't yet completely committed to it.

When it is shipped, Windows on ARM should come as a single edition of Windows from a feature standpoint (though the company notes that no decisions regarding new Windows product editions have been finalized) - Microsoft promises to "adjust the features ... such that [WOA] is competitive in the marketplace and offers a compelling value proposition to customers of all types." That doesn't tell us much, but I think we should expect the consumer-oriented features that you'd find in a Home Premium version of Windows along with business-minded features (like domain joining and device encryption) thrown in to increase WOA's appeal to enterprises. Whether the decision to ship a single Windows on ARM SKU will have any effect on the x86 version's army of different editions remains to be seen.

Drivers, Updates, and Hardware

So, since Windows on ARM will only be available on devices designed specifically for it, Microsoft can actually keep track of what hardware WOA devices are guaranteed to be using. This means that all software, from OS patches to device firmware to specific drivers, can and will be distributed using Windows Update. Apple has achieved something similar in OS X - Macs are many and subtly varied, especially when you take multiple model years into consideration, but ultimately there is a finite set of hardware in the field, and Apple can keep every Mac in use up-to-date with drivers, firmware, and OS updates through Software Update, rather than the broad array of different first and third-party updaters required to patch those separate elements on an x86 Windows box (and I promise that I'm just comparing the two to give you a frame of reference, not because I consider one system to be inherently superior to the other).

To reduce the number of drivers it will have to keep up to date, Microsoft is relying heavily on "class drivers" to support hardware in both WOA and Windows 8 - for those of you just tuning in, a class driver is designed to support all hardware manufactured to certain standards, rather than targeting specific devices. They're why you can freely plug in different USB keyboards and flash drives to a Windows computer and have them recognized by the machine without needing to pop in a driver disk first.

A lot of the work Microsoft is putting into class drivers is also applicable to Windows 8 - we've already looked at new class drivers for USB 3.0 controllers, mobile broadband chips, and motion sensors, and we should also see class drivers for printers, Bluetooth, Embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) storage, and drivers for different busses and input devices (like the Windows, power, and volume buttons).

Where Microsoft can't create class drivers, it's trying to enforce some common specifications - WOA devices will all have DirectX-capable GPUs and drivers, which will power Metro apps, the Windows UI, and GPU acceleration in Internet Explorer among other things. This baseline has enabled Microsoft to improve on the fallback software GPU driver to enable a nicer-looking display on devices without a specific driver (and also for system diagnostic and information screens). This new soft GPU driver will also be available in Windows 8, where it will replace the standard VGA driver that has been a part of Windows for just about as long as Windows has been around.

WOA systems will also require UEFI firmware and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) hardware across the board to support its secure boot and data encyption features, both of which will also be available to Windows 8 devices with the correct hardware (TPMs have been used to encrypt hard drives with BitLocker since Windows Vista and UEFI is slowly replacing BIOS in OEM PCs, but Windows 8 should push the adoption of both in a wider range of computers).

Conclusions

To see what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows on ARM, the most applicable template to examine is the one the company followed with Windows Phone 7. In both cases, Microsoft is entering an established market where competitors have established footholds through very different strategies (in each case, Apple and its tighty-controlled iOS on one end, Google with its infinitely malleable Android on the other, and a few other competitors fighting for scraps in between) and has tried to forge a middle path. Windows Phone 7 has been a bit of a slow starter because of Microsoft's low profile in the smartphone field and because of some lackluster handsets, but the platform has some very vocal fans - if the company can achieve a similar balance in Windows on ARM and get it to market on competitive hardware by the end of the year, that (combined with Android's relative weakness in the tablet market so far) might just be enough to establish Windows as a major player in the tablet space.

As usual with these Building Windows post summaries, I've relayed and distilled the most pertinent information for Windows users and enthusiasts here. If you'd like to read the full post, which also includes some details about how Microsoft is testing Windows on ARM in its labs and some of the more technical details involved in "porting" Windows from x86 to ARM, it is linked below for your convenience.

Source: Building Windows 8 blog

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Microsoft Discusses Windows 8 Accessibility Improvements

After last week's broad, sweeping post about Windows on ARM, the Building Windows 8 team is back to discussing the nuts and bolts of the operating system - today, Microsoft's Jennifer Norberg discusses enhancements made to accessibility tools in Windows 8. Chief among the new announcements is a set of baseline accessibility requirements that Windows Store apps must meet before being declared "accessible."

These requirements, which mainly focus on presenting information to users in a clear and simple fashion, can be implemented mostly through standard WinRT-supported languages like HTML5, JavaScript, XAML, and others. Apps created using project templates in Visual Studio Express use code that is already "accessibility ready," and the program's IntelliSense feature can also be used to type (and declare) accessibility information more quickly as you code. Once a developer's app is deemed "accessible," it can be marked as such in the Windows Store to make it more easily searchable.

Microsoft has also made efforts to give developers consistent APIs to use when programming Metro-style apps - the company says that developers (both of standard apps that need to use accessibility features, and of apps designed themselves to enhance accessibility) should be able to depend on on the "UI Automation" accessibility API to communicate with Wndows' accessibility tools more seamlessly than in the past, when developers would sometimes have to code their own methods and workarounds into their programs.

Other enhancements focus on improving on existing technologies: the Windows Narrator, which reads text on the screen back to the user, now performs better, includes additional voices and languages, can be configured to speak more quickly or slowly, can read more content on pages loaded in Internet Explorer, and can respond to user customizable keyboard commands. Narrator can also be invoked during Windows Setup to help with out-of-box setup or an upgrade install, and vision-impaired users on touch-enabled devices can have Narrator read what your finger is touching before activating it.

The Windows Magnifier, another existing tool, has been adapted to work better on touch-enabled computers - it can now be invoked by pressing the Windows logo key and the volume up button, which zooms in and brings up on-screen borders that can be used to change your focus.

The full post, which is linked below for your convenience, covers these topics in greater depth - read on if you're interested.

Source: Building Windows 8 Blog

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Microsoft Office 15 technical preview opens

Microsoft has launched its technical preview of Office 15, promising a full public beta this summer.

If we were building a new version of Office, we'd probably give it an exciting codename like Office Excalibur or Office Opossum – you know, something that stays with you while subtly bigging up the product (do not underestimate the opossum).

Not Microsoft though – no, Ballmer's babies have gone with the thoroughly unimaginative Office 15 which tells you nothing but that it'll probably be, you know, more of the same.

Save your party poppers

But perhaps we're wrong about that: "I'm not able to share too much about Office 15, but I can tell you Office 15 is the most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office Division," blogged PJ Hough, CVP of development, Microsoft Office Division.

And by that he means that the software will be capable of simultaneous updates of cloud services, servers, mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project and Vision. Doesn't it sound exciting?

We're also expecting full Skype integration into the new version of Office, video editing, some potential new apps, Metro-inspired styling and a thoroughly appropriate name like Office 2012.

We won't be hearing too much from the technical preview though, as all customers testing the early builds are bound by non-disclosure agreements.

Still, we're sure you can control your excitement until the public beta this summer – something which surely means a Windows 8 release date is not far behind.

Microsoft Office 15 Reaches Technical Preview Milestone

Apart from a few screenshots leaked early last year, not much was known about the next major release of Microsoft Office codenamed “Office 15”. However, as of yesterday, Microsoft has announced that "Office 15" has entered into Technical Preview, with the public beta slated for a summer release.

The technical preview is currently open only to a select few outside Microsoft under a non-disclosure agreement.  Last time around, prior to the launch of Office 2010, people had a chance to sign up for the technical preview. However, this time, Microsoft seems to have taken a less public approach for choosing potential candidates for the technical preview.

In any case, the technical preview means the suite should most-likely be feature complete and relatively stable to let end-users try it out. Details on what’s new are scarce right now, but it could be fair game to expect some Metro-esque updates to the UI, aligning the user experience with other products such as the Xbox Dashboard and Windows 8.

Microsoft is calling "Office 15" as one of the most ambitious undertakings for the Office division, promising a simultaneous update to all its Office products and services across all platforms for the first time ever.  

Either way, it should be interesting to see what new features and enhancements make their way into Office 15. Personally, I would like to see deeper integration with Microsoft’s cloud services such as Office 365 and Skydrive, allowing for easier sharing and collaboration.

Office 2010 brought to the table several new features such as the controversial Backstage View, a consistent Ribbon UI across the suite, and lots of minor enhancements in every app. However, it was by no means a must have upgrade. I guess we’ll have to wait for the public beta to see if "Office 15" fits that bill.

Source: MS Office Blog

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Microsoft profits stagnate as Windows sales fall

Microsoft has announced company record revenues for a single quarter, but profits are slightly down on the same period last year.

The Redwood-based giant reported total revenue of $20.89 billion for the Q2 2012, which is up five per cent on the previous year's figure of $19.95 billion.

However the company's bottom line has fallen ever so slightly with quarterly profits of $6.62 billion compared with the $6.63 billion it reported for the three months ending December 31st 2010.

Microsoft delivered 78 cents in earnings per share

Windows loses will sting

Perhaps more pertinent for CEO Steve Ballmer will be the 6 per cent reduction in Windows sales to $4.74 billion. However, with Windows 8 out later this year, the company should be able to bounce back in 2012.

"We delivered solid financial results, even as we prepare for a launch year that will accelerate many of our key products and services," said Ballmer.

"Coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show, we're seeing very positive reviews for our new phones and PCs, and a strong response to our new Metro style design that will unify consumer experiences across our phones, PCs, tablets, and television in 2012."

The business sector, which includes Microsoft Office, was up 3 per cent on last year.

Bing closer to profitability

In some better news for Microsoft, the Bing search engine is edging somewhat closer to being a profitable entity for the company.

In the last quarter, the division only lost $458 million compared to $559 million a year ago.

Microsoft Office coming to iPad, says report

Microsoft is 'actively working' on bringing its Office suite of apps to Apple's iPad, according to a report from The Daily.

The iPad-only newspaper says a string of updates are on the way, which include Office for iPad, a new version for Mac OS X Lion and Office 2012 for Windows 8, which is currently in Beta form.

However, it's an adaptation for Apple's tablet that'll really make the headlines, with the Daily predicting the cost of Word, Excel and Powerpoint will be 'significantly lower' than the full version of Office.

Apple's iWork suite, which includes apps like Pages, Keynote and Numbers, have proved popular and Microsoft's offering is set to be around the same £6.99 standalone pricepoint.

Office 365 compatible

The Daily's report claims that the iPad suite will also be compitable with the Office 365 cloud solution.

According to the article, Office for Windows 8 and Office for OS X Lion will arrive near the end of 2012, but Office for iPad will be on the scene a little sooner.