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?

Michael Dell: HP should keep making PCs

Dell's CEO, Michael Dell, has made a subtle swipe at HP's deliberation over leaving the PC market.

During his speech at Oracle Open World, Dell made it clear that his company had no intention of abandoning PCs.

"There are many reasons to stay committed to personal computing," said Dell.

"It seems these days not everyone is so totally committed... [HP] used to say the computer is personal again. I guess you might take that personally if you brought a PC from them."

Componos mentis

He went on to point out that 95 per cent of processors, disk drives and other components go into PCs, with the remaining five per cent going into storage and servers.

Because of HP's immense buying power, its decision to leave the market could lead to huge price hikes from component manufacturers - which would affect both customers and PC manufacturers.

"Give up that scale and you need to raise your prices," commented Dell.

HP has yet to make a decision on the future of its PC business, with new CEO Meg Whitman aiming to have a firm answer by the end of October.

Whitman replaced CEO Leo Apotheker, who was booted out after suggesting HP leaves the PC business.

Whatever decision Whitman comes to, for now it looks like HP will still be manufacturing computers at least in the short term - even if the division is spun off as a separate company.

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Opinion: Why you should buy a 3D PC monitor - and it's not for 3D

Why you should buy a 3D PC monitor

What started out as a small whine - a barely audible fizzing whisper in the background - has now become an unmistakable rushing noise. Soon it will be a deafening roar.

I speak of the air rapidly escaping from the 3D bubble, and by that I'm referring to stereoscopic 3D, not 3D graphics rendering.

Of course, you wouldn't know it from the relentless onslaught of 3D-enabled products. Whether it's tablets with 3D cameras or smartphones with lenticular screens, the sheer momentum of 3D freight train will keep pushing new gadgets and devices down the product-release track for a while yet. But never mind bursting bubbles and runaway rail vehicles, the point is that the 3D revolution is over before it's really begun.

By all accounts, sales of 3D-capable HDTVs are already on the wane. Meanwhile, even the marketing might of Hollywood can't convince punters that 3D movies are the next big thing.

On the whole, 3D movies have tanked. Even when they do score, reports suggest movie-goers prefer the 2D version of 3D movies at a rate of two to one.

Still, there's at least one unanticipated benefit for the PC platform in the form of improved LCD monitor image quality. All the 3D hype and hoopla might just have been worth it after all.

Lack of progress

The problem with PC monitors, you see, is a lack of technical progress and choice. Yes, really. The huge array of panels at your local PC store, all plastered with stickers proclaiming unimaginable feats of image rendering, is an illusion. Take a closer look and you'll soon discover that the LCD monitor market has largely concentrated around a very narrow set of specifications and technologies.

Put simply, almost every remotely affordable monitor has a TN panel with a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. TN panels are the cheapest, but also offer the poorest results by every image quality metric save pixel response. Meanwhile, that 1080p native resolution may be plenty for £100 worth of 22-inch screen, but it's a lot less satisfactory extended to 24-inch and beyond.

As it happens, the latest 3D-capable monitors don't address any of that. They too are almost exclusively 1080p TN screens in various sizes, but what they do deliver is 120Hz refresh rates - double that of a standard PC monitor. It makes an enormous difference.

Find that hard to believe? I'm right with you. Bigging up high-Hz refresh rates is one of the more odious marketing strategies used to flog HDTVs, and the benefits of 200Hz over 100Hz are pretty marginal.

Moreover, if you do the maths based on the pixel response of a modern PC monitor, increasing the refresh rate beyond the standard 60Hz seems futile. After all, if the full white-to-black response rate of most LCDs is roughly in the 15ms region, anything above 60Hz ought to be fairly redundant. The LCD panel simply won't be able to respond quickly enough.

Then there's the debate over how many frames per second the human eye can truly perceive. Modern cinema remains at just 24 frames per second. It's true that projectors with triple-shutter blades are commonly used, resulting in 72 images per second, but the number of different images displayed per second remains 24, which is enough for fluid motion.

A lovely thing

It's all fascinating stuff, but what I can tell you with absolute certainty is that a 120Hz monitor is a lovely, lovely thing. Suddenly, everything you touch or tweak with the mouse pointer moves more smoothly. Your whole PC feels more responsive. It's an absolutely unmistakable effect, and once you've experienced it for the first time you won't want to go back.

Let me be clear about this - I'm not talking about dancing around the virtual battlefield of a popular online game and appreciating the benefits in terms of improved hair-trigger responses. I'm talking about juggling windows on the desktop and scrolling web and document pages - routine stuff we all do every day.

That's all very well, you might be thinking, but slightly smoother computing is no big deal. To which my response would be: try it before you knock it.

I personally didn't expect the increase in desktop refresh from 60Hz to 120Hz to be perceptible, much less beneficial. In fact, if it wasn't necessary to run the desktop at 120Hz (rather than merely running certain applications at increased Hz) in order to test some of the latest 3D gubbins on the PC, I likely would not have noticed the difference.

But it is, and I duly did. Now I need a new monitor.

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Cloud Sourcing the Corporation: Strategies You Can Use 100 Vendors You Should Know (Paperback)

Cloud Sourcing the Corporation: Strategies You Can Use 100 Vendors You Should Know (Paperback)
By Ben Trowbridge

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The existing technology market is being destroyed to make way for the new, faster-moving cloud services world. But an immature market provides both opportunities and pitfalls for today’s CIO. Cloud Sourcing the Corporation provides a holistic perspective on the evolving cloud services market and acts as a guidebook for IT executives on their journey toward the cloud. Included in the book is the Cloud Sourcing 100 index (www.cloudsourcing100. com), the first exhaustive review of the emerging cloud services landscape with classifications and ratings. Read more

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