Just a short post to let you know that I have cobbled together an app that pulls in all the latest posts from My Microsoft Life and Typography and Squares. The app was created very easily from Follow My Feed if anyone is keen to make their own RSS reader app for Windows Phone.
You can download the app from the Windows Phone Marketplace.
I have been tipped off about two additions to Windows Phone that are going to arrive with the Windows Phone update named “Tango”. The source for this information has been right before with information they have passed to me; I have no reason to doubt what they are telling me now.
The first piece of information is a fairly small piece but perhaps one that will be welcomed. In Tango Microsoft apparently plans to tweak the design of the media controls in Windows Phone so that it takes up less room on the screen. In the first release of Windows the media player controls were inconsistently placed across the OS but with Mango Microsoft changed this problem with a revised UI for the media playback. However, the new design has received complaints that it takes up too much vertical space on the screen. In Tango the design for the media controls will appear like a notification and therefore take up less space at the top of the screen. I wonder if any Microsoft certifications could help the designers of this.
Sadly I have no images of how this looks but it’s an interesting piece of information and something I am keen to see how it actually looks.
The other piece of information about Tango is perhaps more substantial and it is that the update will supposedly allow users to create “folders” on their start screen. This will allow users to group applications together for a tidier start screen and I would guess quicker access to apps. Again I have no images to show how this feature looks, nor do I have information on quite how this works. I would imagine, though, that the “folder” tile would show notifications from all the tiles held within.
Both of these additions to Windows Phone are things that I have seen requested before so this should please some people. Obviously though until Microsoft actually announce any of this we shall just have to wait and see
MSN UK has just announced a new way to browse photos from Flickr and listen to music at the same time called Visualizer. The music collection from from the UK label Ninja Tune and the photos are matched up with the lyrics of the song. The screen is split into a grid and as the lyrics move through the song so each tile show the current lyric with the background of the grid being a photo from Flickr title with the current lyric.
The visualizer about page says this of the website:
VISUALIZER BY MSN PLAYS 47 SONGS AND SHOWS MILLIONS OF PICTURES. THE LYRICS WITH A TOTAL OF OVER 11’000 WORDS EXPLORE FLICKR AS TAGS FOR IMAGES, THE DYNAMIC SELECTION WITHIN THE SEARCH RESULTS HAPPENS RANDOMLY. EACH TIME A SONG IS BEING PLAYED, VISUALIZER BY MSN CREATES A COMPLETELY NEW AND UNIQUE VIDEO CLIP. ENJOY IT AND USE IT: WRITE YOUR OWN WORDS, PLAY IT WITH A RANDOM SONG AND SEND THE SOUNDING MESSAGE TO YOUR FRIENDS. IT’S GREAT, IT’S FUN, IT’S HIGHLY PERSONAL.
The site has been tailored for IE9 and I believe uses HTML5 to play the music and transition between the photos.
This is not only a fantastic way to view photos from Flickr but it’s equally a great visualizer for a music player. I like the way Zune shows a collection of album art and photos of the artist when playing music but I think that this might be an even better way of showing images when playing music. My only complaint is that when lyrics come in thick and fast the photos from Flickr cycle through far too quickly , it would be nice if it missed out some words and had a slightly longer transition between the photos.
This is well worth checking out and I hope to see Microsoft make further use of this in other products.
One of the few announcements Microsoft made at CES this year was that Kinect for Windows will be available from February 1st, in the US at least, for a hefty price tag of $250. As part of this announcements Microsoft also revealed that quite a few major companies are readying software to work with Kinect on Windows. This may be a topic at the forefront of some upcoming computer classes.
I am really looking forward to what crazy things we will be able to do with our PCs once Kinect for Windows is released, however, I have no plans to buy the Kinect for Windows device. That’s crazy talk, it’s just too expensive. I suppose if there are number of high quality and very useful apps released I could be tempted but I don’t see myself buying this.
Which gets me thinking; if I am reluctant to buy a Microsoft then what about people who aren’t all that interested in Microsoft. Seems to me like it will be a pretty hard sell. There have been no ads for Kinect for Windows and there is certainly no real buzz about it online but if Microsoft want this to sell well then this is the kind of things they need.
I therefore wonder if Microsoft don’t want this to be a consumer device at the minute but more a tool to get developers to build great apps for Windows that make use of Kinect. Developers are going to be more interested in Kinect for Windows than the vast majority of consumer and with such a high price tag most consumers aren’t going to be interested. Obviously developers could use the Kinect for Xbox device but obviously that’s for the Xbox and therefore perhaps not all that reliable for testing PC apps.
To me February seems like a weird time of year to release Kinect for Windows, surely late November would have made more sense. Again it suggests to me that Microsoft isn’t positioning Kinect for Windows as a must have consumer device yet. However, what would make sense is if Microsoft want is releasing the Kinect for Windows hardware in February because its the same month that the Windows Store is being opened and Windows 8 beta will be released. It has long been rumoured that Windows 8 will have Kinect support baked in.
What if Microsoft wants developers to start making Kinect apps for Windows 8’s new Metro interface. Also what if Microsoft wants beta testers to go out and buy Kinect for Windows to look for bugs in the way it is integrated with Windows 8.
If you are interested you can read my thoughts about Microsoft at CES this year over on Liveside.
Sir, I report good things so far from the ambitious “Operation CES”.
As expected Androids were there in numbers to meet us on the battle ground but our allies came in with the heavy machinery. Nokia arrived with the Lumia 900 to fire off some LTE rounds in the Android general direction, this now brings us up to weapon parity with the Androids. The 900 also brings with it 4.3’ deflectors rather than the 800’s 3.7’.
Thankfully though we also had HTC on hand who provided additional LTE cover with their new TITAN II which has built upon the spec of the original TITAN. The new TITAN has much improved optical equipment offering 16MP and it even has 4.7’ deflectors.
Nokia has now mobilised its forces on the North American front after joining us on the European front only a few months ago; the Lumia 710 weaponry will be going online tomorrow. In the near future Nokia will also be backing us up with the Lumia 800 which has proved to be an extremely powerful weapon over on the European front. Nokia announced it’s arrival on the North American front with its leader announcing that “there has been a shift from the Battle of Devices to a War of Ecosystems”. We are pleased to welcome them to this war with us and look forward to further developments in what they are calling “Rolling Thunder”.
We were hoping that Samsung and LG were going to pledge additional resources to the operation but that support has not materialised.
Other good news came just before “Operation CES” swung into action as it appears that several very influential members of the aristocracy appear to have come round to our way of thinking.
Our economy has continued its growth reaching 50,000A a few weeks ago. We are now adding over well over 1000A a month and should be able sustain increasing growth in our economy for the foreseeable future. This kind of growth sees us matching that of the iOS at the same point in their campaign.
Until next time sir, when I hope to be in a position to tell you about our plans for “Codename MWC”.
"The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the Ecosystem War has."
I don’t just want to reiterate the great news coverage that can easily be found across the internet so I thought I’d do something a little different. If you want to know more about Windows Phone and other Microsoft news from CES I’d recommend that you read the Verge, Engadget, Neowin or Liveside.
Update: Sadly it would appear that all these “screenshots”, as good as they are all only concept images. You can see more like them on DeviantArt.
Today I saw some new screenshots from Windows 8 that all come from the Metro part of Windows. Now I don’t know if these images are real screenshots or just a very good concept shot being passed off as screenshots, I do know though that there isn’t really anything in any of these images that makes me doubt their authenticity.
First up are the screenshots of the OS itself which will then be followed by screenshots of the Windows Live app.
The above image is similar to the file explorer on the Windows 8 Developer Preview however I think that the inclusion of SkyDrive as a Library is very important. I imagine that it won’t just be the Metro side of Windows 8 that features this Library but also the traditional desktop too. If SkyDrive is going to be integrated into Windows 8 then this will be extremely significant news. However, without knowing how this computer is set up it might be that a user needs to install the SkyDrive app, that we have briefly been shown off before, to allow the SkyDrive Library to appear.
The next image shows basically the same view but in a different colour, it looks just as good, but here we can see some of the control options that are available to users. It appears that the user has clicked on “home” to be shown these options. Now what interests me is that in this image the small arrow on the right of the “home share view” suggesting that the view of additional options can be collapsed. Also interesting to note is that there are more elements that just “home”. I think what we are seeing here is the Metro version of the Ribbon UI. This is another significant development and might just show how the Ribbon UI can actually look good.
The options available seem fairly simple ones, although I am interested to know what “history” offers and how that will look.
The next image is another very interesting one that I believe shows the Documents Library. It is good to see that the documents have a preview thumbnail of what is in them and I wonder if these animate. For example Word documents might scroll through the text and PowerPoint files could cycle through the slides. What i really like though is the coloured bar at the bottom of the preview image that shows what format each item is. I had wondered how people will be able to figure out what kind a file an item in the Metro file explorer would be but this shows it very easily. I do wonder how limited this feature might be though is only colours are used to distinguish between the different files.
I am not sure that there is anything new in the above image but it’s always good to see more Metro.
The first thing that struck me when I saw this was the the logo that is sitting in the top left of the of the app. That was first used by Windows Phone but now appears that it will be used by Windows too. I’m not sure what to make of it, not sure if it will help Windows Phone or hide it.
Anyway, on to the app itself. I believe this is the Windows Live app which will offer all functionality of Hotmail, Messenger and SkyDrive in one place. This because of the icons in the app bar at the bottom. The app looks good to me and seems to readily offer many of the features that users are going to want all within a lovely Metro design.
You’ll notice that on this image a different icon in the app bar has been selected so now we see the Messenger part of the app. Again this looks good and it appears that this section of the app features pivots that we have come to know and love on Windows Phone with “threads people what’s new”.
I can guess what the Calendar section of this app looks like but I am very interested to know what the SkyDrive section looks like and also what the Office icon indicates. I can’t image that the Metro Office apps for Windows 8 are going to be part of the Windows Live app so it seems a bit confusing to have the Office icon in the app bar. There are of course several explanations for the Office icon but none seem to make complete sense to me. If it’s to show the Office documents stored in SkyDrive then why not have a special pivot in the SkyDrive section. Maybe then the icon offers up basic Office features, just like the Office Web Apps, but I would have thought having free Office apps for Windows 8 would make more sense.
Just a collection of images of Hotmail.
Apparently when users to navigate to Bing using Windows 8 they will see a homepage design that is not all that new but what is new is the fact that the rectangles at the bottom are now true Metro inspired boxes. Before, whenever this design was shown off it was very cluttered with lots of text and whilst being a Metro inspired design it didn’t conform to the Metro principles.
With the launch of Windows 8 it makes sense that Microsoft will update it’s website to fit in with the same Metro look. What we are seeing here is potentially that very design. I have to say that both are great and are far better than the current design on the homepage that is meant to be Metro. I am not sure whether these are just fan made designs or if Microsoft is trialling both of these.
What do you think about these new screenshots? I know I am getting more and more excited for Windows 8. I am looking forward to hopefully hearing more about Windows 8 from CES and I’m looking forward to getting the beta version at the end of February.
Confucius once said:
If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things.
I think that quote sums up my feelings towards Windows 8’s current name. To me Windows 8 is not just a progression of the Windows OS or indeed its brand but it is actually far more than that. When most people think of Windows they see the desktop, icons, a recycle bin, a start menu and a taskbar. That image has been ingrained into what we think of Windows for the past 16 years. It is something you have likely seen every day if you have attended an online school.
However, with Windows 8 that image of Windows will not be correct. Yes, the traditional desktop will still be there in Windows 8 but the initial view of Windows 8 that users will see is the Metro Start Screen. Equally, Windows’ namesake aren’t true windows in the Metro part of Windows 8.
To me there are many ways in which the name “Windows” is not correct for Windows 8. The Metro part of Windows 8 is nothing like what people know Windows to be; no desktop, no taskbar and no windows. Equally it’s not what many perceive Windows to be, it’s fast, it’s got a beautiful design and it “just works”.
The name, Windows 8, will in fact confuse consumers who expect the desktop and even keep some consumers away from being interested in the OS. If Microsoft was to consider changing the name of Windows 8 to something brand new there could have several dangers involved such as scaring people away, a lot of people trust the Windows name.
But to add more potential confusion to the mix it’s been widely rumoured that Microsoft effectively plans to offer two versions of Windows 8; one for ARM devices that only has the Metro part of Windows 8 on it and one for x86 computers that has both the traditional desktop and the Metro aspect. If both ARM and x86 devices are marketed as having the same OS that is going to cause major confusion amongst consumers. The name “Windows 8” would be in correct for both devices as either one would offer drastically different features, capabilities and experiences.
I have spent a bit of time wondering how Microsoft might overcome this potential issue and think the best thing for Microsoft to do would be to treat the Metro part of Windows 8 as a separate part. I know that Metro technically is just as much a part of Windows as the desktop is but when people think of Windows they think of the desktop, the two are synonymous and for the Metro designed Start Screen to appear alongside the desktop will just be confusing.
Therefore I hope Microsoft does something different when it brands Windows 8. What I think would be best is that the new Metro version of Windows 8 that will only feature on ARM devices will have a new name. Where as the more traditional version of Windows 8 that will work on x86 devices should still use the Windows name. Therefore people who want a new “Windows” PC won’t be confused when they get a Windows 8 desktop or notebook PC and equally people who don’t want a taskbar on a tablet won’t be scared off by the Windows name.
If Microsoft were to brand the ARM version of Windows 8 in the same way that they branded Windows then it should probably be called Tiles. However, if Microsoft was to make both tiles and windows I think people might think that it was actually an interior design company and not the world’s leading software company. What in fact makes more sense is for Microsoft to simply call it Metro.
This will allow new devices that only have the Metro UI part of Windows 8 to say that they run Metro and more traditional PCs can say that they run Windows 8 Metro, or Windows 8 with Metro. Metro will be something new, cool and something very different from Microsoft. “Windows” is not the correct name for many of the new features and aspects of Windows 8 and I hope that Microsoft realise that and will allow consumers to see the truth of how good the Metro side of Windows 8 without being put off by the stigma that Windows has. “Windows 8” is not the truthful name for “Windows 8”.
Following along with this idea I would hope that Windows Phone loses the Windows part and adopts Metro. Metro Phone sounds much better than Windows. It could also be used for the name of the next Xbox; how about Metro Xbox or Xbox Metro.
Do you think that Microsoft needs to be careful how it names Windows 8? Do you think that people will be confused if ARM devices apparently run the same OS as x86 PCs when actually they run a new, modern part of Windows 8? Let me know.
Just a short post to let you know that yesterday I was awarded with a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in Windows Live award. I am very pleased and grateful to have received this award. I am looking forward to the coming year being a MVP in Windows Live with so much expectation and excitement around Windows 8 and how Microsoft plans to position Windows Live along side it.
Microsoft describe the MVP programme as:
We seek to recognize the best and brightest from technology communities around the world with the Microsoft® Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award.
These exceptional community leaders come from a wide range of backgrounds. They are teachers, artists, doctors, engineers, as well as technologists, who actively share their high-quality, real-world technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft.
With the MVP Award, we thank these inspiring individuals for representing the voice of thousands in the community through the powerful and independent feedback they give us, and for helping our customers maximize the potential of their software.
Now I guess I need to start saving rather rapidly for the MVP Summit next month.
By the way, I find it amusing that I am now an MSP and MVP. I wonder if I could achieve MCP too, or any other M*P titles that Microsoft offer.
Today the UK teams for Bing and MSN have posted a “year in review” of what has captured the UK’s interest this year. There is some very interesting information in their data and some of their lists are interesting to see what thing Brits were searching the internet for. The pair of teams also published a video highlighting some of the key findings from the year.
I recommend reading the Bing blog post with the information about 2011, however, I would warn you that most Brits only seem interested in celebrity gossip and scandal.
This is something I have been mulling over for the past few weeks and it’s something that might add credibility to rumours of a new Xbox within the next 2 years. This conclusion is formed of some of the facts we know about Windows 8 and the Xbox 360 and also quite a lot of rumour and speculation.
First up what we already know about Windows 8 and the Xbox 360.
Microsoft has confirmed that Xbox Live will be integrated into Windows 8. Now currently it’s not entirely clear what this means; we do know that gamers will be able to play against other people across different platforms (Xbox 360 and Windows Phones), earn achievements, etc. However, there is still quite a bit unknown about this new feature of Windows; for example, it could mean that a user could buy and download a game on the Xbox 360 and then play it on a Windows 8, resuming where they left off from the console via the new Cloud Save feature. Even better it could offer of all the entertainment services that are coming to the Xbox over the next few months, effectively turning a Windows 8 PC into an Xbox 360. This must be a fascinating concept to people working on online video game design classes.
If this is the case then it might be possible that any media app on a Windows 8 PC could surface it’s content in the Xbox Live app/hub (whatever it will be called) and be the main place people are going to go to get entertainment on their PC. Windows 8 is likely to have many more media apps than the Xbox 360 ever will so if Windows 8 is able to replicate the entire Xbox 360 experience and have more apps who would buy an Xbox 360?
However, that might not be the entire picture as rumours have suggested that Microsoft is very close to offering a single ecosystem where developers can write an app once and have it run on the PC, Xbox or Windows Phone with hardly any changes to their code. We know that the new Xbox media apps are being built on a special version of Silverlight, we know that Windows Phone apps are built using Silverlight and we also know that Windows 8’s new runtime environment, WinRT, will offer many parallels to Silverlight. We have already seen Microsoft shown how easy it is to convert a Windows Phone app written in Silverlight to a Windows 8 app. Therefore, it might be possible that any media app written for the Xbox 360 or indeed Windows 8 will be able to run on the other platform too. That would bring the Xbox experience on the two platforms to the same level, then it would just be a case of whether or not people wanted to have all the extra features a Windows 8 PC will offer instead of the more constrained Xbox 360.
Of course there is another issue too, as Windows currently does not support playing of Xbox 360 games from physical discs, although there has been rumour and speculation that Windows 8 might just offer that functionality. This would mean that even users who had a collection of games on disc could just as easily use a Windows 8 PC as their Xbox as actually owning an Xbox 360.
Microsoft is also bringing Kinect to the PC in a big way next year with new hardware especially for PCs, therefore when Windows 8 arrives its likely that people be able to interact with their PC just as easily as they can with Xbox 360 using a Kinect.
As far as I can tell Windows 8 is going to offer an extremely similar Xbox experience to the current Xbox 360 with users able to play games against friends, access a vast collection of media, control the system via Kinect and possible even play older Xbox 360 games using a disc. That to me makes me think that Windows 8 will cannibalise sales of the Xbox 360.
That would seem a very odd strategy for Microsoft to pursue, unless of course they have a few tricks up their sleeve.
There are two rumours for Microsoft could be working on for the next version of the Xbox; a small device that receives all its content via the cloud and has no disc drive, the other device is a “future proof” device that is extremely powerful. I don’t see why both of these devices couldn’t go on sale and I can see how these would combat Windows 8’s potential cannibalisation.
A small, streaming only Xbox would under cut the price of most PCs whilst still offering a great entertainment experience. It could also be Microsoft’s response to OnLive which allows user to play games via an internet connection where their servers are used to play and render the games. This allows the hardware the user owns to be relative lightweight and cheap as all the hard work is done by the servers. If there is one thing Microsoft is not short of its servers, what better use for Windows Azure would there be than powering games? This little console would obviously also make use of Kinect.
Equally I think a very powerful Xbox could also be in the works, something that will offer amazing, “next gen” graphics, probably in 3D, that could only be matched by the very top end of the PC market. The price of this would be competitive with most PCs, only a few hundred pounds.
I also wonder is Kinect 2 will be debuting with the new Xboxes and might remain exclusive to the Xboxes for a few years.
The current rumours for Microsoft to announce or unveil its next generation of Xbox state that the company could do it as early as CES 2012, that’s less than a month away. But it’s more likely that Microsoft will announce it at E3 2012. That suggest that the new Xbox is only 1 to 2 years away which fits in very nicely with when Windows 8 is expected to arrive too. If Windows 8 is released towards the end of next year then it would be on sale along side the Xbox 360 which is probably alright to start with as there might not be a huge selection of different types of Windows 8 PCs. However a year later I would expect companies to be offering PCs that are designed to plug into a TV which would be a direct competitor to the Xbox 360. It would be the right time for a new kind of Xbox to be available for consumers.
What are your thoughts on whether Windows 8 will cannibalise the Xbox 360?
