Microsoft posts

Alright, so maybe I’m being a little cheeky by claiming that this robot is the most fun you could have with Kinect, but quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, it sure beats some of the arm-waving minigames I’ve seen so far. MIT student Phillip Roebbel has hooked up a newly-hacked Xbox Kinect to an iRobot to create the coolest thing that I’m gonna see today – and with any luck, the coolest thing you’ll see, too. By giving the Kinect – which can already and judge terrain and distance – the ability to look and wander around, Roebbel has given it the ability to map its surroundings in 360 degrees, allowing it…

I dunno much about stocks, but I know just enough to know that when someone loud and important (and loud (and most importantly, loud)) sells a crap-ton of them, something possibly suspicious is going down. Maybe. Perhaps. Everyone’s favourite CEO, Steve Ballmer (he’s totally your favourite, right? Of course he is) has spent the last few days dumping over 49 million shares of Microsoft, worth 1.3 billion dollars. I’m happy you’re ever-more obscenely rich, Steve, but… anything you wanna tell us? Windows Phone 7 launches today. You quitting while you’re ahead, or something? Reuters reports…

You may or mayn’t've heard the rumour that Bill Gates secretly uses a MacBook to do… like, I guess, Bill Gates things? Check his Hotmail? What’s even left for Gates to do at this point? I bet he just veggies out and plays Plants vs Zombies on Steam. Either way, seems Gates’ wife, Melinda, has taken it upon herself to quash these clearly fabricated tales of the most scientific fiction, telling the New York Times’ Deborah Solomon last Sunday that not only does Willy not use a MacBook, but that there is a complete ban of Apple products in the Gates’ techno-fortress. Home. I meant home. Check this action…

As much of an advocate I am for competition, I can’t help but laugh on the inside when I see yet another favorable impression of Windows Phone 7. I want to say great things about it. No, I really do! But I can’t! It’s because I know that this is a failure from the start. So before we get into detail about the competition and the hoopla surrounding Windows Phone 7, let’s start with the company that is behind all of the commotion: Microsoft. Microsoft’s Problems Microsoft has an identity problem. If you ask a teenager to explain what Microsoft does, you will, without question, hear them mention Windows….

One point I was curious about among the tidbits regarding the release of Windows Phone 7 is what kind of support Flash will receive. Adobe and Google have been hiding in dark corners together, murmuring about how best to deal with Apple’s threat to both of their business models, but where does Microsoft stand on all that? Turns out Windows Phone 7 contains absolutely no Flash support whatsoever. Microsoft’s Andy Lees, president of the mobile communications division spoke out about Flash on WP7, and insisted it wasn’t a “religious thing”. “It’s not a religious thing; we support standard H.264…

Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 announcement is this infographic, showing how Microsoft has evolved in almost Darwinian style since 1985. All the old favorites are there – Windows 1, Windows 3.11 and of course Windows 95. As an infographics fan, this ticks a lot of boxes for me. It’s huge, for starters. The cute Darwin theme provides some appeal. After that, it’s really just a big image showing the history of Windows. But, you know, it’s still cool and stuff….

In addition to Windows Mobile 7, the platform, Steve Ballmer unleashed nine shiny new phones from various companies such as Samsung and HTC on the world today, and called them Windows Phone 7. Three of the phones will be sold through AT&T in the US next month. Stephen Fry, a self-avowed Mac fan, has this to say about the phone at a launch event in London: “When I got one of these (phones) my first feeling was it’s fun to play with. I have felt enormous pleasure using this phone,” Fry said. “Yes, I love Apple, but I’m not a monotheist. I want biodiversity in this market and all of us that love it should welcome…

Windows Phone 7 is almost upon us and Microsoft is confident that it’s going to catapult them right back into the mobile space. Some aren’t so sure though, including Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. In a recent interview with CNET, McAdam openly disses Microsoft’s mobile efforts, claiming that there are three players in the mobile space, RIM, Google and Apple. Interestingly, the last in the list is also a company Verizon doesn’t currently carry, but that might change soon if rumors of a Verizon iPhone prove to be true. When asked about Microsoft, McAdam says Verizon likes Microsoft, but when pushed…

This is just downright cartoonish. In an attempt to stay relevant, Microsoft, as you’re probably already aware, has been at work opening a chain of retail stores to do battle in the IRL with Jobs and Friends. But this is perhaps no bigger a pissing contest than in the Mall of America, where Microsoft is opening a store less than ten meters away from the Apple Store – directly across the hallway. I’d really like to see how this turns out. The new Microsoft store is utterly enormous (as you’ll see in the video below), and it will be interesting to hear tell of how – or if – Redmond’s presence affect’s Apple’s…

After the reasonable success of Windows 7, and long after the train wreck that was Windows Vista, PC users are keeping it old school, sticking with Windows XP as their operating system of choice. If you use a computer for anything other than gaming or to see how many hertz you can eek out of the latest Intel CPU, you know the pain of change. Change means uncertainty, and the one thing people want from a device their business or personal communications rely on is certainty. As a nerd, Windows 7 is a modern, attractive and capable OS, but depending on the task XP is still more than enough for the majority of…