It’s been a while since some real news about Windows 8 made rounds. The next Microsoft OS is expected to have some drastic improvements and better features. In some of our earlier posts about Windows 8, we’ve covered some of the features being developed into Windows 8. Now Microsoft has rolled out some new information about how the Windows Explorer in Windows 8 will look like. The Ribbon UI is now an integrated part of the Windows [File] Explorer, packed with some useful tools for file management.

The Ribbon UI, well used and appreciated by users since it was first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007, will bring forward some of the basic and important but hidden Explorer features by making them ‘always available’ in the Explorer. 

The goals of the new Windows Explorer, as stated by the Windows 8 blog can be precisely stated:

Video Conferencing experts Lifesize have become one of the few qualified to integrate into Microsoft Office Communication server 2007. Microsoft OCScustomers will now be able to utilise video conferencing during their meetings all in HD.

Which products are supported?

Not all Lifesize products can currently be integrated into Microsoft OCS and similarly not all versions of Microsoft OCS will support Lifesize products although the major versions of Microsoft OCS are supported. The list below shows which versions of Microsoft OCS are supported by Lifesize products:

• Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 R1 (v3.0.6362.0)
• Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 R2 (v3.5.6907.0)
• Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R1 (v2.0.6362.0)
• Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 (v3.5.6907.0)

To date only the Lifesize Team 220 range of video conferencing products are supported but Lifesize are mentioned their intention to bring support to their whole range of video conferencing products.

What features will it include?

The integration will bring a unified contacts list adding Lifesize and Microsoft OCS contacts into one, easily manageable list. In addition to this, it will bring additional security features such as the ability to authenticate and encrypt data for secure communication as well as incorporating Microsoft Edge to bring a high end Firewall/NAT traversal service.

Standard definition video conferencing will be supported via the H.263 and G.711 video and audio codes and HD video conferencing will be supported via the H.264 and AAC-LC video and audio codes.

What does the future hold?

Lifesize are currently working on introducing compatibility with other Microsoft products and in particular with Microsoft Lync Server 2010 (RTM). Interoperability with this product is expected to arrive some time during the back end of this year which means we will no doubt be hearing more from these two companies soon.

At the D9 conference today, Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s Windows Chief demonstrated the new ‘Metro’ interface of the next version of Windows – Windows 8. Along with the demonstration, an introductory video was also released (embedded below) that shows the sleek Windows 8 interface in action.

The Windows 8 start screen features several easy to use, touch friendly, live-tiles for navigation. The interface is a seamless mix of classic desktop and the Windows Phone’s mobile interface. Although, Windows 8 is made specifically for touch based input, it falls back gracefully when keyboards and mice are used. The widget-like applications like weather, stocks, etc. are powered by Internet Explorer 10.

The smoothness and swiftness at which the applications launch and operate (as shown in the video) is definitely worth a praise. The Start Menu has been replaced by a tile-based screen which is completely customizable. The live-tiles act as a continuous notification system displaying up-to-date information from the installed apps. Multitasking has been made easier with resize and snap to the edge of the screen. Also, the hardware accelerated IE10 browser uses HTML5 to run advanced web apps.

Hardware requirements

You’d be happy to know that Windows 8’s hardware requirements are the same as that of Windows 7. If your computer runs Windows 7, it will run Windows 8 in all its glory. However, there are a couple of minimum requirements:

• The minimum screen resolution required for the new interface is 1024×768. Windows 8 will fall back to classic desktop on lower resolutions. The recommended resolution is 1366×768 or higher.
• Microsoft has some recommendations for the tablet devices related to edge to edge glass and first pixel sensitivity.

We will keep you updated with the latest Windows 8 news as they emerge. Here’s the video showcasing the new Windows 8 User Interface revealed by Microsoft:

Today, Microsoft acquired Skype, for a whopping $8.5 Billion, all in cash. Both companies initially remained silent, but then confirmed. Microsoft stated that the technology behind Skype will be integrated within XBox, Kinect, Xbox Live, Outlook and Windows Phone.

Microsoft is not as good as (say Google when it comes to acquisitions. There have been many misjudged calculations the software giant committed in the past. The fate of the acquired companies and services was, euphemistically saying, ‘not good’. This is not to say that the quality of those services was bad, but rather the mishandlings with them at Redmond are to blame for the most part. Skype, in particular, is an excellent service. GigaOm even compared it with Cisco’s and Google‘s proprietary v-chat services. It has a handsome 663 million user base, out of which 170 million are regular users and 8.8 million paying customers…but that’s about it. Skype is not (and never was) a cash-cow. It hardly break even last year and also has $686 million worth of debt on its head.

So all that’s left for Microsoft to leverage upon is the fact that Skype is a much respected VoIP phone system with a huge user base. Besides, Windows Phone 7 desperately needs to stand out in the smartphone chaos. And Skype, on the other hand, had owners and investors desperate for an exit. The deal couldn’t be smoother. But will the end-user benefit? Does the average Joe really cares about who owns the software he uses? I’d say, yes. The end user will benefit. But only a fraction of it; the ones using Windows Phone Devices, specifically. Sure, it’s a bold statement but somebody has to make it. The reason is that, Skype‘s video chat technology is far advanced than Microsoft‘s and the latter knows it. You’d rarely come across someone describing how awesome video chat on Windows Live Messenger is, or, if I may say, Windows Live Messenger itself is. I am sure Microsoft must have understood by now that it has an ‘Anti-Midas’ touch. Anything it tries to improve, ends up being mediocre and botched up. In a situation like this, it would be dumb beyond imagination for Microsoft to even touch the insides of Skype. But stay assured, it won’t. Sure there will be heck of integration process going on in the coming months to make Windows Phone (and other Microsoft devices) capable enough to compete with Apple‘s FaceTime and Google Voice but the desktop version wouldn’t see any major overhaul.

It turns out that the real winner in the Skype deal was Microsoft and Skype investors. For the end-users, the deal makes no difference. Like I said, a small fraction of Windows Phone users will rejoice, but hey, if they are Windows Phone users, they’d probably rejoice at anything Microsoft throws at them. If in case, Microsoft does something outrageous like integrating Skype with MSN or shutting down Skype altogether, it will certainly be a major blow to end-users and eventually to Microsoft. There are fat chances of anything like that to happen though, one reason being Microsoft wouldn’t churn out $8.5 billion to just shut down a service. But then, the next question arises, isn’t $8.5 billion an insanely huge amount to improve one particular feature on a mobile platform?

[Image credit: Reuters]

Windows 8 development is in full swing as new builds are being released regularly for Microsoft‘s esteemed OEM partners. A series of new features are being implemented, screenshots of which have been ‘leaked’ over the last few weeks. As of now, the leaked builds have demonstrated the Metro UI (codename ‘Immersive’) welcome screen, Explorer Ribbon, an improved task manager, auto Aero colorization and History Vault. Let’s see them in detail.

The Metro UI Welcome screen / Ribbon UI for Windows Explorer:

Rafael Rivera of WithinWindows leaked a screenshot of the new Metro styled Welcome screen seen in the latest Windows 8 builds. The build also shows that Microsoft is currently experimenting with the Windows Explorer with the addition of the Ribbon UI.

The orange dots are placeholders, obviously. New icons will replace them after a complete UI make-over. Microsoft is in the process of replacing the menus and toolbar with the Ribbon UI as they’ve done so in Office. This will help accessing items rather quickly but at the risk of Explorer look a bit more cluttered. In the 2nd screenshot, do notice the ‘Dynamic Ribbon’ that pops up when files are selected or Libraries are viewed. The Ribbon UI will be customizable and can be hidden. [Images credit: Rafael]

Modern Task Manager:

Recent builds also include a brand new Task Manager. It looks like it’s going to have a lot more features, which forever was a need. The Modern Windows Task Manager will provide even more information on currently running applications, services, processes and resources than it currently does. The UI uses different colors and decent-looking graphs to indicate CPU consumption, memory usage, etc. Even more so, the new process list (2nd screenshot) will be touch-friendly, strongly indicating that many other features in Windows 8 will be touch friendly as well. These images were leaked by Mydigitallife forum users.

Automatic AERO colorization:

Wouldn’t it be nice if Windows could automatically change a window’s aero-border color to match your wallpaper? Well, this is the new customization feature that Microsoft is planning to implement in Windows 8. In the recent builds, the automatic color selection has been added in the Window Color and Appearance section.

This nifty control automatically identifies the dominating color in the wallpaper and sets the Aero border accordingly. Rafael Rivera demonstrated this feature.

History Vault:

Apple users will probably call this a blatant copy of ‘Time Machine’ but I don’t think Microsoft cares about that. It follows the tradition of coming late to the party and winning it. Reports are coming in that Microsoft is developing an advanced back up utility called ‘History Vault’. This utility will help users backup important data automatically and restore individual files to a specific time.

History Vault will reportedly use Windows’ Shadow Copies function. In short, the History Vault will be a super-set of Back Up utility, System Restore and Shadow Copy along with some enhancements and better GUI.

Needless to say that the user interfaces will improve over time and will be different from those shown in the screenshots above.

Stay tuned for more Windows 8 news and updates.

Microsoft has actually offered the President of United States, a cool Windows Phone 7 for free.

Today, FOX news published a story regarding President Obama’s disappointment with lack of ‘cool’ phones in the Oval Office. Casually pointing at the need for technological innovation, Obama said,

The Oval Office, I always thought I was going to have really cool phones and stuff. I’m like, c’mon guys, I’m the president of the United States. Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.

This was more than enough for the PR guys at Microsoft to grab the opportunity to push their product and please the president. @MicrosoftEMEA audaciously tweeted, 

"Hey @BarackObama, we hear you want a cool phone – how about a Windows Phone 7? We can send one your way! http://fxn.ws/eflCNx #WP7"

Although not mentioned, it is implied that Microsoft is ready to offer the WP7 phone for free. Microsoft is really keen on marketing Windows Phone 7 be it through online promotions, print media or TV commercials. A lot has been showcased in MIX11 about the new features and enhancements coming up in WP7 this year via the ‘Mango’ update. The above tweet is just another example that Microsoft wants to leave no stone unturned to make Windows Phone 7 a success.

On April 1, Google called its bluff that Gmail Motion is real. It was one of many Google‘s April Fool pranks that deceived even the most seasoned techies. But the guys who previously hacked Microsoft Kinect by developing a program called FAAST to make Kinect work with World of Warcraft, couldn’t resist the urge to bring Gmail Motion to life. Well, they succeeded.

They developed a program called SLOOW (Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving) that uses Microsoft Kinect to capture users’ gestures and body movements to perform tasks similar to those shown in Google‘s Gmail Motion video.

It’s amazing how a handful of hackers (or rather geniuses) can pull off something like that in a matter of few hours.

Microsoft has reportedly released Windows 8 build 7971 through Microsoft Connect to some selected OEM partners. The exact build number is 7971.0.110324-1900 which means it was deployed on 24th March 2011 at 19:00 hours. It was labeled Windows 8 and Server vNext Pre-Release and was an invitation only download.

Now today, in a completely different event, a MyDigitalLife user Vlad62 posted a screenshot (which looks pretty authentic by the way) showing Windows 8 Installation Progress on a Windows 7 system. Here it is (click to enlarge) –

The screenshot clearly shows that Windows 8 will make extensive use of the MetroUI. Heck, even Microsoft.com has been redesigned to look more Metro-y. Windows community has already started skipping heart-beats. What about you?

We will cover more Windows 8 news as they emerge. So stay tuned.

Microsoft has just released the 9th incarnation of most widely used browser in the world – Internet Explorer 9. After over a year of developmentand a few pre-release versions and betas, the final product went live on March 14, 9pm PT.

Thankfully, IE9 is the most standards compliant browser in its lineage which is a great relief to web-designers and of course to users, too. It has been developed from scratch and has far better features and enhancements than its predecessor IE8. With speedy performance, hardware accelerated graphic improvements, compliance to HTML5/CSS3 standards, better UI and touch support, enhanced security and strong integration with Windows 7, IE9 emerges as a powerful competitor to Firefox 4 and Chrome.

If you are using IE8 or, god forbid, IE7 or IE6, it is very strongly recommended that you upgrade to IE9.

Download Internet Explorer 9 (Final version)

Reports are coming in from Bloomberg that Microsoft has decided to discontinue its media player line – Zune with immediate effect.No new hardware releases are planned and much of the attention will now be on integrating Zune’s functionality with the recently launched Windows Phone 7 platform.

Generally speaking, in the last couple of years, Microsoft‘s assumptions and actions have failed miserably in this fast-changing-web-savvy-post-PC world. Their products, somehow, don’t seem to deliver much value to the end users. They always end up being mediocre compared to the competition. It had to prematurely end many of its services and products in desperate attempts to stay relevant. First it was Kin and now, Zune.

Microsoft Zune has always been an underdog and never received the hype that the Microsoft expected. Back in 2006 when it was launched, it created a stir albeit mostly among Microsoft fanboys and presented itself as threat to Apple’s iPod. Now it’s not that Zune was not feature packed; it was all about music with a really fresh interface. The software was simple and worked great with the device. It was worth spending money and several million people did too. But the competition was way to massive. Even the Zune HD failed to blow a hole in iPod’s popularity.

Microsoft has decided to streamline everything with Windows Phone 7 and integrating Zune’s technology with WP7. As for the hardware, Zune HD (costing $179 for a 32GB one) is the latest out there and will always be. I suppose it will receive software updates from time to time but that’s about it.