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Microsoft to Give Us a Better iPad than Apple
Microsoft’s Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer, told attendees at Microsoft’s annual partner conference that Microsoft was serious about a Windows 7 tablet coming out soon. At the conference in Seattle, Washington, on Monday, Ballmer tried motivating attendees by telling them that the tablet is being constructed by about twenty manufacturers right now.
“New Windows-powered tablet or slate devices — small, hand-held, wireless computers — are in the pipeline from Acer Inc, Dell Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Toshiba Corp, Sony Corp and a dozen other PC makers,”
Ballmer also claims that the Windows 7 tablet will be the most important product they come out with recently. The slate or tablet is probably their most important product because the iPad might seriously affect Microsoft’s PC desktop or laptop sales. In just about three months Apple has already sold 3 million iPads. However, Ballmer wants to take Microsoft in a different direction by playing up its board room compliance as well as fun multimedia features. CrunchGear reports that Bill Gates said the iPad was :not quite there yet.”
Microsoft didn’t say anything about the number one PC maker, Hewlett-Packard Co., or their plans to build a tablet-like device running a Palm operating system. Nor did they acknowledge any of their own recent problems with projects like the Kin cell phone.
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Google, Make Me Happy Again!
The new iPhone has made Android owners feel inferior and not so special anymore. However, Google Labs has just launched a new tool to invent your own applications. What’s more fun than creating your own applications? My Easy-Bake-Oven was my favorite toy when I was little and it seems we never grow out of having fun creating new things.
The App Inventor software is still just in Google labs, but is ready and available for use. It allows a user to create an application for Android powered devices. Released on July 12, the App Inventor makes cell phone owners more involved in the applications. As cell phones become more and more advanced, they become more and more like computers. So, it is important to increase user involvement and user knowledge.
Google is proud of this new tool’s easy to use features for all ages. It has been in development for a year already and tested on students, professionals, non-programmers, even sixth graders. Google believes the tool is a good first experience of computer programming for these children. Exposure to simple and fun computer programming is beneficial to kids in the long run.
Also, Google hopes that by opening up its applications’ invention to more and more creators, it will even up with Apple’s app store and maybe even surpass it. Android phones are definitely a forerunner in the smartphone market, but they are also well behind the iPhone. And while Apple’s app store has strict rules and regulations on the apps they provide, Google does not. They are hoping this access and freedom will attract more users and app inventors.
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Not Just Wireless but also Mouseless
It may be pointless to state, but technology is constantly changing and evolving into more efficient and practical tools. Computers have gone from huge and inaccessible to lightweight and portable. As well as portable, there has been a large movement toward wireless everything, e.g. wireless internet access, a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. Well, now a group at MIT has developed a wireless, mouseless mouse.
Using an infrared camera and laser, Fluid Interfaces Group and Pranav Mistry have developed a mouseless mouse for a computer. It requires the user to cup his or her hand as if there were a physical mouse present underneath. The infrared laser creates a surface that will pick up your hand movements and clicking gesture. Then, paired with the infrared camera, the mouse will move on the screen, click, and right-click as if you had a traditional mouse.
The recently developed Magic Mouse from Apple featured a multi-touch surface that allows scrolling, zooming, and clicking with different hand gestures. Pranav Mistry’s invention is another monumental development. There is room to expand the mouseless mouse’s gesture library in the future to include and exceed the capabilities of the Magic Mouse.
Unlike the Magic Mouse, the mouseless mouse will not be limited to the physical hardware when gesture capabilities are expanded. The mouseless mouse will be able to support unprecedented movements and capabilities. What’s even better? Pranav Mistry built the prototype for only $20 meaning the final product won’t be out the roof. Check out the video here demonstrating the mouseless mouse in a pretty entertaining and creative way.
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Microsoft’s Newest Phone Cut After 48 Days
You probably saw a commercial or two for Microsoft’s Kin cell phone recently. Well, not too recently since Microsoft discontinued the phone after only 48 days on the market because of such low sales.
The Kin was geared toward young adults and teens who love social networking. The phone plays up easy social network access like Twitter, Facebook, even MySpace. It also featured a loop of friends that you are directly connected to, i.e. follow their tweets, status updates, etc.
I found it curious that I would see tons of commercials at home that made the Kin look decent (something appealing to social-media-crazy-teens) and yet never saw any articles or reviews on any of the big name tech sites. The phone regretfully did not catch the eye of enough teens or young adults either. All the advertising for the phone came from Microsoft’s large ad budget for the Kin. And that obviously wasn’t enough.
It probably wasn’t the best idea to release the smartphone right around the set release dates of the iPhone 4 and the Droid Incredible. While the Kin does have a unique look, it cannot compare to the iPhone craze and its huge apps store resource.
Even though discontinuing the phone may have been the best option for Microsoft, it is completely out of their character. Like the Windows Vista or Internet Explorer, Microsoft tends to hold on to projects (however awful they may seem) and improve them over time. But this time the product was cut off after only 48 days!
Maybe Microsoft was so okay with shutting down the new phone because the next Windows phone is in the works and could potentially come out by this fall. Microsoft said that all Kin employees would be reassigned under the Windows Phone 7 development.
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3D Scanning and Printing
Three dimensional innovations have come a long way in recent years and a relatively new product may make duplicating 3D objects a possibility for households. NextEngine’s Desktop 3D Scanner allows you to scan a free standing three dimensional object into your computer and then edit, shrink, blow up, or just play with the object using the ScanStudio software. The company was established in 2000, so they have had ten years to perfect their product. The scanner is now available for just under $3000. The least expensive competitor I could find was still about $7800! Paired with a Dimension 3D Printer, complete object replication is possible. Theoretically, you could make a copy of this Roman statue to put with your collection, and not risk hurting the original.
The NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension’s 3D printer are both aiming their ads toward household buyers. NextEngine’s Scanner is compact and priced for the common tech-savvy family. Dimension’s printer is small as well, but still large enough to create an object 8 inches tall. The 3D scanner by NextEngine does not have a size limit because it does not have to encompass or rotate around the object being scanned. 3D printing is an impressive process. It is amazing to watch a piece of machinery that is so smart.
Three dimensional technology has come such a long way over the years but for it to be available in homes is still a huge jump. One day, instead of printing out a boring paper report for your child’s 5th grade science project, our children will be designing science projects on the computer and then making 3D copies to hand in at school. Or maybe they will use the software to build giant Lego statues, like one person did.
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New Chrome Gets Integrated Flash
I absolutely hate it when I’m looking around the Internet for something specific but when I finally find it I have to update my flash player to see it. I think we can all agree that is one of the more annoying aspects of Adobe’s Flash. Chrome browser has attempted to resolve that issue. The new update to Chrome 5.0 has flash player integrated into the browser itself. That means any updates that need to be made to your flash player are done when you update your browser.
Google mentioned a possibility of an integrated flash player over a year ago, but after fifteen months of not seeing any follow through we all forgot about it. Google announced the browser update on the Chrome blog last Thursday, June 24. The update will also solve numerous security issues seen in the last Chrome browser 5.0.
When Google’s Chrome browser passed up Safari last week, there didn’t seem to be reason behind the shift. I suspected that a new update might have helped push the browser into third place, but didn’t know any specifics so I couldn’t be too sure. The availability of an integrated flash player may confirm my theory with this new update. I will admit, the thought of not updating my flash player every time I try to watch a video or see a block of text on a website. Chrome 6.0 is still in the development stage.
It seems that Google released the stable version of this browser update only a day after releasing it in Beta version (according to their blog). Maybe Google was convinced the new version of Chrome was perfect or maybe they felt they needed to hurry it to stable status for users. Either way, it is available now and will make your Internet browsing less annoying (hopefully).
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