Master Chief Scares The Hell Out Of Koreans
Kotaku posted this hilarious video of a guy in a Master Chief outfit scaring the hell out of some South Korea mall shoppers. He stands perfectly still, and then — !
Error 800f020b
If you need a device to be connected to the computer before Windows Update tries to install something, shouldn’t Windows Update ask you to connect it?
Jeez. Talk about stupid software design.
So, today’s lesson: If Windows Update has a Windows Mobile-related update, connect your Windows Mobile device before running Windows Update and leave it plugged in until it’s done.
WarPong!
Lots of people are talking about WarPong, an XNA video game that is a take-off of Pong, only with guns attached to the paddles. The reason they’re so excited? The game was created entirely by a tenth grader from Canada. Really goes to show how easy it is to create games with XNA.
From bits bytes pixels & sprites:
WarPong is exactly what it sounds like, and that’s a very good thing. Think Pong, but armed to the teeth. In addition to bouncing the ball back and forth a la Tennis for Two, your paddle is weaponed up and ready to dispose of the opposing paddle as best it can. Power-ups cause the size of the paddles and their weapons to grow, providing a surprisingly fresh experience for a title that until now had been done to death.
The real story though isn’t about WarPong as much as it is about XNA. Microsoft has been beating their chest about the flexibility and accessibility of XNA for a while now, and it seems as though at X07 they set out to prove it. WarPong, one of three XNA demos on show at X07, was developed by a 10th grader. Not only that, but it was designed by a 10th grader to be a multi-platform title. That’s right — WarPong is Games for Windows ready.
Microsoft Loses First Big Open XML Standardization Vote
The ISO has voted, and Microsoft lost in its bid to get Open XML fast-tracked as an international standard. Of the two criteria for voting, Microsoft barely fell short in one, getting 74% of the 104 qualifying members (when it needed 75%) and missed the other vote of P members by a wider margin. Among P members, Microsoft needed two-thirds and got 17 for and 15 against. Nine members abstained, so if Microsoft satisfies the concerns of five or more members, it has a good shot of passing both votes next time.
There’s a lot of controversy about Microsoft encouraging new countries to join the voting group, trying to load the vote with new members who would vote in their favor. While they received 53% of P members, without the 11 newcomers (9 of whome voted for Microsoft) they’d have a mere 42%. Joe Wilcox covers a lot of the controversy, as well as these links:
If This Was a Month Ago, OOXML Would Be Over - Slashdot
Poland vote$ for Microsoft OOXML [it’s official] - polishlinux
Open XML - The Vote in Sweden -Microsoft’s Jason Matusow explains how a Microsoft employee inappropriately encourage partners to vote for Microsoft
Sweden’s Vote on OOXML Invalidated - Slashdot
Keep in mind why this vote is so critical: Microsoft competitors are trying to use their own exclusive international standard status to win government contracts away from Microsoft.
Governments Trying To Decide Next Step For Microsoft Antitrust
Microsoft’s 2002 consent decree that settled the federal antitrust case against the company is expiring at the end of the year, and the federal government and various state governments are trying to decide what to do next.
The federal Justice Department and a number of states, including Maryland, Wisconsin, Ohio and Louisiana, call the 2002 decree a success and that it accomplished its goals. Other states, including California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts and D.C., say that it was ineffective, and that it should be extended from a five-year decree to a ten-year one.
Their argument is that Microsoft still has high market share, which must mean it is still an evil monopoly.
Specifically, in the market at the heart of the antitrust case–that is, for Intel-compatible PC operating systems–Microsoft’s share has remained fairly constant, from 93 percent in 1991 to 92 percent in 2006, the filing said. In the Web browser arena, Redmond has seen its market share slip from 95 percent in 2002 to 85 percent in 2006, which the California group attorneys argue is “still well above monopoly levels.” And on the server operating system front, Microsoft has actually seen its market share climb from 55 percent in 2002 to 72 percent in 2006, the filing argues.
If you remember the antitrust case from when it was going on, you’ll know the “market share” argument, by itself, was never good enough, and that Microsoft was screwed on its business practice, not its sucess. The goal of the consent decree was to curb Microsoft’s evil ways, and it has succeeded more often than not. Microsoft has suffered the last five years, as:
- The company was too afraid to develop Internet Explorer, and let Firefox swoop in and embaress them.
- The company lost a lot of its fight, and let Mac OS X release version after version while it couldn’t get Vista out the door.
- The company stayed out of the music player game and certain other industries it could have made an impact in, partially because it was afraid that would be termed a monopolistic practice.
- The company has refrained from using lock-in in its products, even as its competitors are free to do so.
- Microsoft has sat back and watched Google dominate swaths of the online marketplace, and did not engineer Windows Vista to illegally defeat Google.
Ask anyone at Microsoft if the government held them back these five years, and they’ll tell you how many ways the company has been hamstrung by it. Yes, Windows is still very, very popular, but Mac OS is growing like crazy, Apple and Google are juggernauts, Microsoft is struggling in a number of industries and many of Microsoft’s other competitors have been screwing up to much to even compete with them. Market share proves nothing.
The next hearing is on 9/11.
New Live Maps Search Gadget
There’s a new Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget that brings Windows Live Maps to your desktop. Unlike the previous one, which did a great job of tracking traffic conditions in your area, this one is used to search Live Maps, even planning a route and getting directions right from the Gadget. Read more at Mike Ormond’s blog where he explains the Gadget (he wrote it, after all).
(via Ian Moulster)
Microsoft Buying Parlano Group Chat Firm
Microsoft announced last week it is planning on purchasing Parlano, a company that makes group chat applications for large companies. Microsoft intends to integrate Parlano’s MindAlign features into Microsoft Office Communicator, Communications Server, VoiP and other IM software. MindAlign touts features like:
- Topic-based, persistent group channels allow global, virtual teams to maintain an ongoing dialogue about business-critical topics
- An interactive channel list maximizes use of desktop real-estate while allowing users to monitor activity across multiple discussions the instant they sign on
- Visual and audio notifications for new messages, including message counts, taskbar notifications, pop-up windows and sound alerts, improve user productivity
- User-defined intelligent filters reduce information overload by allowing users to automatically see messages that are most important to them
- Federation to public IM allows users to productively manage dialogue with both internal and external contacts
- Federated Group Chat for establishing secure, shared chat channels with external parties
- Integration with other IT systems broadens information awareness and promotes active collaboration
Hundreds of features that improve team-based communications
Windows Server 2008 Delayed A Little More
Microsoft has announced that Windows Server 2008 has been delayed further, and will be released in the first quarter of 2008, instead of the last quarter of 2007. The launch event is still scheduled for February 27, 2008 in LA, so expect it to be available by then.
Home Server Update Announced; HP Delays Hardware Release
Microsoft announced that a significant update to the Windows Home Server operating system is currently being prepped for delivery via Windows Update before the end of the month. Even though Home Server hasn’t been sold to any users yet, Microsoft was able to identify a number of improvements to the usability and user experience of Home Server that it can ship quickly, so new Home Servers and installed servers will be gifted with these improvements.
We’ve identified a number of ways to make the product even better since the initial release. As with most Microsoft products, updates to Windows Home Server will be automatically available throughout the lifecycle of the product and the WHS team is working on an update that will be available in September. These updates will enhance the usability and improve the out-of-the-box experience of home server solutions.
PC World quotes Microsoft, which says:
Microsoft says the updates include fine tuning of the out-of-box experience with added prompts and dialog boxes guiding consumers through the setup process. Other enhancements include more reliable remote server access, automatic router and firewall setting tools, and enhancements to synchronizing features.
HP, a company that seems to always have all sorts of problems, has announced that it will delay its MediaSmart Home Server by an extreme amount in order to deploy the update. This is almost certainly an excuse the company is making due to some sort of screw-up on its part, masking problems with its hardware by blaming Microsoft’s update, deciding to delay hardware due to a simple software update for three to five months.
If I were Microsoft, I would be extremely angry at HP right now. Microsoft’s promotion for Home Server the last half year could have been called a big commercial for HP, which was its flagship hardware partner. HP’s awful delay decision is going to severely hurt Home Server and make it harder to succeed. Luckily, it will hurt HP even more.
There is a decent community of people who have been eagerly awaiting Home Server, and they won’t wait for January to get an HP. These people are going to buy Medion, MaxData, Chili Green, or they’ll just build one themselves. HP isclaiming the delay will be 75-120 days, which could make the holiday season (87 days away) but they are just as likely to miss it, based on this performance. Christmas is 112 days away, and a few days before that is a miss as well.
Next time around, pick someone more reliable than HP, like Asus.
Current estimated Home Server hardware delivery dates:
| Manufacture | Release Date |
| Medion | October 2007 |
| MaxData | October 2007 |
| Chili Green | October 2007 |
| Fujitsu Siemens | November 2007 |
| Lacie | November 2007 |
| Leo | November 2007 |
| HP | January 2008 |
Three Really Cool Vista Visual Tweaks
Andreas Verhoeven has released three really great Windows Vista tweaking applications, designed to improve some of the visual decisions Microsoft made in Vista without much effort on your part. Download them and load shortcuts to them into your startup folder (only one of them will do it for you) and you should really enjoy the results.
Glass Toasts replaces the balloons that come out of your system tray with something a bit more ostentatious, a glass balloon that is too flashy for most users. Then again, that is probably the point.
3D User Picture takes the picture that appears atop the Start Menu, makes it 3D, and has it rotate. This means that your user picture, plus all the icons in the Start Menu that go up there when you select them, all get this cool effect, and the effect only uses system resources when the Start Menu is open (so there’s little cost to actual use of the computer.
Thumbnail Sizer lets you dramatically increase the size of the taskbar preview thumbnails, increasing seperately the height or the width (so if you want wider, but not necessarily taller, that’s easy). You can even slow down the fade in/out animation so you can enjoy that more.
Download all three program here.
Here’s a video of 3D User Picture in action:
Video: 3D User Pic in Windows Vista
(via Blogs Board > Digg)
OMG: Somebody Built The oPhone!
I don’t know, doesn’t the device on the left look like it could be a prototype of an actual oPhone?
According to Engadget, the mi VDOFx DV Cam is designed to be the perfect camera for YouTube auteurs, letting you take some quick video to an SD card, edit it and add special effects on the camera, and even sideload in music from your MP3 player while recording video (all with a 1.5-inch screen). If it’s cheap enough, it might not even be that bad an idea.
Lazy Labor Day Link Post
Microsoft’s Art Of Office
Microsoft introduced this new “Art Of Office” website, a place for people to submit artistic documents created using the Mac versions of Microsoft Office. The idea is to show off how Office can be used by creative types to create stunning documents.
Some Mac users are angry that Microsoft took the time to develop this site at the same time Mac Office 2008 was being delayed.
Google Maps, Windows Live Maps & Others In Flash
Flash Earth now lets you use a Flash interface to get around Google Maps, Windows Live Maps (aerial and labeled), Yahoo Maps, Ask Maps (aerial and physical), OpenLayers and NASA Terra daily satellite imagery.
(via, via, via)
I Beat Halo 2!
Just thought I’d mention that I finally finished the damn game. First game I played till the end in a while.
Halo 3 Goes Gold
Don’t worry about Halo 3 or some sort of unexpected delay. Microsoft announced the team at Bungie finished the game, certified the code, and sent it off to that big factory that prints shiny plastic disks for your gaming pleasure. Huzzah!
Halo 3 Countdown Gadget
Can’t stand having to wait three more weeks for Halo 3? Download this Gadget for Windows Vista’s Sidebar and stare as the clock ticks ever so slowly.
Family Guy Comes To Xbox Live
Xbox Live now offers downloads of episodes of the hit cartoon Family Guy, with all the episodes from the first two seasons as well as the straight-to-DVD “movie” for $2 worth of Microsoft Points. No other TV download store, including iTunes, currently has Family Guy.
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