eWeek reports that Microsoft is trying to widen the appeal of its Volume Licensing program by simplifying it so customers can better understand it. Microsoft is slashing the number of price points and program options, updating the language and bringing better consistency to the agreements, and even removing most of the places participants are required to sign the contracts, all in order to make it easier for potential customers.
Engadget has revealed that around September 27, Microsoft will unveil a new feature for Windows Media Center, Internet TV. The feature will bring a bunch of on-demand channels into the Media Center interface, letting users watch Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies. Best of all, everything will be ad-supported and free of charge, and picture quality will be somewhere better than standard TV, though a bit less than HDTV.
With the new Internet TV, which will be delivered as a simple software update, owners of Media Center PCs and Extenders, including the Xbox 360, will have access to a lot of free content to enjoy, completely sidestepping traditional television. If Microsoft lined up the right partners for it, got enough content and made it run well on a typical home network, they could wind up with an entirely new tier of television. Can’t wait to see it.
Word is Microsoft might be unveiling Windows Live Search 2.0 at an event announced for the end of the month. On September 26, Microsoft is holding a Searchification event at its Silicon Valley campus that, according to the email I got, will feature “a discussion on the future of the product” as well as “informal product demos and discussion with the development team”.
Mary Jo Foley says that the event may have the launch of the next version of Live Search. If not, expect new personalization for Live Search, Windows Live Calendar, integrated location/presence/calendar service, integrated social network/search/annotation (ratings/reviews), or integration between Live Search and Outlook, or something else, hopefully something very exciting.
UPDATE: Looks like they demoed Live Search 2.0 at the big Microsoft company-wide meeting. Commenters at Mini-Microsoft’s blog say that the Live Search stuff being shown off innovative and surprising. Should be an exciting month.
I also recommend reading the stuff at LiveSide about the demo for Windows Live Photo Gallery, and the way the presenter botched it and then embarrassed the program manager and called him onstage. Somebody deserves an apology…
Microsoft has launched a new service/feature for Windows Live Search, a Windows Live Translator Beta that lets you translate to and from English. Right now, it lets you drop in a block of text (up to 500 words) and it will translate the text from or to these languages:
You can also give it a web adress, and it will attempt to translate the entire web page for you (minus any words contained in images, naturally). The full site translator lets you display the original and translation side-by-side, top-and-bottom, or as a single video with the other view hovering as you move your mouse around.
Just do me a favor and do try to translate any Russian poetry. There’s a reason scholars study these things their entire careers and never agree on the specific intent of the poet. Leave ol’ Pushkin alone and stick to translating blogs and news articles.
Translation is provided by Systran, which Google and other use, although Google’s translations are different for some reason. There’s also an interesting “computer related context” feature.
I’m looking for any readers or fellow bloggers in San Francisco to attend a short but important industry event I can’t attend myself (since I’m in New York). I can’t say what it is or when, but you’d have to take a half-day off work, see some really cool stuff, and live blog it (or send quick emails/texts for me to transcribe) for all to enjoy.
The coolness of it should make it a no-brainer once I tell you what it is, but if not, I’ve got a box of DVDs and peripherals that might help sway you. I’d prefer a reader who comments here often or a regular blogger, but the main thing is that it is someone trustworthy. For reasons I can’t explain, employees of three certain technology companies cannot take this opportunity, but employees of a really big tech company can go.
If you are interested, use the contact form listed in the sidebar or just leave a comment. The comment can be anonymous, just leave your email address in the email field (it won’t be shown). Suffice to say, most readers while find this too good to pass up, as its the sort of event I’d run to in a heartbeat.
Ars writes about how a federal judge has allowed Google to file a brief in Microsoft’s case to put an end to five year’s of government oversight. Google’s brief says that Microsoft’s antitrust decree should be extended because the company has failed to comply to Google’s satisfaction in regards to Windows Vista’s search functionality.
With the DoJ and 17 states’ attorneys siding with Microsoft on the matter, Google doesn’t seem to have much hope of pressing the issue in terms of Microsoft’s compliance with the consent decree. While Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s decision is largely procedural, it is another cog in the wheel of a dispute that will likely extend beyond the November expiration of complete DoJ oversight. Google has indicated in the past that it won’t give up the fight until it has run out of angles to pursue.
Looks like after more than half a decade of plodding Windows development, Microsoft is getting things under control. Mary Jo Foley writes about how Microsoft is now syncing development for Windows Client operating systems (the ones you use on a regular computer, like XP and Vista) and Windows Server operating systems, with the two sharing massive amounts of the same code.
The idea is that if the two share code, they can share bug fixes, so Microsoft can release a single fix for all its platforms with less problems. Sharing developers and man hours doesn’t hurt either, speeding up the development of Windows versions. Thanks to all this, Client and Server now share 50% of the same code, and we get Vista SP1 and Server 2008 launching at the same time, as well as faster development and more stable operating systems for everyone.
Realtime World, developers of Microsoft smash Xbox 360 hit Crackdown, are saying that a sequel to the game is not in the works. They claim that Microsoft took too long asking for a sequel, and as a result, the team has moved onto other things.
Yeah, right. We were told for a while that no work was being done on a Dead Rising sequel, and yet the rumblings lately are that one is indeed on the way. It’s very rare for a popular game to avoid getting a getting a follow-up, and Crackdown had many unanswered questions and missing features that a sequel could be far better than the original. I suggest waiting patiently, Crackdown 2 will come in due time.
Flying Nerd details a major Windows Vista malfunction that appears to occur to owners of Intel Matrix Storage RAID controllers (and possibly, Maxtor hard drives). The issue can make it impossible to install Vista, or result in random system meltdowns, slow downs, freezes, reboots and random data corruption. The problem is the result of some last-minute Vista power management features that Intel implemented incorrectly.
I recommend reading the page, as well as the many linked pages, if you have been having any strange problems with Vista. If you do have this error, there might be a registry fix that can save your system, and if not, at least it’ll help you know what’s going on.
Big thanks to Mike for the hat-tip.
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