Get IE8 Activities In Firefox
One of the new features in Internet Explorer 8 is Activities, which lets you contextually use the information on a page with other services, and because it uses some generally open formats, someone’s already adapted it for other browsers. This Firefox extension lets you practically seamlessly use Activities in Firefox, so check it out.
Microsoft’s Extreme Server Makeover Check out this video, spoofing Extreme Home Makeover for the IT world. It’s weird in places, but just watch it, k?
How To Tell If Your PC Supports Hibernation Milo explains how to use POWERCFG.exe to tell if your Windows Vista PC supports hibernation mode, as well as what other power modes your PC supports. It’s an extremely useful tip if you’re running into some power troubleshooting issues.
Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack Now Free
If you’re getting bored of playing Halo online, you’ll be pleased to know that one of its map packs is now free. The price has been dropped 100% on the “Heroic” map pack, giving you three new multiplayer maps for the sweet price of nothing. Enjoy.
Microsoft Releases Popfly Game Creator
Microsoft released a game creator that lets you use Popfly, their free mashup creation tool, to create Silverlight-based games that can run on webpages, Facebook, the Vista Sidebar, pretty much anywhere.
GTA IV Breaks UK Sales Record
Grand Theft Auto 4 sold 631,000 copies on launch day in the UK alone, beating San Andreas’ record from four years ago by over 100 thousand units. The Xbox 360 version beat the PS3 version by 101,000 copies sold, and 360 console sales were up 125%.
Download Free Update to Windows Desktop Search There’s a major update to the search infrastructure used in Windows Vista, and it’s being released as the Windows Search 4.0 Preview. It doesn’t just install on Vista, it works on Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. Download the Vista SP1 32-bit version here.
Xbox 360 Coming To A Hospital Near You
Microsoft is talking about some Xbox 360 kiosks it will be sending to children’s hospitals, as part of a partnership with the Companions in Courage Foundation. The kiosks will be pre-loaded with Y-rated TV shows, G-rated movies, E and E10+ games, and be networked and have a connected headset and Live Vision camera.
Live Search News Launches Microsoft has launched Live Search News, a Techmeme style news site that covers all the usual topics, showing the stories getting the most traction. It’s a style that has worked very well for technology news, and seems to make for a very good overall news site at search.live.com/news
Spiral Vista Sidebar Gadget Check out this Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget; it displays a continuously moving spiral on your desktop. Click on it to cycle through six different types of spirals, letting your computer hypnotize you.
Xbox 360 Posts Another Profit
Microsoft has successfully turned the Xbox division into a profitable, healthy division, resulting in its first-ever profit in a quarter that did not feature the release of a Halo game or holiday shopping season. Its a proud achievement for the company, one that was more than half a decade coming, thanks to an 85% jump in revenue, resulting in an operating profit of $89 million.
Top Japan XNA Games
Check out these Japanese XNA games that won some sort of Spring 2008 best of XNA contest. They look pretty good.
Vista Feature Pack Released Microsoft has released the first “Feature Pack” for Windows Vista, adding some wireless features that, while nothing huge, could represent a growing series of feature packs that improve the operating system over the coming months and years. Feature Pack 1 adds support for Bluetooth 2.1 to Vista, as well as a Unified Pairing user interface and updates to Windows Connect Now. Get it here.
Download Windows Live for Windows Mobile
Microsoft has released a free download of the Windows Live for Windows Mobile 6 software that comes pre-loaded on some (but not all) Windows Mobile 6 phones. Pick up the download and get Push Hotmail, synchronized Live Contacts, a Live Search bar for the Home screen and one-click photo uploading to Live Spaces.
Microsoft Fastest To Deploy Patches
A Symantec report on malware discovered in the second half of last year shows that Microsoft was the fastest to respond to discovered software vulnerabilities. On average, Microsoft deployed patches within six days, compared to Apple, which took an average of 79 days, as well as faster than HP, Red Hat or Sun. There’s a lot detail in the article about the type of security vulnerabilities (most are caused by ActiveX), and let’s see how fast you can spot the Rent reference.
Turn Webslices into Vista Sidebar Gadgets
Webslices is a new feature in Internet Explorer 8, which allows you to add specifically selected portions of webpages to the menubar of IE, and have them automatically push updates to you. Sean Lyndersay has taken the Webslice out of the browser, and has designed a Vista Sidebar Gadget that lets you add any Webslice to your desktop. It works well, and Webslices as Gadgets are actually more useful than they are in the browser.
By the by, I learned that the reason the Facebook Webslice doesn’t work is that it needs to be installed while you are running IE as an administrator. That’s really a broken feature, and needs to be fixed for final IE8 release, or developers need to design their Webslices to not work that way.
Free Ford Sync and April Fools Xbox Live Downloads
Two Ford Sync picture packs and a Ford Sync-related dashboard theme have been released free on Xbox Live in the U.S. These are kid-themed, so get ‘em for your kid (or yourself, if you’re cute enough). There are also some April Fools-related pics, available for a limited time.
Secret Confessions Vista Sidebar Gadget This Gadget lets you leave confessions anonymously for random others to read and to read confessions from other users. It has the annoying “feature” of reading the confession out loud with Vista’s text-to-speech system, and no way to turn it off, and the confessions thus far are mostly homophobic or racist, but it’s a great idea that could become something.
If you sign up for a year of Xbox Live Gold between now and March 25, you’ll get a free download of the Xbox Live game Catan, the console version of the classic tabletop game Settlers of Catan. It normally costs 800 Microsoft Points, or $10, so that’s a nice gift from Microsoft. I’ve got an Xbox Live 12-month subscription card in my drawer, and it looks like this is just the right time to activate it.
Settlers is a fun game, one I’ve played on several occasions with some buddies. Basically, you put together a board of different randomly arranged hexagonal tiles, each with a different land resource. You build roads and place settlements and cities, and must spend resources to get to build those things. On every turn, a roll of the dice determines what resource is produced, with players owning cities and settlements next to those resources earning some. The real fun of the game comes from trading and making deals with the other players, and the Xbox version features multiple unique AIs to make trading really interesting.
If you picked up Caracassonne when it was free and liked it, you’ll probably like Catan as well. They’re different games that appeal in very similar ways, and are each seperately completely worth playing. If you can’t get Catan for free, I still recommend buying it.
JellyCar is the first of the free new XNA games I played. One thing to note: While the games are free, they are limited to 16 days of play, but there is a way around it that I’ll talk about in a second.
JellyCar is hilariously fun. It uses a cartoon on drawing paper art style, featuring a car and some objects, all of which squish and move in funny ways. Your job is to drive the car to the target, and each level is a puzzle to figure out which mixture of speed, car flipping, car transforming (it can grow, but only temporarily) and use of the environmental objects will get you there.
The art style and the challenging gameplay make for a fun game. Replay value is limited to trying to beat your best time, but getting through the levels first is a unique and enjoyable experience. I’m surprised at how good this game is, and very happy I downloaded it.
JellyCar was known as JelloCar before Microsoft added it to Xbox Live (presumably changed to avoid copyright issues). You can download the XNA version of the game from the developer, Walaber. He’s made available the compiled game in both Windows and Xbox 360 versions, so if you have a Creators Club subscription, you can keep playing past the expiration date. If you don’t have an Xbox 360, download the game for Windows and enjoy this gem.
The Xbox Live Video Marketplace has added Lost, the hit ABC TV series about a group of plane crash survivors stranded on an island. Starting now, you can download any episode from season 1, 2, and 3, either in standard definition for 160 Microsoft Points ($2) or high definition for 240 MSPoints ($3). Saladhats did the math, and a season of the high def episodes is actually cheaper on Xbox Live than on Bluray, by about $24.
Not only can you download the old episodes, but you can pick up the new episodes, including last night’s season four premiere, as soon as they air on TV, and for the same price. If you missed last night’s episode (like I did), three bucks to see it in HD isn’t bad. In fact, I’m going to watch it right now. No spoilers in the comments for at least two hours!
Also being added to Xbox Live are other ABC shows, Disney Channel shows, and movies from a number of studios.
Other TV shows coming to Marketplace this week are Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. Essentially the big guns from ABC, and new episodes will be available within 24 hours of airing on TV. The Disney deal also extends to shows like Hannah Montana and High School Musical. Tell yourself it’s for your kid, but I can just tell you want to rock out to some teenage singing and dancing.
Lastly we’ll be seeing new content from the just signed on movie studios Lionsgate, Warner Bros, Paramount, New Line and MGM. The documentary King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters is set to hit Marketplace later this month. Other titles you can look forward to are The Usual Suspects, 3:10 To Yuma, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and others.
The most played games on Xbox Live that were released for the Xbox 360:
2007 Top Xbox 360 Titles (UU’s)
1
Halo 3
2
Gears of War
3
Call of Duty 4
4
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
5
Call Of Duty 3
6
Crackdown
7
Oblivion
8
Guitar Hero II
9
Forza Motorsport 2
10
Lost Planet
The most played games on Xbox Live that were released for the original Xbox (and are still being played thanks to backwards compatibility on the Xbox 360):
2007 Top Original Xbox Titles (UU’s)
1
Halo 2
2
Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
3
Counter-Strike
4
Battlefield 2: MC
5
Doom 3
6
Forza Motorsport
7
Madden NFL 07
8
Conker: Live Reloaded
9
Call of Duty 3
10
Rainbow Six 3
And the top played Xbox Live Arcade games (not including free trial games):
2007 Top Xbox LIVE Arcade Titles (Sales)
1
TMNT 1989 Arcade
2
Worms
3
Castlevania: SOTN
4
UNO
5
Bomberman LIVE
6
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures
7
Sonic The Hedgehog
8
Pinball FX
9
Geometry Wars Evolved
10
Texas Hold 'em
Interesting how many games are on both the Xbox and Xbox 360 lists, with the newer edition of the game appearing on the newer list. Call of Duty 3 even appears on both lists (in addition to Call of Duty 4 on the 360 list)!
As an apology for the erratic downtime Xbox Live has experienced lately, Microsoft is offering a free game download to everyone, Gold and Silver members alike. The free game is Undertow, a normally $10 title that features undersea combat and bright, exciting graphics, and it is available right now. You only have until 11:59 pm Pacific Sunday night, so stop reading this and go get it.
Now!
I’m waiting…
Okay, watch this video of the game, then for god’s sake, just go:
Tropicana has a contest website where you can enter your email address (or any fake email, since they don’t require confirmation) to enter to win prizes. Whatever the prizes may be, doesn’t matter, because the consolation prize is the real treat: Every time you enter, you get a 25-letter alphanumeric code that is good for a free 48-hour trial of Xbox Live Gold. Rack them up, and you won’t be paying for Xbox Live, at least for a while.
Microsoft has finally added a new game to its Xbox Originals program, marking the first addition since the service, which lets you download from Xbox Live full Xbox games, was launched. The new game is Burnout 3: Takedown, the 2004 release in the long-running racing series. As with all Originals, the cost s 1200 Microsoft Points, or $15.
Microsoft released a list of the 25 most popular GamerTags on Xbox Live, and avid Gears of War player NIZMOJOE is the most popular gamer not employed by Microsoft or with a number one hit single. NIZMOJOE’s GamerTag is the fifth most popular, based on how many times it is viewed online, behind Microsofties Major Nelson (#1), Eric “e” Neustadter (#2), trixie360 (#3) and rapper souljaboytellem (#4).
How good is NIZMOJOE? The 26-year old Italian-American gamer (picture above from his MySpace page, also check out his personal site) is mentioned on gaming websites all over the place, often by irate opponents angry at getting pwned by his sniper rifle. His sniper montage video, embedded below, has been viewed almost 1.4 million times on YouTube, and all of his videos regularly get 20-50,000 views. How good is he? Unsolicited gamers wanting to play against him 1 on 1 are asked to pay $20 by PayPal before wasting his time begging for a 5 round match.
There have been some corrections to this article, listed below.
Someone has translated the hit Xbox Live Arcade game Geometry Wars into a free Flash game. It isn’t as fun or exciting as the full version, but it does have the same basic gameplay and similar graphics. If you haven’t tried out Geometry Wars, check it out, or find a site to download the free Geometry Wars clone Grid Wars for PCs.
(via Digg)
Microsoft is turning over Xbox Live Diamond, the card program that gives you discounts at certain retailers and eateries, giving control of the program to Passport Unlimited. Passport will begin charging a yearly subscription fee of $6.95 a year starting March 1, and will not be accepting new registrations until then. While the fee isn’t much, so long as you actually use the card, one wonders how many Xbox Live users have actually taken advantage of the offer.
It was hard to miss the news over the weekend that Warner Brothers chose to focus its efforts on Blu-Ray. Warner will release all of its new movies in Sony’s Blu-Ray format, though it still has some HD DVD titles in the pipeline (after which no additional titles will be released in HD DVD). Some have claimed that Warner’s move to Blu-Ray was designed to put an end to the format wars, which has confused consumers and as a result suppressed sales of both hardware and titles. Certainly, one can appreciate that Warner’s choice has not made the battle any easier for Toshiba and Microsoft but without a doubt this is far from the end for HD DVD.
While Blu-Ray and HD DVD have both been the most visible participants in the format wars there has been one format that has been far less visible. HD digital downloads have maintained a pretty low profile but seems to be the likely end to this whole debate. Microsoft has been the most successful in the HD digital download game thus far and with more and more Media Centers occupying living rooms and the fast-growing Xbox Live Video Marketpalce, it is only a matter of time before Blu-Ray and HD DVD are both obsolete.
Additionally, for anyone that watched Bill Gates CES Keynote, Mediaroom and Xbox Live will soon offer more on demand content then any cable company. Ultimately, the convience of being able to purchase this content from home will be just one of the reasons that neither HD DVD or Blu-Ray will be able to compete with digital HD downloads.
Stefan writes for IHaveAZune.com, and we’re proud welcome him as a new writer here at InsideMicrosoft.
Bill Gates gave his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show tonight, and I was liveblogging it, but this site was down due to the massive coverage of my Windows Mobile 7 scoop. Here’s what happened:
Bill Gates talked about how this was his last CES keynote, and his last year at Microsoft. For the first time since he was 17, he won’t be a Microsoft employee. He showed a video package of how his last day might go, working out with Matthew McConaughey, producing an album with Jay-Z, asking Hillary Clinton if he can be her Vice President, asking Bono if he can be the new guitarist for U2, with Brian Williams reporting around the video (Brian said Bill doesn’t believe in paying more than seven dollars for a haircut). Later in the evening, during an Olympics-related video, Bob Costas told Gates to “lose my number”.
Bill mentioned the cloud and services. Will he FINALLY talk about What Ray Ozzie is doing? We can only wish, maybe at CES 2009.
Bill has decided that in his last keynote, he won’t fix the problems of previous keynotes, but instead, once again, focus almost entirely on “vision” and possibilities for the future. He spends a lot of time talking about connected applications and devices, but nothing specific. At least the super-wide-wraparound-screen for his PowerPoints is cool.
Says 100 million people are using Windows Vista, 420 million Windows Live, and 20 million on Windows Mobile, 10 million added in the last year.
Mika Krammer, direct of Windows product management, gets up to talk about Windows. She shows off Windows Live Calendar, Windows Live Events, Windows Live Photo Gallery, all the while subtly using IE7’s Quick Tabs, Windows Vista’s Flip 3D. She creates, live, a panoramic photo in Photo Gallery and uploads it to Live Spaces. These are great features and great integration that roughly 1% of users are aware of. She shows off the live video thumbnails in Windows Live Search.
Mika picks up an HTC Touch and shows off how to send a photo from a mobile device to a Live Space.
Bill is playing around with a Surface computer.
Bill is announcing a new partner for Silverlight: NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympics. They will make available video of the events, live and on demand, courtesy of Silverlight.
Robbie Bach comes out. We don’t see him enough! Robbie talks Xbox, mentions 17.7 million consoles shipped, 10 million Xbox Live members, and new partners for Xbox Live: Disney and ABC, bringing shows like Lost and High School Musical, plus MGM for movies, bringin movies like Terminator and Legally Blonde.
Next, he talks Media Center and Media Center Extenders, says Samsung and HP will be announcing today new Extenders, including HP’s Extender TVs. Also, Mediaroom, Microsoft’s IPTV service, which now has 1 million TVs subscribed. He announces DVR Anywhere, which will let you stream shows you record to watch anywhere else, and special applications linked to specific channels that will surround channels like CNN with detailed interactive information. Also, British Telecom will be the first to bring Mediaroom integration with the Xbox 360 as a set-top box.
Next topic is Zune, which is finally being sold outside the U.S., starting this Spring in Canada. Out comes Molly O’Donnel to explain Zune Social. She mentions how Zune Social is becoming a well-used social network, with 1.5 million beta users, and user-created applications for sharing with Facebook.
They bring out a Lincoln car to show off Ford Sync, which is now winding up in a million cards. They also show off a TellMe application on a cellphone. It accesses GPS to see where you are, and then shows a list of movie theatres in the immediate area, when you say just the word “movies”. Then you can say “Buy two tickets for Sweeney Todd at 9:30″ and it’ll actually work.
Bill comes out and shows off a device that can look at people and buildings and actually recognize them. This is extremely impressive, recognizing Robbie Bach, different Vegas buildings, and does some really cool animations. They’re talking about some unnamed device that categorizes videos for you, something phone related. It’s not all clear, because Microsoft just doesn’t do keynotes as well as Apple, but it does look cool.
At the end, Bill and Robbie faced off against each other in Guitar Hero III. Or rather, they would have, if Robbie hadn’t brought out Kelly Law-Yone, Guitar Hero champion, as a ringer. Not to be outdone, or outspent, Bill brought out his ringer: Slash, lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses. Nice ending, though it felt like the keynote was just a little too short and didn’t reveal anything.
Apple announced a deal with 20th Century Fox, adding Fox films to the iTunes video store. The movies will be available for download as video rentals, the first time iTunes has offered rentals, showing that low-price rentals are the better deal for users than offering the same DRM-laden low-quality videos at a higher price for permanent sale.
Apple is the Xbox Live Marketplace’s only real competition for digital movie distribution, and them embracing movie rentals (chatter is Fox is only the first studio, with more to come), leaves another wrinkle for Microsoft to deal with. Worse, part of the deal is that Fox DVDs will ship with iPod-formatted copies of the movie on the disk, wrapped in Apple’s FairPlay DRM. Those movies won’t run on anything but an iPod/iPhone, due to the copy protection.
Two years ago, Microsoft could have pushed for similar treatment for its own DRM, but thanks to its abandonment of PlaysForSure and splintering of the WMV-based DRM market, it can’t claim that its DRM serves the entire non-Apple player market. Apple gets a great deal, and Microsoft has no hope of getting something similar for itself.
Microsoft needs to think of some means to even itself out with Apple. One suggestion: It’s time to finally bring the Xbox Live Video Marketplace to the PC. If you have to, require the movies to stream from a 360, but make the connection work.
In certain European countries, Microsoft is marking the launch of their Xbox Live Video stores with a special price for the hit action movie 300. In the United Kingdom, Germany and France, you can rent 300, in high definition, for just 100 Microsoft Points. That’s basically $1.25 in US dollars, or £0.80p. It’ll only be available at that price on Friday, December 28, but normal video rental terms apply.
If you buy your Microsoft Points by entering a credit card right on the Xbox 360, you might find it frustrating that they’re sold in increments of 500 points, as in 500 points for $6.25 and 1000 points for $12.50. The reason it’s frustrating is that most games on Live are $5 or $10, or 400/800 points, leaving you with extra points floating around after every purchase. Gamers have complained about being stuck with the change, but Microsoft doesn’t seem to want to budge.
Luckily, someone realized that Microsoft did have a website selling MS Points normally: Zune.net. Go to this page on live.zune.net (you’ll need to create a Zune account, which is literally just five clicks), and you can purchase points in these increments:
400 Microsoft® Points: Zune™ Price: $5.00
1200 Microsoft® Points: Zune™ Price: $15.00
2000 Microsoft® Points: Zune™ Price: $25.00
4000 Microsoft® Points: Zune™ Price: $50.00
Since Zune and Xbox Live use the same MS Points, the ones you buy on Zune.net will work just as good, and you won’t be stuck holding the change. Rejoice, gamers, as this simple annoyance in your lives is rectified!
(via Digg)
Keep in mind, of course, that you can always buy MS Points in decent increments on pre-paid cards (and usually save some money, thanks to coupons and discounting), like this 1600 Point ($20) card, which can conceivably be had for $18 with free shipping (on a $30 order) on Amazon.
Check out 
It was hard to miss the news over the weekend that Warner Brothers chose to focus its efforts on Blu-Ray. Warner will release all of its new movies in Sony’s Blu-Ray format, though it still has some HD DVD titles in the pipeline (after which no additional titles will be released in HD DVD). Some have claimed that Warner’s move to Blu-Ray was designed to put an end to the format wars, which has confused consumers and as a result suppressed sales of both hardware and titles. Certainly, one can appreciate that Warner’s choice has not made the battle any easier for Toshiba and Microsoft but without a doubt this is far from the end for HD DVD.
