New in-browser experience for Netflix
Video player gets lick of paint
Netflix subscribers have been treated to a new, tasty in-browser video player that adds a feature or two and simplifies the viewing experience. It allows users to select other episodes of a TV show from within the player itself and adds an information overlay when video is paused.
Using Microsoft Silverlight, [...]
Walt Mossberg on Microsoft’s ‘Signature’ PCs
Mossberg:
Microsoft also offers a program that, for $99, will turn users’
Windows 7 PCs into Signature versions, if the owner brings the
computer into one of its 16 stores, due to grow to 21 outlets in
coming months.
In other words, you pay $100 to get the crap removed from your new computer. Nice.
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HP Restarts Tablet Manufacturing
Suchit Leesa-nguansuk, reporting for The Bangkok Post:
Hewlett-Packard has announced it will resume production of
consumer tablets but says it will run them on Microsoft’s new
Windows 8 operating system. The world’s largest technology firm
suspended its TouchPad WebOS tablet production line last year on
poor sales.
Restarting production is a strategic move aimed at capitalising on
the extraordinary growth in tablet [...]
Anatomy of an iTV Rumor
Philip Elmer-DeWitt debunks the latest round of “confirmation” of an Apple-branded TV set:
What none of these reporters mentioned (or apparently bothered to
consider) is that Gou — whose factories assemble 40% of the
world’s electronic devices — is one of the industry’s most
secretive executives. He is privy to the future product plans of
the most valuable electronics brands [...]
Microsoft Antitrust Finding Specific to Windows on Intel?
Hal Berenson, retired engineer and general manager from Microsoft, back in February:
Microsoft can get away with Office as the only non-Metro app
on ARM because the anti-trust finding was specific to Windows
on Intel.
I’m no lawyer, but a quick perusal of the Department of Justice’s 1999 Findings of Fact (PDF) has me nodding my head in agreement. [...]
Google Agrees With Mozilla’s Windows RT Browser Concerns
Google statement:
We share the concerns Mozilla has raised regarding the Windows 8
environment restricting user choice and innovation. We’ve always
welcomed innovation in the browser space across all platforms and
strongly believe that having great competitors makes us all work
harder. In the end, consumers and developers benefit the most from
robust competition.
Microsoft is free to ship a fully-functional version [...]
Paul Thurrott: ‘Is Time Running Out for Windows Phone?’
Paul Thurrott:
I’m as concerned, in a way, with what is very clearly yet another
do-over. Yes, Windows Phone 8 will retain the Windows Phone name,
and yes, it will run “legacy” Windows Phone 7.x apps, those apps
that were written in Silverlight or the game-centric XNA APIs. But
with Silverlight and XNA both silently cancelled deep within
Microsoft’s ever-reimagined corporate [...]
Smoked by Windows Phone by the Numbers
Speaking of Windows Phone, Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph has an update on their “Smoked by Windows Phone” campaign. It occurs to me that Rudolph is to Windows Phone today what Guy Kawasaki was to the Mac back in the mid-’90s: a likable human face for a likable underdog platform.
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Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition hits today – more than 127,000 4+ ratings already
Xbox Live lights up
The Xbox Live Arcade version of Minecraft was released for download today, and Pocket-lint suspects that it could well have been the biggest launch on Xbox Live ever. Although we don’t yet know many copies have been downloaded on day one, just checking out the amount of ratings its had (which score [...]
SoundWave demonstrates its hand gesture technology – no motion camera needed
Throw your hands in the air
A team of Microsoft researchers has demonstrated a new method of controlling your computer with hand gestures, but without the need of motion-capture cameras or touchscreens.
The SoundWave project uses what’s known in the physics world as the Doppler Effect.
Broken down into a sentence this basically refers to the change in [...]
