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Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

Ballmer confirms Xbox 360 Blu-ray accessory?

By Chris Davies on Thursday, Oct 22nd 2009 No Comments

xbox 360 hd dvd 125x147 custom One of the ongoing frustrations for Xbox 360 owners is the absence of a Blu-ray accessory; they keep pestering Microsoft for one, and Microsoft keep rolling out the same “we have no plans” excuses. Now, finally, the company appears to be changing its tune, though it takes some between-the-lines reading of outspoken CEO Steve Ballmer in order to fathom it. Talking to Gizmodo, Ballmer told interviewer Wilson Rothman that “you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories”.

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Windows Mobile 6.5.1: Windows Phone salvation can’t come soon enough

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Oct 20th 2009 No Comments

With Windows Mobile 6.5 proving less than a total success in reviews, and the most hotly anticipated Windows Phone seemingly achieving that status by throwing out Microsoft’s UI and replacing it with one schooled on another platform altogether, now seems as good a time as any to ask what happened to the tweaks in later pre-launch builds. istartedsomething’s Long Zheng has pointed out that some of the more finger-friendly adaptations – such as the moved Start button and narrower status bar, shown here in OSNN.net’s screenshots – are in fact being reserved with Windows Mobile 6.5.1, an incremental update with no known official release date but already available for various devices through forums.

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SenseCam lifelogging camera hitting production

By Chris Davies on Monday, Oct 19th 2009 No Comments

The SenseCam prototype we first mentioned back in February 2007 has finally spawned a production version, albeit initially intended for researchers with deep wallets. The handiwork of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, the SenseCam is worn on a lanyard around the neck and takes images either periodically, when movement is sensed, or when a person is encountered (via a PIR sensor on the front). Vicon, who have licensed production rights from Microsoft Research and who will launch it as the Vicon Revue, expect the camera to be used by lifeloggers wanting to document their everyday movements.

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Sidekick data saved: “most, if not all” files restored

By Chris Davies on Thursday, Oct 15th 2009 No Comments

Sidekick owners, you can stop mentally-spending that $100 gift-card T-Mobile promised. In a new statement updated to the Sidekick forums, Microsoft’s Roz Ho – VP of premium mobile experiences – has confirmed that the company has recovered “most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage.” She also confirms that the restored files will begin to feed back into devices starting with contacts; reports yesterday suggested that the process had already happened.

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T-Mobile sending $100 gift card to Sidekick data-loss victims

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Oct 13th 2009 1 Comment

After admitting that they could have lost every scrap of Sidekick users’ online data, T-Mobile USA are now following up on their promise of “additional measures” to make it up to affected customers. The carrier is now more hopeful of restoring lost data than it was at the weekend – when it described the likelihood of recovery as “extremely low” – but any user facing a loss will automatically get a $100 T-Mobile gift card.

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Sidekick users face irretrievable data loss; Inept backup policy blamed

By Chris Davies on Monday, Oct 12th 2009 No Comments

It’s been a weekend of pain for Sidekick owners, with last week’s data outage ironically only the first step in an escalating catalog of mis-management by Microsoft, T-Mobile USA and the Danger team. On Saturday, an official statement was posted to the T-Mobile Sidekick forum, advising users that personal data stored on their servers and not on the handset itself “has almost certainly been lost”, together with the ominous advice that Sidekick handsets shouldn’t be turned off, run down or reset.

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Check out the official statement after the cut

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SlashGear Week in Review – Week 41 2009

By Shane McGlaun on Saturday, Oct 10th 2009 No Comments

After spending most of Friday curled in a ball twitching and drooling after losing power and Internet access for almost 12 hours, I am glad to be back online and in the 21st century again. Just in time to hunker down and dose myself with a nice helping of week in review for your perusal. Chris reviewed the GSM Palm Pre and found the camera wasn't as good as some of its peers but found plenty to like in the end. The webOS operating system stands apart from rival OS'. Buffalo announced the HD-HU3 USB 3.0 drive and controller that will be shipping in Japan this month. The drive isn’t even that expensive; I hope it comes to America too.

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Samsung Giorgio Armani Windows Phone debuts

By Chris Davies on Friday, Oct 9th 2009 No Comments

It’s hard to imagine fashionistas being sucked into buying a Windows Phone, but if the iPhone doesn’t appeal and you’re a real Giorgio Armani addict then Samsung’s latest device could be the answer. The smartphone runs Windows Mobile 6.5 with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen, together with a 5-megapixel camera for snapping shots of the catwalk.

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Microsoft Pink dying & taking Windows Mobile with it?

By Chris Davies on Friday, Oct 9th 2009 1 Comment

microsoft pink turtle leak 1 After mediocre feedback to the leaked Microsoft Pink handsets, Turtle and Pure, now comes word from inside the project itself that the whole house of cards may be close to tumbling. An ex-team member has been talking to Apple Insider about the Pink “skunkworks” project and its mismanagement, including attempting to develop too many SKUs simultaneously, potentially misleading hardware and carrier partners, and in the process pulling the rug out from the already-ailing Windows Mobile. In fact, he reckons the Pink project is “near death and probably will be canceled”.

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Ballmer: Microsoft “are not interested in e-readers”

By Chris Davies on Friday, Oct 9th 2009 No Comments

Amazon are looking to foreign climes with the Kindle, Barnes & Noble are preparing to make a splash with both monochrome and color ebook devices, but Steve Ballmer doesn’t reckon his customers care about standalone ebook readers. Speaking to reporters in the Netherlands this week, the outspoken Microsoft CEO revealed that his company has no plans for creating a dedicated device: “We have a device for reading. It’s the most popular device in the world. It’s the PC.”