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Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

Microsoft planning mid-2010 launch for Courier: perfect note-taking tablet

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Sep 29th 2009 No Comments

After the second leak of Microsoft's Courier dual-touchscreen tablet, ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley has stepped in with some leaked information of her own. It looks as though our suggestion that the origins (and intentions) of Courier lie in Microsoft OneNote was accurate, with Foley's source saying "The concept started as a software idea on how one would really build OneNote from scratch if you could for the Tablet form factor. That then morphed into building a tablet. If you look at the most successful pocket computer today - it is still the Franklin Covey Planning Products, the idea was how do you create a digital planner."

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Microsoft Xbox 360 holiday bundles announced

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Sep 29th 2009 No Comments

Microsoft have announced two gaming bundles for the upcoming holiday season, one including their Xbox 360 and the other intended for those who already own the console. The Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle pairs the console with two games, LEGO Batman and Pure, and is priced at $299.

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Microsoft Courier leaks again: your “infinite journal” [Video]

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Sep 29th 2009 No Comments

A second video and more details on Microsoft’s Courier notebook-tablet project have arrived, again courtesy of Gizmodo’s sources, and in spite of the shift toward finger-entry of text seen in smartphones over recent years, it looks as though Microsoft are pushing forward with pen-input. At Courier’s heart is the “infinite journal”, an ongoing – and thankfully searchable – document that can be used to collect together snippets of text, diagrams, webpages and more, and that integrates with a PIM and contacts system.

microsoft courier interface

Video after the cut

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Project Natal unlikely to be backward-compatible with existing 360 games

By Chris Davies on Monday, Sep 28th 2009 No Comments

Microsoft has confirmed that it’s unlikely existing games will be compatible with their upcoming Project Natal motion-controller for the Xbox 360, suggesting that developers would in effect need to push out fully reworked versions of titles rather than merely issue a compatibility patch. The news came courtesy of Microsoft Games’ Kudo Tsunoda, speaking at the Tokyo Game Show, who confirmed that the company had been forced to significantly alter code in the games they used to demonstrate Project Natal.

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Microsoft Pink Turtle and Pure phones leak

By Chris Davies on Thursday, Sep 24th 2009 No Comments

Crystal ball, secret tunnel or loose-lipped mole; we don’t know how Gizmodo are doing it, but hot on the heels of the Microsoft Courier dual-touchscreen tablet leak comes shots of Microsoft’s two upcoming Pink cellphones. The Microsoft Turtle (the squarish model) and Microsoft Pure (the more traditional handset) are both manufactured by Sharp and will be co-branded, and like the Sidekick – which Sharp also manufactured for Danger – will be targeted at a messaging-friendly youth market.

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Xbox 360 WiFi 802.11n adapter to be $100 says tipster

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Sep 23rd 2009 No Comments

Microsoft's Xbox 360 WiFi 802.11n adapter, tipped in another leaky FCC filing, will apparently be priced at around $100 when it lands later this year. The WiFi-n adapter will seemingly go on sale alongside, rather than outright replace, the existing version, which will see a discount to $79.99.

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Over 30 WinMo 6.5 devices by end of 2009 says Microsoft

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Sep 23rd 2009 No Comments

Windows Mobile 6.5 may be arriving relatively late in the year - October 6th being the day pegged for the next-gen smartphone platform - but that hasn't stopped Microsoft from making some healthy predictions about how many devices there'll be on the scene by the end of the year. According to Benjamin Tan, senior director of the GCR Mobile Team Unit at Microsoft China, more than 30 WinMo 6.5 handsets are expected to launch by the end of 2009.

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Microsoft Courier tablet breaks cover: dual-screen multitouch [Video]

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Sep 23rd 2009 No Comments

Having heard the rumors earlier this week about Microsoft’s supposed tablet project, imagine our surprise to see this, the Microsoft Courier. Gizmodo grabbed the details on the dual-touchscreen tablet, which folds along its center spine and can be used with either a pen stylus for handwriting recognition or with fingertips complete with multitouch gestures. Each panel is believed to be roughly 7-inches, and the whole project is apparently in “late prototype” stage of development.

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Video demo after the cut

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Microsoft acquire ICS parallel computing specialist

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Sep 22nd 2009 No Comments

microsoft logo Microsoft have confirmed that they have acquired Interactive Supercomputing (ISC), a desktop parallel computing specialist. The company plan to integrate ISC’s technology into its desktop and cluster high-performance computer solutions; meanwhile they will support existing users of ISC’s Star-P parallel computer modelling software, though no further versions of the app will be developed or released.

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Next-gen Wii in 2011 suggests Square Enix chief

By Chris Davies on Monday, Sep 21st 2009 No Comments

Nintendo regularly quash Wii HD rumors, but they keep on coming back. Latest to reignite the speculation is none other than Square Enix chief Yoichi Wada, who has stuck his neck out and suggested 2011 as the launch window for the reworked console. Wada tips the new Wii HD as having many of the features as the Xbox 360 and PS3, to which we're assuming he's referring to media-centric functionality.