No more "Metro UI" for Windows 8

Microsoft no longer wants to use the term "Metro User Interface" for its upcoming Windows products.

Global software giant Microsoft has been using the term 'Metro' for the new user interface that made its debut with the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. But with the upcoming Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft is set to rename the 'Metro User Interface' as the 'New User Interface' or the 'Windows 8 style User Interface'.

As reported by ARS Technica, Microsoft's legal and corporate affairs team has issued an internal memo banning the use of the word "Metro" with regards to Windows. As per the report, Microsoft has in the memo clarified that the decision was taken after German retailer, Metro AG, sent a notice to Microsoft threatening legal action for infringing the "Metro" trademark held by it.

The new terminology that Microsoft will be using in regard with its upcoming operating system will be "Windows 8-style UI" when talking about Windows 8 applications, and "New User Interface" when talking about the company's product line-up.

As per a Microsoft spokesman, "We have used 'Metro style' as a code name during the product development cycle across many of our product lines. As we get closer to launch and transition from industry dialog to a broad consumer dialog we will use our commercial names."

Whatever might be the reason for the change but finally no Metro user interface will be available for Windows 8 which is to be launched in the month of October this year.

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Windows Phone 8 to feature memory card support and screenshot capabilities

The upcoming Windows Phone 8 will get a load of new functionalists-screenshots and additional memory support included.

Microsoft has revealed a few things about the upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system. The contents of the Windows Phone hardware specifications mentioned in the Windows Phone summit include two most demanded features by various Windows Phone users. These include support for external memory cards for more storage on the device, and along with that a mass storage mode as well.

Although the details have not been published by Microsoft some of the details were tracked by WPDang. According to the new details Windows Phone 8 will include newer functionalities and features that most users have been asking for.

The first is mass storage mode. When Microsoft announced that it would add support for microSD cards in Windows Phone 8, it was unclear whether the company would go with the popular mass storage protocol or the media transfer protocol. Now it appears that the feature will allow users to store files in the memory of their Windows Phone device without the need of software.

Along with that Microsoft has also added the ability to take screenshots. Now it is being said that Windows Phone 8 will let users grab screenshots by pressing the Windows key and the camera key simultaneously.

There is nothing particularly new or exciting about these features because they are frequently seen in newer operating systems like Android and iOS, but their inclusion in Windows 8 seems nice and it's good to know that users' suggestions are being heard.

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Windows 8 tablet OS coming on Oct 26: Microsoft

However, there is no word from the PC giant about its country wise availability.

Microsoft's much awaited Windows 8 operating system, which is expected to make a mark in the tablet segment, will be released on October 26 this year.

Stephen Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live division, announced the date in an annual meeting of the company. However, it was Microsoft's communications manager, Brandon LeBlanc who made it public though a blog post yesterday.

"Steven Sinofsky announced at Microsoft's annual sales meeting that customers will be able to get Windows 8 - whether in upgrade fashion or on a new PC - starting on October 26th. Earlier this month at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Tami Reller told attendees Windows 8 would be available in October. But now everyone has a specific date to mark on their calendars," LeBlanc wrote in the blog.

However, there is no word from the PC giant about its country wise availability.

Features of Windows 8

Windows 8 is the next generation operating system from Microsoft that would be used in tablets apart from PCs and laptops. It is expected to bring several new features to the tablets including security features like Secure Boot is designed to prevent any unauthorised firmware, drivers or operating systems from launching as the computer boots up into Windows.

Windows 8 has been designed keeping new age touchscreen devices in mind and likewise would bring a new 'Picture Password' functionality that would allow users to unlock their tablets by gestures than keying in passwords.

Besides, there are lot many features that the new tablet operating system expected to bring which will come to light once Microsoft's releases the OS.

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Microsoft Office 13 launched, optimised for touchscreen devices

The latest Microsoft Office is optimised for touchscreen devices, and comes with integrated cloud support and Skype functionality.

Global software giant, Microsoft has announced the launch of the most advanced version of its Office application. The new Microsoft Office 2013 has been made to meet the needs of the emerging devices, like touch screen based devices such as tablets and others. The new Office 2013 app comes with two entirely new but welcome additions - namely the cloud based storage facility along with Skype, and the popular video and text chat application.

"The Office that we'll talk about and show you today is the first round of Office that's designed from the get-go to be a service," Microsoft's chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer said during the launch event of the Microsoft Office 2013. "This is the most ambitious release of Microsoft Office that we've ever done," Ballmer added.

With the existing portfolio of services such as MS word, PowerPoint, Excel and much more, the Microsoft office has become the most trusted application globally. With the inclusion of new services and features, Microsoft is surely trying to get back its hard earned user base which due to the lack of cloud computing was moving to services such as Google docs.

"Your modern Office thinks cloud first. That's what it means to have Office as a service," Ballmer said adding emphasis to the inclusion of cloud in Office 2013.

Along with the added cloud support, the Office 2013 will also get collaboration support with the integrated Skype support. Skype was bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in 2011.

With devices like Microsoft Surface WiFi-only-version tablet emerging as the future of computing, the office 2013 is just a glimpse of what all Microsoft is planning to bring to the battle. With the launch of Office 2013, the expectation for the Windows 8 launch have raised slightly more and what new features will come with the Windows 8 still awaits to be seen.

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Hackers breach Yahoo site, pose risk to others

Boston: More than 400,000 Yahoo Inc user names and passwords were stolen and published on the Web, putting other websites at risk as well, after hackers exploited a vulnerability in Yahoo's computer systems.

Some logins for Google Inc, AOL Inc and Microsoft Corp services were among those compromised. The three companies said they required affected users to reset passwords for sites including Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, MSN and Live.com.

Yahoo issued a statement apologising for the breach, the latest setback for a company that has lost two chief executives in a year and is struggling to revive stalled revenue growth.

Chairman Alfred Amoroso acknowledged that Yahoo had experienced a "tumultuous- year at its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday morning. Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn told attendees he was optimistic about the company's progress.

The breach prompted criticism from security experts who said that a major Internet firm like Yahoo should do a better job at protecting user data. "This points to some very lax security practices,- said Rob D'Ovidio, associate professor of criminal justice at Drexel University. As an example, he noted that the hackers were able to produce more than 400,000 cleartext passwords within a day. That indicates that Yahoo either did not encrypt them at all or used an encryption method that was easy to crack, he said.

The professional networking service LinkedIn recently came under similar criticism. Security experts chided the company for failing to use sophisticated encryption practices to secure its passwords, millions of which were released following a breach last month.

Yahoo spokeswoman Dana Lengkeek said "an older file- had been stolen from Yahoo Contributor Network, an Internet publishing service that Yahoo purchased about two years ago. It helps writers, photographers and videographers to sell their work over the Web.

"We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users' accounts may have been compromised,- she said.

AOL said the Yahoo data published on the Web included valid passwords for 1,699 accounts. Microsoft and Google declined to provide similar numbers.
Other firms whose customers were at risk include Comcast Corp, Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T, Rapid7 researcher Marcus Carey said. He estimated that tens of thousands of accounts of users of services other than Yahoo were affected by the breach.

AT&T and Verizon did not have any immediate comment. Officials with Comcast could not be reached. AOL Senior Vice President David Temkin said spammers typically use credentials like the ones stolen from Yahoo to break into email accounts and use them to send out spam.

"In this case, I think we actually got ahead of it before the people who stole those accounts were able to use them,- Temkin said.

The five most popular passwords in the group were "123456-, "password-, "welcome- and "ninja-, according to an analysis by anti-virus software maker ESET.

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Microsoft Windows Phone 8 may get single thumb friendly keyboard

A leaked image from a Microsoft Research presentation shows that the company is working on a new Arc Soft keyboard input that is curved, has clustered keys, and is meant to be operated with one thumb.

Microsoft is quietly working on a new on-screen keyboard for the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system. WMPowerUser managed to get a leaked Microsoft Research presentation that had a new Arc Soft on-screen keyboard that is specifically meant to be operated with one thumb.

Microsoft is looking to add a new input style in the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system. The existing Swype and SwiftKeyX keyboard apps are making waves amongst Android users. With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is trying to address the issue of using smartphones with one hand. Phones with large screens or full touchscreens usually require the attention of both hands to feed in text through the on-screen keyboard.

The leaked Microsoft Research presentation carried the photo of an on-screen soft keyboard which is arch shaped and has the keys clustered together. This keyboard can easily be used with one thumb and the user does not have to rely on both hands for text inputs.

It would be interesting if Swype follows the same implementation for its keyboards on different platforms. However, there are no official confirmations on whether Microsoft will actually use the Arc Soft curved keyboard in the Windows Phone 8 OS. It could be offered as an additional download from the Marketplace.

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Google Analytics app now available for Android

Google Analytics app gives a chart view of web traffic on the dashboard. It offers a real time view of web statistics and much more.

Google has released its website analytics service as an app for the Android mobile platform. The new Google Analytics app is ideally meant for bloggers, website owners and webmasters to stay updated with website statistics. This new app arrives with limited functionality compared to the exhaustive set of features offered in the web version of the Google Analytics service.

Google Analytics offers a comprehensive overview of web traffic and user behaviour in a quantitative and visual manner. With the new Google Analytics app, bloggers and website owners can get to know more about how visitors to their site interact with it.

The official Analytics app has a real time tab that shows details about website traffic at that particular moment. Apparently, one has to refresh that pane manually to get the latest update. The dashboard in the app supports only the charts view and one can add charts to the dashboard. Other information as alerts is visible in the swipe-friendly user interface.

Considering this as the first version of the app, we certainly can expect to see more features being added to it in due course of time. Now bloggers and webmasters can check web traffic data and changes anywhere and anytime on their Android device.

Get the Google Analytics app for Android 2.1 from Google Play store.

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Visual Studio 2011 with amazing new feature and look !!

Visual Studio 2011 is the next iteration to Microsoft’s esteemed development platform. It provides a range of tools to help the users develop almost any type of applications ranging from offline applications to server applications requiring online connectivity. Visual Studio has always been the leader when it comes to application development, and the upcoming version proposes to improve it even further. So without further ado, lets look at some of the features the newest version stands to offer.

• Metro Application Development Support

This is by far the most important and anticipated feature of Visual Studio 2011. It provides support for Windows 8 specific Metro UI applications which can be built as extensions to the current applications. It includes a set of templates that can help you create Metro style apps using JavaScript, Vb, C# and C++. It also allows you to seamlessly redesign your app by simply opening it from Visual Studio and then changing the style using JavaScript. This can be achieved using a new feature called Expression Blend. This feature allows you to run your applications as live apps rather than static layouts. Hence, you can control the design of the application as it runs in real time. This is especially useful given the dynamic nature of HTML.

• Game design enhancements

Many tools to enhance the game design process have been integrated into Visual Studio 2011. It comes packed with a slew of visual design, development, and debugging tools, which greatly improve upon the game design experience. It also allows you to design 2d/3d games and Metro UI apps.

• Code enhancement and Re-usability tools

Visual Studio has always sought to improve the quality of code by refactoring it. This is taken a step further in Visual Studio 2011. Now, instead of being purely developer dependent, Visual Studio will scan the logic of the code developed by you and try and factor the code into methods which can be user later in the program. And this is done not just by scanning through identical blocks of code; Visual Studio searches for semantically similar blocks based on heuristics developed by Microsoft Research.

• Reviewing Code

Visual Studio 2011 works in collaboration with Team Foundation Server to provide application life-cycle management. Code can be reviewed in Visual Studio 2011 in collaboration with developers with the help of team viewer.

• Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing is a new feature of Visual Studio 2011 which lets the user perform testing operation without any formal test planning. No need to write test cases or create a test plan now; testing can begin straight away. Each time a test is performed, a full log of the test scan is recorded. This tool also allows the user to generate a bug list, which records all the bugs encountered during testing. After testing is complete, the user can view the test result in the Microsoft test manager and review the test scan and take a further course of action.

• Other Features you’ll see in the 2011 version

In addition to the aforementioned features, Visual Studio 2011 also has the following benefits over its predecessors,

• Support for development of cloud computing applications.

• Solid integration with HTML 5 and CSS3.

• ASP.Net MVC4.

• It includes a new template for mobile development which makes mobile development easier and more efficient.

• New and more improved version of JavaScript to make the programmers life even easier.

• New profile which lets the user choose between building the application and publishing it.

• Visual Studio 2011 now supports web socket protocol which helps in server to client data transfer. It has support for both ASP.net 5 and IIS 8, so that we can easily read and write data into a socket object.

PS: The Beta versions have been out quite since a while and you can get them from Microsoft’s website.

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Future Gaming Technology: Project Natal

Microsoft has recently announced an impressive addition to their popular X-Box video game system which will replace the standard controllers. Project Natal, as they call it, is the future gaming technology we have been waiting for and has built in motion sensors that allows users to act out their moves  instead of having to press buttons. So if you are playing a fighting game (such as Street Fighter) you will actually have to do some physical kicks and punches in order to defeat your opponent. Project Natal is like a Nintendo Wii 2.0 – instead of having to swing around your controller you can just use your body, and no more worrying about cracking your new plasma TV. This new technology is also supposed to be equipped with voice and facial recognition software, which I’m assuming is used to distinguish between two players and keep track of player profiles.
Nintendo had better be prepared to answer back when Microsoft releases this future technology, or any hope for more Wii sales will be obliterated (assuming Project Natal turns out to be accurate and practical). The new gaming device is projected to be released near the end of 2010, just in time for the holidays, and has been speculated to cost somewhere around $100. There have also been some rumors going around as to whether 1 or 2 people will be able to use the gaming sensors simultaneously, but most signs point to 2 players. Exciting times for us video gamers!

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Microsoft may launch Windows 8 smartphones: Analyst

Microsoft unveiled its own branded tablet and might also launch smartphones, which could be potentially a big blow to Nokia.

Microsoft might launch its own Windows Phone 8 based smartphone just like the Microsoft branded tablet that the company recently unveiled.

This has been said by a Wall Street analyst who has followed the company for many years.

"Our industry sources tell us that Microsoft may be working with a contract manufacturer to develop its own handset with Windows Phone 8," wrote Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund in a note to clients on Thursday and reported by Reuters.

"It is unclear to us whether this would be a reference platform or whether this may be a go-to market Microsoft-branded handset," wrote Sherlund, who covered Microsoft for Goldman Sachs when the bank brought Microsoft public in 1986.

While Microsoft has not confirmed or denied the move, it seems likely to do the same given that it has already announced a tablet with the new operating system. This move could be a big blow to Nokia which has committed to the Windows Phone platform ditching its own Symbian and Meego platform.

While this could be a similar move like Google, which makes Google Nexus phones with pure Android Operating system version, while other manufacturers make their own smartphones based on Android and also have the freedom to tweak the operating system.

However, the key difference in this case is the fact that Microsoft doesn't allow the manufacturers to modify the operating system much and also specifies the exact hardware requirements for making phones based in this platform, meaning that a device from Microsoft will be a direct competition to the devices manufactured by others with Windows Phone platform and there will be hardly any differentiating factor.

Another surprising part is that the Windows Phone 8 version will not be available to phones based on Windows Phone 7.5 based devices, which have been made available within the last 12 months only. This is a complete departure from the industry practice, for example till now all iOS software upgrades have been made available to all iPhones produced till date and it is only with the iOS 6 that the older iPhones will not support the upgrade. Even in case of Android, all handsets that have the necessary hardware to support latest version gets the update.

Some in the industry feel that Microsoft is interested in buying Nokia but not before it is weakened further and its stock prices plummet to new lows at which point it will be a cheap deal for Microsoft.

One question that comes to mind is, was Nokia not informed that the next version of the OS will require a completely different set of hardware? Since Microsoft would be developing the Windows Phone 8 for at least one year now, it should have known this in advance.

Also if Microsoft doesn't intend to buy Nokia out and enter the smartphone space like RIM and Apple where it does both software and hardware, it would risk losing the little support for Windows Phone operating that it has right now from HTC, Acer and Samsung. As it is most other smartphone vendors are not willing to invest in its platform.

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Microsoft's Advance home Operating System

No matter to what level consumer technologies and appliances be new to a market, they have always been accepted for good reasons. By definition and intention, consumer technologies are constantly augmented to simplify our routine habits and requirements. Pointing specifically at the household appliances, you may introduce new devices and setups to your current home eco-system to make it smarter than ever. But there has always been a much wider room to enhance your abode. Much of the menial tasks at home can be automated. 

Microsoft’s Home Operating System research is about pushing the home eco-system management to a broader level. Of course, refrigerators, television sets, washing machines, air conditioners, etceteras, are the most common home applications that automate a good deal of manual work. But consider a time when you are not home and you have a set of activities to perform, which can only be achieved in your presence. Or may be a point where you need to perform a step-by-step list of activities that require physical presence just to tip-tap buttons and get the machines working (television, set-top boxes, lamps and so on). This is where HomeOS steps in to organize the menial tasks into one place and conveniently control, like as easily from a smart phone.

A student demonstrating how to turn on and off lights via gestures with a Kinect (an excerpt from the white paper)

With HomeOS, you can add remote surveillance for security and monitor the energy consumption at your home. All and more of these capabilities will be available and setup through the HomeStore gateway installed on the user’s computer. The user can accordingly add more functionalities to the home system from the HomeStore. According a video shared by one of the contributors of this research, the add-on like functionalities in HomeOS are coded in C# language.

In the following video, Ratul Mahajan (one of the contributors to this project) demonstrates how the HomeOS system would work on a very basic scale.

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