Posted by on under interface ideas, laptop owners, impressive job, hp touchsmart pc, beta stage, transparent window, giant screen, netbook, screen space, lts, start menu, system tray, taskbar, keynote, peek, new features, gadgets, laptops, sidebar, demo | 
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Microsoft's
Windows 7 announcement earlier today was followed up by an extensive demo of the new features during the PDC keynote, and since then even more info about the new OS has flooded out, so we thought we'd try to wrap up some of the more important bits here for you. Microsoft seems to have done an impressive job at this early pre-beta stage, folding in next-gen interface ideas like multitouch into the same OS that apparently runs fine on a 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM, but we'll see how development goes -- there's still a ways to go. Some notes:
- Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new "jump lists" of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can "peek" at the windows you're pointing at.
- Gadgets now appear on the desktop -- the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent.
- Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty.
- The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should -- everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined.
- User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained -- you can set them by app and by level of access.
- They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC -- it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging "what is this good for / that'll get old fast" concerns weren't really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There's also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again -- could be amazing, but we won't know until it's out in the wild.
- We've always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his "personal" laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We're guessing it was running a VIA Nano, since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.)
- At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs.
- Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors -- it's a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well.
- Media Center has been tweaked as well -- it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There's also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you're playing music.
- Devs got a pre-beta today; a "pretty good" feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it'll be released to market apart from that "three years from Vista" date we've known forever.
That's just the good bits -- hit the read links for piles of more info and screenshots, and we'll keep our eyes out for anything else interesting. Exciting times!
Read - Keynote videos on the PDC site
Read - Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough
Read - Laptop Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Windows 7 Media Center revealed
Windows 7 details galore: interface tweaks, netbook builds, Media Center enhancements originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: interface ideas, laptop owners, impressive job, hp touchsmart pc, beta stage, transparent window, giant screen, netbook, screen space, lts, start menu, system tray, taskbar, keynote, peek, new features, gadgets, laptops, sidebar, demo
Posted by on under chief software architect, microsoft office word, office word excel, ray ozzie, versis, word excel powerpoint, enote, web course, beta release, best of the web, taskbar, gestures, web browsers, laps, starters, spill, laptops, nbsp, developers, microsoft |
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
We knew
good and well Microsoft was gearing up to drop a pre-beta release of
Windows 7 in developers' laps at its Professional Developers Conference, but now we're being treated to a host of details from Redmond itself. For starters, it's showing off (for the first time, mind you) its new Web applications for Office. As you'd expect, said apps are "lightweight versions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that are used from within standard web browsers." According to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft, it's aiming to bring "the best of the web to Windows, and the best of Windows to the web." 'Course, we're also told about improved navigation, a new taskbar (preview shown), support for multi-touch gestures,
Device Stage and enhanced AV integration -- all things that have our interest decidedly piqued. Hit the read link for the full spill direct from the horse's mouth.
Microsoft details pre-beta release of Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: chief software architect, microsoft office word, office word excel, ray ozzie, versis, word excel powerpoint, enote, web course, beta release, best of the web, taskbar, gestures, web browsers, laps, starters, spill, laptops, nbsp, developers, microsoft
Posted by on under chief software architect, microsoft office word, office word excel, ray ozzie, versis, word excel powerpoint, enote, web course, beta release, best of the web, taskbar, gestures, web browsers, laps, starters, spill, laptops, nbsp, developers, microsoft |
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
We knew
good and well Microsoft was gearing up to drop a pre-beta release of
Windows 7 in developers' laps at its Professional Developers Conference, but now we're being treated to a host of details from Redmond itself. For starters, it's showing off (for the first time, mind you) its new Web applications for Office. As you'd expect, said apps are "lightweight versions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that are used from within standard web browsers." According to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft, it's aiming to bring "the best of the web to Windows, and the best of Windows to the web." 'Course, we're also told about improved navigation, a new taskbar (preview shown), support for multi-touch gestures,
Device Stage and enhanced AV integration -- all things that have our interest decidedly piqued. Hit the read link for the full spill direct from the horse's mouth.
Microsoft details pre-beta release of Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: chief software architect, microsoft office word, office word excel, ray ozzie, versis, word excel powerpoint, enote, web course, beta release, best of the web, taskbar, gestures, web browsers, laps, starters, spill, laptops, nbsp, developers, microsoft
Posted by on under global mobile computing, vivienne tam, netbooks, tier vendors, global mobility, mini 1000, netbook, life cycles, compas, global markets, emerging markets, price tag, related news, clutch, denial, laptops, atom, intel, array, hp |
Filed under: Laptops
Here in the US of A, most netbooks come stocked with a predictable array of hardware: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 80GB HDD, 1GB of RAM and a price tag ranging from $399 to $699. Elsewhere on the planet, things are a bit different, and if
VIA has anything to say about it,
it will be the name people think of when hearing "
netbook" in Asia and beyond. Said outfit has just cranked up a Global Mobility Bazaar program to "drive [global] mobile computing adoption," and it has already managed to pull 15 companies (including Microsoft, for a little thing called WinXP) onboard. In essence, the program will enable second-tier vendors to get in the netbook game and offer products with shorter life cycles and lower prices -- both of which are mighty useful in emerging markets. In somewhat related news, we're also hearing a sketchy report that HP has chosen the Intel route for its future netbooks, and considering that the
Vivienne Tam Digital Clutch has already selected Intel, we suppose the forthcoming
Mini 1000 will likely be the real confirmation / denial.
[Via
Liliputing]
Read - VIA's Global Mobility Bazaar
Read - HP choosing Intel?
VIA teams with Microsoft to drive low-cost netbooks in global markets originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: global mobile computing, vivienne tam, netbooks, tier vendors, global mobility, mini 1000, netbook, life cycles, compas, global markets, emerging markets, price tag, related news, clutch, denial, laptops, atom, intel, array, hp
Posted by on under sony batteries, laptop batteries, th time, hagerman, product safety, lenovo, milli, timeframe, laptops, dell, toshiba, hp, sony |
Scott Hagerman passes along news of yet another recall of Sony laptop batteries. The batteries in question, manufactured in the same timeframe as those involved in the massive 2006 recall, are in laptops sold by HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Acer. Neither Apple nor Sony itself used these batteries in their laptops. This time 100,000 batteries are involved — 65,000 of them sold outside of the US — vs. the 10 million recalled in 2006. The Consumer Product Safety Commission fielded 19 reports of batteries overheating and/or catching fire.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: sony batteries, laptop batteries, th time, hagerman, product safety, lenovo, milli, timeframe, laptops, dell, toshiba, hp, sony
