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 shell integration, foobar2000 plugin, lts, itunes, ly |
Windows 7 only: We've already shown you how to add Jump Lists to Winamp, use them in iTunes 9, and now there's a plugin that adds full support for Jump Lists and taskbar controls in foobar2000....
Tagi: shell integration, foobar2000 plugin, lts, itunes, ly
Posted by on under venture capital firms, interactive tables, vc firms, fher, trends report, lts, techcrunch, sequoia, draper, rebound, vcs, perkins, time period, lt |
In the third quarter of 2009, we saw a slight
rebound in venture funding from earlier in the year. But which venture capital firms were the most active in the quarter? One of my favorite new tables in our latest
TechCrunch Trends report, which is based on company data we collect in
CrunchBase, is the ranking of the most active venture capital firms. We've reproduced that ranking below in two interactive tables which show the top 25 most active VC firms in both the third quarter of 2009 and the most active year-to-date. (You can see a list of the top 100 most-active VC firms in the quarter
). The rankings are based on the number of deals each firm participated in during each time period. Draper Fisher Jurvetson tops both lists, with 17 deals in the third quarter, and 34 year to date. Then it was followed, for the quarter, by Sequoia (12 deals), Kleiner Perkins (11 deals), NEA (9 deals), and Benchmark (8 deals). The top ten for the year-to-date rankings show many of the same firms, although they move around a little.
Tagi: venture capital firms, interactive tables, vc firms, fher, trends report, lts, techcrunch, sequoia, draper, rebound, vcs, perkins, time period, lt
Posted by on under compact package, lts, techcrunch, rt, butt, urls, syntax, peoe, photos |
As we all know, today was
Chrome Extension day. By now, you've likely tried out many of them and picked some that you like as well as those that you don't. Easily one of my favorites so far is the
Brizzly extension built by Thing Labs. It's hands down the best-looking app out there right now, but it has some limitations.
Brizzly is a web app that
gives you access to your Twitter stream and more recently,
Facebook data. It's Chrome extension offers just about everything the web app does in a much more compact package. You can see photos and videos right in your tweet stream without having to click through to another site. All URLs are expanded so you know exactly what you're clicking on. You can favorite, reply, and retweet people with the click of a button. The last one will be of particular interest to those who hate the new Retweet functionality, since Brizzly still uses the old "RT" style syntax. And you can mute people (remove them from your stream without unfollowing them) and edit your Lists easily all within the extension.
Tagi: compact package, lts, techcrunch, rt, butt, urls, syntax, peoe, photos
Posted by on under wyclef jean, cloey, tweets, lts, tweeters, techcrunch, twitter, rae, charities, red cross, cr, best practices, celebrities, profits, tragedy, haiti, real time, peoe |
Since the crisis in Haiti began, Twitter has played a big part in helping raise awareness of the tragedy. It's also helped charities and celebrities reach out to the community to encourage donations toward the Red Cross and the other organizations working hard to help the situation. Today, Twitter is launching a portal at
Hope140.org for people looking to help Haiti, but who don't necessarily know where to start. The site features a collection of recommended tweeters and Lists, including charities and people who are actually reporting from the field. A stream of recent tweets about the crisis is scrolling by in real time. And a large part of the page is dedicated to helping non-profits connect with the Twitter community, as a sort of best practices guide. It also calls out tonight's
Hope For Haiti Now Telethon, which begins at 8 PM EST and is being hosted by George Clooney, Wyclef Jean, and Anderson Cooper.
Tagi: wyclef jean, cloey, tweets, lts, tweeters, techcrunch, twitter, rae, charities, red cross, cr, best practices, celebrities, profits, tragedy, haiti, real time, peoe
