Some say the mouse’s days are numbered, but today Microsoft Corp. proves the gadget is alive and well by unveiling the Arc Touch Mouse, the first mouse designed to flatten for portability and pop up for comfort. The new mouse features Microsoft’s first touch scroll strip for easy navigation — just move a finger slowly for controlled scrolling or flick for hyperfast scrolling. Windows-based PC users will love packing up their laptop bags without the added bump of a mouse, as the Arc Touch Mouse flattens with just the touch of a finger.
As the computing landscape evolves to offer new ways of interacting, such as touch screens and touch pads, the mouse is also evolving but holds true to its core purpose: providing comfort and precision to users when navigating the PC.
“This is not the first time that the mouse has been threatened — look at 10 years ago when people started buying laptops that had integrated pointers and touch pads. Still, the mouse category continued to grow and grow,” said Brett Ostrum, general manager for the Hardware Group at Microsoft. “The reasons people need external mice will not change: comfort and precision. The Arc Touch Mouse just demonstrates again how committed Microsoft is to continuing to bring great new mice to consumers.”
Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7! While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete.
Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released. We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes. We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready.
I last posted on this blog when we reached the Technical Preview milestone, and we’ve received some great feedback since then which we’ve been able to respond to and improve the smart design throughout the OS. For example, folks loved the Facebook integration in the People Hub, but they also wanted ways to filter their contacts so only the Facebook friends they really know will show up in their contact list – we’ve added support for that. We’ve also made it easy to “like” a post right from the People Hub, or quickly post a message to someone’s Facebook wall directly.
If you already want a hard drive for that 4GB Xbox 360 S you bought, you could wait patiently for Microsoft to announce the accessory … or you could just go to Gamestop and buy one. Reader Iain informs Joystiq that he spotted the 250GB hard drives for the redesigned Xbox in his local store — and they’re also available on GameStop.com right now. (We couldn’t find the item being offered by any other retailer yet.)
Of course, the $130 price for the drive completely obliterates any savings you might temporarily enjoy after buying the $200 4GB model (or the upcoming Kinect bundle), but it sure beats a mountain of USB flash drives.
Forward-thinking companies continue to grapple with the realities of moving to the cloud. For every benefit comes a concern, for every answer a question. There are myriad considerations to resolve before actually pulling the plug on local storage and local hosting. Is cloud-based e-mail secure? How will I control access? Will I have access to e-mail archives? What happens if the hosting provider goes out of business or suffers a catastrophic failure? What’s my back-up plan? Read more…
ugust marks the six-month anniversary of the public unveiling of our next-generation mobile phone, Windows Phone 7. Six months is an interesting bit of time; it can fly by, or it can feel like it’s dragging on forever. The gating factor tends to be how much fun you are having. For us on the Windows Phone team, it feels like just yesterday that we first introduced Windows Phone 7 to the world. Now, just a blink of the eye and phones will be on shelves.
All of the work of the last six months is certainly paying off, as just about every conversation we have with developers focuses on their strategy for generating more business with Windows Phone 7. It’s amazing to see so many inspired developers looking to create experiences for Windows Phone 7. In fact, to date there have been north of 300,000 downloads of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.
Of course, it’s not just the big names in development who are going to bring great titles to Windows Phone 7 customers. There are many multiples more of lesser known developers who are looking to be in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Large or small, all developers will have equal opportunity to capitalize on the first mover advantage of having their apps or games ready at launch. In order to do that, there are a few things developers will need to do:
Finish you application or game using the Beta tools
Download the final Windows Phone Developer Tools when they are released on September 16th
Recompile your app or game using the final tools
Have your XAP ready for ingestion into the marketplace in early October when it opens
The final tools will likely have some minor breaking changes from the Beta tools, so developers may have to fix some bugs that arise. The final tools will also include several highly requested Silverlight controls which will make it even easier for developers to deliver high quality Windows Phone 7 experiences. Also in the September 16th final release, the panorama, pivot and Bing maps controls will all be available to drop into applications.
Late tonight here in Redmond, but very early over in Germany we took the wraps off our first wave of game titles making their way this holiday to Windows Phone 7. I know there has been lots of anticipation about XBOX Live on Windows Phone 7 so I hope this first drop of news is welcome! First, head over here to get all the latest on the announcement including titles like Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst. This is a tower defense game that uses real locations as the gaming world thanks the Bing maps. Defend the big landmark in your city or even your own house!
In addition to the games, we also announced enhanced Games hub functionality in store for Windows Phone 7 including a rich avatar experience, messaging using Xbox LIVE and the ability to see all your friends’ play status, Gamerscore and latest achievements. If you don’t have a Xbox LIVE account when you purchase a Windows Phone 7 you can sign and up and deck out your avatar all from the phone, no Xbox console required!
This is just the first in many great announcements we have planned for Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7 so be sure to stay tuned for the latest. I will drill into some of the specific titles announced today in the coming days, and also try to get some guest posts or interviews with our publisher friends in coming weeks. Also head over to the Windows Phone Developer blog to hear from Michael Klucher on the ground in Germany!
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a new iteration called “Microsoft Flight,” coming soon to Windows. Microsoft said it will be “Live-enabled,” meaning there will be some sort of online component through Windows Live.
The unveiling was part of the company’s larger announcement of games for Windows and for Windows Phone 7. Also revealed: “Age of Empires Online” and “Fable III.”
Microsoft’s teaser trailer for “Flight.” If these are the true graphics, they look amazing.
It’s not official until Microsoft says it is, but the image above of the rumored Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse was just snagged off a German online store. Amazingly, the mouse arches its back for comfortable mousing before packing flat for easy transport. The mouse features touch-scrolling, a battery indicator, the ability to track on most any surface, and a 2.4GHz nano transceiver that no doubt plugs into your laptop’s USB port. Yours soon for €69.99 ($69.95 rumored).
Russia-based Kaspersky Lab, an antivirus software company, said the malicous code, which poses as a harmless media player application, has been infecting Android devices and sending text messages to premium-rate numbers.
“The Trojan uses the system to pass money from a user’s account to that of the cybercriminals — without the owner’s knowledge or consent,” Kaspersky said in a statement.
The software, which is prevalent among Russian Android owners, doesn’t appear to be a serious threat to users worldwide.
“We consistently advise users to only install apps they trust,” said Jay Nancarrow, a Google spokesman. “In particular, users should exercise caution when installing applications outside of Android Market.”
Antivirus software companies have been beefing up its mobile arsenal against the growing threats. In May, Symantec, the world’s largest technology security company, announced a new initiative, dubbed “Norton Everywhere,” which offers security products for smartphones including iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile devices.
Meanwhile, rival McAfee acquired Trust Digital, another mobile protection firm, for an undisclosed sum.
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Microsoft released 14 security bulletins, addressing 34 vulnerabilities. Eight of those bulletins have a Critical severity rating, and Microsoft considers four of those to be high-priority deployments:
MS10-052 This bulletin resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft’s MPEG Layer-3 audio codecs. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted media file or receives specially crafted streaming content from a Web site. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user.
MS10-055 This bulletin resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Cinepak Codec, which is used by Windows Media Player to support the .avi audiovisual format. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted media file, or receives specially crafted streaming content from a Web site. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user.
MS10-056 This bulletin resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens or previews a specially crafted RTF e-mail message. An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the local user. Windows Vista and Windows 7 are less exploitable due to additional heap mitigation mechanisms in those operating systems.
MS10-060 This bulletin resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities, both of which could allow remote code execution, in Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight.
The six other bulletins offered this month are rated Important. Two of the Important-level bulletins, MS10-047 and MS10-048, are Windows Kernel updates.
As always, Microsoft recommends that customers test and deploy all security updates as soon as they can.
For a closer look at some of the issues involved in these bulletins, our Security Research & Defense (SRD) team writes about MS10-048, MS10-049, and MS10-054 today on its blog.
Yoko Ono, the widow of the late John Lennon has said this week that negotiations between Apple and The Beatles are still at a standstill, so don’t expect the popular catalog to hit iTunes or other MP3 stores anytime soon.
The band remains one of the few to not go legally digital, instead selling physical CDs like they did last year, with the catalog remastered.
Apple Corps (not to be confused with iTunes owner Apple), the group’s holding company still cannot come to terms with the EMI Group, the label which licenses the Beatles’ recordings.
Says Ono: “[Apple CEO] Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy. There’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people. We are holding out. “Don’t hold your breath … for anything.”
Apple Corps is jointly owned by Ono, Paul McCartney, Ringo Star and Olivia Harrison, widow of former member George Harrison.
While the company may seem closed off to new digital ideas, the band’s music was reissued on CD last year, is available via the “Beatles: Rock Band” video game and through the Cirque du Soleil “Love” stage show.
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