Microsoft 'Maxes' Out Your Photos
Microsoft on Tuesday unvelied Microsoft "Max," an application that enables a user to create and manage slideshows, as well as arrange their photos into various layouts. Max is one of the first publicly available applications to use WinFX, which is the next-generation technology that allows developers to easily take advantage of the enhanced graphics capabilities in Windows Vista.
Max will also assist users in sharing their photo albums, allowing them to send invites to view shared albums. All that is required to use the feature is either a Hotmail or Passport account. When an update is made to a shared album, all subscribers will receive it automatically. While Max only supports photos at this time, the program Web site leaves its future to the imagination saying, "Tomorrow...who knows?"
Sprint Adds Sirius Content to Vision Service
Sprint is making select Sirius Satellite Radio content available to users of its PCS Vision service, the mobile phone provider said on Tuesday. Unlimited access will be offered for 20 commercial-free music channels and a channel that will feature artist interviews and live performances.
"SIRIUS offers some of the best commercial-free music available, and Sprint is proud to be the first and only wireless carrier to offer this exceptional and unique programming," Jeff Hallock, vice president of Sprint said. Subscribing to the service will cost $6.95 USD per month.
Lee Permitted to Recruit for Google
UPDATED Kai-Fu Lee will be allowed to recruit for Google's China division as a ruling Tuesday by a King County Superior Court judge permitted him to start work at the search giant. The ruling also overturns a previous decision that had prevented Lee from doing any work with Google following a request from Microsoft.
However, Lee will be barred from working on any products or services close to what he did at Microsoft, which includes search technologies. The judge said that while he will honor Microsoft's non-compete agreement, recruiting for the China location is not a violation of that.
New UI Highlights Changes in Office 12
Microsoft on Tuesday took the cover off of the latest version of Office, calling the release its most significant since Office 95. With a completely redesigned user interface as well as new methods to make working with documents easier, Microsoft wants users to "focus on what they want to do rather than how they do it."
In a demo, Microsoft program manger Chris Capossela explained that a majority of users were requesting features that were already included in Office. The first version of Office contained only 100 commands, but today's release contains nearly 1,500 commands, most of which are very difficult to find.
MSDN Opens Up to Firefox, Opera
MSDN announced last week that it had tweaked its subscriber download site in order to make it compatible with both Firefox and Opera. There are some issues, such as extra work needed in installing the File Transfer Manager, however developers are working on a new version of the FTM that should correct final problems.
Initially, MSDN developers were hesitant to support non-IE browsers because only 0.5 percent of all site traffic came from these alternative browsers. However, Microsoft tightened the requirement from all alternative browsers to just Firefox and Opera in order to ease the development process.
Canon Brings Color to Windows Vista
Microsoft announced on Tuesday it had selected Canon to provide the color management system for Windows Vista, the company's next-generation operating system. Color management helps graphic designers better match screen colors to print and gives a better overall graphic appearance to the operating system.
"Devices such as digital cameras, color printers, high-definition displays and cell phones all have made the use of color pervasive across many walks of life," said Will Poole, senior vice president of Windows Client Business at Microsoft.
Amazon Thinks Every Penny Counts
All those loose coins sitting around your house are music to Amazon's ears. The popular e-commerce site announced on Tuesday a program that will allow users of Coinstar counting machines to cash in their extra change for Amazon.com gift certificates.
Coinstar normally charges an 8.9 percent convenience fee for use of its machines. However, by selecting the option to receive an Amazon gift certificate, users would be able to bypass the charge.
iTunes Image Files Suggest Video Store
Bloggers have discovered an image resource within iTunes 5 that suggests Apple has future plans for a video store. Three buttons with the terms "Gift Video," "Buy Video," and "Add Video" were found along with references to a "protected MPEG-4 video file" within text strings in the code of iTunes 5.
Rumors have been circulating around the Internet in recent months saying Apple had plans for some kind of video store, as well as a video-enabled iPod. Apple started selling music videos with some of its music tracks in May, and the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had mentioned a video iPod to music labels back in July.
Second Beta of 'Monad' Arrives
Microsoft released the second beta of its new command shell code-named "Monad" on Monday. The shell will allow for command-line navigation of Windows and enhanced scripting, similar to how Unix shells currently operate. Originally, Monad was slated to ship within Vista, but the shell is now expected to arrive separately.
According to Microsoft, Monad "allows administrators to quickly write scripts, customize commands, and author their own shell tools." Monad is expected to play a big part in Exchange 12, as an administrator would be able to control and configure the server without having to use the graphical interface.
Sun Launches New Low-Cost Servers
Sun launched a new line of servers on Monday that it claims perform one-and-a-half times better that its current systems, while using only a third of the power and costing half as much as competing products.
The multi-core servers use AMD Opteron processors and will come standard with Sun's own Solaris 10 operating system. However, the company said a customer could run standard versions of Linux and Windows as well.
Ballmer Denies Court Accusations
In an interview with the Telegraph, a British daily, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer strongly denied accusations that he became violent when Kai-Fu Lee informed him that he was defecting to Google. While he did not directly deny he threatened to "kill" the search giant, Ballmer says he "made a commitment nine years ago that I was not going to curse" which he's broken only twice. "Is that one of them? I don't recall," he said.
Ballmer also denied throwing a chair, saying "I've never thrown a chair in my life." The paper described Ballmer as upset about the whole ordeal, which has brought a lot of negative press on Microsoft since the release of court documents two weeks ago.
MS Tries to Nab Open Source Evangelist
Microsoft has apparently tried to hire open source evangelist Eric S. Raymond (known in the community as ESR), according to a post on his Web log late Thursday.
According to a copy of an e-mail he received from Mike Walters, a recruiter for the Central Sourcing Team at Microsoft, a member of the research team forwarded Raymond's name to Walters as a possible candidate for an engineering job at the Redmond company.
Korean iPod Rivals Cry Foul
Korean rivals of the iPod are beginning to feel the squeeze of Apple's strength in the market, and some are even going as far as to accuse the company of collusion with fellow Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung.
The Korea Times reported Friday that while companies would not comment on the iPod Nano directly, several expressed concern that Apple's policy of competitively pricing its players were affecting their bottom line.
RIAA, MPAA Join Internet2 Consortium
Internet2 announced Friday that both the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have joined the consortium as corporate members. The two groups plan to assist in creating methods to distribute content using digital rights management technologies.
The move comes less than five months after the RIAA first unleashed the legal hounds on Internet2 users trading copyrighted material on college campuses. All told, nearly 500 college students were sued for trading files over the next-generation Internet network.
Dell to Save Intel-Related Documents
Close Intel ally Dell has agreed to retain documents relating to its partnership with the chipmaker, as the private antitrust case between AMD and Intel moves forward. The agreement was filed on Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in Delaware.
Dell has bought processors exclusively from Intel, and AMD hopes the documents could provide clues to how the chipmaker uses its agreements to push rivals out of the market. AMD has accused Intel of using its market power to exclude others from deals with computer manufacturers like Dell.
Ed's Bio
Ed Oswald is a freelance journalist from the Reading, PA area. Although he has written across a variety of subjects, Ed’s passion and focus has been on technology and gadgets. His work regularly appears on tech news sites BetaNews, PCWorld, and Technologizer, and has been syndicated to eWeek, Time’s Techland blog, VentureBeat and the New York Times.
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