Commercial Windows Azure is now live, along with cloud-based storage
Late yesterday afternoon, right on schedule, Microsoft announced the "general availability" of Windows Azure, its cloud-based hosting service for .NET applications. With a release like this, "GA" is somewhat peculiar, especially since the service has actually been in operation for several months. But it does mean that a ribbon has been cut, and from now on, new accounts are being signed up as commercial licenses. Old accounts are being given the warning to either convert or jump ship.
From this point on, prospective Azure customers will be given the opportunity to experiment with a limited amount of storage and transaction bandwidth, for a limited time. From now until July 31, testers will be allowed free access to 25 hours of a small compute instance with 500 MB of storage, and 10,000 transactions on one SQL Azure database (which will only be free for the first three months). Usage above that level will be charged at the regular rate of $0.12 per hour plus $0.15 per GB per month storage, and $9.99 per month per 1 GB database.
Is this a Bluetooth 3.0 phone or what?
Just short of one year after the Bluetooth 3.0 specification was unveiled, we are just now beginning to see designs that take it into consideration.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) posted a Core spec 3.0 "qualified design listing" yesterday for a new Samsung Mobile phone going by the name GT-S8500, a 3.1" OLED touchscreen device.
Google drops clues on more document-centric Chrome OS for tablets
Since the development of X, one of the first windowing UIs for UNIX, and as evidenced by Apple's early experiments with Lisa, the forerunner of Macintosh, software designers have been intrigued by the concept of a document-centric computing environment. More like a physical desktop, such a system would center not around the programs you launch but the work you do. The functions and applications pertaining to that work would pop up in the margins, but most of the time would stay out of the way.
That's the old-fashioned idea that the designers behind the Chromium OS project -- the open source team whose work feeds into Google's Chrome OS -- are now publicly experimenting with. With only a few crude mockups to show off today, the crew appears to be considering an environment that's scalable to any size tablet, where the document consumes the entire screen, but the functions and apps are tucked away either outside the margins or through zoomable context menus.
First Windows Mobile 6.5.3 device announced by Sony Ericsson
Today, mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson announced a new smartphone called Aspen which is the first officially-announced Windows Mobile 6.5.3 device.
It's certainly not the big "Zune phone" or "Project Pink" announcement that we are expecting from Microsoft's mobile division this month, but it is nonetheless an important step for Windows Mobile.
Flickering iMacs receive firmware fix
Apple today has issued a firmware upgrade for problematic 27" iMacs which are widely reported to be plagued with screen problems such as an erratic flicker or yellow patches in the screen.
An internal document from Apple support last week said that owners of yellowing 27" iMacs may have to arrange for a replacement LCD panel. For flickering, however, users can install the graphics firmware update from December 21, and then today's display firmware update.
Good riddance: Google's official Internet Explorer 6 killing memo
This evening, I received Google's official e-mail about ending support for Internet Explorer 6. Good riddance. Why isn't Microsoft doing something so ambitious as surgically removing the IE6 scourge from the Web? There are laws preventing rickety, unsafe vehicles from driving on the highways. Why is there no Microsoft prohibition against driving IE6 down the Information Superhighway? It's time Microsoft booted one of the vehicle's wheels so no one can drive it -- then haul the miserable wreck to the junk yard.
But Microsoft will talk security but do nothing because so many people still use that buggy old buggy. According to Net Applications, IE6 usage share was 20.07 percent in January -- nearly 6 percent ahead of IE7. Surely some Microsoft managers are thinking like this: With overall IE usage share eroding (about 62 percent in January), forcibly locking out IE6 users from Microsoft sites could send them somewhere else. Google is going to lock out IE6 users anyway.
'Golden Tee' arcade game to integrate with social media, get more obnoxious
Social networking sites have already been integrated with the decidedly anti-social home videogaming ecosystems. On the PlayStation 3, for example, users can set their machines to automatically post a Facebook status update when they earn an in-game trophy.
People who prefer to play video games in louder, drunker, more public spaces will soon have the option to share their videogame skills on Facebok as well.
First Google Chrome 5 offers a peek at future security settings
Download Google Chrome for Windows Dev Channel build 5.0.301.1 from Fileforum now.
At the beginning of what will eventually be released as version 5 of Google's Web browser for Windows and other platforms, the developers of Chrome are just now taking into account what other manufacturers might have considered a fundamental aspect: the ability to turn on and off active content, such as JavaScript.
Report: Nvidia Tegra-powered 'Zune Phone' coming this month
Microsoft made it abundantly clear that it was not talking about Windows Mobile 7 when we discussed the company's plans to create a user-friendly mobile OS that wasn't built on a legacy architecture. Naturally, this raised some questions with us; such as one about the mysterious project Pink from Danger, and the offhand talk of an Nvidia Tegra 2-powered device, and of course, the old "Zune Phone" rumor.
Today, Spanish language blog MuyComputer said that an anonymous source has "confirmed" Microsoft and Nvidia's joint presentation of a Zune Phone.
Google: Phase-out of IE6 support will remain limited to Google Apps
In a now very well-cited blog post from last Friday, Google Apps Senior Product Manager Rajen Sheth announced that as of March 1, Google Docs and Google Sites (the company's tool for building your own Web sites) will no longer support Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 Web browser. A Google spokesperson told Betanews this afternoon that Sheth meant exactly what he said, and no more -- specifically, that the initial phase-out will begin a schedule of similar phase-outs for other apps in the Google Apps suite.
The statement should not be taken to mean, the spokesperson told Betanews, that the company's various Web properties (for instance, ad platforms) will no longer support IE6. Sheth was only speaking for the Google Apps team, we were told. YouTube, a Google division, announced its plan to phase out IE6 support last July.
Nine out of 10 premium-priced PCs sold at US retail is a Mac
Windows 7 did little to slow the Mac's sales trajectory during fourth quarter, according to NPD. Year over year, Apple doubled US retail unit share -- from 5 percent to 10 percent -- for PCs selling between $500 and $1,000. More startling, Apple increased its unit share from 79 percent to 90 percent in the market for "premium" PCs, meaning those selling for more than $1,000. In July, I reported that Apple's revenue share for PCs selling for more than $1,000 was 91 percent, because of higher average selling prices; nearly all Macs sold for more than $1,000. Now Apple benefits from 90-percent unit share, too.
Stated differently: Nine out of 10 premium PCs purchased from US retail brick-and-mortar stores or online sites (including major chains and Apple Store) during fourth quarter was a Mac. The data isn't good for Microsoft's Windows PC partners. Microsoft and OEMs touted more feature-rich Windows 7 PCs for the holidays. Additionally, ahead of Windows 7's launch, Microsoft spent six months marketing premium Windows PCs during its "Laptop Hunters" campaign. These marketing efforts apparently failed. Apple doesn't just own the premium market, its sales are increasing there.
The battle over e-book prices hits authors and readers the worst
Over the weekend, the e-book ecosystem shuddered a bit.
Major publisher Macmillan met with Amazon.com last Thursday to discuss terms of e-book distribution, and the two parties could not establish terms. Macmillan CEO John Sargent took an ad out in Saturday's Publishers Lunch announcing that Amazon had pulled all of the publisher's content, both printed and digital.
Unified communications comes closer with Vo-Fi over 802.11n
The following commentary is by Jay Botelho, a product manager with network administration and tools provider WildPackets. This is not an advertisement; Betanews is merely presenting Mr. Botelho's point of view.
In case you missed it, seven long years of wrangling have come to an end: 802.11n has now been officially ratified by the IEEE.
The iPod touch: Still a category of one
Of all the short-form conclusions about the iPad, the one that seems to stand out from the crowd is, "iPod touch on steroids."
I'll buy that, since I also concluded much the same thing in a conversation with at least one reporter following the iPad's introduction. At first glance, it extends the same old iPhone-based operating system over a larger form factor that manages to both delight (still-unique industrial design and support for the largest online app inventory anywhere) and annoy (no memory card support, no USB, and supported by only one, less-than-beloved carrier) all at the same time.
Sybase rises against rival databases from Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM
On news of its best financial quarter in company history, Sybase celebrated this week by officially rolling out a new edition of its enterprise database.
The new Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) 15.5, which shipped in December 2009, is the first product from Sybase to be shipped with an in-memory database (IMDB), an emerging alternative to disk-based databases which has already been adopted by competitors Oracle and IBM.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.