Archive for the ‘microsoft’ tag

Zune HD versus iPod Touch: Round 2, Video

Posted at 10:28 by Richard Swinburne with 11 comments

Richard Swinburne
In the previous round of this face off between the Microsoft Zune HD and Apple iPod Touch, I concentrated on the music end of things. This time round I'll go into the video playback.

Firstly, the iPod Touch: media playback is pretty good with the nice sized screen suitable for both 4:3 and 16:9 content, although there's very little media support (basically just MP4) and you can't get subtitles unless you buy through the Apple store - something I flat out refuse to do because of DRM.

Comparatively, the Zune HD screen feels notably smaller, to the point where anything that isn't using the whole (very) widescreen format is almost squint-worthy. In that regard the iPod offers a better viewing experience unless you only watch widescreen videos.

Media support for the Zune is also very limited, but it accepts WMV as well as MP4, though most converters prefer the H.264 for MP4. Again, this means the ever popular MKV format is neglected on both parts - however the Zune will happily accept a full fat 720p MP4 and downscale it into its own native format - that's pretty neat! Although, a waste of storage if you're going to convert it from DVD/MKV/AVI anyway.

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Written on 23rd November 2009
Tags apple, ipod touch, microsoft, video, zune hd

Leaving Live Mesh and the mess Microsoft is in

Posted at 11:24 by Alex Watson with 11 comments

Alex Watson
It’s not often PC Pro gets the drop on us in terms of new technology (unless you’re into laser printers), but they were well ahead when it came to Microsoft’s Live Mesh, and prompted by their enthusiastic praise, I gave it a try.

Live Mesh really is pretty nifty; sign up for an account, add your computer to 'the Mesh' (your own of group of machines) and any folders you select are uploaded to the servers. You can then access these folders and files via a web browser, or – and this is the brilliant bit – set them to by synced across multiple computers. Make a change to a file on one PC, and it’ll be uploaded to the servers, then downloaded when the other machines turn on so they all mirror each other.

For a while, in fact, it was so good, I wondered if it was the start of a turnaround for Microsoft.

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Written on 20th November 2009
Tags cloud computing, gdrive, google, live mesh, microsoft, storage, sugar sync, sync

Zune HD versus iPod Touch: Round 1, Music

Posted at 10:57 by Richard Swinburne with 23 comments

Richard Swinburne
Before my job moved to central London I never really spent enough time going anywhere that justified a mobile media device, but having to spend an hour door to door to get to work and home everyday presented itself with an opportunity to kill time.

So, about 6 months ago I bought myself a 16GB iPod touch. I'm sure you're all familiar with it since it's basically an iPhone but thinner. I've always been tempted by the great press Microsoft's ZuneHD was getting though. It seemed to offer more than the iPod, and greater functionality potential thanks to its Nvidia Tegra CPU that can output 720p h.264 video via HDMI without a hickup.

On a trip to California recently (thanks again, Kingston) I managed to pick a ZuneHD up and can now do do a side by side comparison with the iPod touch.

Which is a better media device? Well, let's break down the parts:

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Written on 19th November 2009
Tags apple, ipod touch, microsoft, mp3, music, tegra, zune hd

How are you getting on with Bing?

Posted at 13:10 by Mark Mackay with 39 comments

Mark Mackay
Since the release of Microsoft’s new search engine named Bing, it’s been something of a hot topic. The company’s previous attempt at a search engine, Live Search, was a woefully lacklustre addition to Internet Explorer and something of a non-event for the world of internet search.

Clive blogged his thoughts about Microsoft being on to a winner with Bing while Alex thought otherwise. But has Google gone unchallenged for such a long time that it’s possible the search giant could be caught unawares by a decent newcomer?

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Written on 22nd October 2009
Tags , bing, google, microsoft, search engine, search engine.microsoft

The Most Annoying Crapware

Posted at 11:23 by Richard Swinburne with 67 comments

Richard Swinburne
What makes companies think it's OK to install extra crap you didn't ask for by default? There are numerous examples of this, from store-bought laptops that are preloaded with bloatware to toolbars that come included with your chosen browser. Even the most trusted sources and manufacturers have become involved with this crapware epidemic.

"Security" companies seem to to be most notorious offenders of all, constantly trying to weasel their way onto your PC when you don't want them to. Once they've invaded your registry and (previously) clean startup procedure so that they're nigh impossible to remove they begin their main task - pummelling you with notifications and subscription requests.

It's not limited to Microsoft (probably one of the worst facilitators of this) either; ATI, Adobe, Asus and Gigabyte are all guilty parties too and that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure many of you will fill me in with your experiences too, so go ahead - name and shame them!

Below, I've listed some of the worst and most annoying examples of bloatware and their carriers that I've found in the past few weeks.

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Written on 16th September 2009
Tags adobe, asus, ati, gigabyte, microsoft, rant, software

Bing will beat Google

Posted at 11:47 by Clive Webster with 29 comments

Clive Webster
Alex wrote an interesting blog post about Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, last week. The gist of it was that Google is so successful that competing against it with a similar product isn't going to work - and as a result, his idea was that searching social sites such as Facebook and Twitter is probably the biggest threat to Google.

I feel that’s slightly missing the point. Bing, after all, is the default search engine for Internet Explorer, which is the default browser of the interweb, therefore as long as Bing just works and is good enough (in the same way that Google is now) no-one will see a need to switch. Far from Microsoft needing to up its game to beat the services of Google, it’s Google that needs to provide a compelling reason to switch the search engine of IE’s search bar from Bing to Google.

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Written on 1st July 2009
Tags bing, facebook, firefox, google, internet explorer, microsoft, search, twitter

When is a browser bigger than the platform it runs on?

Posted at 11:52 by Tim Smalley with 16 comments

Tim Smalley
Whether or not Microsoft's decision to ship Windows 7 without a browser goes ahead, there are still other ways that it could, in theory, attempt to control the browser market with potentially underhand tactics. That, if anything, is what the EU should be looking at in its latest antitrust case against the software giant.

For instance, I've heard suggestions that Microsoft could tie OEM's Windows marketing money to Internet Explorer bundling in Europe - that's wrong if it happens and Microsoft should be punished if found guilty of such business practices.

Computing is moving into the cloud - we're moving to a model where your data will be available on any device with an Internet connection and a web browser. If you look at things in that way, the operating system is becoming less important and the browser is now more important than ever. With that in mind, it's easy to see why Opera is fighting so hard to have the EU intervene regarding Internet Explorer.

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Written on 15th June 2009
Tags antitrust, european commission, internet explorer, microsoft, opera

Thank you EU Regulators, you have broken Windows 7

Posted at 13:49 by Tim Smalley with 102 comments

Tim Smalley
It looks like the European Commission and Opera have got their way and Windows 7 will now ship without a browser installed in Europe.

It's fair to say that Windows 7 is now broken - Microsoft has said that its decision to ship Windows 7 without a browser installed means that it's no longer possible to upgrade from a previous version of Windows while keeping all of your settings, including your browser of choice. Instead, the European version (even the upgrade version) will require a clean install.

It's like a bad joke. It just isn't funny and is actually offensive. That the Commission think this is a good idea shows how far out of touch it is with reality in this instance.

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Written on 12th June 2009
Tags antitrust, eu, european commission, microsoft, regulators, windows 7

The Results: Which Tech CEO would you fire?

Posted at 11:43 by Alex Watson with 9 comments

Alex Watson
Several strong candidates for being given the boot emerged from last week’s blog post, some of which I whole-heartedly agree with and others which I found quite wide of the mark.

Before we decide who really should get the chop, we should bear in mind the words of Surallan: the team that makes the most money will win, the team that doesn’t will lose and on that team, one of you is going to get fired (cue pointing).

In other words, a CEO’s responsibility isn’t solely or directly to serve customers, make great products, be a cool guy or give good quotes to the press – he or she needs to deliver profit and growth to the company he or she leads, and to its shareholders (indeed, in the US, it’s a legal requirement for shareholder owned companies to maximise the profit they return to the shareholders). So, let's see who was put up for firing...

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Written on 14th May 2009
Tags ceo, microsoft, nvidia, printers, sony, steve ballmer, tivo, via, you're fired

The Curse of Darwinia

Posted at 13:23 by Introversion Software with 9 comments

Introversion Software
The Curse of Darwinia, as it has become known at Introversion, actually began way before we ever got near the Xbox Live Arcade deal with Microsoft three years ago. So before we delve headlong into a discussion about the murky world of commercial independent game development, let me give you a quick recap for those unfamiliar with Introversion and the infamous Darwinia.

Darwinia was released on PC back in March 2005. It got a lot of critical acclaim, but suffered from a bit of a botched retail launch (our fault for over-pricing it), and seemingly had only a small hard core following online. That all changed in late 2005 when Darwinia was released on Steam as only the second non-Valve game on the platform. Sales shot through the roof, and almost seemingly overnight everyone knew about the game and Introversion.

After that we got an email from CMP, the folks who run the GDC games conference. They suggested that we'd be eligible for the Independent Games Festival which was running at the next GDC in March 2006. We entered and waited. Sure enough, we soon found that we'd made it to the short-list of games and received some complimentary invites to the conference which was being held in San Jose. Yay!

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Written on 9th March 2009
Tags curse, d+, darwinia, development, gaming, indie, introversion, microsoft, multiwinia, subversion, thomas arundel, xbla
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