Remember the video of the Microsoft Surface PC which we showed earlier last year? If you were impressed with that, then you will be even quite excited to see the same multi-touch technology applied in the same fashion on to a laptop running the next version of Windows: Windows 7.
Julie Larson-Green from Microsoft demonstrated at the recent D6 Conference saying that Microsoft is using part of the multi-touch technology from the Surface PC to enhance Windows 7. The operating system the demonstration is running on is a Dell Latitude XL with Windows 7.
This demonstration is basically showing how Microsoft Surface could enhance Windows experience on future computers, Windows 7 to be specific. As most will know by now, Windows 7 is expected to arrive in 2010 (click here to catch up), but what are the chances of laptops / PC monitors with multi-touch functionality becoming a popular, widely used product by 2010? The answer is probably not very likely, but the fact that Microsoft has demonstrated that they can already apply this technology to laptops, I reckon it shouldn’t be too long before household PCs become like those in the Minority Report!
Enough of me rambling, here are some of things that were mentioned during an interview with two of Microsoft’s most important people, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer…
- Windows 7 is apparently months away, due late in 2009.
- Walt asks Ballmer if he’s worried about the next iteration of Mac OS X, which will likely be released before Windows 7. Is there a risk that the work you’re doing now with multi-touch will look dated when Apple (AAPL) releases its next OS?
Ballmer says he’s confident Microsoft will have fantastic Windows 7 PCs, regardless of what Apple’s got on the market. “There’s a lot in Windows 7, and our goal is to produce fantastic PCs with our hardware partners.”- The conversation turns to Windows 7, which Microsoft hasn’t said too much about. Clearly, the company has learned from the media beating it took over the defeatured and perennially delayed Windows Vista. Indeed, in a post to the Windows Vista blog today, Microsoft’s Chris Flore noted that Microsoft is being very careful about releasing details about Windows 7. “What is a little different today is when and how we are talking about the next version of Windows,” Flore wrote. “So, why the change in approach? We know that when we talk about our plans for the next release of Windows, people take action. As a result, we can significantly impact our partners and our customers if we broadly share information that later changes. With Windows 7, we’re trying to more carefully plan how we share information with our customers and partners. This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience.”
If you were following us in February you will no doubt remember the post in which we showed some Windows 7 screenshots in addition to a video of its ‘new’ start menu. These at the time were highly criticised for their authenticity and rightly so, they looked a lot like our present day Windows Vista, it was difficult for us to believer they were real too!
But just a few days ago, Bill Gates revealed for us what we all wanted to hear, that the next version of Windows: Windows 7 (formerly called Windows Vienna for some reason) will be out in 2010. Might my PC running Windows XP be able to wait two more years, I would hate to have to switch to Vista now, I’m in hopeful spirits for Windows 7!
As you can see, these are the latest pics that have been claimed by many blogs to be ‘real’, in my opinion, they look different from the ones we showed earlier, so it is really difficult to tell if there is any authenticity to them at all, we remain sceptical!
This is what Bill Gates said at the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium in Tokyo…
We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.
Though we remain sceptical about these images, as they can be created by anyone who is keen on some ‘image enhancement’, it’s good to know that there’s now a date to look forward to, late 2009 – 2010!
[via Sizzledcore]
From those who brought you the ‘magic night glow’ face plates for PSP, XCM now brings you a similar exterior face lift for XBox 360 consoles. This case mod replaces your classical white XBox 360 casing with one that appears to be transparent when lights are on but changes to a bright glowing green as soon as lights go out!
I think this case mod makes the XBox 360 cool even when its not ‘glowing’, it will soon be available for $59.99 from ExtremeMods…
[via Zedomax, SizzledCore, Into Tech]
I don’t know if this should be called a PC or not, but the Cuppa is definitely worth a mention, it’s one of the finalist designs in this year’s NextGen PC Design Competition. Though it’s only a concept, basically it is a computer just designed for those who want to socialise, have an enjoyable time and nothing else. Yes, our PCs nowadays allows us to socialise as well, but it is also argueable that our present PCs also bring us alot of other boring applications that make us work (like a whole set of Microsoft Office for example). The idea behind Cuppa is, wouldn’t it be great if we could just sit down and enjoy using a device that would allow us to just chat and relax with our friends online without having the annoying compulsive thought that you should do some work while you’re at the computer anyway?
I’m sorry the pics aren’t of best quality, but you can click to enlarge them…
Ever thought you could make better use of the touch screen on your NDS other than just gaming? Now you can turn your portable game console into a portable digital sketchbook with the NDS application called ‘Colors’. All the components you will need are a DS-compatible flash cartridge and a microSD card.
Colors is a fairly basic (no layers or undo yet) but still impressive paint app, and more features, like DS-to-DS collaborative painting, are coming. You can use a full-size Wacom stylus if the DS one cramps your style, and export via Wi-Fi or microSD.
Personally, I was well impressed with some of these drawings / ‘digital paintings’, check it out…
I guess if you’ve got talent, then you’ve got it no matter what you’re using to draw, check out the video below…
First signs of geekiness: Did you ever get caught doing something similar to this?
[via makeuseof.com]
We love robots, here on GadgetLite, we’ve featured all sorts of robots before. Modular robots, vacuuming robots, artistic robots and even lazy looking robots that walk like ourselves… but nothing ever like what we’re about to show you in the video below…
The robots below may be considered by some as a break through in terms of science / robotics, while some will just think they are junk and know nothing about ‘mating’ apart from the fact that they are programmed calculations telling them it is what they should do. I may have exaggerated just a bit there by saying that they live to mate, but from the video it really is what they aim to do!
Paul Granjon’s sexed robots are autonomous wheeled platforms fitted with nylon genital organs, respectively male and female.
They are programmed to explore their environment, occasionally entering a “in heat” mode, where they will try and locate a partner in the same state. If a partner is located, the robots will attempt to mate.
Here’s the video, feel free to leave your comments…
