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Gadgets Gaming Microsoft

Microsoft XBox 360 4GB Price Officially Announced

There were rumors last week that had suggested that Microsoft could soon be launching a 4GB version of their popular gaming console. The company has now confirmed these rumors and has revealed that this shall be a replacement to the Microsoft XBox 360 Arcade.

As announced, the new XBox 360 4G version will launch on August 3 in the US market at a price of $199. The device is also expected to be offered as a bundle along with the Kinect sensor during the holiday season for a price of $299.99. The Kinect sensor will independently retail at $149.99 when it launches during the shopping season later this year.

The new XBox 360 4GB model has taken a drastic departure from the earlier model where users enjoyed a massive 250GB of storage space. This device will only include a 4GB flash storage and shall allow users to make use of the touchscreen controls and DVD drive to play games. The device also comes incorporated with a Wi-Fi b/g/n support.

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Gadgets Microsoft

Buy Movie Tickets Online On XBox 360 – For Xbox Live Subscribers

If you are a Microsoft XBox 360 Live subscriber, you may now not only download and watch movies directly from your XBox, but may also make ticket bookings at a cinema near you. How? Microsoft has partnered with online movie ticketing website, MovieTickets.com to allow users to purchase movie tickets while looking for them via XBox 360.

XBox users may have come across movie advertisements as a text-in or as a Microsoft tag that is viewed during these studio advertisements. Clicking on these ads, users will be offered an opportunity to download the movie or engage with the other relevant content. While this has traditionally been available, the new partnership will additionally take users to a co-branded website where users may make their ticket purchase.

But there are a few questions that are still unanswered. We are not sure if the payment will be made via the XBox Live user account or as a traditional online purchase. Eitherway, the new partnership will give Microsoft Xbox 360 users one more reason to cheer.

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Microsoft

Zune Pass Subscription Price In UK Revealed

Zune Pass – the Microsoft Zune subscription service that allows users to download an unlimited number of tracks during the subscription period as well as permanently retain up to ten music tracks a month is now possibly coming to the UK. A few users in the UK have noticed that they may now purchase a Zune Pass subscription from Zune.net although it is still not possible to stream music to the Zune PC software using a UK based Windows Live ID.

These are however likely to be ironed out once the subscription service becomes official in the UK – which is expected soon. For now, however, the subscription price is known. To begin with, users may sign up for a free 14-day trial period. Once the trial period is over, users may pick between two subscription periods – A 1 month pass is available at a price of £8.99 while the alternative 3 month subscription Zune Pass is available at a price of £26.97.

Is this price attractive enough?

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Microsoft Mobile

Microsoft Bing Android App Launching Soon?

The World’s biggest decision engine could be coming to Android soon. Microsoft is rumored to be working on Android app for their year old Bing search engine. Of course, Android smartphone users already have access to the Bing website from their mobile internet browsers. But considering that an app-based product will make searching via mobile phone easy, there is little wonder that Microsoft is working on such a product.

These speculations have come from Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine summit at San Francisco. Apart from the Bing Android app, Microsoft is also learned to be developing new mapping features and a TV listings application as well. No elaborate information was available on any of these products.

However, the word is that these products are already in the testing phase and an official launch is just around the corner.

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Gadgets Microsoft

Age Of Average Workplace Computer : 4.4 Years & Running Windows XP

It’s the proverbial half-glass-full scenario. At the recent Microsoft Worldwide partners conference, Tammi Reller, the CVP of Microsoft Windows has revealed that nearly 74% of the present day workplace PCs run Windows XP – the nearly decade old Windows Operating System which has since then been replaced by Windows Vista and now Windows 7.

It’s not necessarily because consumers are wary of the newly launched Windows 7. Rather, it is probably due to the fact that workplace computers have a longer usage life and at an average age of 4.4 years, most of these computers are presumably seen to have more lifetime – enough to have Windows 7 waiting.

While Windows Vista was indeed available close to 4 years back, the operating system did not fare well in the market because of several reported bugs that made many manufacturers to install their computers with the older XP. Also, with Windows 7 requiring higher processing speed, it is likely that these old PCs may not sustain the processing requirements of the latest OS.

So as for Microsoft, it is still seeing this as an opportunity to expand their growth. Steve Ballmer expects 350 million Windows 7 licenses to be sold in 2010.

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Microsoft Mobile

Blue Bee Windows Mobile 7 Concept Phone Design Features

Microsoft lovers – rue not about the death of kin. A Chinese UI designer named Kingyo has released pictures of a concept phone designed for the Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 platform that Microsoft could take inspiration from.

Blue Bee Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 Concept Phone

The futuristic-looking concept phone named Blue Bee is specially integrated with social networking features and exploits the front-side real estate to the maximum by pushing the physical button to the backside of the phone. The Blue Bee ‘back touch’ button is programmed to do several functions like scrolling, moving ‘forward’ or ‘back’ on a webpage or return to the home screen by a double tap.
Blue Bee Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 Concept Phone
Blue Bee Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 Concept Phone

You may remember that Apple had filed a patent application for backside touch controls not so long ago. Nevertheless, the concept looks interesting and I would definitely love to buy one of these phones. How about you.

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Microsoft

Windows OS Edition : 32-Bit Vs. 64-Bit

The 64-bit editions of Windows Operating system have been made available to OEMs and computer buyers for over five years. However, up until now, the 32-but editions have largely been popular. That appears to be changing now.

According to a report published on the Windows Team blog, close to 50% of Microsoft computers today run the 64-bit version of the Operating system. The distribution is clearly pronounced in the Windows 7 OS. An amazingly high number of Windows XP computers still run the 32-bit edition of the operating system.

Windows 7 OS
32-bit : 54%
64-bit : 46%

Windows Vista
32-bit : 89%
64-bit : 11%

Windows XP
32-bit : >99%
64-bit : <1%

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Gaming Microsoft

XBox Live – How Much Money Did Microsoft Make?

Microsoft may have just gotten to something here with XBox Live. The company has revealed that revenues from Microsoft’s digital media delivery service may have topped the $1 billion mark for the first time last year. According to educated estimates, the number is more likely to hover around  $1.2 billion.

Redmond has revealed that more than half of the company’s 25 million users paid subscription fees to access games like “Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2“. The revenues from subscription fee alone is estimated close to $600 million. On top of this, Microsoft has also conceded that revenues from digital goods like movies and TV shows have topped subscription revenues for the first time last year.

These numbers are higher than what analysts had predicted. Microsoft is learned to have created an amazingly loyal user base for its digital content. Premium subscription services on XBox Live cost $50 a year and the fact that the company has gotten so many of its users to pay for access shows the loyalty that Microsoft has built.

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Gadgets Microsoft

Microsoft Lays Claim To iPad's Page Curling Feature

The Courier may be dead, but we are still getting to see the innovations built by Microsoft back when development on Courier was still in its prime. A patent application filed by Microsoft back in January 2009 describes the page curl feature – exactly the way it is implemented on the iPad’s iBooks app.

In the application, Microsoft writes,

“One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.”

Microsoft Page Curl

To be fair, virtual page curling is neither Apple’s nor Microsoft’s innovation. At least as far as I can remember, the functionality was already available on the iPhone app named Classics.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft indeed wins rights to this subtle yet interesting feature

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Microsoft security

Microsoft Windows XP Security Vulnerability Exploited By Malicious Code

A new security flaw has been detected on the older versions of Microsoft Windows Operating system – namely Windows XP and Windows 2000. The vulnerability will allow hackers to exploit the system and subsequently run malicious code.

In a statement released to the media, Microsoft Group Manager Jerry Bryant said that his team was presently investigating the issue. The company has also confirmed that they are unaware of any attempts by hackers to make use of the vulnerability so far.

According to Secunia, the flaw could arise due to a boundary error in a function that was employed on these versions of the Windows operating system. Microsoft has termed the vulnerability “moderately critical“.