How to Use Windows

Microsoft has announced a near-final version of its multimedia web technology Silverlight. The Release Candidate (RC) follows on from the beta version released at the Professional Developers Conference in November 2009. Microsoft made the announcement at its MIX 10 conference at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The corporation was keen to talk up Silverlight’s rate of adoption and noted that installations are approaching 60 per cent of all “internet devices” worldwide.

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HTML5 is a Flash killer. Hmmmmm. Say it over in your head a few times. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

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MSN Video Player has been a big enough success through a pilot scheme to be launched as a major new product, and Microsoft is not ruling out offering the service to television manufacturers, on Xbox and through the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series. A million people have already used the ad-funded and free MSN Video Player in beta to watch full-length programmes, trailers and clips, enough of an audience to convince the portal that the service has the appeal to become a key asset for Microsoft. With users staying for an average of 25 minutes – far more than major catch-up services like ITV Player and 4OD – and advertisers champing at the bit to buy up pre-roll adverts before the features, Microsoft has now sealed deals with the likes of Endemol and Shed Media to expand their offering further. Thousand hours “We are expanding our catalogue to over 1,000 hours,” explained MSN’s Rob Crossen. “We’ve signed a number of new deals…we’ve gone out there and sourced content that appeals to our audience.

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One day, the prophets say, we won’t have operating systems. Our iPadBookPhones will load directly into a browser, one so laden with plug-ins that it can play any game there and then – games which look as good as, if not even better than, the big-budget titles of today. It’s a lovely idea, but until the software, hardware, internet providers and games industries pull off some unprecedented almighty group hug, it’s not terribly realistic. What is increasingly realistic, however, is playing games from our browsers

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Silverlight is looking likely to being the developer platform for Windows 7 Series applications, with Microsoft set to make an official announcement in March. The Flash rival is to be shown-off at Mix10 , where Microsoft is offering attendees the chance to learn how to work with the Windows Phone 7 Series. So far Redmond has been very coy about revealing any details about the OS, although Mix10 will feature a Silverlight bootcamp. When asked, a spokesman would only say: “While we are not sharing details about the Windows Phone 7 Series development platform or marketplace publicly at Mobile World Congress, you can expect much more information about the developer tools and opportunity to come at MIX in March.” However, it’s a move that makes sense for Microsoft. The company has been touting Silverlight for some time now, and it will offer the “natural user interface” it wants, and which has already been adopted by the iPhone.

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Microsoft’s Bing Maps Silverlight version is growing up fast, so much so that Microsoft is taking it out of beta, the Redmond outfit announced this week. Not everyone will see the changes right away, and instead, Microsoft is planning a slow rollout. Within a few weeks, everyone in the U.S. should see the Silverlight maps by default.

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The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) this week revealed plans to make Apache Pivot a Top-Level Project (TLP), as well as release version 4.0 of the technology, the fourth update of the platform for building rich Internet applications (RIA). “Users have much higher expectations for Web applications now than they did 10 years ago,” said Greg Brown, Chair of the Apache Pivot Project Management Committee (PMC) and Principal Consultant at Cantina Consulting. “This is why we’re seeing tools like Flex and Silverlight beginning to gain traction, however, both of these require developers who are otherwise happy using Java to switch technologies. Pivot is an attempt to create a model, rich client development platform in Java.” Pivot brings to the table a set of standard user interface elements from buttons to editable tree and table controls. In addition, it includes an XML markup language to help with the development of modern GUI apps

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Let’s clear the air for a moment – Microsoft hasn’t said a word about Windows Mobile 7, so any news on the upcoming mobile OS is purely speculation. And as it turns out, there’s plenty of it , all coming from “anonymous sources,” says WMExperts.com. Keep this in mind as we go over the details. WinMo 7, or “Seven,” as it’s going to be called, will come in two versions: Business Edition and Media Edition. The names may change, but the Business Edition, which is nearly finished, is essentially a light version of Seven with less bells and whistles

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Windows4all is a Silverlight based free Web OS, or cloud operating system. It is is a website that simulates an operating system inside your web browser with all essential tools that you find in a typical Windows operating system. The taskbar and start menu of this Web OS are similar to that of the Windows Vista operating system.

Five or six years ago when the web started to become popular, hardware manufacturers promised lightweight slates for browsing the web far more cheaply than laptops. In those days ‘far more cheaply’ meant £6-700, lightweight meant chunky and browsing the web wasn’t that exciting. Now the web is indispensible – and a lot more powerful; cheap means netbook or smartphone prices and hardware is more powerful and much smaller. The 7-inch JournE Tablet is thin and light, it costs €249 (£220) – but is it more than a web pad

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