Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 25th Oct 2012 20:50 UTC
"Microsoft today announced the global availability of its popular Windows operating system, Windows 8. Beginning Friday, Oct. 26, consumers and businesses worldwide will be able to experience all that Windows 8 has to offer, including a beautiful new user interface and a wide range of applications with the grand opening of the Windows Store." I'm still not clear on what '12:01 AM local time' means, but if it means it goes on sale in every country on 12:01 AM, I'll be buying in a bit over an hour!
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Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.More Features »
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Multitasking is very clean and easy, at least to me. Hold down the back button and you get "cards" containing your running tasks that you can select from by swiping, and each card has a screenshot of the task. To me that's cleaner than Apple's "drag four fingers up the screen and pick a cryptic icon", and it's very similar to the method in 4.x versions of Android.
* the monochrome glyphs take a bit of guesswork sometimes (I really miss having labels on the icons to help me identify their functions). So I'm often left guessing what I have to tap to perform a specific function.
I enjoy the clean, simple glyphs but then I'm a big fan of simplicity and neatness. The lack of text on most tiles is an advantage, and the tiles that do require text do so in a tidy way.
This bugged me too at first, until I discovered that the browser wouldn't auto-refresh if I hit the home button long enough to glance at my tiles, and even go into another task to read the message. This goes back to the (mostly) intelligent task switching power of the OS. Granted, if you leave the browser for a long time and go back it will probably refresh the page, but that's true of all the current mobile OSes.
No argument there! I'm really looking forward to 7.8 to address this gross oversight.
Again, I consider this a breath of fresh air. Pick up Android phones from three different manufacturers and you would probably find three completely different paradigms to do the same tasks. iOS is better in this regard, but static icons are a throwback to the 80s and don't compare in the slightest to live tiles. That said, live tiles aren't as useful as widgets on Android, but I have a feeling Microsoft will try to make them more interactive in the future.
I also suffer from a very mild case of dyslexia (are you by chance left hand dominant?) but I have had the opposite experience: Metro actually helps me avoid dyslexia-related mistakes.
Indeed, everyone's tastes are different and one of the greatest things about Android is its extreme customizability.
Thank you for responding and giving me an outside perspective! I often hear people say "Metro sucks" and when asked why they say "'cause it's Microsoft, duh!". While I don't care much for Microsoft, I have no problem enjoying the use of their better creations. It's the same with Apple; the company disgusts me but I still regard OS X as one of the best OSes on the market today.