News
Windows 8 Unveiled – Here’s a sneak peak!
AshMan Says…
Windows 7 has been a resounding success for Microsoft and for their customers all over the world including students, home consumers and businesses. Windows 7 has been the fastest selling operating system in history and is predicted to overtake the reigning Windows XP as the most widely used operating system.
Windows 8 Touch Start Screen
Eventhough Windows 7 seems quite young, this is technology we are talking about and technology moves fast. So as we are just getting used to Windows 7 on our machines Microsoft has been kind enough to provide a sneak peak at what the next version of Windows will look like. Microsoft and most people are calling the new version by its codename which is Windows 8.
Windows 8 Touch Lock Screen
Windows 8 Side Keyboard Layout
Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8
Windows 8 brings a new way for consumers to interact with the operating system. The most notable change is the new touch layer for tablet/slate devices called the immersive interface. But why keep writing when I know you want to see the demo for yourself?
Windows Phone 7.1 ‘Mango’ – It’s Coming!
AshMan Says…
Following the successful launch of Windows Phone late last year it has started to make its impact within the market. Since that launch there have been a number of updates with the most notable being ‘NoDo’ which brought Copy & Paste to the platform. Just recently Microsoft released information for what will be known as Windows Phone 7.1 or more publically known as ‘Mango’.
Windows Phone 7 Mango Start Screen
Mango is the first major update for the platform and is bringing 500 new features and 1500 new API’s. When they mention 500 new features they aren’t just a few minor updates to features which are already there, they are 500 new additions to the platform.
Windows Phone 7 Mango Multitasking
Some of the additions are:
Multi-tasking: Users will be able to press and hold the Back button to see minimised thumbnails of all their running apps, a view that will look very familiar to webOS and Blackberry PlayBook users. Like Android, but unlike iOS, there won’t be any restrictions on what apps can do in the background.
Unified Email Inboxes: Attention has also been paid to email. It’s now possible to set up multiple unified inboxes, such as one for your personal Hotmail and Gmail accounts and another for your Exchange accounts, keeping professional and personal separate.
Conversation Threads: Long text message and email conversations are now threaded in a conversation view that will be familiar to iPhone and PalmOS users. Like some Android apps, Mango will thread together conversations even if some of it takes place on different services, such as SMS, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
App Jumplist Search: Finding apps among a massive list can be a problem if you’ve installed a lot of them, so Microsoft is adding a jump list and a search function to its app menu. The former takes you to all apps that start with a given letter, and the latter is a traditional text search, with the option to jump into the Marketplace.
Internet Explorer 9: Currently, WP7 phones are running a version of IE Mobile, known as IE Mobile 7, which that is a variant of IE 7 with some IE 8 functionality added. But Windows Phone 7s running Mango will be running a mobile version of IE 9, Microsoft’s latest, HTML5-compliant IE browser.
Windows Phone 7 Mango and IE9 with HTML5
To have an indepth look into all of the new features in the upcoming update preview the video below which shows how much Mango brings to Windows Phone 7.
Skype 30,000 feet in the air? Yeah, sure!
AshMan Says…
I’m going on exchange to Slovenia over the Winter holidays to study at the University of Ljubljana. However what surprised me was for a country of just over two million people and a capital city with just a mere three hundred thousand people, the country has one of the largest universities in the world.
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
One of the big decisions which I had to make was to find a way to get myself from Australia to the little southern European country. After doing a number of searches online and trying a number of different travel dates I had found the dates I wanted to travel on, now all I had to decide was who I wanted to fly. I had worked the options down to two airlines, Singapore Airlines and Emirates Airlines. With having a 28+ hour flight I wanted to make sure that I was going to try provide myself with the best and most comfortable flight (as I also have a history of not sleeping much at all/if any on long haul flights).
Emirates A380
This is where I started to do a little bit of research on what both airlines offered and was surprised to see how far inflight technology has come. I was particularly hoping that Singapore Airlines had improved their inflight entertainment since I last flew them to Europe in 2008/2009.
I discovered that Singapore Airlines has come a little way in updating their entertainment hub with a new remote control and an updated screen, however apart from that things haven’t really changed. What really blew me away was the inflight technology which Emirates offer on their A380’s. Offered is access to wireless internet via WiFi as well as the ability to complete calls and send SMS’s via your GSM Mobile. Unfortunately the A380 is unable to currently land in Brisbane so takes the direct flight option out of the equation for me, though the 13 inch screen, 1200 channels and the power adapter for laptops are the icing on the cake from what I have heard to be the Emirates Experience from fellow travellers and might just be enough to entice many.
Emirates ICE System
What really got me thinking however was the overall embracing and improvement of technology; and how it enables passengers to use what was once considered a very dangerous device to even have on board with the wireless feature is disabled! What is a huge plus too is that the technology and speed of the wireless service is really good. A friend of mine during State of Origin Game 1 was streaming the game online, and didn’t experience any serious buffering issues, which flying almost 30,000 feet in the air traveling at approximately 900km/h is pretty impressive to me.
Emirates and Wireless a match made in the skies!
Makes me wonder why I still can’t get good 3G speeds when travelling on the bus to work in the city! Thanks to another technology (that being YouTube) I was able to find a copy of the inflight entertainment system which Emirates has on their planes and I think sums up pretty well just how far that technology has come! Enjoy the link below!!
And by the way…I made the decision and AshMan is flying Emirates!
Imagine Cup – World Finals are coming to Australia in 2012!
AshMan Says…
The Imagine Cup – Australian Finals were held last night at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney with the crowning of ‘Brain Speller’ from University of Canberra as the champions.
Judged by a panel of five, the judges were industry experts including a past winner of the World Finals. The 2011 Imagine Cup World Finals will be held in July in New York, with 400 other students from around the globe competing against Team Australia.
Queensland University of Technology at the Australian Finals
Following the announcement of the winners for the local finals, Pip Marlow, managing director of Microsoft Australia announced that the 2012 World Finals will be held in Australia.
“We have the brightest and smartest talent in Australia, and by hosting the worldwide finals here next year, we hope to help inspire a new generation of student inventors and imagine-makers.”
Judges at the Australian Finals
The Imagine Cup 2012 will challenge students to come up with ideas to help solve the world’s toughest problems – inspired in part by the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals – and to use the power of software and technology to help bring those ideas to life. This year, the Imagine Cup has attracted over 300,000 students and more than 400 student finalists will compete.
For more information about the Imagine Cup, visit: www.imaginecup.com.au
Uni Students and Lenovo = WIN!
AshMan says…
I’m a strapped for cash uni student, just like every other uni student out there. Now when it comes to buying a laptop for Uni finding one which doesn’t break the bank but meets our needs can be a hard task.
Now what if I told you that Lenovo (the guys known for making incredibly tough killer laptops) were giving you the chance to win a Lenovo Ideapad Z570? Pretty awesome hey? What if I said it’s easy to enter too?
All you have to do is jump onto twitter and Facebook follow Lenovo Australia and New Zealand and share why you deserve yo win!
I’ll be entering as well, but it’s all about sharing the love isn’t it?
CES 2011: Surface 2.0 makes appearance at CES
AshMan says…
At the special Microsoft Press Conference held before CES, one of the things shown off to the crowd was Surface 2.0.
In case you don’t know what Surface is, just think of a big touch screen sitting in your coffee table. It can handle hundred of touch points, recognise fingers as well as being able to interact with objects which you place on the screen.
Surface 2.0 is an evolution of that, featuring a new pixel sense technology which enables it to not just identify finger tips but your entire hand. You are also able to scan items into the software, by simply sitting the item on the screen. The hardware has been developed with Samsung and features a AMD CPU/GPU combo. It is physically a lot smaller, with the unit only being 4 inches thick.
Today, when Microsoft showed off it’s new “Surface 2.0″ device, it was a mountable interactive LCD screen, with the “largest piece of gorilla glass in any device” according to CrunchGear, who say that “You can drop a beer bottle on this this from 18 inches without making so much as a dent.” Every pixel in the new Surface device is a sensor, using a technology called “Pixel Sense” which allows the device to “see” things, though Microsoft isn’t letting on how that works yet.
With the original Surface unit priced at $25,000, it was unreachable to most however Microsoft have said that Surface 2.0 will be cheaper…
CES 2011: ‘Avatar Kinect’ leaked before Microsoft Keynote
AshMan says…
Well here is some new news about some shots being snapped backstage at what seems to be a rehearsal. I mean hey, even the pros have to practise to deliver an awesome keynote right?
What ‘Avatar Kinect’ appears to be is a social hub for people to watch movies and tv (such as Foxtel) as well as possibly listen to music and play games all within this social hub.
This ofcourse is nothing confirmed, but we can be pretty safe to assume some of those things happening.
See below for the images taken by Glimpse Dog.
Avatar Kinect
Avatar Kinect
CES 2011 is almost here!
AshMan says…
With CES 2011 around the corner, we are all eager to see what tech is going to be announced, shown off and demo’d by the companies which are there and trying to get our attention.
I will be doing my best to bring you what I think have been the standout tech at CES 2011 right here at AshMan says, so make sure you check back here once it kicks off in the states on the 5th of Jan!
Until then, make sure if you’re on twitter you find @AshManSays and follow me for awesome fun (well maybe not all the time)!
Happy New Year!
AshMan says…
Happy New Year! 2011 is going to be a huge year for the blog including showcasing a number of awesome upcoming tech, as well as previews of events including TechEd 2011, and this years SmackDown.
Stay tuned for news from CES 2011 starting in the US on the 5th of Jan.
SmackDown 2010… it’s a wrap!!!
Over 300 attendees were hosted in the QUT Gardens Point, Brisbane auditorium where they were entranced by keynote addresses and interactive demonstrations from:
- Michael Kordahi – Future of Computing,
- Jorke Odolphi – Windows Phone 7 and Developing Across Xbox 360, Windows Phone 7 and PC,
- Ashley Perkins – Imagine Cup and Dreamspark, and
- Adam Pollington – Xbox 360 Kinect.
Sponsors including Microsoft and Plantronics contributed to an awesome prize pool of over $3600 that saw some extremely fortunate attendees leave with everything from an Xbox 360 S to new release games, Office 2010 Professional software, keyboards and the most amazing GameCom headsets.
Free pizza and refreshments rounded out the afternoon of course!
The brainchild of Microsoft Student Partner and QUT student Ashley Perkins, the event was the culmination of many months of planning to bring the world of technology closer to students of school and university age in a fun setting and its inaugural success has everyone asking for more in the future!
Some posted feedback includes:
Jmintouch33: @ashmansays great presenters – amazing insights. Thanks from our jpc group. Enjoyed #smackdown2010 . We will be back next year! Congrats
Alegrya: Great fun time had at #SmackDown2010 today! Huge thanks to @AshManSays for organising such a top event
MrsAngell: Thanks @AshManSays for a fantastic time and lots of prizes at #smackdown2010
On3thousandwords: @ashmansays – #Kinect <b>IS</b> awesome #SmackDown2010 ^_^
Alegrya: 100m versus sprint on Kinect, hilarious #SmackDown2010
Themolk: Kinect Sports demo WIN! #SmackDown2010
Kiayyy: #smackdown2010 I love kinect
RSTrends: DreamSpark is pretty good, very good for dev. #smackdown2010
jackmarrows: I want to enter the imagine cup. Looks fun. #smackdown2010
jackmarrows: Wow visual studio takes the coding out of coding an app for windows 7 phone. 10 lines of code. Uses C# #smackdown2010
Cameron Parrish: QUT Smackdown 2010 with Ashley Perkins was ridiculous fun! it should be an annual event!
SmackDown 2010… it’s a wrap!!!
Below is a video compilation of SmackDown 2010:
Tweet Tweet!
- RT @Windows7AU: Just announced: The #windows8 consumer/public preview will be available February 29th! Who will be downloading? http://t ... 2 hours ago
- RT @kittfamiliar: all you twitter addicts download MetroTwit, it will change your tweeting experience. #forreal http://t.co/vhLNm6W9 13 hours ago
- RT @WP_DownUnder: Windows Phone Retail Experience…sloppy mistakes reflect poorly on industry. http://t.co/Q5XC1DnK @windowsphone #wp7au ... 14 hours ago
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