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Microsoft Zune HD – coming this Fall

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gaming & Toys, Phones, Portable / By /

Zune HD

While style is usually an Apple trait and is typically last on Microsoft’s mind, they seem to have got it right on this one – the Zune HD. This is the latest in the line of Zune players and is beautifully angular to fit in with the modern world. This new 3.3-inch OLED touchscreen Zune can browse the internet via WiFi, play movies and snag digital radio feeds – hang about, this is starting to sound like an iPod Touch (bar the design). The player is available in silver (pictured) and black.

When hooked up to the TV, playback can be produced at 720p for a superior high definition image and a hookup between the XBox Live Marketplace TV/video service has been confirmed. The limited announcement from Redmond has left many users wondering whether or not this is some sort of PSP rival and will support XBox games and is it going to develop into some sort of Zune phone? Let’s just wait for the release in the fall!

More info at Zune.net.

GfG’s Article Recap for Week Ending June 12, 2009

Books, Music and Movies, Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet, Phones, Portable, Software / By /

First up in the ‘what the … ?!’ category from the ever-inventive Japaneses were the  Fuwarinka Candy, which changes your body odor by eating a piece of candy or chewing a piece of gum.  Apple had their WWDC conference and rolled out new MacBooks and a new iPhone.

Internet traffic could reach 2/3 of a Zettabyte by 2013 and speaking of the Net, you better grab your Facebook username before it gets snapped up by someone else.

More gadgets: The Lacie d2 Network File Server can store tons of photos and videos on your home network. Amazon released its latest Kindle, the DX, while Microsoft is close to beta testings its new free anti-virus software.

Wrapping things up, we compared some wireless 802.11 USB adapters so you could retro-fit that old laptop or desktop cheapily and easily.

Microsoft close to releasing free Anti-Virus product

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

Once Microsoft saw that their OneCare Live security product flopped, they decided back in November 08 to produce a scaled down version that would be free. The new application, codenamed Morro, is basic anti-virus that combats viruses, spyware and trojans.

While MS says this is not intended to compete with likes of Symantec and McAfee, they obviously will on the low-end of the product lines, but not with the security suites that those companies offer.

For whatever reasons MS decided to do this, it’s a good thing for consumers. In fact, I’d like to see something like this bundled with the OS, preconfigured to auto-update, and difficult for end-users to disable. Computer security, particularly on consumer machines, is in a terrible state. Many users simply don’t know or understand the dangers well enough (or at all) and this is bad for them and the rest of the Net.

Morro will go into beta soon and will roll out later this year.

GfG’s Article Recap for Week Ending June 5, 2009

Computers, Gaming & Toys, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Portable, Software / By /

We kicked off the past week with a look at the Epson WorkForce 310 – a more compact and efficient version of its predecessor. We looked at CaseMate’s charging cases and took a look at the Powerlung lung capacity excercise tool.  For you RC enthusiasts, check out the Mini Cooper Convertible.

If you have pets that constantly want to go outside, then think about training them to ring a doorbell. And if you’re a gamer, a boardgamer that is, then you’ve got to get Settlers of Catan.

On the news side of things, Google have launched scripting to Google Spreadsheets and Microsoft have launched Bing, their newest search engine.  If you’re a Skype user, beware of scammers sending you messages.

Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine launches Wed 3 Jun 2009

Networking & Internet / By /

ms-bing1

Microsoft is set to fully launch Bing, their brand new search engine on Wednesday 3 June [Update: MS says launch date is now today!]. But don’t call it a ‘search engine’; call it a ‘decision engine’ says Microsoft. Bing’s results page look remarkably like Google’s or Yahoo’s, but it will also include a set of ‘related results’ down the left side of the page.

These related results will be generated by technology created by Powerset, a company that Microsoft acquired last year. Powerset represents information in triples much like competitor Wolfram Alpha, as well as ‘answering’ questions directly.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Microsoft can pull away traffic from Google in the search engine wars. It’s really going to depend on whether Bing can provide a better search experience getting people quicker to what they’re really looking for. And that’s going to be a matter of perspective on the part of users, and not wrapped in the statistics of which engine is ‘better’.

GfG’s Article Recap for Week Ending May 1, 2009

Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Portable / By /

Let’s take another look at what we found worthy of a post this week! Let’s start with 2 recession-busting bargains that you can’t afford to miss out on: a D-Link Print Server for $20 and a nicely-spec’ed MacBook Air for $999.

Next up is the uber hi-tech Emotiv EPOC that allows you to play games and control your computer with your mind. On a similar theme we featured the very futuristic Ripple Bluetooth Headset.

In tech business news, ABC and Disney are partnering to show ABC shows on Hulu, Microsoft and Verizon are to work together on a possible iPhone Killer and Amazon are acquiring Stanza to expand their Kindle operations.

Finally, for all you Apple fans out there (everyone?), we have heard rumors of a new, cutting-edge Apple product: The iPad?

Microsoft, Verizon to collaborate on an iPhone competitor

Phones / By /

Oh Microsoft, for all of your improvements and even advancements over the years, you still manage to make me laugh and scratch my head in amazement. If you really wanted to compete with the iPhone, why didn’t you start a long time, oh say when you first knew they were coming out with the device?

You have a strange habit of coming late to the game and being annoyed that your competing product doesn’t vault immediately to the #1 position.  Your touchscreen ‘MSPhone’ could potentially outsell the iPhone (especially if Apple sticks to just AT&T for a cellular network), but it’s not about to happen any time soon. Good luck – we’ll be watching what happens.

Microsoft to produce original video content for Zunes

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Portable / By /

In what seems to be a strange move to me, Microsoft is going to produce original video content exclusively for Zune owners. The first series will be an 8-episode comedy called Cinemash starting in May. Each episode will be 3 to 5 minutes long.

Considering there are only 3 million Zunes but opver 170M iPods, why wouldn’t MS make this content available to everyone? After all, profit margins on content can be way better than on hardware, especially in a down economy. Yeah, we all know why – they want to sell more Zunes; can’t let Apple keep beating them there.

My prediction – this will fade quietly, and there will be no more MS video next year.

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