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Google I/O 2010: Day 1. Hint: open standards.

George T — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:59:23 +0000

As expected, Google I/O keynote was thrilling. Google made some major announcements regarding the future of the web. The event began at 9 a.m. PDT, that is around 7 p.m. here in Greece. The keynote started with VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra taking the stage followed by VP of Product Management Sundar Pichai. It was all about HTML5 and open standards.

First and foremost, the VP8 codec. Last summer Google acquired On2 for its video compression technology. Today, Google announced VP8 codec as part of a new project named WebM. By the way, VP8 is now open-source.

The WebM project is dedicated to developing a high-quality, open video format for the web that is freely available to everyone.

One of the most important things about this is that the WebM launch is supported by Mozilla, Opera, Google and more than forty other publishers, software and hardware vendors! Read more here.

…including Microsoft!

In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows.

What’s Great About WebM

Very high quality video
Great video playback performance, even on older computers
100% free and open to everyone
Supported on popular video sites like YouTube

Later on, Adobe shared some HTML5 love on the stage.

The keynote continued with the Chrome Web Store. The Chrome Web Store opens later this year.

Users will be able to discover a broad range of amazing web apps while developers will be able to reach millions of new users.

Next was Wave. Google Wave has been opened up to everyone as of today (also part of Google Apps as of today).

The keynote ended with an extensive reference to App Engine, GWT and some great things coming from Google + VMWare.

VMWare has been working with Google to bring an open-source layer for the cloud

You can watch the Google I/O 2010 Keynote online here.

I am guessing Day 2 will be all about Android. Woo hoo!

P.S. By the time I am writing this Google Buzz APIs come into play. Take a look here.

Microsoft Courier leaked photos and videos

George T — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:48:22 +0000

Engadget got some photos and videos on this new revolutionary-wanna-be product coming from Microsoft this time. Though this is still a concept show-off you have to admit that it is pretty cool. The User Experience/Interface is quite breath taking. I wonder if the final product will look like anything close to this. The sure thing is that Microsoft has taken a few things under serious consideration like the UI part in the last few years. Have you seen the latest Windows Mobile, oh I mean the Windows Phone 7 series?

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Microsoft Vs Security, one more time

George T — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:20:04 +0000

About a year ago (Nov. 18, 2008), Microsoft announced plans for a free anti-malware solution code-named “Morro”. As Microsoft stated, Morro would provide comprehensive protection from malware including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans. More specifically:

This new solution, to be offered at no charge to consumers, will be architected for a smaller footprint that will use fewer computing resources, making it ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less powerful PCs.

Two days ago Microsoft released the final version of its Security Essentials aka Morro. You can download it here. It is available for Windows XP 32‐bit, Windows Vista/WIN7 32‐bit and Windows Vista/WIN7 64‐bit. For the time being, Microsoft Security Essentials is available in many languages.

Some of the key features include:

Comprehensive malware protection
Simple, free download*
Automatic updates
Easy to use

*You should also note that your PC must run genuine Windows to install Microsoft Security Essentials.

I am really curious about Morro‘s performance over the next few months.

IE6 support till 2014!

George P — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:42:16 +0000

Yes! It is true! Microsoft has announced that support for Internet Explorer 6 will get extended until 2014. Originally it was planed until 2010.

IE6 was launched in 2001 and it is estimated that 15-20% of people still use it to browse the web.

I already see angry web developers surrounding Microsoft’s HQ.

Full article can be found here.

Outlook for Mac announced

George T — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:48:27 +0000

Microsoft announced Outlook for Mac included in the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac. This Web Services Edition, as they call it, will be providing performance and reliability improvements and enabling users to sync Tasks, Notes and Categories.
Obviously Outlook for Mac will replace Entourage for Mac. Some of the highlights include:

Built on Cocoa environment which means improved performance and integration with Mac OS
A new high-speed file-based database with support for backing up files with Time Machine and Spotlight searching
Information Rights Management that will help you prevent sensitive information from being distributed to or read by people who do not have permission to access the content

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Zune HD available for pre-order

George P — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:00:22 +0000

Microsoft has announced the release date of Zune HD. It will be the 15th of September but Zune HD is avaible to pre-order, from 4 retailers, Amazon (until now the link is pointing somewhere in amazon that doesn’t exist), Best Buy, Walmart and Microsoft Store .

As its name states, it will support High Definition Video playback. It will also support HD Radio, HD video output to HD TVs, wifi access to the internet and has a full featured web browser. Navigation is achieved through it’s multi-touch 3.3 inch OLED display.

It will be available in two flavors, 16GB and 32 GB, with prices at $219.99 and $289.99 respectively.

DataViz Releases Documents To Go 2.0 for Android

George T — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:11:37 +0000

For all those who like to carry their documents on their mobile, Documents to Go 2.0 is now available at the Android Market.

Some of the most notable enhancements that the 2.0 update includes are Microsoft PowerPoint file support, Adobe PDF file support, and various enhancements for Microsoft Word & Excel file support (such as find and replace, number formatting, contextual menus, optimizations for touch, and a ‘Live Folder’ for instant access to recently used documents)

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