Prerna K. Mishra
The Economic Times
The tech scene may seem to be going a little out of hand, if you will, with big brother Microsoft teeming with activity all over again. If the word 'Windows' had started sounding like the anti-thesis of innovation to you by now, it's time to shake up and wake up a bit.
Microsoft is once again trying to change the rules of many games simultaneously. Catch the software giant's many fingers in different pies - in operations systems with Windows 7, search engines with Bing, and of course in gaming with the new Xbox 360 console that would eventually become a one-stop-shop for your gaming, social networking and communications needs.
Good or bad there is activity for sure. Here's a primer on what is cooking up in Billy boy's kitchen that smells like an elaborate spread after a somewhat long innovative famine.
It's official. Finally we will get to taste Windows 7 – Microsoft's new-generation personal computer operating system, in October-end.
The new OS will replace Microsoft's lesser child Vista. Earlier, Microsoft had released a nearly final version of Window 7 known as Windows 7 Release Candidate and opened it up to the public to test the OS's capabilities.
Formerly code named "Blackcomb" and "Vienna," Windows 7 is supposed to be more user friendly, focusing on usage rather than on applications.
Given that Windows operating systems are used in about 90 percent of the world's computers, industry presumes that there is a sizable chunk of potential customers out there for the new version.
According to Gartner data, in 2008, about 60 percent of the consumer market was still using XP or older versions of Windows and so was the business market.
There will also be a Tech Guarantee type program known as Windows Upgrade Option that is likely to be announced sometime this week.
Is it a Google killer? Certainly a long way from getting there. But Microsoft's search engine baby is born and live and users are playing with it.
The ability to preview videos when you mouse over them could clearly be labeled as a plus, but all in all, it seems like Microsoft Live Search with a plastic surgery with of course, a few features looking better than before.
And the add on is the mobile edition of the engine that has already been made available beginning June 1.
The new Bing for Mobile engine is able to format search results in such a way that they fit your phone screen. It creates a visual image-map of a Web page, allowing users to click the numbered zones to view the corresponding section of that web page.
Well, with the engine out, the battle royal has already started. Internet safety experts have warned that there is a glitch in the engine that gives users easy access to pornographic material.
Avid surfers and bloggers have already discovered that it needed only a few clicks for anyone, of any age, to view explicit pornographic videos without even leaving the search engine.
However, Bing, like other major search engines, lets users set filtering preferences at one of three levels-strict, moderate or simply off.
Microsoft said in a statement that it was up to users to turn off the filters, and provided instructions on how to toggle the settings on its blog.
The X box is growing up into a living room delight with no ‘controls’. Certainly a lifestyle changer, this one.
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