Steve Jobs let slip some interesting data in his Keynote to the WWDC 07 conference. It is that 90 per cent of the 20 million Mac users in the world are on the current (Tiger) or last-but-one (Panther) version of OS X. He claimed that this was unique in the history of the PC industry. Wonder what the corresponding breakdown for Windows is…
Category Archives: Microsoft
Photosynth
Now here is something genuinely original from Microsoft — Photosynth. (Well, some of it seems to rely on Seadragon, a technology developed by a company recently acquired by Microsoft, but still…)
It’s software that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.
There’s a fascinating TED talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas which demonstrates the idea.
Thanks to Tony Hirst for the link.
Later… Quentin points out that the online demonstrations will only work in IE. Well, what do you expect…?
Science and Nature cannot handle Word 2007 files
Before you submit that Nobel-winning article, it might be worth having a look at this from Rob Weir…
It appears that Science, the journal of the America Association for the Advancement of Science, itself the largest scientific society in the world, has updated its authoring guidelines to include advice for Office 2007 users. The news is not good.
“Because of changes Microsoft has made in its recent Word release that are incompatible with our internal workflow, which was built around previous versions of the software, Science cannot at present accept any files in the new .docx format produced through Microsoft Word 2007, either for initial submission or for revision. Users of this release of Word should convert these files to a format compatible with Word 2003 or Word for Macintosh 2004 (or, for initial submission, to a PDF file) before submitting to Science.”
Well, so much for 100% compatibility, eh? . . . More bad news:
“Users of Word 2007 should also be aware that equations created with the default equation editor included in Microsoft Word 2007 will be unacceptable in revision, even if the file is converted to a format compatible with earlier versions of Word; this is because conversion will render equations as graphics and prevent electronic printing of equations, and because the default equation editor packaged with Word 2007 — for reasons that, quite frankly, utterly baffle us — was not designed to be compatible with MathML. Regrettably, we will be forced to return any revised manuscript created with the Word 2007 default equation editor to authors for re-editing. To get around this, please use the Math Type equation editor or the equation editor included in previous versions of Microsoft Word.”
Nature appears to have the same problem…
The Microsoft coffee-table computer (contd)
David Pogue is underwhelmed…
This new “surface computer,” as Microsoft calls it, has a multi-touch screen. You can use two fingers or even more — for example, you can drag two corners of a photograph outward to zoom in on it. Here’s an article in yesterday’s Times about it.
If this is all sounding creepily familiar, it is probably because so far, all of this is exactly what NYU researcher Jeff Han has been demonstrating for a year and a half now. I’ve written about it several times on my Pogue’s Posts blog…
And he callously destroys my illusions about the device. (I loved the way the table sucked images out of a Canon IXUS.)
Microsoft’s version of the multi-touch computer adds one very cool, though impractical, twist: interaction with other electronics.
For example, in Microsoft’s demonstration, you can take some pictures. When you set the camera down on the table top, the fresh photos come pouring out of it into a virtual puddle on the screen — a slick, visual way to indicate that you’ve just downloaded them.
Next, you can set a cellphone down on the table — and copy photos into it just by dragging them into the cellphone’s zone.
Then you can buy songs from a virtual music store and drag them directly into a Zune music player that you’ve placed on the glass.
How cool is all of this? Very. Unfortunately, at this point, it’s the Microsoft version of a concept car; you can ogle it, but you can’t have it. These stunts require concept cameras, concept cellphones and concept music players that have been rigged to interact with the surface computer.
Wonder if that’s accurate. I’m sure there are compact digital cameras that are wi-fi enabled.
Hmmm… Just checking…
Yep. Nikon do one. And Canon do a Digital IXUS Wireless model. So the demonstration could have been done with a bog-standard IXUS.
Hah! I was right — see this admiring video from Popular Mechanics:
Jobs and Gates: the secret marriage
Hilarious joint interview from D:5 conference. It’s a clumsily edited compilation, though. Jobs seems much more adept than Gates at this kind of thing. The whole interview is split into seven segments. Worth wading through the whole sequence if you have the time. Or you can read the transcript.
Microsoft’s new coffee table
Nice video from the D:5 conference. The bit I really like is the way it interacts with the Canon IXUS.
Microsoft forsakes desktop for tabletop
From the Daily Telegraph
Microsoft has unveiled a coffee table-shaped ‘surface computer’ that responds to touch and is expected to generate a multi-billion dollar market.
Surface is a 30-inch computer display that is embedded on the table surface. It does not need a mouse to operate it, and unlike traditional touch-screens, can recognise more than one finger at a time, allowing small groups to gather around the table and use it at the same time. It also recognises objects that are placed on its surface.
For example, if you are out at a restaurant with friends and you each place your drink on the table, a range of information will appear by your glass, such as menu recommendations to go with your wine, and pictures of the vineyard it came from. You can order your next course with the touch of your finger and even split the bill.
Wonder what’d happen if you spilt Java Beans on it? Also, what do you do when your table crashes?
Microsoft news
Charming message in my university in-box this morning reads:
We are aware of a significant number of people experiencing problems starting their computers this morning. After initially starting up normally, the machine becomes ‘bogged down’ as applications are started. This is apparently down to a widespread problem with Windows Update and Microsoft think they have a solution.
There is a process on machines called svchost.exe running under the System username and during updates, some machines find this takes up 99% of the processor’s resources. If you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and select Task Manager, under the Processes tab, you will find references to svchost.exe. If the instance running under System is showing 99%, then leave the machine to run through this for 20 minutes by which time the process should have run its course and the machine will operate normally.
If you cannot raise the Task Manager, then a manual shutdown of the machine might be the best approach before attempting the advice above.
As advised, there is a proposed fix from Microsoft and this will be applied during the next month.
Hmm… Just as well I don’t use the desktop PC so kindly provided by my employers. And it’s so consoling to know that the bug will be fixed “during the next month” too; I’m sure my colleagues will be delighted.
Microsoft rattles patent sabre — again
From Tech News on ZDNet
Microsoft claims that free and open-source software violates 235 of its patents, according to a magazine report published Sunday.
In an interview with Fortune, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith alleges that the Linux kernel violates 42 Microsoft patents, while its user interface and other design elements infringe on a further 65. OpenOffice.org is accused of infringing 45, along with 83 more in other free and open-source programs, according to Fortune.
It is not entirely clear how Microsoft might proceed in enforcing these patents, but the company has been encouraging large tech companies that depend on Linux to ink patent deals, starting with its controversial pact with Novell last November. Microsoft has also cited Linux protection playing a role in recent patent swap deals with Samsung and Fuji Xerox. Microsoft has also had discussions but not reached a deal with Red Hat, as noted in the Fortune article.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is also quoted in the article as saying Microsoft’s open-source competitors need to “play by the same rules as the rest of the business.”
“What’s fair is fair,” Ballmer told Fortune. “We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property.”
The story notes that some big tech proponents of open source have been stockpiling intellectual property as part of the Open Invention Network, set up in 2005 by folks like Sony, Red Hat, IBM, NEC and Philips. The article surmises that if Microsoft were to go after open source, these companies’ combined know-how might give it some patent weapons to go after Windows…
Still no sign of a triple alliance to take on Google
This morning’s Observer column…
The strange business of the ‘takeover’ that never was – that of Yahoo by Microsoft – raises some interesting questions. First, who benefited? The story originated in an unexpected place – the New York Post, a lively tabloid publication owned since 1993 by Rupert Murdoch, where one would rarely look for a big technology story…