So Microsoft doesn’t like anticompetitive behavior, huh? Since when? Brad Smith, General Counsel for the Redmond rabblerousers, has posted a lengthy blog post outlining Microsoft’s concerns with “a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance” in online search and ads, which he claims is detrimental to European consumers. Funnily enough, half the post is about Google’s legal issues in the US, but we’ll set that aside for now. What this boils down to is that Microsoft is finally taking the gloves off — Google accused it of pushing other companies to do its dirty work — and is now adding its name to the list of objectors to Mountain View’s stranglehold on search in Europe. The European Commission is already taking a regulatory looksee at Google’s tactics, so this isn’t sparking off a new investigation, but it does add the glamor of two big names locking legal horns yet again. Hit the source link for Brad’s exposition of Google’s villainous wrongdoings.
So here’s a dilemma that some gamers may have faced: do you want a console with great processing power but coupled with some glowing lollipops, or one with futuristic controller-free motion gaming at the cost of Blu-ray playback? Well, for us mere mortals it’s either one or the other, but Shantanu Goel went ahead to combine the best of both worlds: Xbox Kinect on a PS3. The video above is our man demonstrating his early software mod, which can currently recognize basic gestures like quickly pushing your hand towards the screen twice to activate the X button, as well as the usual waving around for navigation. While it’s obvious that this project is still at its infancy, Goel’s already working on beefing it up by adding full game profiles and skeletal tracking support, so with a bit of help from the community, hopefully it won’t be long before we get to liberally throw grenades in Killzone 3 without having to worry about damaging the TV. Maybe Kevin Butler will also see the lighter side of things, too.
In an exclusive on-going set of competitions sponsored by Microsoft and Dell Incorporation across Middle East and Africa, it is a moment of great pride that out of 79 countries, students from Pakistan have won the first and second set of this competition.
Both winning teams are from FAST National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Karachi.
As we reported earlier, the winning team for set one targeted the football fans. Their application “Kick Now” provides live football updates which include live match scores, upcoming tournaments, top stories, reviews and profiles of players.
In set two, winners developed a shared drawing space named ‘Sky Canvas’ where multiple users can share their input on a virtual white board simultaneously through the internet. It syncs anything you draw on it with all the users currently viewing it, everyone can draw on the board.
Sharing his views about the competition, Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager, Microsoft Pakistan said,
“The MEA Windows Phone 7 challenge is a wonderful opportunity for talented students who can use this competition as a showcase for their creativity and innovation to develop the best applications on Windows Phone 7.
I am very excited to see the results produced by students from Pakistan and Microsoft Innovation Center will definitely keep playing its role in nurturing leaders of tomorrow”
Speaking about the competition,Sandra Fraga, Head of META Marketing-CSMB, Dell commented,
“Dell and Microsoft believe in a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems. The Windows Phone 7 Challenge is a great platform to encourage technology innovation amongst students in the Middle East and Africa.
We have seen exciting, creative and diverse new Windows Phone 7 applications being developed for this contest. Dell encourages students to enter this challenge, as it provides real- life experience and an opportunity to turn ideas into reality. Congratulations to all the winners”.
The prize distribution ceremony was attended by more than 200 academicians including Deans, Directors, Heads of Departments (HoDs) and Professors from major universities in Karachi.
Addressing the attendees Dr. Asim ur-Rehman, Director, FAST National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Karachi, said
“MEA Phone 7 Challenge provides a platform to students to explore new ways of addressing the world’s toughest problem through the power of mobile technology.
The high calibre of the students and their projects is an evidence of the high level of innovation seen in the student community today, as Director of FAST National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Karachi,I really feel proud to see that my students felt the responsibility to address the world’s toughest challenges and are recognized by the companies like Microsoft”.
Even before the Incredible S was announced as the company’s new top-of-the-line set back in February, the rumored Pyramid was the upcoming HTC phone that was capturing everyone’s imagination thanks in no small part to its promise of a dual-core processor — something the Incredible S notably lacks. We hadn’t seen what this beast might look like, though… until today. Chinese site xda.cn has posted alleged renders of the Pyramid’s front and rear, showing a careful evolution of HTC’s current design language along with claims of a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 display, 8 megapixel primary and 1.3 megapixel front cameras, 768MB of RAM, and Android 3.0 (that last bit doesn’t sound right to us, though — Android 2.x with Sense would be more plausible). Rumors have this one pegged for launch on T-Mobile at some point this year; it’d be nice if that happened at CTIA next week, but considering how tied up they might be with Sprint at the show, it’s hard to say if that’ll happen.
Moving on, we’ve got some visual evidence here that HTC’s pressing on with its Windows Phone line. The first of the two, the Ignite, looks like a midrange slate thanks to an 800MHz Qualcomm processor (clocked slower than the current batch of 1GHz units that are out there), a mere 3.7-inch display, and a 5 megapixel camera around back. The Prime, meanwhile, looks like a little brother to the 7 Pro thanks to a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and similar specs to the Ignite — not blockbusters by any stretch, but HTC (along with other OEMs) might be waiting to pull out the big guns until Mango. Check out those renders at the source link.
Just in case if you don’t know, Imagine Cup, by Microsoft, is the world’s largest premier student technology competition happening round the globe since 2003.
Main theme of imagine cup is to encourage students around the globe to imagine a better world in which people are empowered by technology.
If you remember, last year team Magno Touch from University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore won the Pakistan finals (out of 2,500 + students from Pakistan) and represented the country in the global finals held in Warsaw, Poland.
This year, the Imagine Cup 2011 – Global Finals will be held in United States of America (USA) and the winning team in the Software Design Category from Pakistan will be fully sponsored by Microsoft to go to the United States of America and compete in the global finals.
Who can Participate (in Software Design Category):
If you are a student, and you have an idea of solving the toughest possible thing in this world using Microsoft tools and technology, then you are good to go with registration.
So primarily, you will have to identify the toughest problem, then develop a solution and that’s it. Though, its not as simple as it seems, because your idea and the solution needs to be the best to be a winner.
So here is the time, register yourself, and try your abilities for bringing home the Imagine Cup this year.
How to Participate:
For more details and registration: http://pakistan.imaginecup.com/ or you can send an email here: b-hashau [at] microsoft.com.
Note: Last date for Registrations: March 20th, 2011
Below is the schedule:
ROUND
START DATE
(all times 00:01 [12:01 A.M.] GMT)
END DATE
(all times 23:59 [11:59 P.M.] GMT)
Round 1 –one page document describing the idea
July 9, 2010
March 20, 2011
Round 2 – Detailed project document along with screen shots
We had a hint that Microsoft would be releasing the final version of Internet Explorer 9 on March 14th, and now the company has finally, officially confirmed it. That launch will coincide with a press event / party at SXSW, and downloads will be available starting at 9PM Pacific time (or midnight Eastern time). Wondering what’s in store? Then you can always check out our review of the beta version, or simply download it yourself, of course — suffice it to say, it’s no Internet Explorer 6.
Microsoft Pakistan recently organized two BizSpark Camps at Microsoft Innovation Center where 9 technology products, developed by 6 startup companies, were showcased.
This was the first initiative of its kind where the ideas of young entrepreneurs were actually transformed into a mature product.
The first camp was based on Windows Phone 7 Development and the second one was on Windows Azure Development. The projects were diversified from a game to live score updates. There were also solutions related to e-banking, e-commerce and personal security.
The showcasing event was attended by 80 professionals including developers, IT pros, bloggers and students, and executives from Microsoft, P@SHA and TiE. The main highlight of the event was the deployment of projects on Multi Touch Screens where the attendees could actually witness the applications in real time.
Sharing his views on the program Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager Microsoft said:
“We want to do everything through which we can equip the young talent in Pakistan. Through BizSpark, Microsoft has tried to facilitate these young startups with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software, which will help improve lives, solve problems and become a catalyst for economic growth in Pakistan.”
Also present during the event were Shoaib Khalil, Marketing Manager, Microsoft Pakistan; and Zafar ul Islam, Enterprise Technology Strategist.
BizSpark Camp is a subset of Microsoft’s BizSpark Program launched last year. For many technology startup companies, achieving and sustaining business success is a tough proposition. Many succumb to myriad challenges along the way — from funding to marketing to changing market conditions.
Looking at these concerns, Microsoft Pakistan, in partnership with Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA), The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and Tech Angels Network (TAN), launched Microsoft BizSpark program.
This program is targeted towards early stage software companies, providing them with resources including access to Microsoft platform software and development tools with no upfront cost.
Microsoft BizSpark Camps were held to enhance the technical skill set of the startup companies, based on emerging technologies and latest trends, and also to provide mentoring through local industry experts.
Microsoft may be leading at this point in its battle with Google to see who has the better travel search. With Google’s acquisition of ITA, a travel industry software company, still pending, Microsoft is moving full steam ahead announcing a partnership with the travel search engine company Kayak.
We mentioned last week that Microsoft launched some new features for their travel search with the addition of autosuggest flight and price predictor. With the new partnership, Kayak users will gain access to these features while Bing users gain access to more comprehensive flight listings and itineraries.
This partnership between Bing and Kayak should be a good move for both companies to battle Google’s potentially formidable travel search service once the ITA acquisition completes. Kayak will start powering Bing’s flight metasearch within the next few weeks as a first step in their alliance.
At this point, the only thing keeping Microsoft in the tablet conversation are rumors of its Windows 8 or Windows Next, and lo and behold we’ve got another one to add to the pile. While we heard last week that Microsoft could release the beta of Windows 8 for tablets at PDC in September, “sources at Microsoft” have now told Business Insider, that the company is hoping to show a public “design demo” of the operating system’s tablet UI as early as June. The timing is interesting — and it actually lines up very well with Computex, where the company does have a big presence — but we’re also intrigued by the part that says Microsoft’s taking “a more Apple-like approach to interface design” and that it will use Metro UI pieces. That’s obviously similar to what Microsoft showed us at last year’s Computex (picture of that above) — except it was using Windows Embedded Compact 7 underneath. The article also mentions that it will draw on some Media Center-like styling, which also syncs up with some other whispers we’ve heard. Yep, there’s a lot of rumors, and well, with this talk of summer / fall it looks like we’ll be dealing with plenty more before we hear anything official.
Digging the 1080p LifeCam Studio but don’t feel like spending $100? Or, maybe you don’t need all those p’s? Microsoft has, for you and you alone, announced the new LifeCam HD-3000. It tops out at 720p but retails for a more palatable $39.95. Also newly announced is a trio of mice, first and most exciting being the $19.95 Express Mouse (above) which, according to Microsoft, has both the looks and the moves. We’re not really sure what that means, but it is kind of funky looking with the offset cord your choice of six colors ranging from “Hibiscus Red” to “Dahlia Pink.” For those who’d rather stick with something less-flowery there’s the Comfort Mouse 3000 for the same price, similar features in a design less likely to stand out in the conference room. Or, cough up another $10 for the $29.95 Comfort Mouse 6000, pictured below. It gives up ambidextrous pretenses in favor of a more form-fitting shape and five whole buttons. Can you handle that many buttons? Yeah, you totally can.
Just in case if you don’t know, Imagine Cup, by Microsoft, is the world’s largest premier student technology competition happening round the globe since 2003.
Microsoft Pakistan recently organized two BizSpark Camps at Microsoft Innovation Center where 9 technology products, developed by 6 startup companies, were showcased.
