Windows 8 - News & Updates

[mmadhankumar]

EXCLUSIVE: Windows 8 Release Preview - Hands On and Review

Microsoft has unveiled the Windows 8 Release Preview yesterday and here we are with a detailed review of it.

Two months after unleashing Windows 8 upon the world, Microsoft's back with the latest step toward the release of the company's next operating system: the Windows 8 Release Preview. The new version was supposed to be released the first week in June, but Microsoft is apparently ahead of its development schedule — though that hasn't stopped the leaks from coming fast and furious. The Release Preview isn't nearly the upgrade the Consumer Preview was, but it's a clear move toward a stable, feature-complete operating system. We got to spend some time with the Release Preview on a Samsung Series 9 laptop, checking out the new features and trying to figure out whether Windows 8 will be equally well suited to touch and non-touch devices.

The basic look and feel of Windows 8 hasn't changed — even Aero is still present, though it'll be gone before RTM — but performance has definitely been improved. There weren't major problems with the Consumer Preview, but it now feels like things move a little smoother and a beat faster, especially as you flip between apps.

Multiple monitor support has been improved, too, and as we flipped through a few screens or disconnected and reconnected a tablet things worked perfectly and automatically. Apps can now be opened and closed on any monitor, and hot corners are extended to all your screens.

New Features
Flash is perhaps the most significant new feature in the Release Preview. Microsoft and Adobe worked together to build a stripped-down version of Flash for IE10, which adds some features (like video playback) while skipping over the pieces that typically cause performance and battery life problems. Microsoft is also maintaining a list of sites that are authorized to use Flash on Windows 8, so your experience will certainly vary — YouTube's allowed but Rdio currently isn't, for instance. (Full Flash is still available in Desktop mode.)

From a hardware standpoint, we were curious to see how Windows 8 does on a device without touch capabilities. We'd primarily used the Consumer Preview on tablets, and spending some time using a mouse and keyboard showed us how much time Microsoft has spent making the OS work well with any input — there are keyboard shortcuts and hot corners everywhere you look. The company's also working with Synaptics and other companies on creating software drivers that add some of the Windows 8 gestures to a laptop's trackpad, so that if you swipe from the right on your trackpad it'll still bring up the Charms menu. Our device was running an alpha build of the drivers, and there were plenty of bugs and problems, but having the gestures available made it much easier to switch from a tablet to a laptop.

The gestures can be hard to figure out, though, and using Windows 8 is a little clunky until you know them. So we asked Microsoft reps how the company would help new users figure out Windows 8, and the answer was essentially that they're working on it. Gabe Aul, a director of program management for Windows, said that the company's research and testing showed that within an hour, most people (intentionally or otherwise) figured out most of the gestures, and even those that didn't were able to navigate the OS without any trouble.

Apps
The other frustrating thing about Windows 8 is how often we're still forced to jump between the Metro interface and the standard Desktop look, because a setting or an app only ran in Desktop mode. The onus for solving that, of course, lies with developers, who will be called upon to build the Metro equivalents of everything from Notepad to Photoshop to Diablo III. The store expanded today alongside Release Preview, and we got to take a look at a few new apps ahead of time, like drink-making app Cocktail Flow, which gives you a database of beautiful and clever drink recipes. Wikipedia also built a Metro app, which is really beautiful and intuitive — you can also search Wikipedia from anywhere, which is pretty great. The full store just went live today, and there are plenty more Metro apps to wade through in Release Preview; all are currently free, too.

Microsoft's Bing team also created Sports, Travel, and News apps, Flipboard-like Metro apps that style text for your particular screen, offer big images, and make it easy to flip through a lot of content. The apps look great, with easy sorting by category, news source, or your favorite team. They're solid examples of how Metro apps should work and look, and should be good examples for developers to follow.

Most of the core apps haven't really been changed beyond some stability and reliability improvements. The Photos app has a new splash screen, with a big image and icons for your various albums — Windows 8 continues to be all about full-screen content. You can now pin a particular inbox, so you can get notifications for that particular account on the Start Screen. The People app has also been changed a bit, so you can now see a Facebook-style feed of what your friends are up to.

Zune Pass also now comes integrated into the Music app, which adds a nice subscription music service to the device — you get 30 days free when you first install Windows 8. Since Microsoft is clearly phasing out the Zune branding, we can't help but wonder if this is the Woodstock music service we'd heard about, but at least until E3 it remains a Zune device. You can play Zune music, along with videos or photos, on your Xbox through the Xbox Companion app, though the app's not installed by default on this version.

Wrap-up
Windows 8 Release Preview feels very close to a finished product. Microsoft assured us that there are plenty of surprises left for the final, RTM version of the operating system, but even in its current state it feels like something you could install and use full-time. It's fast and stable, and with the store open has plenty of new apps for users to explore. There are still some kinks to work out — we don't ever want to be taken to Desktop unless we go there on purpose — but it's clear that Windows 8 isn't far from ready for prime time


SOME SCREENSHOTS

Source

 

[ssparikshya]

RE: EXCLUSIVE: Windows 8 Release Preview - Hands On and Review

its not exclusive of ddf as it has another source
but good post
Offtopic:
your siggy looks nice
how you made it ?

 

[mmadhankumar]

Windows 8 upgrade for just Rs.699: Microsoft

Microsoft has issued a Official Press Release today about the upgrade offer for Windows 8. They had offered the buyers of Windows 7 PC to be upgraded to Windows 8 for just Rs.699

Beginning June 2, 2012, Microsoft will roll out the Windows Upgrade Offer in 131 markets, including the U.S. and Canada. Consumers who buy eligible Windows 7-based PCs through Jan. 31, 2013, can purchase an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of $14.99 (U.S.) during the time of the promotion. More information about the Windows Upgrade Offer will be available on June 1, 2012. In addition to the Windows Upgrade Offer designed for consumers buying new Windows 7-based PCs, Microsoft will also announce other offers in the coming months that will help consumers with existing Windows 7-based PCs upgrade to Windows 8 when it is generally available.

Full Microsoft Press Release


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[Greatkarthik]

RE: Windows 8 upgrade for just Rs.699: Microsoft

For indian pcs is it available ?

 

[ssparikshya]

RE: Windows 8 upgrade for just Rs.699: Microsoft

microsoft is too greedy
so, if am windows7 ultimate they should give upgrade for free

 

[ssparikshya]

Microsoft hires designers for Windows 8 apps

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft is so eager to have a panoply of applications for the next version of its Windows operating system that it has lined up design firms, recruited interns and sent engineers on an around-the-world road show to help developers get them built.

Unlike Apple and Google, which run the world's largest app stores, Microsoft doesn't have the luxury of waiting for programmers to come knocking when they want to create downloadable games, productivity tools or online magazines for its computer software.

As Microsoft struggles to keep up with a technology landscape that is moving beyond personal computers into a future defined by mobile devices, the company is under pressure to gain a toehold in tablets. Demand for these handheld machines is driven by apps, which Gartner predicts will generate $58 billion in sales in 2014.

"It's going to be very important to have a lot of apps," said Bill Predmore, president at Pop, a Seattle-based company that designs and develops apps, including a Windows 8 app for Major League Soccer. "You're competing with the iPad. You have to have some compelling alternative to that."

Microsoft, which is working on a revamped version of its flagship software -- Windows 8 -- today released an almost- complete iteration called a Release Preview. The company also said for the first time that it plans to have machines with the operating system on store shelves by year-end holidays.

From scratch
The machines that are most comparable to the iPad -- which boasts more than 200,000 apps -- won't be able to run older Windows apps, forcing Microsoft to start from scratch. The company is racing to fill the gap because consumers won't clamor for computers that lack an array of downloadable tools.

Windows 8 is the first Microsoft operating system for computers that use chips based on ARM Holdings technology. These chips are widely used in mobile devices, including the iPad. Trouble is, Microsoft's ARM-based devices will run only apps designed specifically for Windows 8 -- and none of the millions of programs already available for Intel-based machines.

Hence the app-building drive. For much of February, app developers could come to Building 20 at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington campus and turn their app over to a Windows engineer who tries it out and provides feedback. Now Microsoft has taken that program on the road, visiting 87 cities, including New York, Paris and Guangzhou, China.

Developers who are earlier in the process -- those with an idea yet no app -- can attend a different program called an App Acceleration Lab to get advice on shaping their product.

Moonlighting staff
Another Microsoft-led effort has been in place since September. The company has trained more than 80 design firms to aid or build apps for developers who aren't familiar with Windows' new design or design in general, said Catherine Brooker, a spokeswoman for Microsoft.

As with Windows Phone, Microsoft encouraged its own employees to write apps by waiving so-called moonlighting restrictions on workers, which keep staff from writing apps on their own time. Unlike with Windows Phone, Microsoft is not paying app developers to build for Windows 8.

The company is also running a 12-week paid internship program called the Foundry at its New England Research and Development Center, NERD for short. There, 22 college students in the program will build Windows 8 apps while getting training, product reviews and mentorship from Microsoft.

With traditional PCs, it wasn't hard to convince developers to build programs for Windows, the dominant operating system.

Convincing skeptics
Microsoft's tablet challenge is steeper. It must win over app firms and developers that grew up building programs for smartphones and tablets, where Microsoft has little and no share, respectively.

Microsoft's pitch: Unlike the old apps that don't work with some Windows 8 devices, the new ones will be available not only to buyers of tablets, but also to the more than 300 million buyers of Windows PCs. That won over SigFig, a maker of a program that lets users track investments.

Some programmers remain unconvinced of the need to make games, magazines or other online tools for a software maker more than two years late to the tablet market.
Facebook, the largest social network, has no plans to make a Windows 8 app even though it makes apps for the iOS and Android, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Flipboard, whose CEO is ex-Microsoft executive Mike McCue, isn't planning a Windows 8 version, said Marci McCue, head of marketing at the Palo Alto, California-based company. Flipboard's app, which aggregates a user's social-networking feeds, has built apps for the iPad and tablets that run Android.

Waiting game Other big app makers, including Zynga, PopCap Games, Twitter, Pandora Media and Amazon.com, declined to comment on their plans for Windows 8.

Companies such as SigFig or graphic-design software maker Corel, make apps that work well on both tablets and PCs. For them, writing for Windows 8 is a no-brainer.

Other developers of tablet-focused applications will wait to see whether enough consumers purchase Windows tablets, said Laurent Bugnion, a senior director for European operations at IdentityMine, one of the agencies in Microsoft's program that is working on Windows 8 apps for clients that declined to name.

"The Apple fanatics, who anyway won't touch a PC with chopsticks, they won't be interested," he said. "But the pragmatic people will probably wait for a while and suddenly when we see a few good devices come out they will start developing."

Digital chocolate
Netflix is another one of the companies working on apps for Windows 8, people with knowledge of the matter said. Some of the initial apps will be in the Windows store with the advent of the Release Preview.

Mobile games maker Digital Chocolate also plans to have games available for Windows 8 at launch, said Chief Executive Officer Trip Hawkins, while declining to specify further. Corel is working on several.

Before Pop started building its app for Major League Soccer, the team and employees of the professional soccer federation spent a day at Microsoft's campus getting guidance from the company, said Kaylynn Kelley, who oversees Pop's work with Microsoft. Pop had an engineer and a designer assigned to handle questions, which included nighttime calls that went on for two hours. The free app, which includes news, videos and standings, will probably be available in the next few days.

Microsoft's 'handholding'
SigFig, whose app is already in the Windows Marketplace, received "concierge-like service" from Microsoft, said Patrick Cushing, the company's product manager for mobile. For example, Microsoft looked over SigFig's code and showed ways to make use of Windows 8 features they hadn't thought of using.

Corel, which made its first program for Windows in 1984, plans to have an app in the store in the next few days for finding graphics and a Windows 8 Metro version of WinZip is slated for availability when Windows 8 is released. Corel too benefited from a lot of "handholding" from Microsoft, said Patrick Nichols, a unit president at Corel.

Extra help isn't just for big companies. Microsoft is also assisting individual developers, such as 21-year-old music student Grant Kot, who graduated from the Julliard School last week. Kot had written a touch-controlled musical instrument simulation called Grantophone for Windows Phone and Microsoft wanted it for Windows 8. So a Microsoft developer who tries to promote Windows met Kot in New York. He hooked him up with a designer to advise him and got him a prototype Windows 8 tablet.


TOI

 

[ssparikshya]

Windows 8 to dominate at Computex

TAIPEI: Microsoft's much-anticipated Windows 8 operating system is set to take pride of place as tens of thousands of people head to Asia's leading IT fair opening in Taiwan on Tuesday.

The five-day Computex, an annual tech extravaganza in Taipei now in its 32nd year, will provide one of the most comprehensive glimpses yet of the next version of the world's dominant software.

"It's only a few months before the official release of Microsoft's Windows 8 software," said Chang Li, deputy secretary general of the Taipei Computer Association, which co-sponsors Computex.

"So this year's Computex will offer a great occasion to have a look at some of the hardware applications from Taiwan companies."

Windows 8 is touted as Microsoft's long-awaited riposte to the rise of Apple and mobile devices powered by Google's Android operating system. There is no official release date but reports have predicted an October launch.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer says that Windows 8 will support a wider range of devices including touch-and stylus-based smartphones and tablet PCs, as well as desktops and laptops.

Computex will reflect this with dozens of exhibitors displaying notebooks and tablets running Windows 8, according to organisers.

South Korea's Samsung along with Taiwanese computer makers Acer and Asus will reportedly launch new tablets and notebooks running on the new Microsoft platform.

"The theme of this year's Computex is clear. Visitors can expect a broad range of products related to Windows 8," said Joanne Chien, a senior analyst at a research centre attached to Taipei-based trade publication DigiTimes.

The latest bout of global economic jitters have not affected the trade show with more than 1,800 exhibitors registering 5,400 booths, up two percent from a year ago.

The organisers estimate that the IT fair will draw 36,000 foreign buyers who may place bulk orders worth up to $28 billion.

Computer makers hope that fresh momentum will come from the so-called "ultrabook", a higher-end product that aims to be smaller and lighter than traditional notebooks without reducing performance or battery life.

Ultrabooks made their debut at Computex 2011, but the relatively high price -- around $1,000 apiece -- has hampered the sector's growth.

"If the prices go down a bit, ultrabook is likely to attract lots of users," said David Liu, also from the Taipei Computer Association.

And there is still room for the humble laptop even as tablets take off, experts at the association said, because users still need a portable workhorse in addition to an entertainment device such as the iPad.

Analysts predicted that ultrabook sales will pick up during the Christmas season, aided by the release of Windows 8 and the advent of " cloud computing", which requires smaller hard drives as users store more of their data online.

Apple, a pioneer of the cloud approach, does not take part in trade fairs like Computex or the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, preferring to organise its own high-octane events to showcase new products.

In contrast, Samsung is pulling out the stops at Computex with its IT products arrayed over some 30 booths.

In line with China's new economic might, IT companies from the mainland such as telecoms equipment maker Huawei will play a bigger role at Computex than ever before.

A total of 312 Chinese exhibitors will use 617 booths to showcase their products, compared with 252 firms taking 527 booths a year ago, according to the organisers.

"It's not clear how many orders they may get from the show, but at least they can use the platform to boost their exposure to possible clients," Chien said.

TOI

 

[mmadhankumar]

HD video calling, 3D video, adaptive bitrate streaming and more on Windows 8

Microsoft have outlined and explained a list of features they are integrating into their upcoming Windows 8 platform and as far as media and streaming is concerned, the company is aiming to give users the best. With the media platform for Windows 8, Microsoft has planned on maximizing performance by keeping media playback fast and responsive by enabling the power of the hardware. One of the main aspects they are considering is to get better battery life or reduce power consumption by having efficient video decoding. This allows for lower CPU usage, smoother video playback and a better battery life as, their official blog explains, the dedicated media hardware is more efficient than the CPU at media decoding.

Excerpts from the MSDN Blog:​

Faster, more responsive media experiences

Efficient video decoding
The figure below shows a comparison of the average CPU utilization between Windows 7 and Windows 8 during playback of 720p VC1/H.264 video clips and webcam capture preview.

Maximizing battery life during audio playback
Another example of the media performance improvements we’ve made in Windows 8 is in maximizing battery life (or just reducing power consumption) during audio playback. In addition to enabling offload of the audio pipeline (similar to the offload of video described above), we’ve radically improved the audio playback pipeline to be more efficient during steady-state playback. By batching up large chunks of audio data and doing all the processing for that chunk at one time, the CPU can stay asleep for over 100 times longer (over 1 second vs. 10ms), which can result in dramatically increased battery life during audio playback.

Supporting a rich set of media scenarios
One of the challenges in developing a single media platform that serves different scenarios is that the platform has competing goals. For example, communication scenarios require low-latency, and audio/video encoding and playback, whose quality and performance benefit from buffering, which results in higher latency. In the next several sections, we’ll touch on these challenges in the context of some of the scenarios we’ve worked to enable in Windows 8, including:

• Communications (e.g. Skype, Lync, etc.)
• Video playback and modern format support
• Auto-orientation of video
• Playback of premium content
• Seamless audio transitions
• Bringing the media experience to additional screens
• Emerging media capabilities

Communications
Real-time communication on PCs, especially on mobile devices, has seen a huge growth over the last decade. Windows users are using services like Skype and Lync to make several billion minutes of voice and video calls per day. TeleGeography estimates that international Skype-to-Skype calls (including video calls) grew 48 percent in 2011, to 145 billion minutes. We’ve made a significant investment in improving the experience of video and audio calling on all Windows 8 PCs. To achieve this goal, we focused our efforts in two areas:

• Enable built-in low-latency media capture and rendering. Low latency is essential for communications apps, so Windows supports low-latency media capture and playback into the OS.
• Support HD cameras to enhance video communication experience. High-definition videos make your communication experience more real and enjoyable, so Windows supports HD camera devices.

Enabling low latency
According to the TIA/EIA 920 standard, the one-way audio latency that can be attributed to just the media processing pipeline cannot exceed 100ms in order to achieve a usable real-time communication experience. With this metric in mind, we designed a test environment to measure the end-to-end latency of the pipeline, shown in the following diagram:

Looking at the figure below, you can see the result obtained for capturing and rendering PCM audio when the media pipeline is in low latency mode. The first set of spikes corresponds to the original spoken words at the transmitter and the second set shows those words at the receiver. The delay between the two is 65ms, well below the 100ms goal.

The next chart shows a comparison of the pipeline latency of playback and communication-optimized mode when a video frame is captured, encoded (in H.264 format), streamed, decoded, and then displayed at various resolutions. The goal of 145ms overall latency (as deemed by TIA/EIA 920 for usable real-time video calling) is shown by the green line on the chart.

Supporting HD video calling
Windows 8 will offer a consistent, high-quality, hardware-accelerated, power efficient media communication experience on PCs designed for Windows 8. We have made significant investments in the media platform to improve pipeline latency, and with added support for H.264 cameras, users will be able to communicate with friends and family in high-fidelity HD video.

Video and audio support for Metro style apps
The tables below show the video and audio formats that have built-in support for Metro style apps. Formats recommended for use by Metro style apps are a reflection of deep partnerships with hardware manufacturers for predictable hardware acceleration across PC form factors and predictable end-to-end scenario performance beyond playback such as capture, streaming, and transcoding.

Auto-orientation of video
Many of us have experienced the frustration of recording a video and realizing the camera was sideways or upside down only after viewing it on the PC. Since the video scan pattern is fixed, videos may not be oriented properly when viewed.

To overcome this problem, cameras are beginning to author orientation metadata in mainstream file formats such as MP4 and ASF when saving recorded video to storage.

Premium content
Although most of the video content consumed initially on the Internet was user generated, much of the growth in the Internet video space can now be attributed to “premium content,” which includes online movie purchases through on-demand streaming video, as well as the ad-supported TV offerings.

Adaptive bitrate streaming
Adaptive bitrate streaming provides a smoother, more responsive video playback experience by enabling the PC to adapt to the most appropriate bitrate under varying networking and resource utilization conditions. As a result, startup and seek times can be significantly improved because the first few frames can be delivered at a lower bitrate to reduce buffering time and increase responsiveness. If network or device conditions change, the PC can negotiate a lower or higher bitrate to minimize buffering or increase video quality.

Content protection
Most premium Internet video content services choose to apply content protection, which is often a requirement from the content owners (e.g. movie studios or TV networks). To enable the playback of protected content in Metro style apps, Microsoft is making available the PlayReady Client SDK for premium content services. PlayReady supports download as well as streaming, and the above-mentioned IIS Smooth Streaming Client SDK integrates seamlessly with the PlayReady Client SDK to allow services to easily build protected streaming experiences.

Seamless audio transitions
Below is a list of different stream types, along with an example of the type of content expected for each stream.
.

Bringing the media experience to additional screens
In Windows 7, we announced Play To, which you can use to stream media files to supported external devices from Windows Explorer and Windows Media player. In Windows 8, Play To makes it even easier and simpler to share personal media collections and HTML5 media with Play-To-enabled devices at home.

Emerging media capabilities
Windows is enabling support for new content types for consumption and increased flexibility for content creation and communication. Stereo 3D, accessibility, and DSP effects are three examples of how we are enabling great multimedia experiences on Windows 8

Experiencing stereo 3D video
In Windows 8, S3D support is available on DirectX 10 or higher GPUs with compatible drivers. A S3D-compatible display is needed to see S3D content.

Delivering accessible media experiences in the web platform

Media accessibility is an important part of the Windows promise to our customers, especially for users with accessibility needs.

Subtitles provide interpretive or additional information to viewers who prefer a written transcript, those who need to see a translation in a different language, or those who need to see a transcript due to limited hearing ability.

The web community has worked together through W3C to specify the best ways to deliver the subtitling experience through all modern web platforms. These include the following:

• The <track> element can carry subtitle and closed captions for the HTML5 video tag. This feature is now incorporated into Windows 8. Subtitle support is now available through the video tag in IE10 and in apps using HTML.
• User controls are available on the default media controls of the video tag.
• There is native support for the WebVTT and SMPTE-TT formats that are commonly found in the web community and with partners in the TV and broadcasting industries.
• The Windows 8 media platform provides support for multiple audio tracks within a media source. Users can switch audio tracks to their preferred language, and tracks can also be used for audio descriptions for sight-impaired users. Metro style apps can now easily switch between audio tracks or even play multiple audio tracks simultaneously, for instance, a normal audio track plus an audio description.

Adding effects to the media pipeline
The Windows 8 media platform has been designed to adapt easily. One way that we’ve done this is by allowing effects (often referred to as digital signal processing, or DSP) to be added to the pipeline. We’ve included several built-in effects, like image stabilization and horizontal flipping (which is useful for webcam preview), and we’ve also made it easy for applications to plug in to the Media Foundation pipeline with custom effects. In addition, we’ve made sure that media data can pass through the pipeline efficiently, thus minimizing the performance and power impact of adding DSPs.

Check this video that walks you through some of the highlights of the new media platform.
http://media.ch9.ms/ch9/4910/6a26d0...BuildingarichandextensibleMediaPlaformNew.mp4


Via Tech2
Source MSDN Blog

 

[Biswajit.HD]

RE: HD video calling, 3D video, adaptive bitrate streaming and more on Windows 8

good article ... @madhan

 

[M@zh@R]

RE: HD video calling, 3D video, adaptive bitrate streaming and more on Windows 8

An informative one