Since Windows 95, Microsoft has been using the Start button, which eventually became a Start “orb” button in Windows 7. Leaked screenshots from the upcoming Windows 8 Customer Preview build shows that the familiar Orb button is missing this time round. Users will be expected to simply hover their mouse over any corner of the screen (almost like hot corners in Mac OS X), which will then bring up the new Metro-infused Start menu screen.

Touch screen users will also just hold their screen over a corner of the screen (or use a swipe action). Windows fans might be peeved at the lack of the Start Menu in Windows 8, but it should be pointed out that in future the Start Menu is now being replaced by the “Start Screen”, which uses Metro style apps that look very similiar to Windows Phone 7, and also share a lot of the code base. This will make future cross-platform development between Windows 8 and Windows Phone a lot easier.

Windows 8 is clearly going to be a major shift for Microsoft, and we are actually very impressed that Microsoft shows the guts to do this…

Source: WinSuperSite

Joe Belfiore

Pocketnow.com has learned new details about the new Windows Phone 8 that include a number of features and themes that were accidentally revealed by senior vice president and Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore in a video intended only for partners at Nokia. The Windows Phone 8 codenamed “Apollo”, is the next version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system that is scheduled for launch after the upcoming Tango update.

According to Belfiore, the overall theme of the Windows Phone 8 hardware ecosystem will be scale and choice in order to address one of the platform’s shortcomings in competing with Android and iPhone based devices’ specifications. More specifically, Windows Phone 8 will have support for multi-core processors and microSD card support will also be added.

NFC (Near Field Communication) will also be supported, with emphasis placed on the phone’s push into contactless payments. The “wallet experience,” as he calls it, will have the capability to be carrier-branded and controlled, either by a secure element on the SIM card or utilizing hardware. In addition, NFC will  allow desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones to share content.

Rather than just share a UI with the next generation desktop and tablet OS, Windows Phone 8 will use many of the same components as Windows 8, allowing developers to re-use most of the code when porting an app from a desktop to the phone. Belfiore specifically mentions that areas of heavy overlap include the kernel, networking stacks, security and multimedia support.

The Xbox Companion app, currently found on Windows Phones, will see a partner client on Windows 8 with Skydrive support promising seamless sharing of data between devices.

At the launch of the new Windows Phone, rumoured to take place sometime in the 4th quarter of this year, Microsoft expects to offer 100 000 apps in the Marketplace. There is also likely to be support for app-to-app communication . A revamped Skype client that hooks directly into the OS, enables Skype calls to behave almost identically to regular calls with a camera app that Microsoft will allow OEM’s to customize.

The biggest news on the app front is likely the addition of native code support, which will enable more powerful applications as well as ease the porting of code from programs initially developed for iOS or Android

In terms of data management a highlighted feature by Belfiore is called DataSmart, a new data management system that will keep track of your downloaded data usage. This is achieved by the phone automatically connecting to Wi-Fi when in range.

Overall, it seems that the above changes are designed either to make the Windows Phone 8 run parallel with other platforms or make it more similar to Windows 8 for desktop. Either way, Microsoft is catching up.

Those of us who like racing games all wish we can have that arcade type setup – you know, the massive flat screen, a racing seat, and of course the steering wheel and pedals. But then reality sets in – we realize we cannot have the racing seat and mounted steering wheels and pedals, because what do you do with it once you are done playing? Sure, if you have a massive bachelor pad it might be worth it, but for the rest of us, we are pretty much forced to stick to out gamepads.

The Wheel:

It is with this very market that Microsoft has gone and built the Speed Wheel – an accelerometer based steering wheel which you simply hold up to steer. There is no base to put on a table, and there is no pedals either. Now obviously die hard racing game fans might not like that, but in use I found the Speed Wheel great. When holding the Speed Wheel I was quite amazed at how well put together it is. It has some decent heft to it, without making it feel heavy – you will be holding it in the air after all. It is also well balanced, with the heavier internal components put in the bottom of the steering wheel, which does give it some center-weight. In the middle you will find the standard XBox silver button, and the back and start buttons. On the left hand side there is a D-pad, and on the right the X,Y,A,B keys. Quite simple. But the triggers on the rear is greatly improved over the standard game pad, with a lot more travel. But more on that later. The rest of this strange looking steering wheel is just as weird – there are some rings on the top of the steering wheel that can light up based on how much throttle or braking you do. So the harder you rev your car, the brigher they become. Not really useful in my opinion.

But does it work?

Yes. Very well in fact. I was somewhat hesitant to try out the Speed Wheel, because I thought a accelerometer based steering wheel would have some lag in it. But I am glad to report that there is none. Or if there is, I did not notice it at all. At first using the Speed Wheel was not easy – I found that I could not quite match my laptimes that I used to get just using the gamepad. But after a few hours I noticed that the increased travel in the triggers mean I have a lot more control of throttle and braking, unlike the gamepad where I would jsut mash the triggers. This means the very high powered cars in Forza can be controlled a lot better.

With the gamepad you have to “dab dab dab” the analog pad as you drive along, because the pad is simply to small to be used in a analog manner all the time. But with the Speed Wheel it is just like with a car, and I realized I was hitting the apex on corners a lot better, and before I knew it my laptimes were indeed better. The rumbles with the Speed Wheel also make for more interactivity when gaming – hit an apex with ridges on the side of the road, and you will feel it. Drive the Nurburgring and hit some grass on some of the narrower roads – it feels different. While these rumbles have been part of the gamepad experience, it feels much better with the Speed Wheel.

Any Negatives?

Depends on what need from a racing wheel. Microsoft decided to remove the bumper buttons on the Speed Wheel, which is incidently the buttons used to change gears on the gamepad. So with the Speed Wheel the gears are changed with the D-Pad on the left. Not a major problem, but I reckon some people would miss the bumper buttons, especially on older racing games. But if you mostly play your racing games with automatic gear changing, you wont miss it.

I also noticed that the Speed Wheel is mostly meant to be only used inside games. Like if you exit Forza you will realize quickly that the Xbox interface cannot be fully navigated with Speed Wheel’s buttons. Best to grab the gamepad one you are done gaming then. Some elements in Forza 4 also needs the gamepad as well – like when you go into the tuning pages. So if want to adjust your rear wing downforce, you need to use the gamepad.

So should you get it?

Something strange happened when I first tried out the Speed Wheel. I was busy playing when my wife walked over and asked if she could have a try. First off, while my wife does not mind that I play games, she has never, not once, wanted to play video games with me. She finds it boring and finicky. But then she took the Speed Wheel, and she took to it like a fish in water. I was impressed – and only time will tell if she will indeed play some more racing games with her husband…

But the best part of the Speed Wheel is that it makes racing games more fun. Even when my lap times were slower with the Speed Wheel, I kept using it. It just makes the overall racing experience more fun, and you feel more connected to the game. Small things like differences in all wheel drive cars you immediately feel with the Speed Wheel (tip: stick to Audis when starting off with the Speed Wheel). Since using the Speed Wheel I have not once been tempted to go back to using the gamepad when racing. Microsoft has gone and make racing games a lot more fun for both novices and more serious gamers alike.

In my opinion, the Speed Wheel is well worth it. In fact, even though I used a review unit, I went and bought one immediately.

Rating: 8/10

Pros:

Makes racing a lot more fun

Well built, and nicely weighted

Cons:

Slight learning curve

Missing Bumper buttons might bother some

Price: R600 (but there are some good deals that bundle Forza 4 and the Speed Wheel)

Nokia has announced their latest high end flagship phone  at CES 2012- the Lumia 900. Continuing the beautiful minimalist design of the Lumia 800, the Lumia 900 is a new super sized version with some much improved internals. Still sporting a polycarbonate design, it is apparently a lot more resilient than most new smartphones.

The camera is also taking center stage on this model – it features a 8MP sensor behind a Carl Zeiss wide angle lens with a nice f2.2 aperture at 28mm, and a 1 MP front camera. No mention is made if it is a backlit sensor like the iPhone 4S, but at least at that aperture you should expect some better low light camera performance. The camera can also capture 720p video at 30fps. On the inside there is a 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor (single core though) and 512MB RAM with 16GB of storage. The phone will run Windows Phone Mango 7.5, and also ships with an LTE capable radio (at least in the US). The screen size has been increased to 4.3 inches, but still only packs 800 by 480 pixels. Not that it is anything to sneeze at. That big screen might make you worry about battery power, but its broader design means the Lumia 900 can handle a 1840mAH battery which is good for 7 hours talk time or a claimed 300hrs standby.

As part of Nokia’s adoption of Windows Phone 7, they have enhanced a few things in the software stack – Nokia Drive is a fully featured GPS navigation system which is free with the phone. And no, it is not just a subscription. Social networking is also catered for with Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter integration into the contacts.

Nokia has in recent years fallen behind other smartphone manufacturers in terms of operating system innovation and phone design – but the latest Lumia 800 and 900 really makes us think that Nokia still has some life in it yet. Right now the Lumia 900 is US only, but we will keep you posted when it ships internationally.

For anyone who is curious about what Microsoft has planned for its Windows Phone, here is a leaked roadmap that reveals some details about the future, up to date as of October 2011.

The roadmap lays the foundation with the release of the Windows Phone 7 in the fourth quarter of 2010 as a high-end and differentiated product followed by Mango also in the fourth quarter of 2011 that offers new features, languages and countries.

The beginning of 2012 will see the release of Tango that focusses on enabling Windows Phone 7 on low-end handsets at the best prices. Finally, the fourth quarter of 2012 will see the Apollo, when Microsoft finally expects volume to increase, enable the release of superphones and concentrate on users’ business needs.

Source: WMPoweruser.com

We all know the de facto internet filesharing and cloud storage tool until now has been Dropbox, but Microsoft has always had their own offering, SkyDrive. SkyDrive gave you 25GB of storage for free, which is a good deal more than Dropbox’s measly 3GB. Problem was, SkyDrive was not really available on anything else other than Windows (and Mac), and there was no mobile integration except with Windows Phone 7. Now Microsoft is starting to put SkyDrive into the devices people use every day, instead of only giving it to the Windows faithful.

From today SkyDrive is also available on iPhone, which is a major shift for Microsoft. “We realize that not everyone who relies on SkyDrive for sharing photos or accessing Office documents uses Windows Phone… yet. We have a long history of supporting iPhone customers with built-in support for Hotmail and with apps like Bing, Messenger, OneNote (with SkyDrive sync), and now Skype.”

“More generally, we believe you should have access to your personal content no matter which device you use. This is why we are excited to invest in HTML5—both on the web and on mobile—on http://skydrive.com.” iPhone users can access all of their cloud stored files, create folders, delete files and share links to folders, which fires off a invite using Mail.”

If you have not yet heard of SkyDrive, here are some of the features:

• Storage. Store thousands of photos and files. TheSkyDrive storage meter shows how much storage space you’ve used.
• Organization. Arrange your files in top-level folders and subfolders that you create.
• Control. Choose permissions for each top-level folder that you create. Keep your photos, files, and favourites in personal folders so you can keep them private; in shared folders so you can share them with your Windows Livenetwork, your extended network, and people on your contact list; or in public folders so that they can be viewed by anyone on the Internet.
• Convenience. Keep track of your favourite websites even when you aren’t using your own computer.
• Flexibility. Move, copy, delete, rename, and caption your photos and files after you upload them.
• Display. Photos saved as the JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, and TIFF file types display with thumbnail images, and can be viewed by other users on SkyDrive or in an online slide show, if they have the right permissions to view them.
• Sharing. Share links directly to your folders, files, and photos, or embed your photos and files in your blog or webpage. You can also let people know you’ve added their picture to SkyDrive by adding people tags.

In an interesting move, Microsoft did not release an iPad version of SkyDrive, which might be a further indication that an iOS version of Office is coming. Because of the lack of a file system on these devices, SkyDrive will have to include with Office for iOS.

But all in all, this is a great move by Microsoft…

So 2011 is drawing to a close, but I thought it might be cool to look back and see what was our most popular articles of the year. 2011 was a great year for Bandwidth Blog, not only terms of traffic, but also with regard to interaction and loyalty with our reader base. More than ever we have seen what you think, be it through comments or tweets, and we would like to thank you for that. We value your feedback and opinion, so here is our most popular posts of 2011:

10) The iPhone 5 – What to expect, Why you should upgrade to iOS5 right now

OK, so it was not the iPhone 5, but the 4S did show up. While many people were initially irritated because it was not called iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S is a more significant update than the name and appearance would suggest. Most of predictions were right, with the major exception of the larger screen.

9) iPad 2 in South Africa, iPad 2 Hands On Review

Clearly people were interested to get their hands on the iPad 2. Core stepped up and brought the iPad 2 to SA a lot sooner than most of us expected, and at a pretty decent price! We managed to get hold of iPad 2 a while before release in SA, and we were very impressed. Even a few months later, it is still the tablet to beat.

8 ) Nokia’s New Lumia Smartphone Leaked

In 2011 Nokia announced that they will finally be moving away from the aging Symbian operating system to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. But then it got silent, and no one knew what these new phones would look like. Windows Phone 7 and first rate hardware sounds like a great recipe, and the Lumia 800 was leaked a few hours before its official announcement. It is almost a carbon copy of the brilliant but very sad Nokia N9, and we cannot wait to get our hands on it.

7) Vodacom Announces 20GB for R500 Promotion

In a bandwidth starved country like SA, there is a constant battle between the network providers to see who can give customers the best bang for the buck. In 2010 it was Cell C, but in 2011 the landscape evened somewhat. But in November Vodacom announced that they will be running a 20GB for R500 promotion during December and January. Now Vodacom, do the right thing and make it more permanent offer, OK?

6) The Top 5 Twitter Clients for iPhone

Twitter is one of the most visited social networks from a mobile phone, and the number of clients out there just seems to increase every day. Luckily it is pretty easy to choose with this list. Luckily our favourite choice is still free.

5) Blackberry Bold 9900 out in SA, Bandwidth Blog’s Hands on Review of the Bold 9900

RIM had a tough 2011 with a worldwide outage that lasted more than 3 days. But for the die hard crackberry fans, this will not scare them off – they have been looking forward to the ultimate Blackberry, the 9900. Dressed in steel, glass and carbon fibre, the 9900 impressed us with a pin sharp display, beautiful construction and a new touch screen plus physical keyboard combo. We can confidently state it is the best Blackberry yet.

4) 8ta Announces Blackberry Deals

You would think there is enough Blackberry deals out there, but readers were clearly waiting to see what 8ta would bring to the table. In typical 8ta fashion there is plenty of incentives included, even though the pricing was not a major improvement over other networks.

3) Microsoft Shows off Windows 8 New Ribbon Explorer Interface

While 2011 is the year Apple might have reached the highest market cap in the world, the fanbase waiting for Windows 8 is clearly bigger than we expected. Windows 8 will sport a new Metro start menu interface, but also more touch friendly ribbon bars throughout the desktop.

2) Vodacom Puts Cap on Blackberry Usage, Pieter Uys has to clarify Blackberry Throttling

Vodacom announced that it will be throttling Blackberry BIS users who use more than 100MB per month, effectively stepping them down to 2G speeds. Needless to say – there was tremendous backlash to this decision. Twitter was abuzz, and Bandwidth Blog had massive traffic from users who wanted to comment on this. People were NOT happy, and they did not see this helping all Blackberry users in the bigger scheme of things. All in all, everyone thought they will be affected. Vodacom’s CEO had to cut a trip short to quickly return and face the media regarding this announcement… He put everyone’s fears to rest.

1) The Best Thing Tim Cook Did Not Announce

Everyone was waiting for the ever-delayed iPhone 5, which Apple did not announce. Instead they announced the iPhone 4S, while keeping the iPhone 4 on the market at a lower price point. But in a new move for Apple, they also kept the iPhone 3GS on the market, a phone first released in 2009. In the US this phone will be given free with contracts, and it can still run the latest iOS5 software. Richard Oakley did an excellent post on the iPhone 3GS’s extended life – instead of developing a new watered down version of the iPhone, the 3GS is more in tune in with Apple’s vision of devices that just work.

Microsoft is slowly but surely starting to cater for people who use Apple’s devices – and the latest app from their stable is the My Xbox Live app. If you are a big online game player, and you hate tearing yourself away from your Xbox, the Xbox Live app will keep you posted on all the activity in your Xbox community. The app is beautifully made, and gives you a very special preview to how apps look on Windows Phone – it feels a little strange having a Metro interface on your iDevice.

Here is the feature rundown:

Track and compare your achievements, connect with your Xbox LIVE friends, and change up your 3D Avatar. Review all your recent great games you and your friends love to play and compare achievements with them. Jump into our games hub to learn about the latest LIVE games and apps. Access Xbox Spotlight feeds, get breaking news from Xbox LIVE, game tips and tricks, gamer spotlight and much more.

Go download it now on the Apple Appstore. With all this attention on iOS, maybe Microsoft should get Office for iOS out sooner than later…

We have seen a few great enhancements arriving in Windows 8, including a brilliant new touch interface, and much more efficient use of system resources – but most of the marketing seems to be focussed on tablet form factors and touch screens. The other major development is that Windows 8 will have the ability to run on ARM processors (the same type of processor you might find in your phone or tablet), but it has been recently rumoured that this is only relevant to the Metro style apps, and the existing “desktop” will not be made available on the ARM devices.

So what happens to the existing bog-standard mouse and keyboard users? If you have spent some time with Windows 8 Developer Preview, you will know the interface is not particularly intuitive if you do not have a touch screen. Yes, it is by no means complete, but it makes one wonder how relevant the Windows 8 update will be to users who use standard desktop and notebook PCs.

“Windows 8 will be largely irrelevant to the users of traditional PCs, and we expect effectively no upgrade activity from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in that form factor.” – IDC

Now it looks like IDC has been asking this same question – stating that Windows 8 will be “largely irrelevant”, as one of their Top 10 predictions in 2012. Their reasons are simple –

users who do not see the use in new form factors have precious little reason to update. They also blame their assessment on Microsoft’s current seemingly ambiguous messages about the development future for Windows 8 – e.g. will ARM-developed Metro apps be easily ported to x86 platform, and vice versa?

We do not necessarily agree with the assessment though, seeing as Microsoft is in many ways now following what Apple did a few years ago with their mobile platform. Apple also built a cut down version of Mac OSX for ARM, which after many iterations became iOS as we know it today. It required many of the existing apps (like iWork) to be rewritten for ARM and the new interface challenges, but it seems to have worked OK for them.

Question is rather whether this will have the same fate for Microsoft – Microsoft has not yet shown or hinted at how Office will look on the new Metro interface. The ribbon interface might be a natural fit for Metro however, as Microsoft has luckily started to shift away from tiny little buttons which will never work with touch interfaces. The other consideration is that Microsoft has in recent years began using feedback from Alpha and Beta testers – and let us remind ourselves here that the Developer Preview is PRE-Beta. That means that Microsoft might not be particularly tight lipped, they just still have a lot of work to do.

This does not mean Windows 8 will not be a success – the IDC report focuses on upgrades in particular. Consumer buyers of new PCs will have very little control over what OS they might get with their machines. At the end of the day Microsoft has not really marketed their enhancements on the desktop-only side, so these reports might be a little premature. Enterprise markets are typically skeptics when it comes to new Windows versions – and Windows 7 was a major enhancement in terms of stability, speed and usability. The typical enterprise mindset of only adopting every second version of Windows is nothing new.

If Windows 8 does not see major enterprise or upgrade adoption, Windows 7 might be too blame – it is just plain good enough, thank you.

Source: IDC Report, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft

Ross Honey, general manager of Xbox Live entertainment and advertising said that “We think you’re going to use one device for movies, music and games in the future. We want to make the content accessible and enhance the actual experience. We think you will will want to watch it on Xbox as it is more social and more personal.”

The Xbox 360 ‘s new user interface has been borrowed from Metro,  the square tiles and buttons from Microsoft’s user interface for Windows Phone 7 devices with the Windows 8 operating system arriving next year featuring the Metro interface in smartphones, tablets and PCs. The point is that users will be able to use the interface to get to the entertainment more quickly without having to learn a new interface.

Voice prompts with Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensor and voice communication system, can be used to find games, TV shows, movies and music that a user wants and then select the service that can best deliver the entertainment. For example, if a user wants to watch X-men, the voice command ‘XBox Bing X-men’ will pull up all X-Men related games and movies stored in the console. “Xbox Play X-Men” will begin playing the movie. The Windows Phone 7 smartphone can also be used to browse for shows, select one and then see the movie appear on the screen as the Xbox 360 fetches the movie from the cloud and streams it to the TV. To do so, a user will first need to get the Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone.

This leads to the best feature about the Xbox update  - the ability for a user to log into their gamertag identity on any Xbox 360 and due to the cloud storage,  play saved games or watch in-progress movies.

“A lot of people have said they’re going to reinvent television,” Honey said. “I’m going to say it as well.”

Microsoft is rolling out the service slowly to ensure that it is functioning correctly with the new apps making their debut on the 6th of December in countries including the U.S., The UK, Japan, Germany and Spain.

source: Venture Beat