Earlier this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft took the stage and finally announced a product that people in the mobile space have been waiting for for a long time: Windows Mobile 7, or more appropriately (since Microsoft re-dubbed the product a couple of months ago “Windows Phone,”) Windows Phone 7 Series. Windows Phone 7 will be Microsoft’s new mobile operating system, replacing the aging and unattractive Windows Mobile 6.5 that’s the mainstay of a number of enterprise-class and tech-savvy smartphones currently on the market.

Faced with stiff competition in the smartphone space from companies like Apple and Google, Microsoft was forced to come to the table with something strong or risk falling even father behind in the smartphone space – a slip that likely would have met with their downfall in the mobile marketplace. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has never been a particularly strong OS, and the bulk of its functionality came from the fact that because it’s a Microsoft product and Exchange is also a Microsoft product, the only competition for it on the corporate side has been RIM’s BlackBerry, which unseated Windows Mobile in a huge way. Now, Windows Mobile looks dated, aged, and reminds us of an era when it’s major competition was the old Palm OS (not to be confused with Palm’s WebOS, which is on its new smartphones.)

Windows Phone 7 on the other hand, looks incredible. It’s been updated, it looks modern, it looks sleek, it’s got integration with your social networks and services, it’s got a stunning touch-screen interface, and it brings in two of Microsoft’s most successful properties to the mobile space: Zune and XBox Live. That’s right – your music and your Windows Phone 7 Series device will sync with Zune marketplace and you can snag your music from there, and your mobile gaming experience will be integrated with XBox Live. This alone proves that Microsoft means business and is rolling up its sleeves in the mobile space again.

But it’ll take more than rolled up sleeves and determination to make people abandon their iPhones and G1s for a Windows Phone 7 device.

Before we dive into why, here’s a hands-on video with Windows Phone 7 by my friend Sascha Segan at PC Magazine, who was out at the Mobile World Congress and got to see a live demo of the new operating system:

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Thoughts on Windows Phone 7…

VIdeo game console manufacturers, set-top box makers, and even television manufacturers are all clawing to get their hands on a partnership with Netflix or Blockbuster Online so buyers can do what they obviously want to do; stream audio and video straight to their HDTVs.

The rationale is simple – streaming Netflix and Blockbuster Online over broadband to the home has become a huge part of both companies’ business models, and clearly video on demand is the future of rented movies and material. Even Netflix’s CEO said that they expect their physical disc-mailing business to decline over the next several years as their streaming business soars.

So clearly the general public is happier with paying for temporary access to video content, whether they pay Netflix or Blockbuster Online to send them DVD or Blu-Ray discs straight to their homes, where they watch them and then return them in a mailer or they get the content streamed directly to their XBox 360 or their Boxee Box or their HTPC. We’re all comfortable with the concept that we pay a monthly fee to watch as many movies as we can stand or the mail can deliver to us, and when we’re finished watching or we send it back, the movie’s gone forever unless we want to watch it again. When we cancel our accounts with Netflix or Blockbuster Online, our access to that content is gone forever.

So, then, why isn’t the same for subscription music services? The Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, Napster, all of those services operate using exactly the same business model, if not more generous than the video services’ are. The Zune Marketplace, for example, gives you a number of credits you can spend monthly to download and permanently own the songs you really like, instead of losing access to them if you ever terminate your account. Netflix doesn’t say every month “you’ve been such a great customer, why don’t you keep these movies from your queue, go ahead, take them,” but in order for a service like the Zune Marketplace to survive, they have to.

Why are we so okay with essentially leasing our movies from Netflix and Blockbuster Online, but we’re not okay with leasing our music from Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody in the exact same way? I have a couple of ideas, but it mostly has to do with history and perception – not functionality. Let’s dive in.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Why Are Rented Movies Okay but Rented Music Not?…

Aside from being pretty sexy and shiny and curved to fit perfectly on your lap while you’re sitting on the couch, Microsoft’s new Arc Keyboard is designed to be portable and let you work wherever you may roam. Whether you have a laptop and you want a relatively portable external keyboard that you can rest on your lap, or if you’re looking for a keyboard that may not have a ton of bells and whistles but still want one that’ll look nice on the coffee table, the Arc Keyboard may be up your alley.

The Arc Keyboard was released at CES 2010 this past week, and I had the opportunity to play with one at the Microsoft booth. It’s surprisingly tiny and light, and only about 12.2 inches wide by 6 inches tall. It’s not available yet, but is expected to hit store shelves at the end of February for $59.95 USD.

[ Microsoft :: Arc Keyboard ]

The holidays are rapidly approaching, and if you haven’t started your holiday shopping, you might want to get busy – there are precious few shopping days left before Christmas, and even if you don’t celebrate it directly, the sales and stores are all acting like you do, so now’s the time to pick up some presents for the geek in your life, and to hopefully save a little money at the same time and get them something shiny that they’ll actually enjoy.

Now of course everyone is doing holiday gift guides, and a lot of them have a ton of expensive and superfluous junk on them that may end up on Craigslist or ebay by this time next year, so I put together a short list of five items that will thrill anyone when they see them in a pretty box tied up with a bow this holiday season, regardless of whether they’re a geek – but if they are a geek? Even better. Let’s dive in!

Continue reading Gears and Widgets 2009 Holiday Gift Guide!…

This fall’s XBox Dashboard update is finally here, and a number of highly anticipated services have made their way onto the dash, including Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, and Zune Video. You’ll get the update automatically the next time you sign in to XBox Live.

At the same time as a number of pundits are heralding this as a remarkable addition to XBox Live, and as much as people are cheering for the ability to read and see your friends updates on Twitter and Facebook from the comfort of your couch, and the ability to stream tunes via Last.fm, and the ability to check out video content from Zune Video, I’m a little more focused on Microsoft’s strategy here.

Back in the late 90s and the early 2000s, everyone was talking about “convergence computing,” where single devices in your home would be responsible for the bulk of your home entertainment experience. Those boxes started off by looking like WebTV and other similar products, boxes that put internet access first and other services second, but they never caught on.

Microsoft realized they had a seller with the XBox gaming platform, and since it was connected to the Internet to download games and such, it was natural to make the XBox 360 especially – even more-so than the original XBox – that convergence device. Now, with just one gadget attached to your TV, you can surf the Web, keep up with your friends, chat with them or talk to them online, play games with them, and now, watch videos via Zune Video, stream movies from Netflix, and stream music from Last.fm. We’re seeing Microsoft’s goal of convergence computing come to life, it just took a different – and less direct – road.

[ Lifehacker :: Xbox Dashboard Update Brings Last.fm, Facebook, Twitter, and Zune Video to Your TV ]

Windows 7 is out if you haven’t heard, and people are rushing to get their pre-orders, back up their data, and upgrade their computers. Some of these people are upgrading for the first time since Windows XP, and others are people with systems that came pre-loaded with Vista but are cashing in their upgrade coupons to get a copy of Windows 7.

Me? I’ve been running it since it was available as a beta and an RC, and while I’m actually remarkably happy with my Windows Vista x64 gaming system, I’ll be upgrading to Windows 7 myself very soon. I’ll just make the other computers in my house take the plunge first so I make sure I don’t run into any unanticipated issues. In the meantime though, Lifehacker has put together what I would agree is the definitive guide to Windows 7, some of its new and best features, and how to determine which version is best for you and how you should go about upgrading.

Normally I’m not terribly afraid of upgrading in place, but I would only suggest anyone do this if they’re already running Vista and of the same version they plan to upgrade to. Even then, for most people I’d still recommend a clean install to a freshly formatted hard drive, just to get a fresh start and off on a good foot. And of course, before you do anything at all, make sure to back up your data – all of it!

[ Lifehacker's Complete Guide to Windows 7 ]

Microsoft announced last week that they would be discontinuing their Mac-based e-mail application, Entourage, and instead shipping a full version of Outlook with the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac, due out in 2011, if previous trends hold.

Quoth the Microsoft:

Outlook for Mac releasing in the next version reflects the team’s commitment to further develop the Mac’s leading productivity suite. This new application will deliver significant changes — ultimately allowing for increased productivity across platforms, which continues to be the top request of enterprise customers. The MacBU today shared a few of the features that will be in Outlook for Mac, including these:

• Cocoa. Built from the ground up using Cocoa providing users with improved integration with the Mac OS

• New database. A high-speed file-based database with support for backing up files with Time Machine and Spotlight searching

• Information Rights Management. Helps prevent sensitive information from being distributed to or read by people who do not have permission to access the content

“Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Server have been a cornerstone of communications and collaboration for our enterprise customers,” said Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of the Office product management group at Microsoft. “Today’s release of the Web Services Edition strengthens Exchange connectivity for Entourage customers and sets the stage for the move to the new application — Outlook for Mac. These updates continue Microsoft and the MacBU’s tradition of delivering the most complete solution to help customers manage their time, and better share their information and collaborate with others.”

I’m glad to hear that Microsoft will take the lessons that it learned from Entourage and apply them to what Mac users look for in a high-end e-mail client when buildling Outlook for the Mac. There hasn’t been an Outlook for Mac since Outlook 97, which only ran in OS 9 and in “Classic,” a feature that many new Mac users have probably never even heard of.

Quick primer: back when OS X was new, in order to ease the pain of moving to entirely new operating system and processing environment, Apple included “Classic” with OS X installations, which allowed users to essentially emulate (using Rosetta) Mac OS 9 under the hood and run apps that were only supported in versions of Mac OS prior to OS X. You essentially needed a full OS 9 installation under the hood to make this work, but it worked – and kept apps like Outlook 97 alive. Classic died forever when Apple made the shift to x86 hardware, away from IBM’s PowerPC architecture, and isn’t even supported in Mac OS 10.5, the current version of the OS.

Entourage is an excellent app, don’t get me wrong – it’s great at getting mail, helping you stay organized, and being an all around stellar personal information management tool – if you really dig into it and make it the hub of your contacts, your appointments, and your email, it works really well. The problem is that Entourage never really fully supported Exchange the way its users expected it to, and it was woefully lacking in advanced features that gave it a home in the enterprise, and that Microsoft Outlook users on the PC-side enjoyed (and in many cases, thought were critical.) I liked Entourage a lot, but always thought it was about 85% of what it really ought to be.

There are probably a number of reasons why Microsoft is making this move now – aside from the desire to improve the strength of the Office for Mac product line, and the wishes of its userbase and of IT departments around the world that are being inundated with Macs that their techs probably don’t know how to support, Microsoft has another major competitor to deal with: Mail.app.

Apple announced earlier this year that along with Snow Leopard and the iPhone 3.0 software upgrade would come an updated Mail.app that featured full and true Exchange support. What does that really mean? Well, if Mail.app, Address Book, and other embedded applications that come with Mac OS are not only integrated with each other, but can be seamlessly tied in with Exchange, there’s little reason for an IT department to be concerned with a Mac user’s lack of integration, and considering the strength of tools like iWork (Pages is a stellar word processor and desktop publishers, and there’s no debating Keynote’s superiority over PowerPoint) and the fact that iWork opens MS Office documents, you have to wonder why someone would use Office for Mac at all.

It’s likely that these improvements to Office for Mac are designed not only to strengthen their product, but to ensure that have a competitive product against Apple’s own bundled desktop apps and productivity suite – Mac users who use iWork and prefer the convenience of Mail.app and the other bundled core apps may very well decide not to purchase Office for Mac in the future unless there’s a real reason to – and Outlook for Mac very well may be that reason, if Microsoft does it right.

[ Microsoft :: Outlook for Mac to Ship With Next Version ]

Just when you thought you’d never mourn Clippy. Well done, Microsoft, well done. Full size HD video is here!

There’s been a simmering flamewar on tech news blogs, forums, and e-mail distribution lists for years: will Google ever release an operating system? The debate has gone both ways:

On the one hand: “Never ever would Google release an operating system to compete with the likes of Microsoft and Apple! They’d shoot themselves in the foot! They already develop for all popular OSes including Linux, why would they build their own?”

On the other: “It makes perfect sense for thin client computing! Google already makes apps for just about every possible use, an OS would bring them all together! Google has the know-how and development prowess to make it happen, even if it’s a reskinned distro of Linux!”

The argument was put to rest today when Google announced the Chrome OS, scheduled to ship in late 2010. There are still tons of questions around the OS and exactly what platform it’s designed for, but most people assume it’ll be a desktop compliment to Android on the mobile side (or perhaps, as PC Mag’s Sascha Segan pointed out on Twitter, an excuse not to bring a decent browsing experience to Android) and will likely be targeted at netbooks and thin clients where Windows XP is a resource hog, Mac OS isn’t really present, Windows 7 is anticipated, and Linux (sadly) is largely ignored or disliked.

So what does Google do when it appears there are no great OS options on a platform? They come to the rescue with their own and do it themselves. They did the same thing with the mobile platform (even though they’re off to a rocky start…or perhaps more accurately limping out of the gate there) but I see what they’re doing. It makes sense for Google to launch their own OS, and the innovation that they will (hopefully) bring to the table may spark Microsoft and Apple into trimming down dead weight but beefing up features in their own OSes.

At the same time, one has to wonder if there’s any coincidence to Google’s announcement coming right on the heels of Google ripping off the “beta” label from some of their most popular products, like GMail and Google Apps.

[ ExtremeTech :: Google Announces Chrome Operating System ]

[ Wired :: Google Announces PC Operating System to Compete with Windows ]

I’m a huge fan of Lifehacker, I think that’s clear by now. That being said, I’ve been fiddling with the Windows 7 RC in a VM using VirtualBox on my Mac, and it’s definitely good enough to be my permanent operating system if it weren’t running in a VM (although frankly, it’s performance in VM is pretty spectacular).

Lifehacker has a run down of some of the best and most underhyped features that are coming in Windows 7, and on the whole I think it’s an excellent list. From automatic wallpaper shuffling (which I currently accomplish in Windows Vista with John’s Background Switcher), to Jump Lists, to Libraries, there are a number of really interesting features under the hood of Windows 7 that a lot of people aren’t talking about…but should be.

[ Lifehacker :: Lifehacker :: Windows 7's Best Underhyped Features ]