If you haven’t heard the news, (and a lot of people heard the news and thought “what’s that?”) Microsoft killed the Kin, the smartphone designed to be a semi-smartphone for young people and teenagers looking for a device that had a focus on social networking and staying in touch with friends but didn’t need enterprise-level features.

Most people in the tech sector saw the announcement (and still see the commercials on TV) and shake our head sadly at what could have been a good product if it had been given the right attention, resources, appropriate marketing, and aggressive prices.

I’m completely agreed with the notion that the Microsoft Kin could have been an amazing product, and could have been the pioneer for a new generation of feature phones that could have stood alongside devices like the LG Envy and dominated them. Instead, Verizon took them and put them on the same stage as smartphones that were way more powerful, at the same price-point, and forced owners to have expensive smartphone-level data plans to support them.

The price was something I would have been able to get over if it weren’t for the fact that Verizon charged data fees on top of them when they don’t for phones that are more like the Kin. The Kin, at least in my perspective, was less of a mini-smartphone or smartphone-lite as it was a super feature phone that would help teens send messages to their friends, send them photos, take video, and then manage all of that content from a Web app powered by Microsoft.

The Kin could have been rolled in with Zune and Zune Marketplace and as a precursor to Windows Phone 7, and positioned as the first in an aggressive new generation of feature phones that would have forced LG and Samsung to up their ante and bring feature phones to the market that would really be fun and useful for young people who don’t necessarily want (or whose parents don’t want them to have) BlackBerry devices or Android phones or iPhones.

Instead, the Kin died a slow and painful death because it was horribly marketed to no specific target group, generically labeled as a “social phone” without any real look at what made it stand out or what the companion Web app was good for, it was priced too high on shelves at Verizon stores, and the requirement of a full data plan for it was the final nail in the coffin. They didn’t sell, and Microsoft pulled the plug.

Over at Engadget there’s a beautiful retelling of the true and inside story of the life and death of the Kin, which includes how things went wrong from the very beginning and the entire project turned into a “just get it finished and out the door” kind of project, even if it was flawed and even if people at Microsoft and Verizon both knew that the way it was positioned meant it wouldn’t go anywhere. It’s worth a read, if not for lines like this:

While it’s hard to argue that Kin is an awful product, the saddest part of the story is that many of the people responsible for it knew it was — they were largely victims of political circumstance, forced to release a phone that was practically raw in the middle.

[ Engadget :: Life and Death of Microsoft Kin: The Inside Story ]

I have yet to try this myself, but I have every intention to do so on my XP desktop at the office, where having this kind of head-up-display would be remarkably useful. If you’ve seen my thoughts on Windows Phone 7 you’ll know that I really like the layout and the display, and I think that the changes that Microsoft is planning for the mobile OS look really impressive (even if it won’t have multi-tasking or copy/paste.) But to that end, it’s pretty interesting to be able to make my Windows desktop look and feel like Windows Phone 7, complete with the “tiles” that the new design highlight.

To do this, you’ll need an app called Omnimo UI, a mod for Rainmeter – a popular app used to tweak and customize the UI of your Windows desktop. Lifehacker has a step-by-step how-to on setting it up, from installing Omnimo UI to customizing it and setting up the tiles that will live and update on your desktop.

[ Lifehacker :: Turn Your Windows Desktop into a Windows Phone 7 Style Display ]

Two interesting stories came to light today – first that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series OS won’t support multi-tasking and that Microsoft plans to eliminate it altogether, and second that Windows Phone 7 Series won’t support copy/paste.

That’s right, you heard both of those statements correctly. Both of them have been published widely and confirmed by Microsoft. On the one hand, Android and Blackberry fans rejoice, you’ve got the only smartphone OSes that do both, but the irony stings hard and deep on this one. iPhone detractors and Apple haters have been crowing about how horrible the iPhone is because it doesn’t support multitasking, and prior to a last year, the iPhone and iPod Touch didn’t support copy/paste either. It was a highlight point for people looking to beat up on Apple in general and the iPhone in specific.

The interesting question for me now is whether or not those same haters will turn on Microsoft now that their highly regarded and anticipated mobile OS will come out “crippled” in the same way, to use their word, not mine. The lack of these features made Apple a target not just for people who didn’t like the company and loved Microsoft, but for people who didn’t like the company and didn’t care for Microsoft either.

In any event, I see why Microsoft is doing this – it’s the same reason Apple does: they want to control every possible aspect of the user experience. They want to get rid of multitasking because the iPhone has been a success without it (in this regard, people would be right to blame Apple – they have managed to make their product a success without the features that a vocal minority have been crowing and whining about) and they want to be able to similarly control the user experience. As for copy/paste, this is proof that all of the people who have said “it’s not as easy as you guys think it is” are absolutely correct. Even the implementation in Android is cludgey.

Even so, Windows Phone 7 Series looks impressive, and I still think Microsoft is headed in the right direction. The irony, however, is deafening. I can happily say though that while those features will be missed, I have no intention of bashing Microsoft or dismissing the potential of Windows Phone 7 as a result of them being missing.

[ PC Mag :: Win Phone 7 Ditches Multitasking, Memory Cards ]
[ Engadget :: Windows Phone 7 Series Won't Have Copy and Paste ]

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:

Windows Phone 7 Series looks great, I have no doubt in my mind, and I’m very excited about it, but there are a number of things I can’t help but think, having watched the technology industry as long as I have.

Apps, Apps, Apps!

Pre-installed apps don’t sell mobile phones anymore. Apps do. The iPhone’s “There’s an app for that” campaign isn’t successful for nothing – it’s because people like having the ability to do just about anything they can think of doing with a mobile phone with their device. They like the idea that if there’s something they want, not only do they have full access to the internet, but there’s probably an app that will make the process easier, whether it’s finding someplace to eat tonight, buying movie tickets, chatting with their friends, or letting their buddies know where they are so they can meet up for a drink. There are apps on the iPhone and in Google’s Android mobile OS for all of those purposes. The question stands: will Microsoft be as open with Windows Phone Series 7 as they have been in the past?

The Windows Mobile story has been a good one for software developers – people have always had access to development tools and kits for Windows Mobile. Windows Phone 7 on the other hand represents a fresh start for Microsoft, and they have the choice to either go as open as possible with the platform as a development stage or clamp down in the Apple model and build a walled garden where they have control over the user experience.

There may have been a time where it would be insane to build in so much control over the user experience, but Apple’s made it work, so it must be at least tempting. At the same time, Google has had tremendous success with Android as a strong challenger to the iPhone and the iPhone OS. It’s likely Microsoft will try to take a middle-path with Windows Phone 7 development, opening the door slowly and trying to control the flow of apps in some fashion.

However, even as that’s likely, the number of available apps for the Zune HD (literally, less than 10) isn’t much encouragement that Microsoft will open the floodgates all at once, and it’s not a positive sign. Again, Microsoft could take the very attractive page from Apple’s book – they’ve managed to make the walled garden approach work, even to the grumbling of their own partners and developers, so anything is possible.

Even so, I still think Microsoft will open the doors. It won’t be completely wide open like Android, but it may be too close to the Apple model for some people. I doubt Microsoft really wants individual developers redefining the Windows Phone experience…just yet.

Agility

Microsoft doesn’t exactly have a reputation these days of being a very agile company. Some of their product lines have seen tremendous success because of their agility and ability to adapt to a changing marketplace, namely their entertainment arm: the Zune, Zune Marketplace, XBox and XBox 360, XBox Live, and Games for Windows. Even so, Microsoft is like a massive ship – steering it takes strategic thinking and the ability to look ahead a long way, and immediately starting to turn that massive ship to move in the direction of the market.

While I wouldn’t say Windows Phone 7 Series is too late, a few more years and it could have been. Also, Microsoft has been telling analysts and reporters for years that they needed to make this shift, and that they were planning to, but it’s taken them that long to respond to these changes in the marketplace.

What remains to be seen is whether or not Microsoft can be fast to market with Windows Phone 7, and whether or not they can be quick to adapt to the market when their competition capitalizes on their weaknesses and re-engineers their strengths. You can bet some of the beauty of Microsoft’s sliding display and actively updating widgets off-screen will be in future iterations of the iPhone OS and Android. Whether or not they’ll get there before or after Microsoft is in the market with Windows Phone 7 is a different matter.

Additionally, when the playing field is level again and everyone adopts (assuming it’s successful) home-screens full of widgets and utilities and blocks that provide you real-time updates from your social services and e-mail instead of flat, static icons you press to open apps, what will Microsoft do then to up their game? I ask because I guarantee that more historically agile companies like Apple and Google will be thinking about it, and especially companies that partner with Google to build on top of Android – like HTC and Motorola – will be thinking about how they can innovate their interfaces as well.

WrapUp

None of this means that I don’t think Windows Phone 7 will be anything but a huge success. I’m almost certain, looking at it and it’s built-in ability to integrate with your social networks, your gaming platforms, and all of your media, that it will be. Out of the box it’s an incredibly strong competitor to the iPhone OS, and it has more built-in seamlessly than Google Android does (which relies heavily on its openness and other apps to provide) but Microsoft will have to bring it fast and bring it strong in order to be real competition for both of those companies.

Additionally, the user experience will have to be as good as we see in the demo, and people will have to be able to get the tools they need to do the things they want with their mobile phones. Otherwise all of the glitter and glamor will be for nothing.

Windows Phone 7 looks like it’ll be a winner and I can’t wait for Microsoft to begin making it available to its hardware partners – I’m cautiously optimistic, and I hope they do it right. I take a bit more of a skeptical and rational approach than some other bloggers I’ve read (I’m looking at you, Gizmodo) but I should stress I’m more optimistic than cautious.

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.

This isn’t entirely a defense of subscription music services, although I admit that I have a hard time discounting them as much as I used to now that I realize how hypocritical it can be to love subscription video services for one reason and then hating subscription music services for the same reason. It’s difficult to maintain that the iTunes model, for example, that lets you own your own music once you’ve purchased it, is so much leaps and bounds ahead of its major competitor, the Zune Marketplace, when you realize that Netflix doesn’t let you “own” your own movies any more than the Zune Marketplace lets you own your music – in fact, the Zune Marketplace is much more lenient, and gives you the ability to download songs to keep yourself forever even if you cancel your Zune Marketplace subscription.

So what’s the major difference? Why does the thought of “rented music,” a la subscription music services, raise people’s hackles and bring to mind the rabid “information wants to be free” rhetoric where services like Netflix, which makes its money renting you movies, doesn’t? Do we fundamentally view video and audio as qualitatively different?

The answer is no, not really, but there are some things that make us more protective of our music than we traditionally have been about our movies:

The Spectre of DRM

Subscription music services still reek of DRM, and this is probably the biggest thing that’s turned people off about them. There are naturally built-in protections to make sure that the music you have on your computer or your mobile device by virtue of your subscription to the service can only be played as long as your subscription is valid – that part isn’t really under dispute. What does become a problem is the historical precedent that subscription services saddle you with only a handful of supported players, and usually not very good ones that people actually want to buy.

This rings like the iTunes/iPod circular relationship, which also chafes a number of people (but given the massive popularity of the iPod as a music device Apple has been able to get away with it) but the combination of not really being able to play your music on any device AND the stigma that came with not totally “owning” your music was too much for a lot of people to bear. Assuming that using Napster required that you use a pretty poorly rated Samsung mp3 player and on top of that you could only play or share your music the way you were told was just a huge turnoff for a lot of people.

This is where one of the parallels between subscription services for audio and video break down. The parallel to this would be if in order to use Netflix you HAD to use a certain device to play the video on your HDTV – one sanctioned by Netflix, and if you tried to use something else it just wouldn’t work, including with your mailed discs. You could see how this would be a problem for people.

Thankfully, with the launch of Amazon MP3 and the change of heart that Amazon and Apple took towards DRM, the fall of DRM opened the door to a much more trusting relationship between subscription service providers and their customers. For example, with the Zune Marketplace, the songs you get to keep are in mp3 format, and the songs you “rent” are in protected WMA, which means any player that can play WMA can play the files – it’s just that when your subscription is cancelled, they’re removed from your computer.

The spectre of DRM is largely gone from subscription music services, and only remains as a way to validate that you’re an active subscriber. The demons of Microsoft’s PlaysForSure debacle and Sony BMG’s rootkit fiasco all still ring in music consumer’s minds as a reason to stay away from any service that doesn’t affordably allow you to download and completely own, free and clear, the music that you purchase.

It’s understandable, but subscription services have adapted and grown since those days, and they’re worth another look. A number of them allow you to subscribe and stream music just like music discovery services like Last.fm or Pandora, and spin the subscription as a way to get customized radio of music you would like based on songs you already own or songs you rate highly. Then you have the ability to buy stand-alone downloads that belong to you in DRM-free mp3 format. The Zune Marketplace is a good example of a service which started out pretty poorly and came a long long way – it’s music discovery engine surpasses Apple’s Genius in a number of ways, and can generate playlists based on songs you own or songs you find in the catalog using songs you own or songs in the catalog that you can rent or buy.

The flip side to this is video on demand services like Netflix and Blockbuster Online, which ship you discs that you can keep as long as you want as long as you’re a subscriber. If you ever cancel your subscription, you have to send the discs back or pay to own them. Video streamed over the Web to your HDTV or console is only available to you for a short time, cached on your device. When it’s gone, it’s gone forever – you have no option to own it, and neither service currently allows you to even pay to download the movies you stream permanently. (although it’s likely coming.)

In some ways, subscription video is less flexible in this regard than subscription audio – it’s just that the spectre of DRM isn’t necessarily applied: there’s no “you kinda own it while you pay us” aside from having a physical DVD. In this case, it’s probably more history, media, and the echo chamber that makes us more afraid to keep protected WMA on our computers to listen to whenever we want for the life of our Rhapsody subscription than we are unhappy that the instant we turn off our XBox 360, we lose the Netflix movie we were watching back to the ether, never to become part of our collection.

Collector’s Mentality

While I think DRM and the horrible history of the music industry treating its consumers like criminals is the real reason why people want complete and utter control over their music (and subsequently, the MPAA being somewhat careful about demonizing itself to its customers and trying to learn from the mistakes of the RIAA – even though they’ve only been partially successful, seriously the “You wouldn’t download a car” campaign is laughable) and willing to be a bit more lenient about the degree to which they own their movies.

At the same time, I think people have a different perception of what it means to have a music collection and what it means to have a movie collection. Movie collections and owning movies digitally simply haven’t gotten to the point where the majority of people are comfortable with their movies on a hard drive or a computer or another device hooked up to their television. When the average American wants to watch a movie, they expect to look at a shelf and pick something they’d like to watch, and physically put a disc in a player.

Granted, all of this is changing with streaming video to your set-top via game console, widget-powered TVs, and Blu-Ray players with network connectivity, but it’s just not at critical mass yet. Just like with the compact disc, the tide has only now begun to shift in the direction of people understanding that owning their media in some digital format on a box that’s near the TV is okay – and in some ways preferable to – having lots of boxes and disc cases on a shelf next to or under the TV. I also get the feeling that people will be more clingy to physical video media for longer than they were for the CD, especially with the advent of Blu-Ray. (which give your more features and greater video quality than you can get by streaming the same video via broadband – although that’s changing too)

The tide is changing in people’s perceptions of what it means to have a “movie collection,” and it’s shifting to set-top boxes and HTPCs the same way as people understand now that having a “music collection” doesn’t necessarily mean bookshelves of CDs and can instead mean a couple of external hard drives or a single iPod on a desk. The trick is that it’s just not there yet.

Wrapup

In the end, don’t really mean to claim that there’s a definitive or correct reason why people trust rented video, both on demand and physical, when they don’t trust rented audio in the same shape and fashion – even from companies whose business models line up very very closely. There are likely more reasons than these to explain the phenomenon, but unfortunately, some really grreat subscription music services have gone under the radar partially because of this negative stigma applied to them and partially because there are just so many great music discovery and download services that let you buy music free and clear.

Add to this the “us versus them” stigma that’s applied to just about every product or company, and you have people who won’t look twice at Zune Marketplace because they hate Microsoft, for example, or people who won’t touch Rhapsody because it’s from Real Networks, or worse, people who won’t consider them because they already use iTunes or Amazon MP3 and dare not use more than one service for their music, as if it’s “cheating” somehow.

Being an music lover, I can see the benefit of a subscription service that lets you snag and listen to as much music as you can possibly stand for as long as you can stand to pay the monthly fee while also direct downloading the tunes you know you’ll love forever or have some special meaning to you. (or want to use to complete you collection or an artist’s discography!) I feel the same way about movies as well – I’m a very happy Netflix subscriber and think that streaming video direct to my HDTV is a fantastic thing, but I wouldn’t sacrifice my shelf of DVDs for the world, and I’ll definitely buy Blu-Ray videos in additon to using Netflix for other videos I’m comfortable renting.

Explore multiple options, and try different services. You might surprise yourself.

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!

LaCie iamaKey USB Drive

You can never have enough USB flash drives to carry your critical data or even your files and music around with you on. The LaCie iamaKey, on the other hand, which I mentioned a while ago is pretty unique. In addition to looking like a key and fitting on your keyring along with all of your other keys, this little baby comes stocked with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or even a whopping 32GB of storage, depending on which one you want to pick up, ranging in cost from $21.99 USD for the 4GB model up to $99.99 USD for the 32GB version.

They can be purchased directly from LaCie and shipped online, but act fast – the little guys are popular and there’s no bet the size you want is in stock at any given moment! Look around too, there are some other great places on the Web you can find these guys for sale as well. I already have one, but if someone gave another one to me, I wouldn’t be disappointed!

PlayStation 3 Slim

This one is a bit on the pricey side, but it’s definitely the gift that keeps on giving. 2009 has been the year where the PlayStation 3 went from being last holiday season’s overpriced console with no top-notch games to this year’s must-have console with tons of exclusives. And since Sony’s released the PS3 Slim (shown above), the reasons to buy one have just gotten bigger. Or smaller. Whatever.

Incredible titles appeared for the PS3 this year, including Little Big Planet and Uncharted 2 and download titles from the PlayStation Network like Wipeout HD, and the PS3 remains one of the best and most affordable blu-ray players on the market – so if your gift recipient this year is a gamer, they’ll love it. If they’re a movie buff, they’ll love it too. It’s a gift anyone would love, and you can find some pretty good deals on them right now – in some cases even with some of its great games.

A Blu-Ray Player

Speaking of blu-ray players and movie buffs, if you don’t want to get a PS3 or know someone who’s not at all a gamer but definitely a movie buff, maybe it’s time they invested in a Blu-Ray player. Not specifically the one above, but check out CNet’s list of top Blu-Ray players if you’re looking for suggestions. The prices on this year’s batch of HDTV’s is ridiculously low, and it’s highly likely that at some point this year the person you’re buying gifts for invested in one and has it proudly mounted above their mantle or hanging out in their living room – or even their bedroom! Odds are though, that they didn’t invest in a blu-ray player at the same time. Save them the cash, and give a great gift that will make the best use of their HDTV and give them one!

Left4Dead 2

If your giftee is a gamer, they may very well have one of this year’s best games, but if they don’t have Left4Dead 2 yet, they won’t be disappointed. The game is one of the holiday season’s must-have titles, and since it came out it’s already rapidly risen the charts to be one of the most popular titles of the year. The sequel to the original zombie-slaying Valve original game Left 4 Dead, L4D 2 puts you back in the shoes of a group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse, armed with their wits and as many guns, knives, swords, bats, and chainsaws they can find, trying to put down as many zombies as possible without dying. If you hate zombies as much as I do, now’s your chance to have at them!

A New Operating System

This year saw the release of two major new operating systems, both Apple’s Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and Microsoft’s Windows 7. Odds are that if your giftee has an at all recent computer, they can stand an upgrade – if your family member has an old Windows XP computer with relatively decent spec, they can stand an upgrade to Windows 7 – it really is much much better than both Windows XP and Vista, and the cost of upgrading it – especially if you’re the geeky family member and you’re giving it to another family member whose computer you’re known to fix – will outweigh the investment of time and attention you likely put into repairing their machine.

So in the end, sure you could run out and get them a digital camera that three different sites listed on their gift guides but all disagree one whether or not it’s actually good, or you could grab something like one of the above here and get them a gift that not only will give them hours upon hours of fun or usefulness, but actually wind up being a good gift for a geek, whether they’re a gadget geek, a gamer, or just love the look and feel of a new OS.

Regardless of what you choose to gift, here’s to happy holidays for you and yours!

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 ]