As part of the new “SteveNote,” Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Chief Robbie Bach announced that it plans to squeeze some more money out of what is arguably one of the top video game franchises — Halo. Two titles will be released during the year — Halo Wars and Halo ODST. The first is a strategy game, while ODST is a standalone expansion to Halo 3 (and was formerly named Halo 3: Recon). A few more details on these new titles can be found in this Seattle P-I blog entry.
Author Archive | Ed Oswald
Ballmer: Windows 7 Beta is Out
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 7, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Steve Ballmer has made it official: the public beta of Windows 7 has begun. On Friday, the beta will be available worldwide at the Windows 7 web site, and at his keynote at CES Wednesday night he urged everybody to download it. TechNet, MSDN, and TechBeta customers will get access starting tonight. So if you’re lucky enough to have access to those, run — don’t walk — to Microsoft’s website before their servers crash under whats probably going to be a tidal wave of curious techies…
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Report: Microsoft Details Windows 7 Upgrade Program
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 7, 2009 at 9:51 am
According to TechARP.com, Microsoft has gone ahead and begun to offer details of its upgrade program for those who buy Vista machines before Windows 7 releases late this year to its partners. In some cases customers may be eligible for a free upgrade.
Those who purchase a Vista machine between July 1 and a yet to be determined date would be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7. Users of Vista Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate would be eligible for the program.
This particular program is aimed at individual consumers — multi-license purchasers would not qualify under this program. Microsoft said those customers should use the “appropriate” volume licensing program for their upgrade path (there’s no mention of a free/discounted upgrade offer for those folks as of yet).
Upgrade paths would go as follows:
- Vista Home Premium -> Windows 7 Home Premium
- Vista Business -> Windows 7 Professional
- Vista Ultimate -> Windows 7 Ultimate
Microsoft’s OEM partners would be shipped copies of the OS, and it would be their responsibility to ship them to the customer. However, customers would have to wait until Win 7 officially releases, obviously.
So how much can we trust Tech ARP? These folks do have a good track record: they have been able to nail down RTM dates in the past, including the release of Vista SP1. We shall see if they are right again.
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DTV Coupon Program Is Out of Money
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Analog TV users without cable beware: if you have not gotten your coupons to offset the costs of the digital converter box, you may be out of luck (and without TV) when February 17 comes around. The Washington Post reports that the program is nearing the limit of the $1.34 billion it was appropriated to subsidize the cost of the set-top boxes. Each coupon takes $40 off the price of the boxes, which cost between $50 and $80, and expire in 90 days. Possible sources for more funds could be through either the economic stimulus package, or a new bill funding further coupons.
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One Last Thing, And It’s About iTunes
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 10:33 am
I guess Steve has “one more thing” trademarked. Phil wrapped up this years keynote with a little news on iTunes, which involves three things: price, which would now be in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29; the ability to purchase music over AT&T 3G; and what we’ve been waiting for, 8 million DRM-free tracks on iTunes from the four major labels, with the entire store DRM-free by the end of the quarter.
More details as we get them..
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17-inch MacBook Pro Coming
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 10:20 am
Along with the other announcements from what has been a really low-key keynote is a new 17-inch MacBook Pro model. Inside will be Core 2 Duo up to 2.93-GHZ and up to 8GB of RAM. Dual GeForce graphics will be standard as well as a 320GB HDD. Biggest news here? The battery within the laptop is embedded, and non-removable. However, enhancements are making it possible to have an 8-hour battery life and can be charged up to 1,000 times. Phil indicated this is the future for Apple: soon none of its laptops will have removable batteries. No price change will come with this model: it will remain at $2,799.
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More from SchillerNote: iWork.com
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 10:11 am
Well, if this is it, I have to say this was probably the most boring MacWorld keynote ever, and its probably obvious now why Steve Jobs isn’t giving it. These announcements, save for the work on iLife, are missing any punch.
iWork.com is not a full blown online version of the productivity suite as some had predicted, but instead is more of a collaboration site. Users will be able to upload and download documents from the site, and you can add comments and notes on the document. Multiple people can view and annotate.
The feature launches in beta today as a free service, but eventually will be fee-based, Phil says.
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Second up from SchillerNote: iWork ’09
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 9:56 am
Phil said he had three things, and honestly so far I’m kinda unimpressed. Well, his next subject is iWork. Here’s what’s being announced here.
Keynote: Will support “magic move” transitions, which are essentially can animate objects between two slides, movement of objects in a 3D space, new text transitions, and so forth. New themes are also available, and Keynote Remote allows the user to employ a Touch or iPhone to control presentations.
Pages: New “full screen view,” new “dynamic outline” feature in Pages, and mail merge with Numbers spreadsheet, new templates.
Numbers: New and improved formulas. Schiller seems to admit that Numbers needed a lot of help in order to make it the primary spreadsheet for people.
Overall, a muted announcement in my book. $79 seperately, $49 when purchased with a new Mac. A family pack option will also be available for $99, and users can get iLife and iWork together for $169, which would be available in mid-January.
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MacRumors Live Keynote Feed Hacked
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 9:42 am
Somebody forgot to check their security on their webserver. A group identifying themselves as 4chan.org has hacked MacRumors Live Feed and for all intents and purposes completely taken over their site. I would post a screenshot, however the material being interjected into the feed is pretty R-rated, and now the site has taken down the feed completely. Note to MacRumors: next time make sure hackers can’t use a backdoor to get into your site…
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First Up from SchillerNote: iLife ’09
Posted by Ed Oswald on January 6, 2009 at 9:21 am
Some neat enhancements in iLife ’09 coming out of the keynote so far. Noteably the enhancements to iPhoto are catching my eye, and come in two new features: Faces and Places.
Faces is actually a face recognition algorithm of sorts. Pictures of the faces of your friends are posted on a corkboard. Clicking on that face will actually search through your photos and attempt to locate all pictures with that person in your photo album. It will even ask for new faces and ask you to identify them so it can automatically categorize them.
Next is Places, which incorporates geotagging into the application, then displays where photos were taken on Google Maps, which is built into the application.
Camera doesn’t support geotagging? No worries, you can do it manually. Other enhancements: uploading of slideshows to iPhones or Touche and direct upload of photos from iPhoto to Facebook or Flickr.
iMovie will get advanced timeline control, and new single click themes. Video stabilization is now built in, and you can create Google Earth-like 3D maps of your travels.
GarageBand is also getting a really cool new feature called “Learn to Play.” On-screen video teachers will help novices learn how to play either the keyboard or guitar, which would teach the basics in nine lessons, each costing $4.99.
One of the lessons? John Fogarty teaching you how to play “Proud Mary.” Call me crazy, but I prefer the Ike and Tina Turner version…