Results tagged “Windows 7”

So hey! I'm doing the News Roundup this week. And I didn't even know it! Funny how things work.

It's possible that you may have known that Microsoft released Windows 7 released last week, unless you haven't been paying attention. Though if you haven't, you may use some other OS and ignore whatever Microsoft does. Which is fine! You probably do, though, if Amazon claimed it was bigger than Harry Potter. Fortunately, for Windows users, 7's reviews have been incredibly favorable, a release that's nearly the exact opposite of the much-lambasted Vista launch around two years ago. And speaking of OS', some rival company called Apple launched a televised counterattack. The adds were full of a similar amount of both truth and dramatization, though time will tell if they have an affect. They certainly have in the past, comparing their market share.

Speaking of Apple, they also announced a series of new iMacs and a new Macbook. If you were the kind of person who was waiting for a lower priced line, these are not the computers you were waiting for. The Macbook, though, is more reasonably priced, though it's still more expensive than a plethora of Windows-equipped computers that have similar -- and in some cases, more -- features.

Speaking of Apple, they also have a new mouse, and it looks pretty...well, weird. This thing doesn't have any buttons. The interface is similar to their iPhone/iPod Touch, in that it registers your commands based on your own gestures. All of the aforementioned iMacs will come packed with this. Certainly an intriguing device on the surface, though reviews so far are pretty mixed. Most companies take a few revisions to make a product the majority find appealing, so give them -- and the other companies that will probably make one in the future -- some time.

The Hollywoodified adaptation of the late Osamu Tezuka's classic manga/anime Astroy Boy released in theaters last Friday. Ostensibly, it appears as a beautiful-looking venture that tries to capture the charm that made Tezuka's work such a classic, but various critics are saying that it's the exact opposite. That's a pity, though if you're the type to enjoy classic manga, you may be interested in that Astro Boy and other assorted Tezuka works are coming to US iPhones free. This is following the transition of his works to online archives last year.

Apparently a lot of Americans sure like using Twitter; one-fifth of you, to be precise. I haven't used it personally, but apparently there's an inherently addictive quality to letting others know what's going on in your life in 140 characters. Don't be surprised if that number happens to jump in the future. Soon we will all be twits.

During an interview about Microsoft's upcoming Natal console (or something), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Gizmodo that Blu-Ray was coming to Xbox 360 as an add-on, similar to their now-defunct HD-DVD add-on. Apparently something was lost in translation, as Microsoft later denied the existence of the add-on. A pity for 360 owners that don't own a Playstation 3 or Blu-Ray player, sure, though this really isn't surprising given that he's done it before. Guess he's a little excitable, huh?

I hadn't intended for this update to be such a war between Apple and Microsoft. Honest! I'm not a fanboy of either, by the way.

Image courtesy of Monsters & Critics.

It's relatively geeky to build your own weather balloon, but an entirely different thing to accidentally let it loose with your son inside.  The nightmare unfolded Thursday and the world watched as the weather balloon sailed through the sky, the status of the boy inside unknown.  Would he be alive?  Would he be dead?  Would he have turned into a cat?  But seriously, since the safety of a child was at stake, naturally every single media outlet was scrambling to be the first to report more details about the story.

Eventually, the balloon landed, and it was found that the kid was not, in fact, inside the balloon.  So did he fall out somewhere?  It turned out that the kid was hiding in the attic.  He feared his father's famous wrath, so he was hiding there for five hours.  His father gave a heartfelt apology for that in front of news cameras.

That would be it, if not for the revelation that the police were working behind the family's back, and behind the back of the news media as well, to investigate whether it was a hoax or not.  While the news media were falling over themselves trying to drum up ratings by reporting everything they could about the real life Hot Air Henry story, police interviewed the husband separately from his family, and got enough to issue a warrant.  Apparently, the family were hoping this would help their goal of being reality TV celebrities.  Well, staying true to crime show tropes, the family has now lawyered up.

But the news didn't have its head completely in the clouds this week.  In an update to a news story we touched upon last week, Microsoft had originally reported that they lost all the data that Sidekick users had entrusted to them, but now it seems they took a peek in the lost and found box, because they've revised their statement significantly.  Considering this is Microsoft we're talking about, people who supposedly should've known what they were doing in the first place, this kind of miracle isn't even in the same ballpark as, say, feeding five thousand people with five loaves of barley bread and two fish, or getting eight days of use out of one day's worth of oil.  Also interesting is the timing.  They announced their miracle right when Windows 7 is launching.  Hmm.

Apparently, Nintendo is the best company in the world.  BusinessWeek magazine used factors such as sales growth and value creation over the past five years.  In other words, to be listed as the best company in the world today, you have to have been the worst company in the world, five years ago.  Or close to it.  If my impressions of the list are correct, then if Nintendo had constantly been at the top of the video game market since it hit a home run with the NES, it might not have even been mentioned in the magazine.

And in other news, Eugene Kaspersky wants to end anonymity on the Internet, and is willing to cut off any country that doesn't agree with him.  Obviously, this guy wouldn't get my vote for President of the Internet, even if he thinks, in his mind, that he is President already.  While he's rubbing his hands together greedily at the thought of all that personal information being available, Google is rubbing their hands together greedily at the thought of their Street View expanding further.  A couple weeks ago, they finally added Canadian cities, and now they're calling on Americans to choose where their Street View Trike goes, since there are so many notable landmarks and other such destinations that cannot be visited by car, but are interesting enough to be documented.  But the quest for more information may become pointless if doomsayers are correct, for the Large Hadron Collider, that machine that was supposed to suck the Earth into a black hole last year but broke before anything could really happen, is finally repaired and cooled back down to operating temperature.  Cue the doomsday warnings in 3, 2...