For those of us waiting for the Star Wars Kinect game for the Xbox 360, the wait is almost over – it is launching 3rd April!
I had the pleasure of playing the game last and it was great!
So, mark your calendars for the 3rd of April, and it will cost £39.95. At least they didn’t wait until the 4th of May to launch it (think about it!)
Expect a full review soon.
In the next article on Windows 8 from Microsoft, they talk about Improving power efficiency for applications.
This is how the article begins:
Minimizing the power consumption of your PC while maximizing the responsiveness and utility (making it “fast and fluid”), is a significant engineering challenge. While it starts with the work we do in Windows to provide support for the right level resource usage, this work requires developers to take resource utilization into account as they develop their apps. Power efficiency applies to all form factors and all usage scenarios—using less power is the right thing to do for everyone. This is an area of significant innovation for Windows 8 PCs, and builds on the foundation of the new runtime model in WinRT—it is not the sort of thing you can retrofit onto existing desktop applications while still maintaining functionality and compatibility. Much like state migration and setup that we talked about earlier, power consumption is an area of Windows that has been reimagined for new scenarios. With your existing x86-based PC, all of the existing support is still there, and all of the work you do on the desktop continues exactly as it has before (and of course, has been improved, as we have seen). As we see new hardware across all supported SoC hardware (including Intel) this level of power efficiency will be more broadly available. Though we will discuss some of the work we’ve done to improve the power consumption of desktop apps, to enable the all-day, always-connected scenarios we’re going to see new apps written to WinRT that run on a new generation of hardware that supports new power management capabilities.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
And not long now until the beta, or should we say Consumer Preview.
Today Nokia announced a white version of it’s popular Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone.
Nokia today announces the latest addition to its Lumia Phone range with the introduction in March of the Nokia Lumia 800 in a stunning glossy white finish.
With Windows Phone 7.5 software, the white Nokia Lumia 800 features a head-turning design matched with the best social and Internet performance, with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9.
“Since we began selling it late last year, the Nokia Lumia 800 has received rave reviews around the world,” said Ilari Nurmi, Vice President of Product Marketing, Nokia. “Now in white, the Lumia 800 brings with it a more premium look and feel with its gloss finish, and is packed with power and performance underneath its sleek body.”
The Nokia Lumia 800 in white features a 3.7-inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display that blends seamlessly into the body, and is packed with power with its 1.4 GHz processor with hardware acceleration and graphics processor. The Nokia Lumia 800 provides an instant-share camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and free SkyDrive storage for keeping images and music.
Lumia smartphones include signature Nokia experiences optimised for Windows Phone, including Nokia Drive, which delivers a fully-fledged personal navigation device with free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car user interface; and Windows Marketplace also provides Lumia users with more than 55,000 apps to choose from.
To celebrate the launch of the white Lumia 800, new and existing Lumia users can find a special ‘White’ selection on Nokia’s unique music service, Mix Radio, featuring free music from the likes of White Stripes, Barry White, and a whole host of ‘white’-themed and influenced hits.
Available to pre-order from Phones 4u today, the Nokia Lumia 800 in white will be available FREE from £20.50 a month on a choice of networks from early March.
The QOOQ Tablet is designed for use in the kitchen, and it’s coming to the UK later this year.
The QOOQ tablet is a designer 10-inch Wi-Fi touch tablet which accompanies you
throughout your home and offers you all the multimedia functionality of standard
touch tablets:
Designed specially to be used in a kitchen (splash-proof, non-slip, etc.), the QOOQ tablet also allows access to the QOOQ digital platform of culinary content and services :
The price for the QOOQ France is 349 Euros but to you will also need a subscription to access the subscription content mentioned above.
The QOOQ should be able in the UK during the 2nd half of this year.
Today Microsoft revealed that Microsoft Flight would be launched on February 29th 2012.
This is what they said:
Prepare for takeoff! On the heels of a successful beta, we’re excited to announce that “Microsoft Flight” will be available to download worldwide for free starting February 29, 2012, right here at www.microsoftflight.com. In addition, the Hawaiian Adventure Pack – which includes the remaining Hawaiian Islands, a new plane and 20 new missions – will be available to purchase the same day through Games for Windows—LIVE.
Microsoft Hardware UK today announces a search to find the designer of the future in partnership with the internationally renowned institute of design, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.
The competition will unearth new ideas and insights into the future of man-machine interaction and challenge students to look at the possible components in the future of interactive technology.
Working within the MA Industrial Design course, Microsoft has tasked the students to delve into the future and conceptualise ideas which demonstrate new thinking in how users could interact with computers in the future. Students are challenged to find an alternative to the mouse and keyboard, or technologies similar to those that are emerging today in the field of gesture, voice and facial recognition.
Scott Smith, Principle Designer at the Microsoft User Experience and Industrial Design department which specialises in the field of interaction and input, commented: “At Microsoft, we invest a lot of time and resources on research which examines how users are changing their interactions with technology, whether its input devices, user interfaces, touch, voice or gestures. Central Saint Martins provides a great platform to bring in fresh insights and ideas from a group of 25 students who hail from a diverse mix of backgrounds and nationalities.”
The results of this sponsored project will be unveiled at a showcase event at Central Saint Martin’s College in April this year, with students likely to present a range of creative hardware and user experience design solutions to an invited audience of design luminaries and media. One student will also be awarded the first Microsoft UK Design Award which comes attached with a cash prize.
Nicholas Rhodes, Course Director of MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins, adds: “We are excited to be able to provide students with the experience of working with a prestigious global brand and thought leader such as Microsoft. It will equip them with skills and knowledge that will stand them in good stead for future job roles and careers.”
Microsoft have updated their Surface 2.0 SDK and runtime bits to include improved support for Windows Touch Enabled devices.
This is what Microsoft said about the update:
There were some issues in the Microsoft Surface Input Stack handling of reports sent by a digitizer in serial mode. These issues caused the input stack to not report all touches reported by the digitizer reliably. The new build handles input from serial and parallel/hybrid digitizer more robustly.
We encourage you to use this update, especially if you are building applications that will run on Windows 7 touch enabled PCs. With the Microsoft® Surface® 2.0 SDK, you can easily create applications to take advantage of the next generation Surface computing device. The applications you create can be adapted for other Windows 7 touch-enabled devices as well.
You can find the bits at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26716
Last week we brought you the exclusive unboxing of the Riley RU8 and our exclusive review of the Riley CP30 Storage Processor. Today we bring you our exclusive review of the Riley SU8 Storage Unit.
![UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-Wind[3]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/UWHS-Review-Tranquil-PC-Riley-Wind3.jpg?ssl=1 "UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-Wind[3]")
This is how Tranquil describe the Riley server:
The Riley Server is possibly the finest server design ever created, it is now available. Hewn from a single billet of aerospace grade aluminium, and then hand finished to a soft satin texture, the Riley SU8 is simple and beautiful.
From their website:
Tranquil PC, a UK based family company, was formed in the early part of 2003, by Managing Director, David Thompson. David is a passionate designer and entrepreneur, who has always committed his time and invested his skills into developing innovative products and building business to supply new markets. He started his first business at 16 years of age and went on to win the prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise in 1982. Tranquil PC is now a world leader in the field of low energy IT systems. The move to brand new premises in 2007, and the appointment of new technical / sales staff has broadened the range of products and services offered.
The box is very well packaged, and comes in a very sturdy black box and everything is seated nicely inside.
![UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-Wind[5]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/UWHS-Review-Tranquil-PC-Riley-Wind5.jpg?ssl=1 "UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-Wind[5]")
Along with the Riley SU8 there is power supply and an eSATA cable.
![UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-SU8-[12]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/UWHS-Review-Tranquil-PC-Riley-SU8-12.jpg?ssl=1 "UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-SU8-[12]")
![UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-SU8-[16]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/UWHS-Review-Tranquil-PC-Riley-SU8-16.jpg?ssl=1 "UWHS-Review---Tranquil-PC-Riley-SU8-[16]")
A really good way to test various Microsoft software offerings is with a TechNet subscription. You get a number of licences per product to test. Now Microsoft are reducing this number!
From February onwards, Microsoft will only provide 3 licences per Office product and 3 licences per Operating System product.
I assume this is to combat the misuse of TechNet for people wanting cheap software licences. The conditions for using TechNet licences are supposed to be for testing purposes, in a non-production environment and only for the duration of the TechNet subscription.
However, most people just buy a TechNet subscription and get access to multiple copies of everything often at a cheaper price than buying a single licence, and there really is no way for Microsoft to check up on the use.
Do you have a TechNet subscription? How do you feel about this change.
Earlier in the week we told you that Apple had released OS X 10.7.3, however there have been problems so Apple have now removed the update and are offering a different download.
The update seems to have caused some CUI issues and also some application crashing issues. Personally I haven’t experienced those problems so far, but if Apple have removed the download from their update servers and have offered a manual download then it’s worth taking notice.
Download the combine 10.7.3 update from here
The guys over at the BYOB podcast, including our very own Tim Daleo have just released episode 76.
Here is what is included in this weeks show:
[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]AMD Hondo, iHomeserver, D-Link DAP-1522, Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB, and Raspberry Pie?[/box]
As usual you can listen to the show from here.
It’s time for another one of our giveaways – this time our friends at Fractal Design have given us an Array R2 case to giveaway to one lucky reader.
We reviewed the Array R2 case last year, and we loved it. You can check our our review here.
So what do you need to do then?
This one is simple, all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is:
1 – Like UWHS’s Facebook page
2 – Like Fractal Design’s Facebook page
3 – Visit the giveaway event page and post a short comment and then click “ATTENDING”/”GOING” to confirm your entry.
And that’s it – very simple!
The giveaway will end at 4pm (UK time) on Saturday 11th February 2012, and the winner will be announced soon after.
This giveaway is open to everyone – Fractal will ship the Array R2 anywhere in the world.
Our usual competition rules apply.
And a very big thank you to our friends at Fractal for the case.
Good luck!
Last month we told you about iBooks 2 for iPad, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. Now Apple have updated the app.
This is what Apple said about iBooks 2 last month:
iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, don’t weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore℠ with most priced at $14.99 or less, and with the new iBooks Author, a free authoring tool available today, anyone with a Mac® can create stunning iBooks textbooks.
“Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”
The new iBooks 2 app is available today as a free download from the App Store. With support for great new features including gorgeous, full screen books, interactive 3D objects, diagrams, videos and photos, the iBooks 2 app will let students learn about the solar system or the physics of a skyscraper with amazing new interactive textbooks that come to life with just a tap or swipe of the finger. With its fast, fluid navigation, easy highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, plus lesson reviews and study cards, the new iBooks 2 app lets students study and learn in more efficient and effective ways than ever before.
iBooks 2.0.1 addresses an issue where iBooks textbooks may not open.
iBooks 2 is available now for free in the App Store
Last month Apple launched an app called iBooks Author, which enables anyone to create a book for the iPad. There was immediate uproar because of issues with EULA. Now Apple have changed it!
The issue seemed to be the wording in the EULA which implied that Apple owned the content created to anything created using iBooks. That’s kind of like say that Microsoft own the content to my books because I wrote them using Word!
Now that it appears to have been resolved, I might consider publishing some of my current, and possibly future books there.
This release provides an updated version of the End User License Agreement.
Download iBooks Author from the App Store now