Latest news on Microsoft licensing, Cloud, and AI
I’ve recently started contributing articles to www.windows7center.com, so feel free to head over there and see what else they’ve got going on 🙂
It’s almost exclusively Windows 7 focused (as the name suggests) and has got some great articles on screenshots, XP Mode etc.
The Windows 7 kernel has a new feature called “Safe Unlinking”, to help increase security and prevent vulnerabilities known as pool overrun attacks. This will make the experience of using Windows 7 faster, more reliable and above all, safer by making it harder for people to launch these attacks.
It sits in the memory allocation section of the kernel and performs a series of checks to detect memory corruption, and potential pool overrun attacks. This is the latest in a succession of new security features that MS have been adding over the last few years including:
Peter Beck, from Microsoft’s Security Research & Defense team says:
“This simple check blocks the most common exploit technique for pool overruns. It doesn’t mean pool overruns are impossible to exploit, but it significantly increases the work for an attacker”.
What is an overrun attack?
Wikipedia explains it as:
“Memory (on the heap) is dynamically allocated by the application at run-time and typically contains program data. Exploitation is performed by corrupting this data in specific ways to cause the application to overwrite internal structures such as linked list pointers.”
Safe Unlinking will also help improve the reliability of Windows 7 by performing a Bug Check as soon as an overrun is detected, which will prevent further memory corruption, crashes and errors.
More detailed technical information can be found on the MS Security Research & Defense blog here.
To mark the “anniversary” of Windows 7 Multi-Touch, (AKA Windows Touch) being discussed at the D: All Things D conference in 2008, Microsoft have released the Windows 7 Touch Pack. This is a set of 6 multi-touch enabled apps that will be available with Windows 7; it is comprised of 3 games and 3 MS Surface applications.
Microsoft Surface Globe: This is based on the Virtual Earth 3D engine and, using multi-touch, allows users to navigate different area of the globe as well as getting local info and “pinning” top locations. A demo video can be found here.
Microsoft Surface Collage: Users can arrange photos with their fingertips to create personalised desktop backgrounds.
Microsoft Surface Lagoon: A screensaver that supports multi-touch interaction. “Ripple” the water with your fingers or watch fish gather around as you press down.
Microsoft Blackboard: A game which may also educate! In this physics based teaser, users must arrange various gears, fans and levers to move objects towards the finish.
Microsoft Rebound: A touch based, electrified version of air hockey that can be played online.
Microsoft Garden Pond: A modern version of a Zen garden, this app allows you to guide your Origami creations around the peaceful ponds and pools with your fingers.
It will be up to the OEM’s whether they include some, all or none of these applications however, following general availability of Windows 7, Microsoft will look to expand this.
Some may see these a great features, some may see them as nothing but filler but if nothing else, they do a great job of showing how clean, easy and fresh multi-touch application can be on Windows 7.
You can see even more over at the Windows Team Blog.
That’s right folks, the beta of Microsoft’s MyPhone is open to everyone-go and sign up here.
I’ve been using it for a couple of months and it’s pretty much excellent It’s a great way to keep a backup of Office files and photo’s- as well as text messages. I also find it useful for getting items from my phone to my pc when I can’t find my USB cable, which seems to be most of the time 🙂 It will really come in to it’s own when you get a new phone and you have a nice easy way to quickly import your texts etc.
It’s biggest drawback in my eyes is it’s 200MB storage limit, that makes it no real use for music and transferring MP3’s and WMA’s is where I’d love to use it most. This could easily be overcome by using the Hotmail SkyDrive as a storage pool-giving us all 25GB 🙂 As it was originally called “SkyBox”-that link could still be a possibility…
I just saw this on Digg and it is awesome-a handy flow chart style guide to the Star Trek films.
*Click image to make it bigger.
Having re-watched Insurrection at the weekend, I definitely agree that this chart works!
Props to www.lukemckinney.org for this 🙂
Apple have finally got aruond to attacking Microsoft’s very successful “Laptop Hunters” campaign, in the new Mac vs PC advert.
As usual, it’s based on half truth’s and hyperbole (at best) but we all know what to expect from these ads by now 🙂 My questions is-do these ads really work…in the true sense that they convert people from buying PC’s to Macs, as I don’t think they do!
I can’t find a version I can embed so here’s the link to Engadget’s site:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/video-apple-responds-to-microsofts-laptop-hunters/
A few more bits of info about Sharpeoint 2010 have come out of TechEd through blogs and tweets.
The 2 big ones are:
Groove is to be renamed “Sharepoint Workspace Manager”. I think this will help drive an increase in people using this technology as currently, most people don’t know that Groove & Sharepoint can be used together.
Sharepoint 2010 is going to be 64bit only-and will require a wholly 64bit environment I.e. “64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 to run. It also will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005”.
Another point is that it won’t support Internet Explorer 6 but will be “targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems”.
All info via Mary Jo Foley
This morning man people, Engadget & Gizmodo included, saw tweets from @officethemovie claiming that:
and this got people all across the internet excited, but not everyone was convinced. Gizmodo expressed their distrust here and it turns out they were right-the account is actually run by a Mac fanboy who is, in some bizarre way, trying to highlight iphone piracy…ah well…I think we all knew those tweets weren’t real…deep down!
One thing that does confuse me a little is that Gizmodo say that the offical http://www.office2010themovie.com/ page was linking to the afore mentioned twitter account, but I don’t see how that could be the case. MS do link to the official @office2010movie account…is it just people confusing the 2 similar account names…or were MS somehow fooled too?!
At today’s TechEd, Microsoft revealed that Windows 7 will be available “by the holiday period” (so by Xmas); this was their first public announcement that Windows 7 will be with us in 2009, rather than early 2010.
Microsoft TechEd 2009 today saw the official launch of the Office 2010 Technical Preview program; it’s invitation only but you can add yourself to the waiting list here. I did earlier so hopefully I’ll get the chance to have an early look at the new version of some of my favourite apps 🙂
To get more of a feel for what’s coming, check out:
http://www.office2010themovie.com/
and the official blog here.
Cheers to Steve Clayton for the waiting list link too!
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 
