Microsoft @ E3 Brings New Xbox, “Kinect”

During Microsoft’s keynote today at E3, the majority of it were game demos (Fable III, Gears of War 3, Halo: Reach, MGS, etc..). But if you stuck it through to the end, there were  a few big announcements.

-Project Natal will be available for sale November 4, and is branded as “Kinetic”. There will be 15 titles at launch such as Sonic Freeride and Biggest Loser.

-Kinetic will allow you to voice control your Xbox, and Zune (and messenger) integration will be standard in a new firmware update.

-New Xbox! The New “Slim Xbox” is $299, and features a bigger hard drive (250GB) and built in Wi-Fi. It’s new design is a little more aggressive and angle-stlyled.

IE 9 Hopes to Redeem Older Versions

Microsoft is not known for it’s amazing browser code skill. In fact, they’ve become laughable at their tries at a new IE. Yet they’ve announced IE9 and hope to redeem their mistakes with a fresh-from-the-over browser.

IE9 will include HTML5 support (including video), hardware-accelerated 2D graphics, and a new JavaScript engine.

Note: Windows XP isn’t supported— Love, Microsoft.

Gizmodo says it’ll support:

• h.264 video: When people talk about HTML5 killing Flash, this is what they’re talking about. Some video sites, like YouTube and Vimeo, have been experimenting with video playback that doesn’t require a plugin to play. h.264 is the format standard the big sites have chosen to go with, and now Internet Explorer will support it.

• Embedded Audio: Just as the video tag allows for video to be embedded directly into a page without a plugin, the audio tag allows audio files to be embedded straight into the page. IE9 supports MP3/AAC codecs.

• Scalable Vector Graphics: Scalable vector graphics allow for the creation of certain types of graphics that scale perfectly—because they’re drawn as vectors, not plain images. It can also allow for rudimentary, Flash-style animations.

• CSS3: CSS is essentially what the web is formatted with, and Internet Explorer’s various CSS compatibilities have been maddening since, well, forever. IE9 supports more standards-based CSS3—including Selectors, Namespaces, Color, Values, Backgrounds and Borders and fonts—and should support more before launch. They’re finally trying, is the point.

Overall, everything seems smoother, and faster. Could this be the browser they’ve been praying for?

Steve Ballmer Introduces HP Slate w/ Windows 7

Steve Ballmer gave his keynote today at CES, and while calling upon many antics to lighten up the news, he still had quite a few technical problems.

Anyway, he also demoed a new tablet device! The HP designed device will carry Windows 7 on board, and will be “almost as fast as a mainstream computer, and will be much faster than any smart phone.” The exact specifications are unclear, but we can tell you that the device seems to be a touch bigger than an ebook reader. Here’s a little preview:

One Comment to End the Mac/PC Flamewar

“PCs are better than Macs!” or “PCs don’t copy from Mac!” are two very common phrases used by the PC community, but it seems that Microsoft has let the cat out of the bag, and admitted copying the Mac OS for Windows 7.

A group manager at Microsoft, Mr. Aldous, sat down for a long talk with PCR. Blah blah blah was just about the just of it, until he was asked if Windows 7 was “really a much more agile operating system”. This is what he had to say:

“One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use. What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.”

Afterwords he slammed OSX for stability issues (?) of course.