A short while ago, we saw a beautiful unofficial 3D render of the Xbox One courtesy of Sketchfab, and to accompany that, Microsoft has delivered some insight into the design of its upcoming console in a new video posted to YouTube. The clip, which is entitled “Xbox One and Design” looks at how the aesthetics of the Xbox One came about, and how, in turn, the Kinect 2 and Xbox One Controller were also crafted in its image to create a very uniform product line.
Microsoft's Xbox One is a fairly good looking device. Yes, granted, it is a little bit set-top boxy for some people's liking, but all told, it will make a nice aesthetic impression on most living rooms. Some unofficial renders of the machine have just popped up on Sketchfab, and if you fancy taking a closer look at the forthcoming Microsoft console, now you can. Bear in mind, these are not endorsed officially by Microsoft, but since Xbox LIVE's Larry Hryb a.k.a. Major Nelson tweeted about the designs, they've at least been dealt an air of legitimacy.
Three major additions to Windows 8.1 may be enough to make some of the Windows 8 holdouts make the switch to a new version of of the Microsoft operating system.
The battle of the next-gen consoles is really hotting up, and both Microsoft and Sony will be vying for the attentions of the gaming faithful come the end of this year. In fact, the fight to secure the interests of gamers worldwide is already in full swing, with Sony having announced the PlayStation 4 back in February, and the announcement of the Xbox One last week finally put a name and a face to the plans of Redmond-based Microsoft. While some key details remain a mystery at this point in time, we now have a general idea of what to expect, and designer Ralph Cifra has put together a nice little infographic based on the information currently known.
Dropbox may all but have the online storage race sewn up, but Microsoft's got a little service of its own that it likes to think of as a real competitor to Google's dominance – Drive. SkyDrive may not be on the tip of everyone's tongue when talking about places to store data in the cloud, but with 7GB of free space from the get-go, they perhaps should be.
One of the highlights of Google's I/O, particularly for those with an affinity to Samsung-made devices, was the news that a variant of the flagship Galaxy S4 would be arriving on stock Android, bypassing all the crap additional extras Samsung likes to bundle therein. Now, rumor has it that HTC could be planning a similar move with its flagship ‘One’ smartphone, which currently ships with an overlay of bloatware including Sense 5 and the divisive BlinkFeed. The report, if true, would certainly appease the purists who like a 'clean slate' of Android when they purchase a new device, and given how unconfirmed sales figures have placed the HTC One in a strong position against the Korean company's latest and greatest (selling one unit for every two Galaxy S4s), it's a move that would help the Taiwanese vendor keep tabs on its strongest rival.
Microsoft it seems left interesting features and details out of its big Xbox One reveal earlier this week, and we're not just talking about how the machine will handle all this used game palava. Microsoft's been accused of leaving out some of the more intricate details of the Xbox One, but according to one report it would appear that it also left some pretty big features out of its announcement event, too.
Microsoft only recently announced its Xbox One game console, and while we still don't actually know when exactly is the machine actually going to be available for purchase, we do now know what its games will look like. Or more accurately, we know what the boxes belonging to those games will look like.
It may have taken twelve months from announcement to reality, but Microsoft's Surface Pro has finally gone on sale in the UK today. Microsoft announced a few weeks ago that a collection of countries would see the Surface Pro arrive by the end of May. Today, it was the UK's turn and Microsoft is celebrating by devoting the company's UK website's home page to the new tablet.
Historically, PC gamers have lauded it over their console playing counterparts, claiming that their hugely expensive graphics cards are light-years ahead of the latest and greatest console hardware. It's the way it's always been, and it's made it possible for some truly impressive PC gaming graphics.

