So, what has been foreshadowed and rumored over the past couple of months was recently officially announced by Microsoft in yet another fairly lengthy post on the Building Windows 8 blog: The company will be ditching the Windows Live brand. The products will continue to exist, of course, but they will no longer be under the umbrella of the Windows Live branding; instead, everything will be unified through what is called a Microsoft Account, formerly known as a Windows Live ID. We'll have SkyDrive, Hotmail, and Messenger as services, which will be accessible on Windows 8 via the SkyDrive, Mail, and Messaging apps, respectively (this begs the question; is the future bleak for the actual Windows Live Messenger client?)
Microsoft has recently outlined its intention to push the Xbox + Kinect combo to as broad an audience as possible with its recently-introduced subscription package, and now rumor has it that a dashboard update will offer a cross-application exercise tracking implementation of some description.
Ever since the Kinect was released, people immediately began to see that the technology's potential extended far beyond gaming. A pretty extensive homebrew community surrounding the Kinect developed, eventually gaining support even from Microsoft. That's not surprising, however, given the plethora of cool stuff developed. And, speaking of cool stuff developed to bring the Kinect to new heights, a research team at the Human Media Lab of Canada's Queen's University led by professor Roel Vertegaal developed an insane 360-degree display called the Telepod. Basically, the primary function of the Telepod is to create a 3D hologram that slightly livens up videoconferencing.
One of the most popular aspects of previous versions of the Windows operating system has to be the inclusion of Media Center which provided a rich multimedia experience to users. The news that the new Windows 8 OS won't come bundled with Media Center may have filtered down to prospective purchasers, but for those who were a little disappointed with that may be a little perturbed to find out that it isn't the only part of the Windows media experience that is missing in action.
With Samsung having only just announced the juicy details of its Samsung Galaxy S III, it arguably takes pride of place as the poster child of Android (sorry, HTC One X), thus instantly drawing comparisons with the flagship devices of the two other major mobile ecosystems.
Facebook's eye-watering $1 billion acquisition of Instagram last month shocked many, but certainly outlined its intentions to reign supreme in the increasingly popular socio-image market.
Although Windows Phone received a much-welcome boost from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, it's fair to say, in terms of smartphone news, Microsoft's mobile platform doesn't really get in amongst the exciting end of the scale. In a refreshing turn up for the books, however, one particular Windows Phone enthusiast has modded his Nokia Lumia 800 to enable wireless charging.
It was one of the first games released along with the original Xbox, and Halo has remained one of the most popular franchises in the gaming industry ever since.
It's certainly been a busy last few days for Microsoft. After showcasing the impressive cloud service SkyDrive, as well as announcing the Release Preview of the Windows 8 OS, Microsoft's Security Essentials package has been updated to version 4.0, and is now ready for download.
In the time period that has elapsed since Microsoft acquired Skype from its previous owners, its fair to say that the Redmond-based company was planning on making some changes to the service and stamping their own seal onto it before going forward. While we are yet to hear of any radical changes for the way in which the service operates, or any new additional user features, Microsoft has developed and released a Windows Phone Skype app, and has today announced that Sony's new portable gaming device - the PS Vita - will also be given the Skype treatment.
