Microsoft is going through an extremely busy schedule at the minute with their next major release of Windows about to hit the marketplace on October 26th, as well as their much-anticipated Surface tablet slated for a first public outing on the same day. The old saying of there's no rest for the wicked definitely applies here, as it turns out that the Redmond-based software giants are also hard at work on producing mobile versions of the Office suite for iOS and Android users.
The Windows 8 advertising campaign is like London buses at the minute; you wait patiently to see what Microsoft will launch to promote their new software only to find that four different video-based adverts have leaked at the same time. Only a couple of weeks are left until Windows 8 officially drops for the masses, and while the technology elite know a lot about the gorgeous new OS thanks to pre-release versions and keeping on top of the news, the general public may be non-the-wiser about what Microsoft is bringing with this latest offering.
With the official Windows 8 release date looming closer, it looks like Microsoft is making some changes to the way digital media is purchased in the OS, a move that will likely appease a lot of potential customers and make acquiring additional content a lot easier to understand. In the past, Microsoft adopted a Points system as their preferred method of allowing users of their products to purchase additional content through their various stores, meaning that customers have to exchange cash for s bundles of points, which can then be used to grab things like movies and music. That is all set to change with Microsoft phasing the Points system out in Windows 8.
Users who want to complete their gadget collection with a tablet-type device will more than likely opt for the iPad, the fantastic Nexus 7 or choose to purchase one of the Amazon Kindle Fire offerings. The tablet space is packed with a whole range of devices but only a handful are really powerful and capable units, but if Microsoft has anything to do with it then their upcoming Surface tablet will break into that category fairly soon.
The launch of the Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft, along with all the associated devices, has always been at the back of the mind of the tech enthusiast. In the height of a summer which has seen the release of many fantastic products, October 26th has always seemed like such a long way away, but halfway through the first week of this monumentally-significant month for the software maker and tech as a whole, everything has started to become just that little bit more real.
Information concerning Xbox Music has been leaking continually over the past couple of weeks, and it has been unofficially confirmed that the Redmond company's streaming music service will be arriving on October 26th - the very same day when Windows 8 is made available to public.
Fans of Microsoft's Xbox Music Pass appear to be in luck, if they also plan on picking up one of the new Windows Phone 8 devices that will be hitting the streets shortly. The Windows Phone 8 hype is beginning to reach a whole new level of, well, hype. We're not too far away from new smartphones packing Windows Phone 8 reaching stores, and we're still learning new and somewhat interesting things about what features will and will not make their way into those handsets.
With many still savoring the announcements of the iPhone 5, it wasn't so long ago Apple announced another significant addition to its vast range of products - the MacBook Pro with Retina display. Having gone through a bunch of run-of-the-mill enhancements to the existing MacBook Air and Pro models, the Retinized notebook served as that exciting "one last thing" at WWDC '12, and although its sky-high price put quite a few consumers off, there was no shortage of consumers snapping up the sharpest-displaying notebook on the planet.
According to multiple publications, Microsoft has internally signed off Windows Phone 8 as “code complete” or, in more formal terms, released to manufacturing (RTM). Check out the details after the jump.
If you happen to be a Windows user, then you will probably understand some of the issues that come attached with using the touch sensitive pads on laptops and notebooks. Instead of using a dedicated mouse, a lot of users rely solely on the embedded trackpads to navigate through their applications and the file system. In theory that's all well and good, but more often than not the reality of the situation is entirely different with hardware manufacturers doing a pretty poor job of bringing a decent feature set to their navigation pads.
