Tech Today w/ Ken May

The Windows Live branding that Microsoft has used since 2005 for its range of consumer-oriented cloud services will fade away over the next few months , as the company positions the online services as an integral, integrated part of the Windows experience. This integration includes the ability to log on to Windows using a Microsoft Account (formerly known as a Windows Live ID), and the automatic configuration of the mail, messaging, and contact applications using information from the Microsoft Account. “Windows Live” is currently used both for the services themselves, and the corresponding desktop applications that access them. Microsoft has historically gone back and forth on how this branding is used; Hotmail, for example, has had its name changed from Hotmail to Windows Live Hotmail, then back to Hotmail again; its desktop application counterpart is Windows Live Mail. Even the domain names used by the services show this same inconsistency: logging on at hotmail.com will take you to a mail.live.com domain. The new branding will introduce uniformity; although many of the services will continue to use live.com domains, their names will exclude any hint of the Live branding. With this change, the Windows Live Essentials application bundle will go away. Microsoft first announced Windows Live Essentials in 2008 , with the first release coming alongside Windows 7. The intent was to decouple the applications—including Mail, Messenger, Movie Maker, and Photo Gallery—from Windows itself, so that they could be regularly updated on their own timetable. Most of the applications themselves will live on, but in Windows 8 (and Windows Phone) they are pre-installed apps, rather than a separate package. The Windows Live Writer blogging software, however, was not mentioned. Though never wildly popular, it remains much loved by its users. It is, however, something of an anomaly, as it no longer has a corresponding online service: Microsoft closed down its blogging platform, Windows Live Spaces, last year. Read the comments on this post

MrSeb writes “Details of a new, ultra-compact computer form factor from Intel, called the Next Unit of Computing (NUC) are starting to emerge. First demonstrated at PAX East at the beginning of April, and Intel’s Platinum Summit in London last week, NUC is a complete 10x10cm (4x4in) Sandy Bridge Core i3/i5 computer. On the back, there are Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB 3.0 ports. On the motherboard itself, there are two SO-DIMM (laptop) memory slots and two mini PCIe headers. On the flip side of the motherboard is a CPU socket that takes most mobile Core i3 and i5 processors, and a heatsink and fan assembly. Price-wise, it’s unlikely that the NUC will approach the $25 Raspberry Pi, but an Intel employee has said that the price will ‘not be in the hundreds and thousands range.’ A price point around $100 would be reasonable, and would make the NUC an ideal HTPC or learning/educational PC. The NUC is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2012.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to an indictment unsealed this week, the four alleged members of the BitTorrent movie release group IMAGiNE have now been charged with one count of “Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Copyright Infringement,” four counts of “Criminal Copyright Infringement,” and one count of “Distribution of a Work Being Prepared for Commercial Distribution.” Each count brings a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison. The group, which TorrentFreak called “one of the P2P scene’s most prominent release groups,” was busted up by federal authorities in September 2011 . It is not very common for BitTorrent-related groups to be busted up with federal criminal charges brought against them. Court documents filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia report that the lead defendant, Jeramiah B. Perkins (aliases: “Butch Perkins,” “Stash,” and “theestas”) was arrested and then released on bail on Monday. The other defendants are Gregory Cherwonik, 53, of New York, Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady, 27, of California. Read the comments on this post

Sometimes a table says a thousand words. Now that Google has finally announced its cloud service, Google Drive , we’re sure more than a few of you are crunching the numbers in your head in an attempt to figure which is the best deal. Far be it for us to tell you which service to use when we’ve barely had a chance to poke around Drive, but for now, better if we lay out those gigabytes and dollars in number form, rather than squeeze them into a crowded paragraph, don’tcha think? Follow past the break for a brief breakdown of what you’ll get from Google, along with Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive and iCloud. Continue reading Google Drive vs. the competition: pricing plans and perks, compared Google Drive vs. the competition: pricing plans and perks, compared originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink    |   |  Email this  |  Comments

More than three months after releasing software for Windows-users to send documents to a Kindle, Amazon has now released the Mac version. Announced on Tuesday afternoon, the ” Send to Kindle for Mac ” application allows Mac users to wirelessly send personal documents to their Kindles via drag-and-drop in the Dock or within the app itself. Users can also send documents to the Kindle by printing from any Mac application. As we wrote in January when the Windows version was released, each Kindle already comes with its own e-mail address so users can send files to themselves. (There’s also an Instapaper mechanism for sending documents to Kindle.) The desktop software aims to make that process easier, however, by eliminating the need to involve an e-mail client (especially convoluted in the case of printing from an app, which would involve printing to PDF and then sending that PDF to your Kindle). Users don’t have to be sending documents to a hardware Kindle either—files can be sent to a Kindle app on a mobile device, too (such as the iPad or an Android phone). According to Amazon, users can also use the Mac software to archive documents in your Kindle library for download later if you don’t want those files to show up and take up space on your device right away. “Your last page read along with bookmarks, notes, and highlights are automatically synchronized for your documents (with the exception of PDFs) across your Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Android,” the company said in a statement. Read the comments on this post

At the Microsoft Management Summit today in Las Vegas, Microsoft officially announced that the next version of Windows Server, previously code-named Windows Server “8 ,” will officially be named Windows Server 2012—and will be released this calendar year. Read the comments on this post

It’s only a matter of time now before we each have our own Holographic Tupac projected in 3D out of our iPhones. Right? Okay, it might be a while before the late rapper becomes my own 3D virtual assistant, but Apple has indirectly revealed that it is working on something related to 3D technology. In a job posting for an iOS Software Engineer (hat tip 9to5 Mac ), the company wrote that it is looking for a “Computer Vision specialist to strengthen its multi-view stereo research group.” The person must have experience dealing with 3D geometry, multiview stereo and 3D construction, mesh texturing techniques, and cameras and surfaces in a 3D environment, among other things. It has been years since we last wrote about Apple job listings, mostly because they are relatively benign and tend to involve technologies that we won’t have in our hands for years to come. This one, however, piqued our interest because of the obvious interest in 3D technology; Apple doesn’t currently offer any products that make clear use of 3D, especially involving iOS. Several Android products have begun to dabble in 3D, however, such as the G-Slate with 3D , HTC Evo 3D, and the LG Optimus 3D . As such, it’s not a reach that Apple is working on its own 3D implementation, but what the end result will be is anyone’s guess at this point. Read the comments on this post