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Amy Hood replaces Peter Klein as Microsoft CFO

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 10:29pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

During last month's fiscal third quarter 2013 earnings call, Microsoft revealed that Peter Klein would step down as chief financial officer. Today, the company announced his replacement: Amy Hood, who currently is CFO of the Business division. She assumed that role in January 2010.

CEO Steve Ballmer describes Hood as an "instrumental leader" who helped "lead the transition to services with Office 365" and to bring strong financial results.

"I'm excited to step into this role and look forward to working closely again with our investors and shareholders", she says. "Peter has built a world-class finance team, and I am set up well to continue the company's strong discipline around costs and focus on driving shareholder value".

Hood assumes the CFO position, effective immediately. However, Klein will remain at Microsoft through the end of June, which is the close of the fiscal year.

Proven Record

Microsoft currently operates five product groups, with Business being most successful. For example, the division generated $6.32 billion in revenue and $4.1 billion profit during fiscal Q3. Business brings in more sales than any other Microsoft division, even Windows. The point: Being CFO there is no less than many independent companies.

During her tenure, Hood played pivotal roles in two big Business division acquisitions: Skype (May 2010; $8.5 billion) and Yammer (June 2010; $1.2 billion) -- skills, among others, she will need in her new role.

Microsoft also rolled out Office 365 on Hood's watch. From a financial perspective, the subscription service risks much, while promising great rewards. Already about 60 percent of Business division revenue comes from annuity licensing contracts, which are like subscriptions in how they're paid for.

Subscribe for Life

The move to the real deal will change how some small businesses acquire the productivity suite and companion server software, while moving the consumer market from discreet purchases every few years to paying Microsoft on regular schedules. Like annuity contracts, subscriptions promise to smooth out the company's revenue and insulate against economic downturns or highs and lows between new product releases.

Subscriptions are the software giant's future. Microsoft's Clint Patterson said as much yesterday: "We think subscription software-as-a-service is the future. The benefits to consumers are huge".

But subscriptions challenge some of the metrics Wall Street analysts typically use to gauge a company's health, and they can mystify smaller investors. Already, Microsoft carries huge sums of "unearned revenue" on the balance sheet related to annuity licenses. Hood inherits responsibility for managing both categories and communicating context to investors.

Great Timing

Klein exits at a good time -- ditto for Hood's entrance. At close of market today, Microsoft's stock was up about 25 percent from January, reaching a 52-week high of $33.91 on Monday. Recent results are strong, too. For the first nine months of fiscal 2013, the company generated $58.1 billion revenue and $16.91 billion net profit.

openSUSE Education says 'get a Li-f-e'

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 9:25pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

If Linux is good enough for the International Space Station, why not your school computers? The developers over at openSUSE must think so, today releasing Li-f-e (Linux for Education) 12.3-1.

I confess to not being familiar enough with Linux (go ahead, beat me with a stick -- or with words in comments). But a reader complained this week about BetaNews' rather absent coverage of the open-source operating system. He's absolutely right about that. Reporters here tend to write about what they use, and we don't have a Linux lover currently on staff. Please pardon my light treatment of the news, in place of someone more qualified.

Minimum hardware requirements are 1GB of RAM and 15GB storage. openSUSE doesn't state processor. You can install from a USB stick, which should take about 40 minutes. Burning the ISO to DVD means longer installation time. I assume, and someone correct me if wrong, Li-f-e 12.3.1 should be fine on a netbook or laptop with smaller-size SSD. Breathe new life into that aging XP PC, baby. Of course, you can run the software from a virtual machine, if preferred.

"This first release is based on openSUSE 12.3 with all the official updates applied", Lars Vogdt, openSUSE Services Team leader, says. "Li-f-e incorporates latest stable versions of all popular desktop environments such as KDE, Gnome and Cinnamon, it includes wide range of softwares catering to the needs of everyone, selection from openSUSE Education repository, multimedia from the Packman repository, development tools, KIWI-LTSP allowing normal PC or diskless thin clients to network boot from a server running Li-f-e and lot more".

Supported software -- much, but not all included with Li-f-e -- includes (but there's more):

Chemtool --2D drawing organic molecules
KSimus -- electrical circuit simulations
Plutimikation -- math learning for kids
QCAD -- 2D CAD
XaoS -- fractal generation

You can download openSUSE Edu Li-f-e 12.3-1 from Fileforum. There also is a 64-bit version part of SUSE Studio. But the "64-bit edition has not gone through rigorous QA", Vogdt warns.

Unroll.Me rids your inbox of unwanted subscriptions

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 8:24pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for subscriptions. I subscribe to receive periodic emails with the latest discounts for tech gear, car news or any other bits of useful information (well, at least to me). Maybe there's something nice out there that I want to know about. But because the emails keep coming in at different times of the day, going through each and every one would be a waste of time.

Cloud service Unroll.Me promises to solve the problem of subscription overload by allowing its users to wrap those emails into one big daily digest. Although the unsubscribe option is also available, the idea is to give folks the ability to actually make the best of the stuff that keeps coming in without, likely, losing track of vacation deals or the latest social updates.

At the moment, Unroll.Me is only compatible with Gmail including Google Apps for Business (uses Oauth) and Yahoo! (uses IMAP). The team behind the project, however, says that AOL and other email service integration is coming, although there is no clear ETA as to when that will happen. So how does it work?

After the user logs in, Unroll.Me goes through the inbox looking for subscriptions. Once the cloud service finds the corresponding emails, it presents the user with two options: Add to rollup (combine subscriptions into one daily digest) and Unsubscribe.

Users can choose when and how to receive the bulk emails -- in the morning, afternoon or evening and in grid or list view -- as well as manage the rollup and re-subscribe in case of a change of heart -- still want that vacation deal? Unroll.Me can also automatically add new emails to the rollup, an option that should be enabled by default.

The cloud service will create an email folder once the first rollup arrives and allows the users to view the batch of subscriptions by category (like everything, entertainment or social).

Unroll.me is quite easy to use even for inexperienced users and features a pretty slick design. The only thing that I miss right now is email service integration with Outlook.com.

iPhone 5 brings T-Mobile back to life

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 7:03pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

I'm not sure who does whom the bigger favor -- Apple or T-Mobile USA. The nation's fourth-largest carrier started selling iPhone 5 in stores April 12 (preorders a week earlier) and today reports 500,000 sold to date. T-Mobile also added 100,000 previous iPhone owners (presumably the majority from AT&T based on network types). The carrier also sells iPhone 4 and 4S but kept the big news to the 5.

Half-million new iPhones sales is just what Apple needs, too, with the U.S. smartphone market rapidly saturating. Apple is the country's leader, with 39 percent subscriber share in March, according to comScore. Samsung follows with 21.7 percent share. T-Mobile's contribution is sure to lift iPhone against rivals, when April numbers release.

iPhone is part of a four-prong strategy to revive T-Mobile. Second is MetroPCS merger, which was official May 1. Network expansion -- massive 4G LTE rollout -- is the third. Then there is Simple Choice, a no-nonsense contract-free plan, where subscribers pay less upfront for the phone than other carriers followed by 24 payments. There is also the option to buy phones outright.

T-Mobile does not sell phones unlocked, something you might not expect from the marketing. A store representative told me yesterday that unlock codes typically are issued after 45 days, except for handsets purchased outright. Code comes within hours.

The carrier hopes that iPhone and the new "un-carrier" plan will revive subscriber losses. The company's bigger success is prepaid customers, for whom Simple Choice may resonate. During Q1, T-Mobile added 202,000 branded prepaid customers, the seventh consecutive quarter of gains. However, postpaid subscribers fell by a net 199,000, which is actually a 61 percent improvement -- meaning the artery isn't gushing quite as much blood. Pink -- or should that be Magenta -- gained just 3,000 branded subscribers. While small number, behind are big implications: First growth in 3 years.

Many carriers let prepaid customers bring their own devices, a strategy that worked well for T-Mobile when its network didn't fully support iPhone and promises to be better now that the handset is official. Simple Choice lets people bring their own unlocked devices to a postpaid service that starts at $50 per month for unlimited text, talk and web -- the latter is high-speed for just the first 500MB of data. There is no contractual commitment.

For people buying phones, T-Mobile courts the budget-minded -- those worrying what they'll pay upfront and on a monthly basis. For example, iPhone 5 is $99.99 upfront and 24 $20 monthly payments -- or $579.99 outright. Full price through Apple or big-three carriers: $649. The 32GB is $199.99 and the 64 gigger $299.99 upfront and 24 monthly payments, or $679.99 and $779.99 outright, respectively, from T-Mobile. Upfront price from Apple and the big three: $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB), $399 (64GB). Full price: $749 and $849.

When the phone is paid off, the T-Mobile bill goes down by $20 a month. With, say, AT&T, the bill stays the same after the contract commitment is complete. Meaning: Subscribers pay a subsidized phone price premium, whether or not they have a contract. Last week, I got my first full T-Mobile bill: $161, compared to $294 for my last bill with AT&T.

Until there is a full quarter, or even two, of iPhone sales and Simply Choice, T-Mobile's bet is uncertain. If the carrier fails, it won't be for want of trying.

Nokia updates Chat and Ringtone Maker for Lumia Windows Phones

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 6:17pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

On Wednesday, Finnish smartphone manufacturer Nokia released two updates for its Chat and Ringtone Maker Windows Phone apps. The changelog lists minor improvements rather than significant enhancements, focusing on expanding the list of supported markets and media formats, respectively.

Nokia Chat for Windows Phone, which comes with Yahoo Messenger integration, is now also available for those in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Finland, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Spain and Venezuela. The text messaging service still doesn't allow users to log in using a Yahoo Messenger handle, so if you plan on using the app to chat you will have to add the necessary contacts manually.

Nokia introduced Chat nearly two weeks ago with support for Lumia users from Australia, Canada, India, Nigeria, South Africa, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.

Ringtone Maker, which is designed to give Lumia users the ability to create ringtones from existing tunes, now supports four new file formats -- AAC, M4A, MWA and WMA -- and sports "other fixes" meant to "improve stability and usability".

Nokia Chat and Ringtone Maker are available to download through Nokia's Beta Labs. A Nokia account is required in order to grab the apps.

Tough luck Windows 8, the international space station is going Linux

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 5:59pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

Some critics (and, oh, there are many) claim Windows 8 is out of this world -- or not meant for it. That Microsoft reached for the stars but fell to earth. How right they may be. The operating system won't achieve escape velocity anytime soon, and an older version is about to burn up on reentry.

The International Space Station, better known as the ISS, runs on Windows, but that is changing. Launched in 1998, the orbiting home, which circles the earth at an altitude of just over 400 kilometers (it varies), is home to a team of astronauts who depend on, not only supplies from home, but also a computer system that keeps everything running smoothly. That computer system is moving to Linux.

This consists of a network of laptops, which provide the ISS crew with all of the vital capabilities needed for day-to-day operations; telling the astronauts where they are, managing inventory of the equipment used and even interfacing with the cameras that capture the photos and videos we all ogle at on the internet.

Linux Foundation says that Keith Chuvala of United Space Alliance, who is tasked with maintaining all of this computer technology, is responsible for the change.

"We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable – one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could", Chuvala says. That has to sting Microsoft just a bit.

Chuvala and his team are utilizing the training offered by the Linux Foundation to get up to speed developing applications in Linux and responded by developing two courses geared specifically towards the USA/NASA team’s needs. The organization claims "both training sessions were adapted to provide tailored instruction for the diverse group".

The next challenge set -- Robonaut (R2) is headed for the ISS. Running on Linux, the robot can be manipulated by onboard astronauts with ground controllers commanding it into position and performing operations.

Oh, and remember those Voyager space crafts? The computer NASA maintains to control them has a master clock that runs at 4 MHz but the CPU’s clock runs at only 250 KHz. At least the ISS does not have that to contend with.

Photo Credit: NASA

DeskIntegrator puts you in control of the right-click menu

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 4:02pm CEST par Mike Williams

Your PC is packed with applications, and you need to be able to launch them at speed. So of course you might start by creating a few shortcuts, and either dropping them on your desktop, and pinning them to the taskbar. It’s simple, and straightforward – but of course it can also quickly become very messy.

If you’d prefer a clean desktop, then, you might be interested in DeskIntegrator’s approach. This compact free tool adds applications to the desktop context menu, and launching them becomes as easy as right-clicking the desktop, and choosing whatever you need from the list.

The program is convenient to use. It’s portable, so there’s no installation: just download, unzip and launch it (as an Administrator), and you’re ready to go. The core process is very similar to creating a shortcut. You’ll enter a title (the name that will appear in the menu), a path (browse to its executable), optionally provide a custom icon. You can choose approximately where your entry will appear in the menu, too -- the top, middle or bottom -- which could be useful if you want to group similar applications together.

When you’re ready, click “Add/Modify” to insert your chosen program. You can then enter the details of another program, or just right-click the desktop to see how your custom context menu is looking.

And if you discover you’ve made a mistake, no problem -- clicking the “Remove Menu” tab displays a list of all your menu customisations (as well as the standard Windows options, and anything added by third-party tools), and allows you to delete whatever you like. This is useful, but you do need to be careful here: there’s no “Are you sure?” prompt after you’ve clicked “Remove”, and if you accidentally delete the standard Windows “Screen resolution” entry, say, there’s no way to bring it back.

DeskIntegrator does have one notable problem. The program absolutely must have administrative rights, and if that doesn’t happen, it handles the situation very poorly. On our PC it displayed a misleading alert about “Registry permissions” before crashing with a .NET error message; not too impressive.

Still, while this is sloppy, it’s easy to avoid: just manually run the program as an administrator when necessary (right-click, select “Run as Administrator”), or configure it to run this way all the time (right-click DeskIntegrator.exe, select Properties > Compatibility and check “Run this program as an Administrator”).

With the rights issue out of the way, though, DeskIntegrator works very well. We’d still try to keep its use to a minimum, just to avoid cluttering the desktop context menu and making it harder to access other entries. But, if you prefer your desktop to have the minimum of visible and pinned shortcuts, then DeskIntegrator just might be able to help.

Photo Credit: ARENA Creative/Shutterstock

Smartphones hold the key to appiness

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 3:54pm CEST par Ian Barker

How are you feeling? If you don't have time to lie on the couch and work through your issues you can now turn to your Android phone to measure your emotional state. Cambridge University researchers have developed an app that combines smartphone data with user perceptions in order to track happiness.

The EmotionSense app collects sensor information from the phone about where you are, how noisy the environment is, and who you’re communicating with. It then combines this data with your answers to questions about how you’re feeling in order to work out your emotional state.

There are other mood tracking apps of course, but the Cambridge team believe this is the first time that user input has been combined with phone information. The app was developed as part of a project to use mobile phones as a means of improving health and wellbeing. It takes about eight weeks to unlock all the sensors and build up a full picture of what influences your moods.

"Behind the scenes, smartphones are constantly collecting data that can turn them into a key medical and psychological tool", Neal Lathia, lead researcher on the project team, explains. "Any smartphone now comes with numerous sensors that can tell you about aspects of your life, like how active you are, or how sociable you have been in the past 24 hours. In the long term, we hope to be able to extract that data so that, for example, it can be used for therapeutic purposes".

The team aims to collect a record of what drives people’s emotions and be able to work out when they’re likely to be at their most stressed. In the future this could lead to phones being used by doctors to routinely monitor patients. Dr Lathia explains: "Most people who see a therapist only have an appointment once every fortnight. Many, however, keep their phones with them most of the time. In terms of sheer presence, mobiles can provide an ongoing link with a person".

The app is available now to download free from the Play Store but to use it you must consent to your data being passed to the researchers. The team is working on versions for other smartphone platforms.

Photo Credit: kaczor58/Shutterstock

Nokia pits Lumia 928 against Galaxy S III and iPhone 5 in video shootout

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 3:19pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

How many memorable video ads about phones have you seen so far? Off the top of my head I can only think of just two recent ones, both released by Microsoft. The first one is from late-October, last year, and features Steve Ballmer discussing his HTC Windows Phone 8X and the second, unveiled little over a week ago, stars the Lumia 920 in an Android vs iOS fanboy war at a wedding.

Both videos are memorable in the sense that they allow us, the viewers, to actually relate to the folks presented in the two scenarios. We are users of different social networks, send and receive emails and messages each day, have friends who are Android or iOS fanboys and so on. Now, by contrast, Nokia's new Lumia 928 video ad is one of the weakest attempts at wooing viewers. It lacks any sort of panache or wit.

The video ad pits the Lumia 928 against Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S III in a low-light video shoot during a carousel ride at Adventureland, in Farmingdale, New York. The first thing that crossed my mind is: "Why is Nokia trying so hard to beat last year's flagships?"

Yes, they are both very popular today but the Galaxy S4 is already here touting better features than its predecessor and the iPhone 5 is nearly eight months old. Is Nokia trying to tell us that it can release a smartphone with a better camera when the competition is close to oblivion? If so then job well done, Nokia.

Upon further and closer inspection, the ad presents a different problem -- when displaying the side-by-side comparisons, the videos shot with the three smartphones are not even synced. This would be fine had this been an amateurish comparison, but it bears Nokia's logo.

The results are obvious -- the Lumia 928 takes the crown.

I tend to take any shootouts coming from the Finnish manufacturer with a grain of salt. Nokia has already screwed things up once by faking a video. Allegedly shot with the Lumia 920, in the ad a professional-grade camera was used instead. Considering how easy it is to manipulate the outcome of any shootout, it sure looks like Nokia could detail the testing procedures a bit.

Quack! Quack! Cyberduck 4.3.1 dumps Google Drive, Dropbox support

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 9:21am CEST par Nick Peers

Swiss cloud-storage browser tool Cyberduck 4.3.1 has been released for Mac and Windows. This open-source tool provides users with a user-friendly means of browsing FTP/SFTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage and Rackspace Cloud Files servers.

Version 4.3.1 builds on the recent 4.3 major update – the program’s first in around 18 months, which improved support for OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, plus expanded support for various services, including S3 and Google Storage. However, support for Dropbox and Google Drive have been dropped alongside Microsoft’s Azure Blob Storage connections.

The Mac build of Cyberduck 4.3.1 gains significant improvements: it adds OS X Mountain Lion Gatekeeper and Notification Center support, enables Application Sandboxing in OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, and extends support to Retina displays.

Two new Bucket locations have been added for S3 servers, namely Sao Paulo (South America) and Sydney (Asia Pacific). Users also gain the ability to set up Qloudstat analytics with a single click across all supported storage providers.

Interoperability with Openstack’s HP Cloud and S3’s Lunacloud Storage has also been implemented alongside website configuration support for Google Storage and Cloudfiles. S3 users gain multi-object delete capabilities, and Cloudfiles users can now edit container metadata. Those connecting to FTP/TLS connections also gain the ability to reuse the Session key on data connection.

A major disappointment, and one which may limit Cyberduck’s appeal to personal users, is the loss of support for both Dropbox and Google Drive storage, presumably due to changes in how each service is accessed.

Version 4.3 also fixed a number of major bugs, including one that caused Cyberduck to hang while editing files in an external editor in OS X 10.8.2. Moving folders no longer deletes the folder in Cloudfiles, while users can now choose Save on Close knowing the changes will be uploaded. Version 4.3.1 added further bug fixes -- primarily for Windows users, including one which saw modification dates all being labelled 01.01.1970.

Cyberduck 4.3.1 is available now as a free, open-source download for Windows and Mac. Users are encouraged to donate to the continued development of the software, or can alternatively purchase it for $23.99 through the Mac App Store.

Photo Credit: Dora Zett/Shutterstock

Ratool protects USB thumb drives

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 8:27am CEST par Mike Williams

USB keys are compact, highly portable and a very convenient way to store and transfer information.

Unfortunately, they also make it extremely easy for others to copy files from a PC without your knowledge. And they can act as carriers for some very nasty viruses. So if you’d like to restrict their use on your system, you might be interested in the new Ratool.

Launch the program and a simple interface presents you with three main options.

Select “Allow Read Only”, for instance, and users will no longer be able to copy files to a USB key. (Try to do so in Explorer and you’ll be told the drive is “write-protected”).

Or, if you don’t want the system to recognize USB drives at all, then you should select “Disable USB Disks Detection”. Plug in a USB key now and it won’t appear in Explorer, or be accessible to your applications.

And the third option is to “Allow Read & Write”: select this if you want to restore normal operations.

If this is all sounding a little familiar, then you’re right, there are plenty of tools around which do more or less the same thing. But, these tend to work by simply applying a few Registry tweaks, and so it’s not difficult to reverse their effects. All another PC user has to do is download a similar “USB manager” themselves, and they’ll be able to turn off your protection in seconds.

Ratool, meanwhile, will by default “lock” its changes, making them much more difficult to remove. We tried this, and sure enough, once Ratool had set our USB access preferences, three similar tools weren’t able to change them back.

If you really want to be secure, there’s even an option to password-protect the program, preventing other users of your system from launching Ratool and restoring their USB access.

And bonus tools include options to disable autorun, show hidden files on your drive, or safely remove it. Which isn’t bad for a single 363KB executable, with no adware or other marketing annoyances.

On balance, then, Ratool really does deliver something more than the usual USB access control freeware. Try it, see for yourself.

Photo Credit: chien321/Shutterstock

Google gives iOS developers a choice, and it ain't mobile Safari

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 7:20am CEST par Joe Wilcox

Just yesterday, I suggested that Gmail for iOS, which new version links to Google apps rather than Safari, might be a bigger deal. Sure enough, is it ever. The search and information giant is hellbent on co-opting Apple's mobile platform by offering superior apps tightly tied to web services. But the strategy depends on Chrome.

Contrary to popular tech convention, Android isn't the future of Google platforms, neither is Chrome OS, nor is an amalgamation of the two. The browser is the go-forward platform of choice. Android and Chrome stand apart, competing with operating systems like iOS and Windows. Chrome can co-opt them and others. The browser is more natural fit for Google services and anchors them anywhere. This is the lesson from March's corporate shake-up that put Android under Sundar Pichai, who leads Chrome and Apps.

But Chrome on iOS was an illegal alien granted temporary visa. Now the browser is a resident alien seeking citizenship and cooperation of other Apple platform immigrants. Gmail's new-found capability -- linking to apps like Maps and YouTube -- foreshadows the future. Google plans to help every Tom, Dick and Jane developer bring anarchy to iOS, by providing means to link to Chrome instead. The strategy is brilliant and unfathomable. How could Apple let the maker of Android get away with something so bold?

Perhaps this is a symptom of the post-Steve Jobs era. Remember, Jobs blocked Adobe Flash, spinning falsehood -- that the tech sucks -- to distract from truth: He didn't want a competing development environment on iOS. Apple's cofounder wanted to control the app platform -- his way and not any other. The tactic made Flash a dirty word across the Internet and ensured the App Store's success, under Jobs' watchful eye.

The platform flourished, consumers got consistent user experiences, apps maintained a reasonably high quality and riffraff found placing malware more challenging compared to many other operating systems.

Chrome is far more dangerous to iOS than Flash, because Google packs development punch and the wherewithal to drive apps -- its own and others -- across multiple operating systems. Packaged Apps are coming, for example, and they will make the browser a pseudo operating system usurping others. Put iOS head of the class.

Michele Aiello, Google software engineer, explains: "As an iOS app developer, when your users want to access web content, you currently have two options: create your own in-app web browser frame, or send users away from your app to a browser". Go ahead and say it. Safari. "With Chrome’s OpenInChromeController class with x-callback, users can open a web page in Chrome and then return to your app with just one tap".

The project isn't new, but suddenly quite believable, looking at what Google demonstrates with Gmail and Aiello's explanation yesterday. And Apple just lets Google strut around iOS like it owns the place. Developers tapping their apps in the Chrome won't flaunt Safari.

Wait! What's that sound? Do you feel the earth tremble? Steve Jobs just rolled over in his grave. I wonder what apparition will visit Apple CEO Tim Cook in dreams tonight.

Enterprise social network Unison targets large teams with 250-user voice chat

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 6:00am CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

After introducing Android and iOS apps, enterprise social network Unison has shifted its focus from mobile handsets to large team collaboration, introducing the ability to voice chat with up to 250 users straight from the browser. The feature is currently available only through the official Chrome app.

Compared to the traditional way of doing things on Unison -- text chatting -- the latest feature allows users and members of large teams to interact in a more personal way. Voice is also more immediate than writing and can trigger a faster response, something which can be helpful when dealing with fast-approaching deadlines or other critical scenarios. In some cases, businesses can also replace the traditional phone conference and, therefore, rely less on other services for basic but essential tasks.

But why provide this feature only through Chrome? "We support the other popular browsers, but we optimize for Chrome and will enable our full audio/video capabilities there -- right inside the browser, with no software or plug-ins required", Unison says.

The enterprise social network also tells me that Chrome users will be able to take advantage of other two new features. Unison says that in the upcoming period desktop notifications as well as one-to-one voice and video chats will be enabled.

These two features will enable Unison users to take their voice and video discussions private and see the latest updates from fellow users without having the browser tab opened in the foreground. That should drive up productivity and enable Unison to better compete against other services such as Yammer.

Windows Blue Public Preview arrives end of June

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 12:56am CEST par Joe Wilcox

That's the word late today from Microsoft. The next version of Windows will be available, as a preview, during Microsoft's BUILD developer conference June 27-29 in San Francisco.

To ship this year, as the company plans, the preview would need to be brief, with release to manufacturing ideally coming by end of August latest. PC makers generally need four to six weeks of testing before qualifying final images. That makes the timetable tight to get Windows Blue on holiday 2013 PCs.

The new version comes as Windows 8 fails to lift PC shipments and some analysts contending the operating system hurts them. "At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market", Bob O'Donnell, IDC vice president, says.

"While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI, removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices", he says. "Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market".

Most analysts cite Microsoft's emphasis on touch and PC manufacturers' inability to bring appropriate models to market as a big problem. Apps selection is one reason.

"Thus far, Windows 8 has had a limited impact on driving touch adoption in notebook PCs, due to a lack of applications needing touch and the high cost of touch on notebook PCs", Richard Shim, NPD DisplaySearch senior analyst, says. He emphasizes: "Form factors aimed at differentiation from standard clamshell notebooks will help to drive consumer adoption of touch-enabled notebook PCs, starting in the second half of 2013".

That said, DisplaySearch and IDC predict touch models will comprise a small number of PC shipments for the foreseeable future. That circumstance leads to much speculation that Microsoft will make the Desktop mode more of a priority in Windows Blue.

My question: What do you want Microsoft to change in Windows Blue?

Updated YouTube joins Hulu Plus, Foursquare on Windows Phone

Publié: mai 8, 2013, 12:33am CEST par Alan Buckingham

Microsoft fights an uphill battle against iOS and Android, but it is a war the company is determined to persevere in, especially given the latest TV ad, which is viral. Now within back-to-back days the mobile platform adds both Foursquare, Hulu and updated YouTube.

Today, an updated YouTube app joins the party, with Microsoft announcing a new version that allows pinning videos, playlists, channels, and search queries to Start as Live Tiles, gives new playlist design, plays videos in the background when the screen is locked (perfect for music videos) and makes easy video sharing to social sites. It even leverages the YouTube safety mode to keep the little ones from viewing unfit content. However, as my colleague Mihaita Bamburic points out, "You can't upload videos, sadly. That's a pretty basic feature, albeit one that's missing".

Before you get the impression that Microsoft and Google have mended fences and made nice with each other, let me explain. The new YouTube app is not produced by the Google team, but by Microsoft. Version 3.0 was released today, is free and is compatible with both Windows Phone 7.5 and 8.

Windows Phone fans also got another gift today, with Foursquare announcing an app for the handset. "We’ve been working closely with Nokia and Microsoft, and today, we’re finally taking the covers off a brand new version of Foursquare for Windows Phone 8, specially optimized for Nokia’s shiny new Lumia phones", the company tells us. This brings 33 million users with it, along with the ability to view maps, get insider tips and browse trending places.

Yesterday Hulu announced the premium video service, known as Plus, was launching on the Microsoft platform, telling us that its "team has been focused on creating a beautiful and comprehensive Hulu Plus experience that is optimized for Windows Phone 8". Clicking on the app will launch a panorama of clips, episodes and shows that are organized neatly, making for quick and easy access. Hulu Plus is free, but requires a subscription for content.

Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » mai 8, 2013

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