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Microsoft just announced that they are giving Windows Live a major face lift.  They plan to debut a whole bunch of new beta Windows Live features to help users combine all parts of their online life.  These features are not going to just be Microsoft services either.  But they will all be under the Windows Live umbrella page.

Even though they already hold the title of the most used messenger program; they obviously want to reach even farther into the online cookie jar.  Microsoft wants to offer competition with the popular social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.  Whether or not they can actually provide any kind of competition coming into the game this much later remains to be seen.  What’s Microsoft’s plan?  Keep reading.

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Sections: Computers, Desktops, Software / Applications, Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites

Looking to get an Eee PC for less than an iPod?  Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?  Well, in its quarterly investors earnings call, Asustek announced a great number of things, including the fact that the baseline Eee PCs will be lowered to $200 by the end of 2009.  It seems 1.7 million Eee PCs were shipped last quarter, and Asus is expecting 1.8 million to be shipped this coming quarter.  There is some bad news for some, though.

Along with the price announcement, Asus announced that the 7” and 8.9” models will soon be phased out in favor of the 10-inch models.  That’s somewhat sad to me at least.  The 8.9” is the perfect size I think, especially if the screens on the 8.9” and 10” are the same resolution.

More after the break.

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Sanjay Jha, Motorola’s co-Chief executive and chief executive of mobile devices says we’ll see a Windows Mobile 6.5 device by the 2nd half of 2009.  This is the first mention of 6.5 that I am aware of and points to a half step before WinMo 7 which we’ve been waiting for to at least stay competitive with the likes of Apple and RIM.

“Windows Mobile 6 has not delivered the experience that I think Apple has been able to deliver, but as you look at the plan that is Windows Mobile 7 and even 6.5, I think there are significant new added features which will help the platform,“ Jha said.

Significant new added features in 6.5 huh?  Hmmmm.  Keep reading to find out our best guess at what that means.

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At the 2-day Microsoft sponsored Professional Developers Conference which started yesterday, Microsoft gave a sneak peak at its upcoming Windows 7 OS as well as a preview of its newest take on cloud computing via a web-based application of its Microsoft Office application - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Microsoft plans to deliver the full-version of Windows 7 as early next year, and it is already encouraging professional developers to get their gears going to come up with great applications that would enhance the productivity value of its follow-up to the much maligned Windows Vista.  More after the break.

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites

Windows XP is dead! Long live Windows XP!

That traditional cheer for beloved kings may well be on the lips of most Windows users as Microsoft goes through with its deadline for Windows XP.  Today marks the first day that PC makers are no longer allowed to sell XP-based PC’s. 

Despite widespread criticism of Windows Vista, and the “Save Windows XP” movement, Microsoft did not change its deadline for the seven-year old operating system.  Microsoft reports that it has already sold 140 million copies of Vista, which is a bit surprising since most consumers actually prefer the older OS, resulting in a ‘downgrade’ option which can be obtained with some new PC’s, and even big companies have decided not to have a Vista deployment at all.  Intel’s IT department even said that it “found no compelling case” to switch to Vista.

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Following up on the recent confirmation that Rogers will be indeed offering the iPhone “later this year” we are now left to wonder just how affordable their data plans will be. The latest word has it that they will be offering an unlimited plan for just $7-a-month, which sadly at this time is nothing more than a rumor and speculation as it has come from the wonderful “un-named source.“

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While we have already seen confirmation from Microsoft that Windows 7 was set for a 2010-2011 launch, it seems that they may be running a little ahead of schedule. According to Bill Gates, they are ahead of schedule and the OS could come “within the next year.“ Of course he was not specific enough and he could have been referring to an early testing version as opposed to the regular retail version.

After the launch of Vista and all the bad press that followed I would imagine that most people would rather have them take their time and make sure its truly ready for a public release. Of course with the recent end-of-life extension that was given to Windows XP, this could be a good way to get rid of XP once and for all. If you remember the extension gave Windows XP until at least June 2010 or for one year after Windows 7 was released, which means that XP could officially die in June 2010, assuming Windows 7 was released on or before June 2009.

Read [CNET]

• Microsoft to offer free virus protection
• Apple and a gaming console?
• New Xbox Experience features Street Fighter II Turbo “branded destination”

Microsoft will not be killing off Windows XP this June as expected, instead it has been given an extension of life, sadly it was not due to the Save Windows XP Campaign that we saw, but instead because of the recent surge in low-cost computers such as the Eee PC, Cloudbook and recently announced 2go PC.

Microsoft has announced that Windows XP Home will be available until at least June 2010 and for one year after Windows 7 is released, which could mean we will see availability through 2011 and possibly into 2012.

Read [AP Google News]

• Microsoft to offer free virus protection
• Apple and a gaming console?
• New Xbox Experience features Street Fighter II Turbo “branded destination”