In a visit with Google, reporters from CNET learned that the company's Google Glasses project will not function exactly like the augmented reality displayed in the original demonstration video, at least to start out.

However, the interface has since been changed to show information above the wearer's usual line of sight, instead of directly on top of whatever the user is looking at. According to a Google spokesperson, the information will be displayed "about where the edge of an umbrella might be.

"It's still too early to know what the functions and UI will be," a Google employee told CNET reporter Rafe Needleman, though the employee went on to say that the included functions will be the "simple interactions that are making people the most excited." A confirmed inclusion is photo sharing, as Google X Lab founder Sebastian Thrun has already been posting photos from his Google Glasses on the team's Google+ page.

CNET reports that even though Google Glasses have made public appearances as worn by Google employees, it will probably be a while before the public can try them on. Even Needleman was not allowed to wear them during CNET's visit.

Your 802.11n wireless network and devices are about to become passe. Although the official 802.11ac specification won't be finalized until sometime in 2013, wireless equipment will soon appear on store shelves sporting the faster wireless protocol.
It's been almost five years since 802.11n wireless routers and devices became available--also well ahead of the specification getting ratified. Now, IEEE is finalizing the 802.11ac standard. 802.11ac is also referred to as "gigabit Wi-Fi" and will be capable of significantly faster data transfer speeds than the current 802.11n.

802.11ac uses wider channels to move more data. 802.11n relies on 40MHz channels. 802.11ac doubles that to 80MHz by default, with an option to use 160MHz channels. Coupled with QAM (check out this Wikipedia reference for a more detailed explanation of QAM) encoding that's four times more efficient than 802.11n, the new Wi-Fi standard will be capable of transferring data at 433Mbps.

Here's what you should know about the next generation Wi-Fi:

Read on at PC World

Microsoft just announced a bunch of updates and improvements to SkyDrive.
The improvements make the service more competitive with Dropbox and Google's upcoming GDrive service.
Most important, there's a new SkyDrive desktop app that adds a SkyDrive folder to Windows Explorer, so you can treat cloud storage exactly as if it were on your PC. (Why Microsoft didn't do this five years ago is a mystery.) Once you put files in there, they are accessible over the Internet via SkyDrive.com.
But the best thing about SkyDrive was its generous free storage allotment: 25GB. That's going away.
Starting today, Microsoft is capping the free tier at 7GB. If users need more, they'll have to pay $10 a year for 20GB, $20 a year for 50GB, or $50 a year for 100GB.

If you were a SkyDrive customer before April 22 (Saturday), you can keep getting your full free 25GB, but only if you take the following steps:
First, sign into the service and click the huge blue link at the top, Then, click the "free upgrade" button.

Via: BI

If you’re planning to purchase Windows 8, your decision just got simpler.
Microsoft today announced its lineup of SKUs for the new operating system, which is due to be released before December

PCs built around x86 and x64 processors, the lineup has been trimmed to two. Yes, you read that right. Windows 8 will ship in two editions:

• Windows 8 is the default consumer edition, replacing Windows 7 Home Premium. It includes the ability to switch languages on the fly, a feature that was previously available only in the most expensive Enterprise/Ultimate editions.
  
• Windows 8 Pro is a superset of Windows 8, with the addition of BitLocker encryption, support for virtualization, PC management, and domain connectivity.

For PCs and tablets built around low-power ARM processors, there will be a single edition, called Windows RT. (The Windows 8 brand is not included on ARM-based devices.) It will be available pre-installed on devices by OEMs only and will not be for sale as a retail product.

For enterprise customers with Software Assurance agreements, Microsoft will offer a separate edition that is a superset of Windows 8 Pro. Extra features in Windows 8 Enterprise will allow IT organizations to enable advanced PC management and deployment scenarios. Microsoft did not announce additional details of features in the new Enterprise edition.

Windows Media Center will be available as a “media pack” add-on to Windows 8 Pro, at an “economical” price point that presumably covers the cost of licensing technology from Dolby Labs and other codec providers.

In a blog post announcing the editions, Microsoft also revealed that is plans to offer “a local language-only edition of Windows 8” for distribution in “China and a small set of select emerging markets.” This edition would presumably replace the low-cost Starter Edition, and the single-language restriction would make it more difficult to transfer these low-cost editions into higher-priced Western markets.
Microsoft did not announce any pricing information for any of the Windows 8 editions.
The decision to radically simplify the Windows 8 product lineup is a surprise. Some Windows 8 rumor trackers, after poking through the Windows 8 registry, had speculated that Microsoft could release as many as nine flavors of Windows 8.

ZDNet

Microsoft's Internet Explorer development team continues to create some interesting HTML5-based experiences with the help of some talented collaborators. Today, the IE team has launched a new website called The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator, which is a kind of "Choose Your Own Adventure" experience powered by HTML5 programming instead of plug-ins like Adobe's Flash.



Basically the site is an interactive comic book, with sounds and limited animation, that tells the story of (who else?) a frustrated comic book artist. The reader can influence the story based on the choices he or she makes. The site was written by Edgar Wright, the writer-director behind three of the funniest movies of the past decade: Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs The World. The art is provided by Tommy Lee Edwards, who has drawn a number of comics such as Marvel 1985 and most recently Turf.

While Brandon Generator will run on any HTML5-based web browser, you are supposed to get exclusive content if you use IE 9 to view the site. The trailer and first episode are now available. The second and third episode will go live in May and the final episode will launch in June.

On April 6, 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1: it was the first really successful version of the Windows GUI running atop of MS-DOS, bringing important improvements over the previous version (released two years before) and selling three million copies in the first two months.



Windows 3.1 was the first version of the Microsoft operating environment (as we used to call GUIs running atop an external OS back then) to break compatibility with real-mode CPUs (8086/8088), requiring an Intel 80286 processor to run in “standard mode” or a 386-class CPU to take full advantage of the software and (underlying) hardware capabilities of the time.

CPU support aside, Windows 3.1 featured the “Program Manager” to manage groups of applications and the “File Manager” to copy, cut and paste files within a graphical tree-like view: the two features have been merged into “Windows Explorer” from Windows 95 onward.

Windows 3.1 introduced True Type fonts, vector-type char sets invented by Apple years before that for the first time turned the Microsoft GUI into a viable desktop publishing platform. The operating environment also saw the first appearance of Minesweeper, a rudimentary version of the Registry (now a fundamental part for the inner workings of Windows), a “modular” and customizable Control Panel, Object Linking and Embedding technology to dynamically share images and data within programs, better support for multimedia and so on.

Variations of the Flashback trojan have reportedly infected more than half a million Macs around the globe, according to Russian antivirus company Dr. Web. The company made an announcement on Wednesday—first in Russian and later in English—about the growing Mac botnet, first claiming 550,000 infected Macs. Later in the day, however, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan posted to Twitter that the count had gone up to 600,000, with 274 bots even checking in from Cupertino, CA, where Apple's headquarters are located.
We have been covering the Mac Flashback trojan since 2011, but the most recent variant from earlier this week targeted an unpatched Java vulnerability within Mac OS X. That is, it was unpatched (at the time) by Apple—Oracle had released a fix for the vulnerability in February of this year, but Apple didn't send out a fix until earlier this week, after news began to spread about the latest Flashback variant.
According to Dr. Web, the 57 percent of the infected Macs are located in the US and 20 percent are in Canada. Like older versions of the malware, the latest Flashback variant searches an infected Mac for a number of antivirus applications before generating a list of botnet control servers and beginning the process of checking in with them. Now that the fix for the Java vulnerability is out, however, there's no excuse not to update—the malware installs itself after you visit a compromised or malicious webpage, so if you're on the Internet, you're potentially at risk.

read on at Arstechnica

Beginning in mid-March 2012, subscribers to TechNet Subscriptions (excluding TechNet Standard which are entitled to 2 keys per product) may access a maximum allocation of three (3) product keys for Microsoft Office and Windows Client products in connection with their subscription. The allotted keys may only be used for software evaluation purposes. Once the maximum keys have been activated, no more keys will be made available. Additional product keys may be acquired through the purchase of an additional subscription.

When you sit in front of a Windows PC now, you understand to some extent how to use it because of the way Microsoft has consistently developed their UI until now. When you sit down in front of a Windows 8 PC right now, there's nothing that really indicates to you what to do, and self discovery isn't easy since there are no visual hints of where the start menu has gone.

In the video below, Chris Pirillo puts his father in front of the PC and asks him to use it as he normally would. The results are less than surprising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU&feature=player_embedded

Funny, lol, but at the same time, disturbing!

The first and most unavoidable time you’ll see Metro in a given Windows 8 session is upon start-up. There’s no way to disable Metro, but you can force the desktop mode application to load as soon as you log in, effectively covering over Metro, before it even has a chance to draw. Here’s how.