Smarter Geek

So I have just come back from Microsoft TechEd NZ 2012 and I am importing my photos to discover that one of the images I took from the Keynote presentation seems to confirm that there will be a Barnes and Noble product launched this year. The slide that was shown has the title “Biggest Launch Year in Microsoft History” which was refereeing to this year clearly has a reference to Barnes & Noble with Microsoft.

Zoomed in portion of the slide.

What exactly Barns & Noble with Microsoft are going to launch is a mystery however Mary Joe Foley strongly suspect there is a Barns and Noble Reader in the works. Could it be this? I have no idea. However this slide does seem to confirm that something will Launch from them this year.

Full Slide.

Just yesterday Microsoft announced that the Bing search engine for Australia will lose its “beta” tag. Even though that the search engine is still crippled today they added the video background feature. You will need to be using a HTML5 browser to see the video as this feature uses the “Video” tag.

For more information about the video background for Bing go to http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/Features/2011/sep11/09-23Bing.mspx or check out the video below.

Last week Microsoft revealed the Windows 8 UI at the D9 conference that showed off a “Touch First” UI. Since then a lot of people have been saying that having a “Touch First” UI is going to be good for tablets but what about Desktop or normal laptops that are not touch devices.

I then remember the video that Microsoft showed a few months of their new Microsoft Touch Mouse and remember there were some striking similarities between the two videos.

Task Switching

In this video Previewing Windows 8 you are shown how to task switch “you just take you thumb.. from the side and just swipe it in”.

In this video about the Microsoft Touch Mouse the commentator says “One can use a thumb to move back and forwards in a web page or a browser”.

As you can see even though one is switching images/documents and the other is switching apps teh action itself is very similar.

Snapping Windows

Again the Microsoft Touch Mouse video shows how “One can snap them side by side for easy comparison.”

And here the Windows 8 vide they “with one simple gesture you can snap one app next to another app."

Again the similarities are quite striking between the actions…

Touch Trails

Another similarity i noticed between the two videos was the use of touch trails…

Image below shows two touch points shown on screen with the Microsoft Touch Mouse Video.

This is a similar touch line shown on in the Windows 8 Video.

What is clear is if Microsoft is going to be pushing a “Touch First” UI then they need to touch enable as many existing non-touch computers as possible with the Microsoft Touch Mouse or other similar mice.

It will also be interesting to see if Microsoft sells a “Windows 8 with Microsoft Touch Mouse” SKU similar to how they sold Office 2000 Premium with IntelliMouse Pro so they enable a touch experience for as many people as possible…

Microsoft have just released to the public beta of a new version of Microsoft Security Essentials. This new versions looks relatively unchanged from the previous version with only a few added features.

Windows Firewall Integration – While the product itself does not include a firewall it now prompts you to turn on the firewall on during install.

Enhance protection from web-based threat – This feature does real time scanning of your web traffic into your computer to ensure that there are no malicious scripts being downloaded.

New and improved protections engine – The scanned engine has now enhanced detection and cleaner and better performance. Microsoft Security Essentials is already a really fast performing AV product only make it better.

See the new “Enable network protection against exploits of known vulnerabilities” real-time scanning option.

You can download it right now from https://connect.microsoft.com/securityessentials