Intel and Microsoft have teamed to help electronics makers expand the market for portable video devices. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is developing a software environment, called Media2Go, for portable video players (PVPs)--small, portable machines designed to play video and other types of entertainment files, said Bryan Peebler, market development manager in the emerging platforms lab at Intel.
Intel, meanwhile, continues to develop reference designs for building these devices around Intel's Xscale (formerly StrongArm) family of processors. The company unveiled its portable video player design in 2002 and has been licensing it to consumer-electronics manufacturers. So far, Sonicblue and ViewSonic have agreed to market PVPs.
Would you like that TV show for here or to go? Microsoft on Thursday will formally announce that Alienware and Toshiba plan to release notebooks running Windows XP Media Center Edition, originally code-named Freestyle. Using the software, which is a variation of Microsoft's flagship operating system, consumers will be able to watch TV shows on their portables and record the shows to their hard drives.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Wednesday evening gave a preview of the new notebooks during his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Alienware plans to offer its first Windows Media Center notebook by the end of January, while Toshiba is expected to launch its first model later in the year.
Microsoft's MSN online content service expanded its relationship with Paul Allen's cable Internet service provider Charter Communications, creating the sort of partnership Microsoft says it plans to seek with additional ISPs as it competes with America Online.
Under the deal, announced Wednesday, Charter will market its cable Internet service with MSN to its 6.7 million subscribers in 40 states. While MSN also provides Internet access, its goal is to grow the "bring-your-own-access" program it launched with MSN 8 in October. America Online offers a similar program to provide AOL content and services to those who get their Internet access elsewhere.
A British programmer has released software online that is said to dismantle the anticopying technology in the Microsoft Reader e-book software, setting up another potential confrontation in the digital piracy wars.
A Microsoft spokesman said the company was aware of the software and had contacted publishers to notify them about it. The company said it did not yet have a fix that would block the software's use, but was looking at all its "short- and long-term options"--including legal action. "We are investigating all the business, technical and legal ramifications," Microsoft spokesman Jon Murchinson said.
Microsoft is already preparing an update for its Smart Display technology, which is due to launch late Wednesday during company Chairman Bill Gates' keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show. It will be too late for the first buyers of the technology, previously code-named Mira, but an important upgrade is under way and will be available later this year, said Nancy Nemes, European product manager for Smart Displays. So-called smart displays are portable screens for reading Internet material on the go.
Buyers of the first version may come across certain multi-user glitches, such as finding that their main PC closes up when they undock their Smart Display to use it remotely. "There are limitations in version one," Nemes acknowledged.
Microsoft Corp. has decided not to support Exchange 2000 Server on Windows .NET Server 2003. The software giant says the overhaul required to make the two-year-old messaging server compatible with the security changes made to the underlying server operating system is more than customers would accept in a service pack. Instead, Microsoft is working to make sure that Exchange 2000, running on Windows 2000, leverages enhancements in Windows .NET Server 2003-based Active Directory infrastructures.
Refuting reports that a Microsoft .NET Messenger Service outage earlier this week was caused by a lack of hardware redundancy, Microsoft admitted today that human error was responsible for the 5-hour service disruption. "We're looking at internal processes to make sure nothing like this ever happens again," said Larry Grothaus, a Microsoft product manager. "It was a serious thing. We apologize."
Apparently, Microsoft technicians incorrectly configured new routers during a routine upgrade of the .NET Messenger Service; the error dropped an estimated 30 million to 75 million users from the service Monday morning. The company hasn't released any figures, but most people who use MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger, the Instant Messaging (IM) applications that rely on the service, were affected.
Microsoft is taking more aggressive steps to promote its desktop office productivity software to users of Apple Computer's Mac OS X. The company announced here Tuesday at the Macworld Conference and Expo two promotional offers intended to make Office v. X for Mac appealing to Apple customers. The Redmond, Washington, software maker said it has signed a deal with Apple to install a 30-day trial version of Office v. X for Mac on all new Macintosh computers. That trial software, known as Office Test Drive, is a full-function version of Microsoft's productivity software but lacks the ability to print documents.
And we may well see a mini (well, smaller) Xbox this year, too. Circulating US reports are suggesting that Microsoft's second games console, Xbox 2, will go by the rather enticing name of Xbox Next. Supporting evidence comes in the shape of URL xboxnext.com, which has apparently been registered by the big 'M'. Arrange into correct order: salt; large; with; pinch; a; of; take.
While the name claim might simply be a very wild stab in the dark, be in no doubt that Microsoft will most definitely deliver an Xbox 2. Bill Gates's company has gone on the record several times to say that it will pre-empt Sony and the release of PlayStation 3 (rumoured to be in 2005) with its next Xbox console.
Microsoft's plan to let people access their PCs from wireless "Smart Displays" located about the home draws closer to reality this week. After a slight delay, ViewSonic Corp. on Wednesday will release the first product based on Microsoft's new software, with a similar device from Philips Consumer Electronics Co. due out at the start of February.
The "Windows Powered Smart Displays," known previously by the code name Mira, allow users to access their PC through a touch-screen display that can be carried about the home. The display communicates with the PC via the 802.11b Wi-Fi networking standard and allows users to read e-mail, surf the Web, play music and use other applications as if they were sitting at the PC.