5 Popular Windows 8 Features You’ll Love

Following the release of Windows 8 Developer Preview, many sites have done reviews on what the next Windows system will be like. The reviews are mostly positive, with some hailing Windows 8 as the next revolution in the technology of computer operating systems (OS). Such may well be the ambition of Microsoft, and it shouldn’t surprise time it comes at a time when Apple’s share of the OS market is rising and pitting fiercely against them.

If there’s one thing great about competition, it is that it brings out the best product between companies. I’ve read up some of the features that Microsoft’s Windows 8 will be offering, and am now both intrigued and excited for what’s to come in the full version. It will even come with a new and unique kind of user interface (UI) known as the Metro.
Here are brief descriptions to some top features you would be keen to know about:

1. Speedy Boot Time

The load and boot up speed has improved significantly over Windows’ predecessors. This is partly due to the better resource allocations to applications and the system. When compared to Windows 7 desktop CPU, Windows 8 has an even speedier boot time.

(Image Source: Within Windows)

How did they improve so much over Windows 7? Well, Windows 8 employs a technique of hibernating the system kernel (think of it as your OS’s resource manager) when you shut down, such that it becomes almost like a partial hibernation each time. When you reboot the system, the ‘memory’ of your previous session gets reinitialized quicker.

2. Innovative & Dynamic Desktop

The tiles-based interface, or the Metro UI, will be the first thing you see upon logging in to Windows 8. At first glance, the UI seems to go intuitively with touchscreen devices like tablets and smartphones. Indeed, in such devices, you tap on those apps to open them. The grid layout seems to facilitate such interactions. Needless to say, you can customize your grid by adding and arranging applications.

(Image Source: JRtheTech)

The coolest thing, however, is that not only does Windows 8 allows you to personalize your desktop with the organization of the apps, it is also able display real-time information through them. Microsoft had demonstrated how the tile for a weather app could reveal the current temperature in a city without having to activate the app. The same goes for emails and such. In one glance over your tiles, you can have access to all that you need to be notified and take action on those which are urgent.

3. Improved Search Function

8 has no search box at the bottom of the Start menu. Heck, it doesn’t even have the trademark Start menu! That doesn’t mean that there’s no convenient search function available. All you need to do is to type anything, and a search box will appear from the right and give you the results. The search capability is even stronger this time, displaying all the matching apps and files instantaneously.

(Image Source: JaisonYR)

Unlike Windows 7, Windows
You can also search within apps that utilize Windows 8′s search function. The search pane that pops out on the right of your desktop will contain the list of apps which you can conduct the search in. For instance, if you’re looking for the emails sent by a particular contact, typing that name and clicking on the email app would allow you to search from within.

4. Windows To Go

Of the entire list here, this is one feature that offers the most convenience to users. Windows To Go allows users to make a copy of their OS complete with their settings, wallpapers, files and even apps, into a USB thumb drive. Plugged it into another computer with Windows 8 already installed, and you can boot up the PC and make it look exactly alike the OS you normally use, with all settings intact.

(Image Source: Engadget)

It sounds rather amazing, doesn’t it? The potential for such a feature is high and possibilities, many. For one, a virus-infected and crashed system could be revived by simply plugging in the USB thumbdrive with your last saved settings, inclusive of all your files, apps, etc. Users don’t have to worry about losing the ability to work on their projects just because their PC is down; they can always rely on plugging in that thumbdrive into another Windows 8-installed PC. Another is that users may simply bring back work from the office with that thumbdrive rather than a much bulkier laptop.

5. Windows Live Syncing

Similar to Windows To Go, the new Windows 8 will provide Windows Live syncing, such that users can login on any Windows 8 PC with ‘Live ID’ and get back their own personalized settings on it. The desktop will look the same every time the user login on a PC with their Windows Live account. Migrating to a new PC is probably made easier when the user has all the essential settings synced.

(Image Source: Windows 8)

How different will this be from Windows To Go? Well, Windows To Go seem to serve more as a controlled device for IT administrators to distribute to employees (with exact duplicates of Windows 8 with the same settings, wallpapers, apps, etc on thumbdrives), while Windows Live Syncing is more to allowing users to keep the basic settings and data available even if they’re away from their primary PC. We can only anticipate how the former and latter will be truly be like until they are unveiled by Microsoft in due course.
A repost from hongkiat.com
5 Popular Windows 8 Features You’ll Love

Windows Phone Doesn't Support Google Maps Because Google Doesn't Want It To

The situation regarding accessing Google Maps on Windows Phone devices is about vendor choice, not browser capabilities.

Let's try this again. Yesterday, a number of reports surfaced that Windows Phone users were unable to access Google Maps in the browser. Instead of reaching the Maps page, users are automatically redirected to the main Google homepage. This is true both for users attempting to access Google Maps from the mobile or desktop view in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7.X and Windows Phone 8 devices.

Google's official response — as we pointed out yesterday — is that the decision to redirect users away from Google Maps on Windows Phone devices is a choice Google has made. That's because it has optimized the mobile version of its Maps website for browsers that use the WebKit rendering engine. WebKit is the rendering engine that Apple, Google, RIM and many others use on their mobile browsers. Meanwhile, Microsoft uses the Trident rendering engine for Internet Explorer on the desktop and mobile.

While Trident — especially with Internet Explorer 10 — is highly compliant with HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and other web standards, Google has made optimizations to its mobile maps site that specifically target WebKit. As a result, it's possible that some of those optimizations won't render correctly on a non-WebKit browser, such as Internet Explorer.

As many users have pointed out, Google Maps works just fine on Internet Explorer for the desktop. Microsoft's official comment is that Internet Explorer 10 uses the same rendering engine as Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 8. If IE 10 can render a page, Windows Phone 8 should be able to render that page equally well.

Believe it or not, this is still in line with Google's own comments on the matter. The desktop version of Internet Explorer serves the standard version of Google Maps without a problem at all. This is about the mobile website.

When I tried to explain the situation yesterday, I failed to properly clarify that this is not about whether or not Internet Explorer is capable of displaying Google Maps. Instead, it's about Google's decision not to support non-WebKit mobile browsers.

To wit, changing the user agent on the Windows Phone simulator to something that doesn't say Windows Phone or identifies itself as Internet Explorer for Windows Phone renders the desktop version of Google Maps without a problem.

 

 

I should also clarify that Google is going one step further and also blocking access from the "desktop" mode on Windows Phone. To me, this is going too far. It's one thing to not support the mobile view; it's another to remove to ability to access the site even with the desktop view in place.

It's Not Just Windows Phone

Windows Phone isn't the only mobile platform that is experiencing redirects from Google Maps. In non-WebKit browsers on Meego and Symbian, I saw the same results. I also re-confirmed these results with a user agent switch on a desktop browser.

Interestingly, Firefox for Android and the FirefoxOS simulator both work with Google Maps — at least for now. This is despite the fact that Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine, not WebKit. The last time I tested Firefox for Android back in June, I ran across a number of different errors accessing Google-specific mobile pages. It remains to be seen if Google will continue to support its WebKit-only views on Firefox for Android in the future.

Google Should Follow Its Own Best Practices

While I respect Google's right to block mobile access from non-WebKit browsers, I do wish the company would have chosen to follow its own best practices when doing these redirects.
According to its own best practices, Google discourages user-agent sniffing to control what type of website is displayed. Instead, Google (and other web experts) recommend that web developers detect for specific feature support, rather than the user agent.

What I suspect is really happening is that Google is phasing out support for its WAP-based mobile maps and is focusing all of its mobile efforts on WebKit. As a result, non-WebKit (or whitelisted) browsers on mobile devices are going to lose access to Google Maps, regardless of how capable the browser rendering engine may or may not be.

Could Google Maps for Mobile Work on Windows Phone?

As earlier tests have shown, Google Maps, at least the desktop view, appears to work just fine on Windows Phone.
What I have not been able to test and confirm is how well Google Maps would work on a Windows Phone device if the user agent was changed to WebKit instead. While spoofing a user agent string is generally discouraged behavior, this would be a way to look at how the WebKit-optimized mobile code runs on the non-WebKit IE browser.

I suspect there are some very real usability problems — based on my own experiences with WebKit-optimized mobile sites on Windows Phone — but I'd like to confirm the situation one way or another. If you have access to the Windows Phone emulator and want to try out that sample app, let me know what you find out. As soon as I'm back in the office with a Windows dev environment, I can test this myself.
Sound off in the comments with your thoughts about this whole user agent snafu.
Image courtesy of Nokia and Google, composite by Mashable
Windows Phone Doesn't Support Google Maps Because Google Doesn't Want It To

Windows 8 Review; A Tour of Windows 8

Windows 8, Fully Formed

The new Windows is here. Windows 8 is a dramatic departure from Windows 7, blowing up the Start menu into a vibrant Start Screen that's electric with activity and well suited for touch devices like tablets. Despite some inconsistencies (particularly with the traditional desktop, which still exists), the new interface is powerful, fast and convenient.

Charms

Wherever you are in the system, you can always call up the "Charms" from the right side -- a set of top-level commands that include Start, Search, Share, Devices and Settings.

Sharing

Microsoft re-defined how apps communicate with each other, letting you share from any app that enables it. This is how sharing from the Netflix app looks, but the same functionality exists in most other apps with shareable content, calling up a similar list of sharing services.

Snap View

Snap is kind of the new minimize, letting you put two apps side by side with one of them shrunk to a vertical column. It's useful when the app is well suited to a scrolling list, like Bing.

Desktop Oddities

Although the desktop still exists in Windows 8, the new UI is ever-present. It makes for some odd mash-ups, like this modern-looking Wi-Fi settings menu. Other functions call up traditional dialogs.

Windows Store

The Windows Store has the same clean look and feel as other modern-UI apps, although it could use more big-name apps.

New York Times App

The New York Times app mirrors the look of Microsoft's news apps, with a horizontal scroll of stories you can naturally swipe through. The swiping works much better with a touchscreen, since on a touchpad swipe tends to take you too far ahead or back.

Rowi Twitter Client

Here's how a Twitter client looks in Windows 8. Twitter has said it's working on its own Windows 8 app.

Syncing Via the Cloud

One powerful feature of Windows 8 is your identity is portable -- if you have a Microsoft ID, you can log in to another Windows 8 PC, and it'll import your settings via the cloud, effectively becoming your PC. You can even download your own apps to the new machine once you authorize it.

 

source and image mashable.com 

Windows 8 Review; A Tour of Windows 8

 

How Windows Phone Is Turning Its Slim App Selection Into a Strength

REDMOND, Wash. — Any mobile developer who wants to make money (read: every one of them) targets Apple’s iOS platform first since the user base is massive, representing the greatest potential for profit. Windows Phone, by comparison, has feeble market share (just 2% of phones shipped, according to IDC), so benefits to succeed aren’t as great.

However, a smaller platform means a shorter road to success. On iOS (and Android as well), marketing an app rapidly becomes a race to the list of Top 50 downloads. If it can’t get there, it’s very difficult to stand out from the 700,000+ other titles in the App Store. The Windows Phone Store, however, has just over 110,000 apps.
That’s still a lot of competition for developers, but with Windows Phone 8 Microsoft is doing everything it can to turn the road to profits into a multi-lane highway. The new store has several avenues for apps to stand out besides simple download rankings. Besides that, the store is available in 191 countries, which is more than either the iOS (155) or Google Play (132) app stores. It’s also launching at the same time as Windows 8, which shares the same design and much of the underlying code.
“The time is right now for Windows Phone,” says Larry Lieberman, director of Windows Phone apps. “If you look at what’s happening with Windows 8, more people than ever are going to be exposed to a very similar interface. That’s a huge opportunity in terms of the cross-platform experience.”
With the re-launch of the Windows Phone Marketplace as the Windows Phone Store, Microsoft didn’t just give it a cosmetic makeover — there are entirely new features and capabilities. The most important is that discovery in the store is now powered by Bing.

“We have much more sophisticated algorithms and take many more inputs from users,” says Todd Brix, senior director of Windows Phone Apps and Store (pictured above). “[The Store] takes into account a lot of inputs — downloads, trajectory, crash rates — so there’s positive signals and negative signals. The higher your crash rate relative to your install base, the lower on any kind of list it’s going to show up. So we’re rewarding developers who deliver quality.”

Thanks in part to Bing, there’s now much more than just Top Free and Top Paid lists in the store. New categories include New+Rising (highlighting apps whose download rates are spiking), Best-Rated (which ranks according to users’ star ratings), Collections and “Picks for You.” There’s an entire group at Microsoft dedicated to finding the absolute best apps for Categories, Brix says, and to put them into specialized collections such as “Let’s Go Shopping,” “Pet Owners” and “Saturday Night.”

Potentially more interesting is Picks for You. These are personalized recommendations from the store that take into account not just what apps you’ve downloaded, but how great a role they play on your phone (how often you launch it, whether or not you’ve pinned it to the Start screen, etc.). It also looks at what your Windows Phone-owning friends are downloading — if you’re connected on Facebook.
“What we’re trying to do is say there isn’t a one-size-fits all set of applications that everybody needs,” says Brix. “We’re trying to build a phone for not everybody, but for each person. The 50 or 100 apps you might want are certainly going to be different than the 50 or 100 apps that I want.”

If users take to the new categories — and they work the way they’re intended to — the fight for top spot in the Windows Phone Store won’t play as great a role for developers as it does on iOS and Android. Microsoft hopes that will be attractive to developers who are weary of the nonstop battle royale for the top positions in other app stores.

“On other platforms, the store environment is pretty static,” Brix says. “You’re fighting over download rank and whether or not you’re in the top three screens or not. [Windows Phone] surfaces great applications that you’d probably never see on a big list.”
Do you think Windows Phone is onto something with its recommendation engine? Should other platforms adopt it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Original post in Mashable.com

Xbox Video and Xbox Games Apps Come to Windows 8

Xbox Video and Xbox Games are coming to Windows 8; this means that starting on Oct. 26 — when Microsoft’s latest OS launches — users will be able to purchase and rent content from the Xbox Video store on their Windows 8 devices.

What’s more, they can browse the Xbox Games catalog for titles that are PC-compatible, including games that can interact with the Xbox console. Along with the new Xbox Music service, this brings a host of new entertainment options to Windows 8 right at launch.

Until now, Microsoft hasn’t offered access to its video catalog outside of the Xbox. When Windows only ran on laptops and desktops, this made sense. After all, users could download or stream video from various services, not to mention watch DVDs. But now that the Surface and other Windows 8 tablets and hybrids are about to hit the market, having access to a more robust content ecosystem is essential.

Plus, with Xbox SmartGlass, Windows 8 users will be able to push video from their Xbox to a Windows 8 device (or vice versa) with the tap of a button.
While the title selection of the Xbox Video store isn’t as comprehensive as what iTunes offers, the catalog still has a wide selection for both movies and TV. For users who are already invested in their Xbox ecosystem, bringing the content onto the PC is a no-brainer.

Microsoft says it’s committed to extending the Xbox brand beyond gaming, and moving beyond the console. It’s no wonder: Xbox is one of the most valuable brands within Microsoft. Bringing Xbox services and extending its content to more devices only makes that brand more powerful.
Xbox Video and Xbox Games are just the latest entertainment-focused apps to hit Windows 8. Last week, Netflix released its official app for the OS. On Monday, Hulu Plus got the Windows 8 treatment, and it looks great.

Again, the real potential of these app-specific developments is when you look at Windows RT tablets, such as the Microsoft Surface. Out of the gate, Windows 8 will have support for the biggest entertainment video platforms and the ability to easily connect to an Xbox account to play games or view achievements. In the future, we can envision multiplayer games getting released on Xbox and Windows 8 simultaneously, with the option of users picking up a match from one device to the next.

Are you excited about Xbox content making its way to Windows 8?