I'm Just Being Manan

Magic mouse brought multi-touch to the mouse and why it took so long, I don’t know. Microsoft is planning on adding some magic of it’s own to input devices like computer mice. Microsoft Hardware has a wide range of computer mice – Microsoft Arc, Wireless 6000, Sidewinder to name a few. Microsoft has their tracking technology – Bluetrack. According two patents filed by Microsoft in November of last year, Microsoft is working on pressure sensitive mice.

Depending on the pressure applied when you click, the behavior of the mouse will vary. Sounds quite interesting and at the same time a bit weird considering a lot of users have the habit of clicking with a lot of force. The device will have a learning curve definitely. The patent states two interesting use cases of pressure sensitive mice: Read the rest of this entry »

Of late, Microsoft seems to be doing some power packed events – Windows 7 at PDC08, Project Natal at E3, Windows Phone 7 Series (it’s so friggin’ long to type!) at MWC10, Augmented Reality in Bing Maps & Live Pivot at TED. Microsoft’s annual event for web developers seems to be no different. MIX10 has had quite a build up. Some of the expected highlights of this year’s event are:

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Previously I had dug out an old video showing a working prototype of Microsoft’s tablet (of the future) – The Courier, the prototype was named Codex. Engadget today got hold of new images showing the UI of the Courier. The images look amazing, of course whether the actual product is every bit as good remains to be seen. One of the images Engadget has shows the Courier displaying SMS messages and Facebook status updates. Image:

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Earlier today, Steve Ballmer did a webcast from the Washington University where he talked about the Cloud, Steve B talked about Microsoft’s cloud strategy and the parameters defining the same (Todd Bishop at TechFlash has them). Two demos done at the talk are worth sharing. Some time Robert Scoble had seen a demo of World Wide Telescope and he said that it made him cry thinking about the potential something as slick as World Wide Telescope could have. Microsoft engineers have integrated World Wide Telescope with Bing Maps and a bit of Silverlight mojo has resulted in some pretty jaw dropping application. Being able to go into a “First Person Imagery” mode, look up right into space is amazing. I’d rather let Blaise Aguera in this video do the talking:

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Going back in time and reading about technology of the by gone era that shaped what we use today is something I love and enjoy. While watching India beat Pakistan in an enjoyable game of Hockey today, I came across a wonderful timeline about Microsoft Office dating from 1983 to 2010, quite a long time, quite a history. This little Silverlight creation is amazing and will take you back in time with box shots, product screen shots, articles and videos about the products of the particular year. Screen shot:

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Ed Note: The following numbers come from Forbes India dated 5th February who have sourced their data from a TRAI report and Point Topic Ltd.

On the face of it considering India’s growth in the IT sector one would be under the impression that we would be having decent Internet capabilities, unfortunately Internet in India is a pile of poop. I got my hands on the 5th February issue of Forbes India which has an article on India’s broadband, present and future, some very interesting numbers have been published in the article:

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Frankly I don’t see this happening since Windows Phone 7 Series is already out and it doesn’t seem to have this as a “feature” or it might happen as a test project to demonstrate Windows Phone 7 Series (sheesh! typing the whole thing is such a pain.) Anyhoo, back to the patent… a recently surfaced patent shows some Softies had plans to turn your touch screen phone (Windows Mobile) into a Wacom like Graphics Tablet. FYI, the Wacom tablet is merely a touch based input device that connects to the PC. So the patent essentially means that if you draw on the phone’s screen, it gets drawn on an app running on the PC.

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Some time back I had posted about Microsoft Office Labs GM showing that the technology showed in the Montage video isn’t that far. I came across a patent filed by Microsoft Researchers in Asia showing a charging pad for portable devices which builds on the theme set by the Montage video. The patent reveals a charging pad for portable devices like cell phones and media players. The charging pad is said to have the following features:

• Accelerometer
• An OLED screen
• Ambient lights
• Internet access (wired and wireless)

The charging pad is an inductive charging source. A simple definition of Inductive Charging comes from Wikipedia:

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Contrary to what the ‘oh-so-great’ pundits of the Internet think, I have a forecast of my own – RSS will die the day Wordpress drops support for it, till then it’s here to stay. I follow over 100 blogs and use Windows Live Mail as my RSS reader, though Google Reader offers the convenience of being able to follow ones feeds from anywhere with a net connection, I don’t like the interface, I’ve talked about the pros of Windows Live Mail as a RSS reader in this post.

One of the basic problems several ‘pundits’ have is RSS is served as email which is not how it should be, according to them.

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We have earlier read reports about Apple planning to build a NFC module into the iPhone, according to a patent, Apple does plan to add it in the iPhone. The applications shown on the patent page are quite interesting. Apple plans to allow users to unlock their PCs using the iPhone and another patent image shows that you can even unlock doors using your iPhone! Now that’s cool!

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