Ah! Patents, nothing like them to update my blog.
That big Windows 8 leak and some patent applications show what Microsoft planned for Windows 8, my recent finding is titled ‘Direct Computing Experience’. The patent goes describes that how sometimes a laptop is used for watching movies on DVD but since the laptop is more than the DVD players available in the market, the experience is different.
This is a blog post that’s been pending for months but since there seems to be quite a bit of misconception around multi-tasking, I think this needs to cleared a bit. iOS4 introduced multi-tasking and WP7 has an implementation that works partly like in iOS4. Let’s compare and put multitasking in both platforms in perspective.
A few months back Razer co-founder Min-Liang Tan visited Mumbai and showed us a few of his company’s products, he was particularly proud of the Razer Mamba. The Mamba was small in size and had two modes of operation – wired and wireless. Not two different products, but the same mouse could switch between the wired and wireless mouse mode on the fly.
Linkbait title? Perhaps. I’m allowed that once in a while, no?
Anyway, the title isn’t misleading, in a patent filing Microsoft has indeed applied to patent a touch gesture known as the “Rubber-Band Gesture” The patent application describes the gesture as:
A rubber-band gesture begins with a source touching a touch display at a touch-down location of the touch display. The rubber-band gesture continues until the source stops touching the touch display at a lift-up location of the touch display.
While the Courier might’ve been killed, it keeps appearing as a ghost in Microsoft’s patent applications. The latest one is a very iPad like slate/tablet PC. Most devices today replicate the qwerty keyboard but here’s an alternative approach which I’m not sure is very intuitive. The benefit according to the patent application title – it does not require a stylus! Here’s what the patent proposes:
At their Worldwide Partner Conference Microsoft showed one of the Office 2010 advertisements that continues the line of ads that we saw for Windows 7. The ad features a brother and sister preparing a presentation using PowerPoint 2010 and I couldn’t help but smile at the end. Here’s the ad: Read the rest of this entry »
Office Labs showed Microsoft’s vision for the future, translucent gadgets without tactile buttons and dynamic interfaces. Office Labs GM Chris Pratley then demoed one of the technologies shown in the video.
In a recent patent application Microsoft has applied to patent a device (remote) with dynamic controls depending on which side is facing up. This is done based on which side the effect of gravity is observed.
According to an interesting patent application I came across, Microsoft plans to save its users health records so that it can customize the gaming experience accordingly.
There have been several instances where continuous gaming has adversely affected physical and mental state of an individual. The patent application gives an idea about how Microsoft plans to address this issue. Microsoft talks about obesity and how it has plagued the US, Microsoft intends to make gamers undertake assignments and tasks according to their health records.
Here’s a flow chart that details how the system is intended to work:
As I said in the last post, Microsoft plans to use the Windows Phone 7 strategy for the tablet segment as well. For the tablets, Microsoft might define the hardware specifications like in the case of WP7. The leaked documents give us a rough idea of the requirements:
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