Prior to launch sometime later this year, Bungie has already begun to hype up the game. In this new ViDoc, Bungie details a little bit of the design process behind Halo Reach. Bungie never ceases to amaze me, I cannot wait for Halo Reach!

Directly from the website:

“For a limited time, eligible college students can get the sweetest deal on Windows 7 – for only $29.99 USD. That’s less than most of your textbooks! Hurry — offer ends January 3, 2010 at 12:00 am CST.”

To qualify, you must be a college student. During the purchasing process you will need to entire your college email address or, if you don’t have one, proof that you are indeed a college student (basically a bill). I’m sure there will be people who abuse the system but the idea is to allow students to purchase windows 7 for a lower price. Going to the regular Microsoft site won’t directly link you to the offer, but Microsoft has launched win741 to allow students to check out windows 7 and then purchase it at the discounted price.

Microsoft is actually offering both the Home Premium and Professional versions of windows 7. Each student may purchase up to one of each version. After purchasing, you will be able to download your windows 7 version in either 32 or 64bit. If you plan to do a clean install, Microsoft recommends you purchase a windows 7 back-up disc. Generally speaking, if you know how to burn the ISO to a disc you should be fine.

Furthermore, if you are also interested in purchasing Microsoft office, look no further. Microsoft is offering students Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for $59 with similar requirements.

Windows 7 will launch, world-wide, on October 22nd.

Microsoft is set to launch Word 2010 this year and with this new version comes some much needed updates. Microsoft added a lot in this version to streamline your process allowing you to use Word for all aspects of your document from graphics, to image editing, and of course, words. The walkthrough above gives you a taste of what to expect in Word 2010 but let’s go over the improvements.

• Screenshots:

Word 2010 now allows you to take full application screenshots and gives you the ability to select just the parts of the screen you want. You no longer have to mess with print-screen and paint to add the perfect screenshot to your document.

• Improved Charts and Diagrams:

Microsoft has made huge strides in an attempt to streamline using images in word. By using SmartArt graphics it’s dead simple to create beautiful and informational diagrams to add power to the content of your document. Microsoft also advertises the ability to change bullets to visuals making it even easier to transform a standard document into a well-rounded piece.

• Artistic Effects:

Word 2010 continues with images in mind allowing you to quickly adjust your graphics by adding effects such a photocopy, chalk sketch, blur, paint strokes, and many more. Microsoft has also expanded word art giving you many more options including reflections and glow effects.

• Remove Background of Images:

Have you ever download an image that would be perfect for your document minus the background? Well, with word 2010 its dead simple to remove those pesky defects. All you have to do is select your image, click format, and select ‘background removal’. From there, you can allow word to automatically remove the background but for complex images you will need to use the mark to include/remove buttons to specify what you want to keep.

• Improved Search:

Word 2010 now searches through graphics, footnotes, tables, and comments to find the information you are really looking for.

• Improved Spell Checker:

Sometimes you spell a word correctly but accidentally type the wrong word. (For instance, two, to, too or there, their, they’re.) Now, those mistakes will be corrected by Word’s new context sensitive spell checker. If one was to type ‘Who owns the toy other their.’ Word would detect the mistake and suggest changing the sentence to ‘Who owns the toy over there?’. Pretty useful for all users.

• Language Translations:

¿Hablas español? If so, Word’s new translation features are for you. Including many languages from Spanish to German and English translating text is easier than ever. With language courses becoming more and more popular, and required, being able to translate from your current language to the one you are learning, all from your word processing application, is a nice touch.

• Mobile Document Support:

Being able to collaborate on your document is a growing advantage. Word 2010 now allows multiple users to work together on a document and also includes a word web application. Similar to google docs, this web application allows users to create, edit, and view documents right from the browser. Even if you don’t have a browser available, Word Mobile 2010, for Windows Mobile smartphones, allows you to do the same activates right from your phone.

• Ligatures:


Above are some common ligatures. This effect makes you font look fancy but also keeps the letters separate allowing you to search the text as if the font were regular. Of course, not all fonts support ligatures, but you can enable them in supported fonts by going to font preferences, selecting advanced, and selecting ‘standard only’ in the ligatures box.

Although these ads seems similar to the apple “Get a Mac” campaign I can respect these Microsoft ads and I think they are a step in the right direction. The Seinfeld ads got me thinking about Windows, not for the right reasons but I was thinking, and now these new ads actually are talking about windows. They show that windows is used throughout the world by many different people for many different tasks.

Good job Microsoft, but you are still only beginning to fight back in this marketing war.

The other two ads are bellow

I’m a PC and I wear a suit:

I’m a PC and I am not alone:

I have already talked about the mojave experiment but the above video is a new ad campaign by Microsoft featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. (Apparently, this is just the first in a set of several Seinfeld Gates ads.) It seems to me like Microsoft decided that they really needed a strong ad campaign to compete with apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. As of now however, I think the combination of these Seinfeld Gates ads and the mojave experiment are not going to work the way Microsoft envisioned.

Anyway, the ad above entitled Shoe Circus Commercial was some-what interesting for me to watch. However, without the information I had telling me this was a Windows ad it’s a little hard to comprehend this is trying to sell Windows. I mean, I could defiantly see if this way trying to sell shoes but software? How is the average person supposed to feel enthralled into buying Windows with this? For the $10 million they are paying Seinfeld and the multimillion dollar bill for the entire campaign, Microsoft needs to start making a better ad very soon. Apple’s “Get a Mac” ad’s at this point are more creative and actually sell a product.

I have said it a few times and I will say it again. The best way for Microsoft to go about advertising windows is to give away trial machines with vista preinstalled and allow the user to have a good, unaltered, test. That way, they go out and buy the product and tell their friends too. At a minimum, the next bunch of ads need to be firmly based on windows and even take some blows against apple. Microsoft can no longer site on their butts not caring because their market share is much higher than anyone else. The fact of the matter is apple is rising fast and Microsoft should be worried.

New Commercial
Microsoft has uploaded another one of the Seinfeld Gates ads. This one, running about 4 minutes 30 seconds (although the version I saw on tv ran less than that), features Bill and Jerry trying to fit in with regular people. Again, it doesn’t focus on Windows until the end and even then it only touches on it. What is Microsoft doing?

Starting on September 5th, 2008 Microsoft will officially start selling their xbox 360 consoles at a $50 price decrease. The prices are as follows:

Xbox 360 Arcade $199
Xbox 360 Pro (60gb HD) $299
Xbox 360 Elite (120gb HD, Black) $399

What does this really mean? Well, the console with the largest gaming selection and best online play is now also the cheapest. (The Arcade’s $199 price point compared to the $250 Nintendo Wii) At these lower prices, more people have an opportunity to jump in and play. I think this move is perfect for Microsoft. They now have the opportunity to draw in casual gamers and sell consoles to people upgrading from the previous generation. Even hard-core gamers who can’t afford a $400 system or don’t want to play party games all day, now have an option to frag their friends in halo 3 or slice them in half with gears of war all that a reasonable price.

This move is really tough on Nintendo. No longer is their console the cheapest and therefore casual gamers now have another option. When those people walk into a gaming store or their local big-box chain, they have the choice for a more powerful and cheaper console with a larger gaming selection to boot. People are still flocking to the Wii so it’s not a huge threat at this time, but it is something Nintendo needs to keep their eyes on.

As for the prices of the other consoles, I don’t foresee an immediate response. The Nintendo Wii, which is still in high-demand, is consistently outselling the competition. The PlayStation 3 is also selling well and has some great exclusives in the works. However, I think by the holiday season both companies will bight the bullet and lower their prices too. Honestly, this is great for the consumer whether you want a 360 or not.

Source

Halo 3, by Bungie, won an award at EFI. In their acceptance speech, for the edge award in interactive innovation, a prerecorded video was plaid revealing some interesting bits of information. Although nothing is set in stone, it’s pretty safe to say the halo universe is not completely closed.

Full Preview

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

“Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates’ words are being parsed for hidden meanings. According to my News.com colleague Ina Fried, Gates said this week during a speech before the Inter-American Development Bank: ‘Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new (Windows) version’”

States Mary Jo Foley blogs for ZDNet. She continues saying

“Microsoft officials are insisting nothing has changed: Windows 7 is due out roughly three years after Windows Vista’s consumer launch (which was January 2007), meaning in early 2010.”

Even after Bill Gates stated a new version of windows would be shipping next year, 2009, Microsoft has officially stated the next version of windows, Windows 7, will be shipping three years after Vista was released. This 2010 expected release date will hopefully improve on the low and buggy quality of windows vista.

This comes after the much delayed launch of windows vista. Hopefully for the windows community Microsoft is able to produce a product which doesn’t yield so many issues the way vista has during this first year. (Vista launched January 2007) I feel however that Microsoft will do a better job given all the issues they have had with vista. No company wants their multimillion dollar project to fail the way vista has but it clear they will not make the same mistake twice. Plus, I expect that Microsoft offers a better upgrade path for users. Expect windows seven certified PC’s to actually have the ability to run windows seven. (A big upset for PC users was when windows vista certified computers failed when trying to upgrade to vista.) Expect a very strong and different Windows 7.

However, I do feel this news exemplifies the fact that vista is a huge upset for Microsoft as well as us consumers. Not only are there too many known issues with vista for it to be a strong competitor but it’s also very unoriginal featuring very ‘mac-like’ features which don’t conform to standard windows users. My opinion, stick with windows xp for as long as you can and than upgrade to Windows Seven.

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