Apple’s announcement of its iCloud offering is game-changing. Public cloud computing has been available for a while now but has never taken off in a big way; it was primarily relegated to corporate uses and never meant to be so broad reaching as the iCloud proposes to be.

Since users of Apple devices have no choice but to use iCloud, the latter is immediately upon arrival a runaway success. Every music bought on iTune, every picture taken with the iPhone (which by the way will sport a “shutter release button” in the guise of the volume control), and presumably more (I can’t believe Apple will stop at these; what about books, software, etc.) will automatically reside in iCloud.

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From Microsoft

Watch the video and see if Microsoft can reinvent itself with Windows 8. It’s certainly a slick OS but somehow still lacks the pizazz of the Mac OS: the images just do not “pop” on screen. Flat colored rectangular boxes are so 1980′s. There’s just so much to read on screen to find your app, so many gestures necessary to access an app, too many things hidden from view, requiring you to memorize what’s hidden. And trying to denigrate icons is a low blow. Sorry, but icons are the way to go for now and flat boxes won’t replace them. And, where’s the Windows Explorer? If there is one thing I simply can’t stomach on the Mac it’s the absence of a good file explorer: the folders view don’t do it for me and I miss having a nice multi-level hierarchy on the left pane.

Will the number 8 bring good luck to Microsoft? Is it on the brink of reinventing itself with Windows 8? Or, will it reinvent itself into the nether zone? I say this because if it continues the path it chose when it switched to the awful menu system of the newer MS Office, then there is going to be a whole generation of Windows users who will be totally lost in Windows 8. Everytime I use an MS Office program, it’s sheer frustration. I simply h.a.t.e it. Which is one reason I bought my Mac: if I am going to have to change, relearn a new menu system, and deal with backward incompatible file systems, I might as well make the jump. Millions of Windows users make come to the same conclusion if they wake up the next day and find that they are completely lost in Windows 8.

Windows 8 may be what saves Microsoft — or may be the reason why the bulk of corporate Windows users finally switch to Apple. After all, many have already with the iPhone and iPad. What next, laptop and servers?

source @benleeimages

Microsoft — yes, Microsoft — has demonstrated a technique consisting of a combination of inexpensive gyroscopes and accelerometer attached to a DSLR camera to estimate a blur function from the camera’s acceleration and angular velocity during an exposure and then deblur the resultant image.

The most common commercial approach for reducing image blur today is image stabilization (IS). They are mechanical methods that dampen camera motion by either offsetting lens elements or move the image sensor. Image Deblurring (ID) is similar to current IS methods in that it also uses inertial sensors but, while IS tries to dampen motion by assuming that the past motion predicts the future motion and reduces blur, ID records the actual camera motion and removes the blur from the image. ID can dampen 2D motion, camera roll, up to six degrees of motion.

The results are pretty convincing and amazing. See for yourself:

Read the article and view the images at: Microsoft.

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Microsoft Canada has just launched the Put Your Town on the Map with Bing™ photo contest. Showcase your hometown pride by sharing favourite images of your town! The picture with the most votes from the most popular town will have his or her photo featured as the Bing.ca homepage image on Canada Day and will also win a photography prize pack courtesy of Kodak Canada Inc. and Walmart Photocentre. In addition, Canadians have the chance to win daily prizes.

PRESS RELEASE

Put Your Town on the Map with Bing(TM) Photo Contest

From Victoria to Petawawa: Canadians encouraged to submit photos that represent their hometowns

TORONTO, May 27 /CNW/ – Microsoft Canada in connection with Walmart PhotoCentre and Kodak Canada Inc. today announced the launch of the national Put Your Town on the Map with Bing(TM) photo contest*. Canadians are urged to submit photos they have snapped of their hometown to www.bingphotocontest.ca. The grand prize winner, and future hometown hero, will have his or her photo featured as the Bing.ca homepage image on Canada Day and will also win a photography prize pack courtesy of Kodak Canada Inc. and Walmart PhotoCentre. In addition, Canadians have the chance to win daily prizes.

“With this contest we want Canadians to kick their hometown spirit into high gear and get a chance to show it off to the rest of Canada on the Bing homepage,” said Jed Schneiderman, Director of Marketing, Bing.ca. “The Bing.ca homepage is known for featuring some of the world’s best photographs, including great Canadian landmarks, and we’re looking forward to showcasing the winning Canadian hometown photo alongside them.”

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Microsoft is shutting down its original Xbox LIVE service at… ta da dum… midnight tonight.

Read the article at: CNN

Microsoft KIN ONE

We haven’t heard much of Microsoft lately with all the iPad frenzy [wasn't that fun!] and wondered just what they have been working on. It turns out they have busy working on a new kind of social media device (aka Window Phone) that targets the young social crowd. The Microsoft KIN ONE and KIN TWO have social networking already built into the phone and bring Facebook, Twitter and MySpace right on the main screen.

Both phones feature a camera, touch screen and slide-out keyboard. ONE is the smaller and compact one, easy to carry in a pocket and to operate with one hand. Its camera is 5MP and shoots SD video. It has 4GB of internal memory. Speaker is mono.

TWO has a larger screen and keyboard, more internal memory (8GB), a higher resolution camera (8MP), and shoots HD video in stereo sound.

PRESS RELEASE

Microsoft Ushers in the Next Generation of the Social Phone With KIN, a New Window Phone

Microsoft, Sharp, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone unveil KIN, a new Windows Phone designed for broadcasting and sharing everyday moments.

REDMOND, Wash. — April 12, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. today announced KIN, a new Windows® Phone designed specifically for people who are actively navigating their social lives. Brought to life through partnerships with Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and Sharp Corporation, KIN is designed to be the ultimate social experience that blends the phone, online services and the PC with breakthrough new experiences called the Loop, Spot and Studio. KIN will be exclusively available from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. beginning in May and from Vodafone this autumn in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

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In a Kafkaesque turn of events, Microsoft has announced that the new Internet Explorer 9 will not work on computers running Windows XP.

ROTFL.

It is undoubtedly a ploy from the Redmond giant to get you to upgrade to Windows 7. Official excuse is that IE 9′s graphics capability is intimately tied to Windows 7′s graphics engine on your computer for faster graphics experience. Not too smart tying a browser to an OS, not too smart at all. So, can we expect IE 10 to be tied to Win 8, etc. forcing users to upgrade OS everytime they want to use the latest IE browser? Wonder if Microsoft will be facing monopolisitc legal issues again?

But, fret not, all you have to do is to simply switch to the friendly Red Fox browser, aka Firefox, a free open-sourced browser made by lots of smart volunteer developers and the de-facto industry standard browser today. If you are not running a browser that is W3C standards-compliant yet, why not do it today? Your Web experience will be markedly improved!

Why, if you are currently viewing this site in IE, try doing it in Firefox for a pleasant surprise.

[ via TrustedReviews ]

Microsoft has quietly begun online trials of its online version of Microsoft Office with a select group of SkyDrive customers. The online Web Apps suite will include free versions of Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

It seems that the thin client vision (or a version of it) Oracle tried to implement many years ago (way too early!) is slowly becoming a reality thanks to Google and now Microsoft.

[ via TrustedReviews ]