Microsoft's Turtle looks like a chunky child's version of a Palm Pre, according to Gizmodo.
(Credit: Gizmodo)
“Project Pink” is Microsoft’s new phone for regular people. Rumors about the software go back months, but the hardware, and who’s making it for Microsoft, has been
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Project Pink is Microsoft’s secret new phone, their first major phone play since the iPhone. Here are the first pictures of Pink phones, Turtle and Pure.
These phones are going to be made by Sharp, who’ll get to share branding with Microsoft. Sharp produced the Sidekick hardware for Danger, who was bought by Microsoft almost two years ago. Pink will be primarily aimed at the same market as the Sidekick, and the branding and identity for it is highly developed, pointing toward a later stage in the development cycle.
The prior relationship between Danger and Sharp is the only reason we can think of why Microsoft stuck with Sharp for the new phones, and perhaps why they look so much like remixed Sidekicks. (Kind of yucky, that is.) The youth bent is somewhat surprising, if Pink is going to be their big consumer phone play, building off the expertise of Danger and members of the Zune team.
The hardware design has a definite younger feeling: Turtle looks like a chunky child’s version of a Palm Pre, while Pure seems like a standard slider, and both are clearly plastic, with an overall sense of roundedness, thanks to lots of soft angles and circular keys.
It’s been reported elsewhere that Pink phones will include Zune services, and have its own app store, making it as close to the Zune phone as we may get. We’ll see if it’s close enough in the coming months, though these are the only facts our source will let us safely publish for now.
Hey Microsoft, this isn’t 1965. Computers don’t take up entire rooms anymore. And hard drives are cheap.
With the Elite looking to get a $100 price cut, you’ll be able to purchase a 120GB Xbox 360 console for $299. Yet the retail price on the 360′s 120GB drive is still more than half that ($160).
Even though most retailers shave the price down to about $135, the idea that we should be paying anything approaching a dollar per gig is ludicrous.
Both Sony and Nintendo—two companies not necessarily renown for open hardware platforms—have both addressed and solved the issue of rapidly dropping storage prices on their current consoles by handing the reins to their users. The Wii has always been equipped with an SD slot that now even accepts stock 32GB SDHC cards—normal, consumer-grade tech that you can price-compare anywhere. And the PS3 has supported users who wanted to install their own hard drives (or even Linux!) since day freaking one.
Yet Microsoft, who has put forth so much effort in securing deals like Netflix and offering us a New Xbox Experience, is stuck in a proprietary hard drive pricing pattern so old that it probably doesn’t know women can vote, Man’s walked on the moon or we have 0-calorie sweeteners.
I know what you’re thinking: Microsoft charges a lot for their drive because it’s some special, expensive to produce tech. It’s not. Inside that plastic shell is a stock, boring-as-hell 2.5-inch laptop drive. And you can find such a drive with 500GB of storage for $90 right now.
Keep in mind that Microsoft is buying in bulk.
Oh, and then there’s the point that Microsoft is really, really, really, really stupid for not just subsidizing hard drives to begin with. How many of us with 20GB HDDs have gone to download demos only to find our drives full? How many of us are daunted by DLC because we know an extra few maps will necessitate deleting content? And while I know Microsoft doesn’t take the 360′s video store seriously, how could they ever expect any of us to have the free space to download I Love You Man?
But everything I listed above—that’s not the worst of it. It’s one final kick in the nuts that Microsoft has sent to those of us willing to do some modding ourselves that rubs me the wrong way.
While I could just pop open my 360 hard drive case and toss in a new drive myself (of course, I get to feel like a criminal while doing so as the process requires a separate PC and various unauthorized firmware files), Microsoft has limited the 360 to only supporting hard drives in their designated 20GB, 60GB and 120GB sizes.
So in other words, even though I can technically go through the trouble of installing a sweet, 500GB of storage capable of holding my entire game collection, Microsoft has taken the time specifically to thwart me in that endeavor. Doing my own installation is no longer a treat, like sticking a turbocharger on an engine. Instead it becomes a home repair I do myself to save a few bucks, like negotiating a new drain line to my dishwasher.
I never thought I’d see a day when Microsoft was more willing to give away software than hardware. But in a great irony, their latest dashboard update is once again free. The dinky hard drive to store it on? That’ll still cost ya…more than even a new copy of Windows 7 Home Premium.
There’s mixed messages coming out of Microsoft with regards to Xbox developments. First off CEO Steve Ballmer hints that there would be a new Xbox coming out in 2010 with motion sensing Project Natal cameras built-in. Now Microsoft’s Xbox boss, Aaron Greenberg, has stated that there are no plans for a new console. Greenberg was keen to play down any talk of an entirely new console and insisted that Ballmer wasn’t referring to a new generation Xbox: “We are saying that the Natal will run on the Xbox 360, so there’s no new hardware to purchase. We’re barely halfway through this generation. We’re happy with the Xbox 360, so there are no changes from that standpoint.” Project Natal was unveiled at E3 at the beginning of June and Microsoft hopes that the technology will allow them to compete with the Wii in terms of motion based games. If they can match the Wii’s fun factor then the Xbox certainly contains the hardware to blow the Japanese firm out of the water. Not literally. (via Kotaku) 
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By Chris Scott Barr
Unless you’re running a Mac (yes, I went there), it’s almost a necessity to be running some sort of anti-virus on your machine. There are plenty to choose from, most of which cost a decent bit of money for a yearly subscription. Free ones also exist, but they always seem to be lacking a few important features. Well it seems that there will soon be another company tossing its hat into the ring of free anti-virus providers.
Microsoft is currently gearing up for a closed-beta of their new free anti-virus service, code-named Morro. It is described as a stripped-down version of their Live OneCare service. It’s hard to say a lot of bad things about a free anti-virus, so provided that Microsoft doesn’t find some way to royally screw things up, it should likely appeal to those that wouldn’t otherwise bother installing such software. No word on when they are planning to officially launch Morro.
[ Reuters ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]
Oh man, not two minutes after a positive Microsoft story (which was, in fairness, preceded by a negative one) there’s this. Word on the street is that Microsoft is seeking to prevent the sale of the MSI Wind U115. Why’s that? Apparently Microsoft has no time for a netbook—“a race to the bottom,” claimsCrunchGear’s John Biggs—running Windows XP Home that has a so-called hybrid storage system. That is, one with both a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) as well as a solid state drive (SDD).
The Wind U115 keeps Windows XP Home on the SSD to increase system responsiveness, while keeping data files—MP3s, application data, etc.—on the HDD. For whatever reason, Microsoft doesn’t like that very much.
It stinks, I think you’ll agree.
Never mind that you can still find the device for sale on MSI’s Web site!