Final Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and Mac now looking like October
Microsoft is nearing the finish line with the 2.0 releases of both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of its Silverlight competitor to Adobe Flash.
Late last week, Microsoft released the first public Release Candidate (RC) test builds of Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and Mac OS X. The new RC 0 build is not designed for end users; it is aimed specifically at developers. As explained on the official Silverlight site:
“Silverlight 2 Release Candidate 0 (Silverlight 2 RC0) is now available to developers for testing purposes and to help prepare your Silverlight 2 Beta 2 applications for the release of Silverlight 2.”
I’m hearing that Microsoft is shooting to release to the Web the final Windows and Mac versions of Silverlight 2.0 around the first week or so of October. Microsoft had been shooting to deliver the final Silverlight 2.0 release this past summer, according to a Microsoft blogger who published the internal Silverlight timetable to his blog.
Source- blogs.zdnet.com
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Download Windows Speech Recognition Macros
The Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool – or WSR Macros for short – extends the usefulness of the speech recognition capabilities in Windows Vista. Users can create powerful macros that are triggered by spoken commands which can perform a series of tasks from as simple as inserting your mailing address to as complex as providing a completely different speech interaction with applications.
While we have tried to make it easy to use, this release of WSR Macros is a technical preview of technology we are planning to release in the future. Not all the features we have planned are included, and some are incomplete. Users are cautioned to treat this release as “pre-beta.” While creating simple macros is very straightforward, the creation and editing of more complex macro files is best suited for advanced users. We welcome your feedback on how we can improve WSR Macros to best suit your needs.
Application Compatibility Logging in IE8
The latest Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) release, ACT 5.0.5428.1080 is publicly available and can be downloaded here.
To give you some background, ACT helps customers understand their application compatibility situation by helping identify which applications are compatible with Vista, IE7, and IE8 and which require further testing. ACT allows compatibility data to be uploaded from individual machines to a central location for analysis, grouping and reporting. Once an issue has been identified, help will be available on how to resolve a particular issue or create a workaround. Furthermore, partners and customers using ACT are able to post comments to the Online Application Community, where they can share data and information about application compatibility testing.
The IE components of ACT are:
- Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool (IECTT). The IECTT helps identify your Web-based issues, shows your results in real time, and allows you to upload and view the data in the Application Compatibility Manager (ACM), a part of the ACT toolkit. As you test your application or site, the IECTT records events in real time when compatibility issues occur. For instance, if one of your sites injects JavaScript to another site and the IE8 Cross-site scripting (XSS) filter detects this as a reflection attack, a Cross-Site Scripting Filter event would be logged in the IECTT UI.
- Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluators (IECE). The IECE can be deployed within an enterprise and will help identify Web-based issues in the background. As you test your application or site, the IECE records events in the background as they occur. You will be able to view the logged events in the ACM after you upload them.
Source- IE Blog
Halo Wars – still planning to ship
In case you haven’t heard, Ensemble Studios is shutting down after they ship Halo Wars. This is a sad development for gamers everywhere but I guess it underscores the dominance of the special purpose gaming consoles over the desktop computer and gaming machine of the home. Is this the beginning of the end for powerful home computers? Who knows. But when was the last time you considered a desktop over a laptop?
Source- Technet Blogs
When Windows Goes All 64-Bit
64-bit Windows is becoming more common and will eventually be the norm. Such transitions never go as smoothly as you’d like. Everyone, even Microsoft, is openly talking about Windows 7. I think that there will be a 32-bit edition of Windows 7, but I also think it may be the last such version of Windows, And I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft takes steps in it to encourage adoption of 64-bit Windows, moving us further on the path to a Windows 8, which may be entirely 64-bit.
There’s a rule about Windows that most people never seem to appreciate fully: Every new version of Windows is designed for the next generation of hardware. When users upgrade XP to Vista on circa-2004 hardware and declare it sucky, they miss the point. This same effect is true of other operating systems to varying degrees; certainly it’s true of MacOS, where they get to coordinate even more tightly. It’s less true, I suppose, with Unix and variants because there’s less of a partnership with hardware vendors.
A related important point about the cross-generational period is that upgrades just don’t work as well as most preloaded installations. OEMs, at least in theory, can put a lot of work into getting their preloaded Windows and drivers to work optimally, while a user upgrading a previous version is likely to encounter tasks, identifying not only what should be running on the system but what should not, which they will have difficulty performing optimally.
Source: eWeek
Microsoft and Novell Deliver Joint Virtualization Solution Through Partners
Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. are announcing the availability of a joint virtualization solution optimized for customers running mixed-source environments. The joint offering includes SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server from Novell® configured and tested as an optimized guest operating system running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, and is fully supported by both companies’ channel partners, including Dell Inc., which will test and validate this offering at the Microsoft and Novell joint Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass. The offering provides customers with the first complete, fully supported and optimized virtualization solution to span Windows and Linux* environments.
The new offering represents significant progress in the Microsoft-Novell collaboration and business model first announced in November 2006, which delivers seamless integration of SUSE Linux Enterprise and Microsoft Windows, providing a bridge between proprietary software and open source software. The virtualization solution is the first to include technology developed by both companies at their joint Interoperability Lab, including virtual machine adapters built to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as an optimized, or often referred to as enlightened, guest operating system on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, providing optimized performance to SUSE Linux guests.
Source- Microsoft Press release
Translation powered by….Microsoft Translator!
Our team is celebrating a major milestone today - last week we successfully transitioned all of our translation services to technology developed right here in Microsoft Research!
As some of you may have noticed, up until last week, some of our languages were still supported by a third party technology for general domain requests. Here’s the summary of what this release means:
- Translation now fully powered by the Microsoft Translator technology is available through Live Search, as well as IE8, the Windows Live Toolbar, and Windows Live Messenger.
- All translation pairs on the site (11 English-X, 12 X-English) are powered by Microsoft Research-developed systems.
- Two transliteration pairs (chs<->cht), courtesy of the Windows International team.
- For several languages, better language quality.
- And finally, the release of TBot, a translation bot for Windows Live Messenger.
This release is the combination of all the effort that the team has put into machine translation, not only over the past months, but literally over the past years.
Source- MSDN Blog
Microsoft offers Hyper-V for free
Microsoft began a major virtualisation push late yesterday, with the introduction of new virtualisation tools and by making its core hypervisor product free of charge. The new Hyper-V Server 2008 would be available via the web at no charge, Microsoft said in a statement. The download, which will go live in 30 days, supports virtual machines running Windows or Linux. The software comprises Hyper-V itself, plus a cut-down Server Core installation of Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008, and as such is a stand-alone version of the virtualisation solution.
Microsoft had previously said it would charge US$28 for the standalone Hyper-V product. As expected, Microsoft announced its new System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SVCMM) 2008, which will also be released within 30 days.
The software allows companies to centrally manage their virtual infrastructure, whether their virtual networks run on Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Server 2008 Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2; or on VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3. Also yesterday, Microsoft said it had demonstrated that for the first time it could run live migration in a virtualised environment.
Source: ZDNet News
