Techtrends

Beta version of Microsoft Producer 2007 for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 launched yesterday (5 / 6 /2008) via Connect site. The features and functionality of Producer 2007 are essentially the same as Producer 2003. This new version of Producer works with PowerPoint 2007, Windows Vista, and IE7, and is also compatible with Open XML.Power Point Producer 2007 is a free add-in which enables PowerPoint users to capture, synchronize, and publish audio, video, slides, and images to create engaging rich media presentations that can be viewed in a web browser.
This beta ends on June 30, 2008. After June 30, this beta version will not be available for download. Microsoft will review feedback received from customers who participated in the beta and determine whether any bug fixes need to be made to Producer. A final version of Producer 2007 will be made available for download (July / Aug 2008) on the Office Download Center.
To access / download the Power Point Producer 2007 beta, just enter Connect. Microsoft site and sign in with your Windows live ID.[source]
. Read full story .

Microsoft has decided to distribute the first beta version of Internet Explorer 8. At present it can be installed on Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).Following are some features revealed in internet explorer 8 - Activities, WebSlices, Favorites Bar, Automatic Crash Recovery, and Improved Phishing Filter.
Activities allow users to send web content via the internet to find the online service better known. For example, you can select a physical address of a restaurant and with only two clicks to see a map without having to leave the same site.
WebSlices allows users to crop a specific area section of a site and bookmark it. Automatic Crash Recovery will help to avoid losing information. It recovers your tabs if your browser crashes.
[However, I can’t download it, think that we have to wait some more time to download it ]
(via Genbeta) Download
. Read full story .

Microsoft is offering students around the world access to professional-level developer and design tools at no coast through DreamSpark. DreamSpark is an initiative from Microsoft designed to “inspire students to explore the power of software and encourage them to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs."

The DreamSpark program includes Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Visual Studio 2008 Pro; XNA Game Studio 2.0; Visual Studio 2005 Pro, Expression Blend; Expression Design, etc.

Currently this opportunity is available for the students in the US, UK, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium and more countries will be added in future.

More Details

[Source – Sofpedia]

. Read full story .

The Microsoft New Zeeland (subsidiary of Microsoft) has made available for download some new beautiful wallpaper. These wallpapers are selected from a competition and are available in different resolutions for your normal or wide screen monitor. You can download it for free.

Download it from here

Track - Vistablog

. Read full story .

Tafity is a very interesting experimental search site from Microsoft which uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search for richer user experience.

It explains as - “Tafiti, ("do research" in Swahili) is an experimental search front-end from Microsoft, designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results. Tafiti uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search to explore the intersection of richer experiences on the Web and the increasing specialization of search”.

You can select items like web, news, RSS, image from the left side for search. Search results can be dragged from the results pane to so called 'shelf 'which provides a place to store associated search results, such as the things you want to retain from a particular query or a set of queries. Hover over a particular shelf and click to type a label on the text box which appears.

You can also see research result as a tree view. Clicking on the Tree View link will provide a tree-based visualization of your web search results. This tree visualization slowly cycles through and displays all the results for your query. You can adjust how many results are show using the slider bar located beneath the tree. You can return to the main result window by pressing the ESC key or by clicking on the star in the top right of the screen.

Tafiti uses Silverlight 1.0 RC and AJAX to provide rich, cross-platform user experiences.

Visit and leave feedback on Tafiti by clicking on the feedback link located in the upper left of the Tafiti UI. In addition, you can send email directly to tafiti@microsoft.com

Requirement: Silverlight 1.0 RC on your computer to view the site.

. Read full story .

Microsoft introduced a new Malware Protection Center Portal - official Version 1- to the public. It offers an encyclopedia of malware where you will get the detailed information about, tools and resources for investigating threats, option to download Microsoft's latest antivirus and anti-spyware signatures, listings of the top threats and other tools.

You can get detailed analysis of various threats caused by the malicious software like it’s after effects and remedies to cure it etc from here. In addition, you can also submit files that are suspected of containing malware or potentially unwanted software to Microsoft using their online form (file size limited to 10Mb) and Microsoft Malware Protection Center will send you the results of the analysis on the submission.

. Read full story .

Popfly consists of two parts

(1) Popfly Creator tool- A set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups (web application that combines information from two or more websites) designed to create web experiences without being a programmer.

(2) Popfly Space - A social network designed to connect the millions of non-professional creators in the world who work on everything from mashups to game development to hardware hacks. Users can build and share projects using Popfly Creator.

. Read full story .

Source: Betanews.com

. Read full story .

Check out the new features and the new look at http://gallery.live.com
. Read full story .

Microsoft has renovated Soapbox on MSN Video unveiling a new website. The new user interface is the major sweetening introduced to Soapbox. And the users will be benefit with dynamically scaling thumbnails and page, a new video player with integrated Play lists and Progressive Download Indicators, enhanced full screen experience, and a video gallery. However, as MSN Video is available for all users, Soapbox is still a limited beta program, accessible by invitation only.

Additionally, Microsoft has also made available a new MSN Video , featuring a user friendly interface and Soapbox-based functionality.

Visit MSN Soapbox .

News source www.news.softpedia.com
. Read full story .

Microsoft has introduced a one-stop location for delivering software updates, drivers and hot fixes for a range of Microsoft products.

The Microsoft Update Catalog Beta comes with user friendly interface that enables to search for and find updates, drivers and hot fixes. With ‘Microsoft Update Catalog’, you can create a list of updates for a variety of products by using the Ad to Basket option. All the updates in the basket can be downloaded simultaneously, and a window will guide you through the download process.

Microsoft recommended that non-corporate users should fix to automatic updating or to use Microsoft Update website and leave the MU Catalog, as the service is still in beta stage in order to compensate for any functionality issues.

Link to Microsoft Update Catalog Beta

. Read full story .

Microsoft unveiled a new Web Browser for mobile phone called DeepFish. The browser enhances the existing mobile browsing technologies by displaying content in a view that is closer to the desktop experience. The browser is able to adjust normal desktop webpage into a smaller image for mobile screen. The zoom-in function allow user to zoom the desired part by clicking on the screen. Limited downloads available. For more result and download visit the site: http://labs.live.com/deepfish/default/aspx
. Read full story .

Microsoft recently conducted a photo competition named PhotoVista in Singapore. During this contest Microsoft Singapore accepted around 2000 entries and the contest is exclusively based on Singapore. Some of the selected high resolution wallpapers are made available for download by the Photo Vista site. To download visit the site from the following link: http://www.vistaphotocontest.com/

. Read full story .

A couple of high-end wallpapers named ‘Windows Ultimate Wallpaper’ made available for download by Windows Ultimate extra team. This high resolution wallpapers available in 3:4, 30” and 24” sizes. The wallpapers are made available for free, no matter if you have Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows XP. You can download it from http://windowsultimate.com
. Read full story .

Microsoft announces the release of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and Windows XP Professional 64 Edition Service Pack 2. Service packs available in standalone mode as well as integrated with operating system.

The new release includes the following standalone builds of Service Pack 2:Windows Server 2003 SP 2 (32-bit x86), Windows Server 2003 R2 SP 2 (for x64) and Windows XP Professional SP 2(x64).

You may visit Microsoft’s site to get more details of the release and documentation and also the language of the release.

Click here to visit the site.

. Read full story .

Microsoft has officially announced HD Photo - a new image file format that overcomes the limitations of existing image formats. The compression ratio considered to be twice the efficiency of JPEG, with fewer damaging artifacts that results a high quality image with half the file size.

HD Photo is the new name for Windows Media Photo. Both names refer to the exact same file format. The Windows Media Photo name is still used to describe the implementation of HD Photo in Microsoft Windows products

HD Photo offers an increase in image fidelity, preserve the original image content and enabling higher-quality exposure and colour adjustments. This new format offers the ability to decode only the information needed for any resolution or region, or the option to manipulate the image as compressed data.

Microsoft has announced the beta release of HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop. These plug-in enable users to edit and print HD Photo files from within Adobe Photoshop, and include support for high dynamic range pixel formats. These plug-in let photographers to save a raw image taken directly from a camera's image sensor as an HD Photo image. The plug-ins works with Photoshop CS2 and with the upcoming CS3.

HD Photo
. Read full story .

Microsoft is providing the opportunity for game developers to participate the Dream-Build-Play game development contest, offering a $10,000 grand prize and the opportunity for a winner’s game to be published on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Prize includes an opportunity for the winner to receive an Xbox LIVE Arcade publishing contract, providing a chance to showcase the winner’s game on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Dream-Build-Play is open to any user of XNA Game Studio Express, including the Garage Games Torque X platform. No purchase is necessary to compete.

The contest ends 2 July 2007, and winners will be announced 13 August at Microsoft Game fest 2007 in Seattle.

Dream-Build-Play is a global contest that offers aspiring game developers the opportunity to showcase their innovation and talent to the world. More than 20 winners will be selected to win fantastic prizes with a total value of more than $40,000 from Microsoft, Alienware, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc., Autodesk Inc. and Softimage Co.

Click here to enter the contest

. Read full story .

Microsoft has launched a new web site on 1^st March, 2007, especially targeted to beginners in the developing field.

To begin developing an application for Windows or create a dynamic website, you will be able to access a centralized learning environment with Microsoft Visual Studio Express Edition.

The learning content starts with a step by step approach to become a brilliant developer. Microsoft categorized the content according to the level of difficulty.

So the developers will be able to select content that is appropriate to their skills.

Link to the site
. Read full story .

Microsoft announces availability following six new tools to accelerate migration of businesses to its newly released Windows Vista.

1. Microsoft Solution Accelerator for BDD 2007-which includes user migration tools, remote deployment tools, and integration with other key Microsoft deployment products, such as Systems Management Server 2003. It also integrates to other tools, including ACT 5.0, Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, and Volume Activation 2.0 tools, into the deployment process.

2. Microsoft ACT 5.0 -It helps businesses handle potential application compatibility issues encountered when moving to Vista. It includes a series of compatibility evaluators that lets companies assess whether applications will be compatible with Vista, and, if not, how to resolve conflicts. ACT 5.0 also includes a link to an online community that provides users with updated application assessments and test results not only from Microsoft, but also its partners.

3. Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 1.0 -Which helps businesses to determine which existing PCs can upgrade to Vista and gives them the resources required to complete the process. The tool assesses PC hardware and device compatibility with Vista, and also provides reports with upgrade recommendations for each PC.

4. The Volume Activation Management Tool –This tool enables IT professionals to automate and centrally manage the volume activation process using a Multiple Activation Key (MAK), which requires a one-time communication with Microsoft either independently by each computer or by multiple computers at once.

5. The Key Management Service (KMS)- for Windows Server 2003- provides volume activation technologies so that businesses can activate multiple Vista PCs in their desktop environments.

6. Virtual PC 2007 - A virtualization tool that lets businesses simultaneously run multiple operating systems on a single PC. This allows business customers to move computers to Windows Vista while keeping previous versions of Windows available for those PCs to run custom applications in a virtual environment.

Windows announces these tools to accelerate business community to migration to its new Operating system Vista.

. Read full story .

Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007 has been released by Microsoft. The version of Feature Pack 2007 is for evaluation purpose only and not to be implemented as a final release. This is not a stand alone product; it requires Windows Embedded Studio tool suite installed. Microsoft has revealed that some components of the operating system have been optimized and that developers will benefit from embedded tools.

Feature Pack 2007 can be installed on Windows XP SP1, SP2 and is compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000 Pro SP 4 and later, Windows XP Pro and Vista.

Minimum Requirements

CPU: 728 MHz Pentium-class processor or higher

Operating System: Windows 2000 SP4 (or later) or Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista (Supported Operating Systems is Windows XP SP2)

Drive: CD-ROM or DVD-ROM

Tools-only install:

Windows 2000 Pro SP 4 (or later) or XP pro or Vista

Memory: 256 MB RAM minimum, 512 MB or higher recommended

Storage: 20 MB Hard Disk space

Display: VGA or higher-resolution monitor, 1024 x 768 recommended

Browser: Internet Explorer 5.5 or later

More details and download

. Read full story .