CES 2012: Second Windows 8 Pre-Release Set for February, With App Store (and Maybe More)
Lenovo beat Microsoft to the punch in introducing a new Windows 8 tablet at CES, and Microsoft hasn’t announced many details of a second Windows 8 build, either. Yet, in a keynote on Monday, Microsoft did point to a second Windows 8 preview version at the end of February, somewhat after the release of Microsoft’s Kinect “natural interface” platform for Windows. Beyond that, at some point down the road, Kinect will step from one-way communications between person and machine to two-way communications, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The second pre-release of Windows 8 is set to arrive some four months after the initial pre-release, in which Microsoft took a radical departure from its own tradition by making the emerging new OS available to all users, not just software developers.
Many of the Windows 8 features demo’d on Monday night — such as a customizable Start menu, and “charms,” for quickly configuring settings for individual apps — came as old hat to keynote attendees already familiar with Windows 8 from its first rollout at Microsoft’s Windows Developers Conference in September.
Although Microsoft did supply some more information about Windows 8 during Monday night’s keynote, other questions are still unanswered as the CES show opens its doors to the public on Tuesday.
Paid Windows 8 apps are on the way, but when?
Microsoft did announce on Monday that its forthcoming app store — still missing from the Windows 8 prerelease — will be added in the February follow-on edition, and that users will be able to start downloading free apps from 
the Win 8 store in late February. Ultimately, the Windows 8 store will include paid apps too, Ballmer said, although he didn’t specify when.
In a demo of the impending app store — centering on a finger painting app and a game called “Cut the Rope” — Microsoft showed how you’ll be able to use Microsoft’s Bing to search the store. You can then use your finger to swipe through the results.
You’ll also be able to run multiple Metro apps concurrently, side by side, and to switch between them. The Metro apps will be navigable by either touch, mouse, or keyboard.
Highlighting the recent announcements of a plethoria of Windows 7 PCs, and another one by Dell at CES on Tuesday, Ballmer and his demo crew reiterated that Windows 8 apps outfitted with Microsoft’s new Metro UI will run on both existing Windows 7 PCs and future Windows 8 x86 PCs and ARM-enabled tablets.
More Windows 8 tablets are out there, but not at Microsoft’s keynote
Microsoft, though, mentioned only one Metro-enabled tablet during the keynote — the same unit distributed to developers in September. Just hours before, however, Lenovo had announced the IdeaPad Yoga, a 13.3-inch dual-hinged tablet/notebook combo unit.
At a press conference even earlier on Monday, NVidia demo’d Windows 8 running on a tablet powered by its Tegra 3 processors. On Tuesday, Qualcomm followed suit, showing off a Windows 8 tablet outfitted with its Snapdragon chips.
Tablet makers ranging from Texas Instruments (TI) to Kupa have pre-announced plans to show Windo
ws 8 tablets. Why Ballmer didn’t demo any other tablets during his keynote remains a mystery.
Windows 8 will also run Windows 7 apps, since the OS consists of the Metro UI layered on top of Windows 7. Development is definitely under way, though, for new Windows 8 apps. For example, at CES this week, CyberLink has already announced three Metro apps: the PowerDVD Metro media player; YouCam Metro, for capturing videos and applying special effects; and PowerDirector Metro, for video editing.
When will Windows 8 get a ‘natural UI’?
Meanwhile, also as part of the keynote, Microsoft made a string of partnership announcements with Fox News, Comcast, and Sesame Street, around Kinect, a sensor-driven hardware device that provides the “natural interface” for Microsoft’s XBox machines.
Furthermore, on Febr
uary 1, Microsoft plans to deliver Kinect hardware and software for Windows computers, Ballmer announced during his keynote.
In a demo of a prototype Sesame Street app, Microsoft showed how Kinect is now moving from “one-way” to “two-way” TV experiences. A young girl enlisted to help with the demos was able to influence the outcome of a Sesame Street vignette by deciding whether or not to virtually “throw coconuts” to Elmo. After complying with Elmo’s initial request to pitch a coconut to him, the girl said “nope” to a second request, forcing Elmo to get a second coconut from Cookie.
These “two-way” kinds of TV experiences will be coming to Kinect “soon,” Ballmer said, although again, he did not specify when.
Will Windows 8 apps ever run on Windows phones?
Ballmer also touted new Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones such as the Nokia Lumia 900 and AT&T’s HTC Titan II. Although Windows Phone 7.5 uses the same Metro UI as Windows 8, it cannot run Windows 8 apps.
Ballmer didn’t touch on speculation that an upcoming Windows 8 Phone OS might include the same core kernel elements as Windows 8, a move that could give Microsoft a leg up against Apple and Android by making its own phone and tablet/PC OS interoperable.
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- CES 2012: Corel Rolls Out AfterShot Pro for Windows, Mac and Linux
- CES 2012: Windows 8 Gaze and Lenovo’s Android ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ TV
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CES 2012: OWC USB 3.0 External Storage Drive, Up to 1.5TB Available
OWC announced an “industry first” at CES today, the company’s eSATA 6G USB 3.0 external storage drive. The drive is part of the Mercury Elite Pro mini lineup and is available with up to 1.5TB of storage space. Thirteen hard drive or SSD-equipped capacity options are at hand, as well as either USB 3.0 or 2.0. What OWC calls the triple interface model can reach up to 600MB per second rates in the form of storage performance.
The bus-powered Mercury Elite Pro mini measures in at 5.5 x 3.8 x 1.1 inches and is made of “aircraft grade” brushed aluminum. A feature of the drive is that it doesn’t require A/C power to run as it’s powered through the bus, making it a good mobile device for those who need extra storage and capability while on the go. The drive also has a fanless operation.
Users have the choice between the 2.5-inch 7200rpm SATA hard drive or the Mercury brand SSD.
Pricing & Availability
The drives comes with a lifetime US-based around the clock technical support aa well as a three-year warranty. The OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini with USB 3.0 and eSATA is available now through OWC and approved retailers. The drives begin at $64.99 for a 0GB kit and the 1.5TB hard drive is $114.99. The SSD-based model is going for $159.99 and has a 480GB storage capacity.
Related Articles:
- CES 2012: OCZ SSDs on Indilinx’s Everest Platform Announced
- Iomega 1TB eGo USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review
CES 2012: Microsoft’s Last Keynote
It’s hard to write about Microsoft’s final Consumer Electronics Show keynote without feeling a little bit depressed. What should have been the company’s CES swan song felt more like a rambling late night phone call from an old friend who just wants to talk about the way things used to be. During the company’s 60 minute kick at the can, which started 30 minutes late, CEO Steve Ballmer and dreamy corporate shill Ryan Seacrest didn’t provide the keynote’s attendees with a single piece of information they didn’t already have.
Touching briefly on the topics of the company’s Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform and their partnership with Intel in rolling out 78 different iterations of Ultrabook ultra portable computers over the next year, Ballmer and Seacrest quickly moved on to focus on Windows 8.
Sadly, there wasn’t much new here either. As we’d already heard late last year, the next version of Windows is being designed to operate on both ARM and x86 processors, paving the way for hardware manufacturers to install the OS on a wider variety of high-powered and ultra efficient low-powered personal computers, tablets and other devices than ever before. As Microsoft had previously indicated, Windows 8 will rely heavily on HTML5, not just for application design, but for playing video as well: Neither Flash nor the company’s own SilverLight technology will be offered on Windows 8.
The fact that Windows 8 users, just like Mac owners, will have access to an app store was rehashed as well. The Windows Store for Windows 8 will go live on February 1, featuring a number of free applications that anyone using the Windows 8 Developer Preview will have access to. On the same day as the Windows Store comes online, PC users can also anticipate the arrival of a PC compatible version of Microsoft’s Kinnect motion-control hardware, which up until now has only been available to users of the company’s Xbox 360 console.
Remember all of those commercials during the holidays that featured friends and family using voice controls to search for and order videos and movies via embedded services in Xbox Live, like Netflix and ESPN? They riffed on that, too. There was some good news here for Xbox owners though: Microsoft has brokered deals with a number of new content providers. Verizon customers who own an Xbox will have access to 26 FIOS channels. Other services, such as Infinity on Demand, as well as content from News Corp. and Fox, will also be making an appearance on the gaming console as well. In addition to this, Ballmer noted that Microsoft was working with a number of companies such as American Express and Mattel to bring new Kinnect-enabled applications to market.
For a final showing at one of the largest tech-centric showcases in the world, we’re sad to say that what Microsoft provided us with this year was weaker than we could have imagined. Here’s hoping that moving forward, the company is able to not only deliver on what it rehashed last night, but also wow consumers with a something awesome in the weeks and months to come.
CES 2012: Second Windows 8 Prerelease Set for February, With App Store (and Maybe More)
Lenovo beat Microsoft to the punch in introducing a new Windows 8 tablet at CES, and Microsoft hasn’t announced many details of a second Windows 8 build, either. Yet in a keynote on Monday, Microsoft did point to a second Windows 8 preview version at the end of February, somewhat after the release of Microsoft’s Kinect “natural interface” platform for Windows. Beyond that, at some point down the road, Kinect will step from one-way communications between person and machine to two-way communications, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The second prerelease of Windows 8 is set to arrive some four months after the initial prerelease, in which Microsoft took a radical departure from its own tradition by making the emerging new OS available to all users, not just software developers.
Many of the Windows 8 features demo’d on Monday night — such as a customizable Start menu, and “charms,” for quickly configuring settings for indiidual apps — came as old hat to keynote attendees already familiar with Windows 8 from its first rollout at Microsoft’s Windows Developers Conference in September.
Although Microsoft did supply some more information about Windows 8 during Monday night’s keynote, other questions are still unanswered as the CES show opens its doors to the public on Tuesday.
Paid Windows 8 apps are on the way, but when?
Microsoft did announce on Monday that its forthcoming app store — still missing from the Windows 8 prerelease — will be added in the February follow-on edition, and that users will be able to start downloading free apps from the Win 8 store in late February. Ultimately, the Windows 8 store will include paid apps too, Ballmer said, although he didn’t specify when.
In a demo of the impending app store — centering on a finger painting app and a game called “Cut the Rope” — Microsoft showed how you’ll be able to use Microsoft’s Bing to search the store. You can then use your finger to swipe through the results.
You’ll also be able to run multiple Metro apps concurrently, side by side, and to switch between them. The Metro apps will be navigable by either touch, mouse, or keyboard.
Highlighting the recent announcements of a plethoria of Windows 7 PCs, and another one by Dell at CES on Tuesday, Ballmer and his demo crew reiterated that Windows 8 apps outfitted with Microsoft’s new Metro UI will run on both existing Windows 7 PCs and future Windows 8 x86 PCs and ARM-enabled tablets.
More Windows 8 tablets are out there, but not at Microsoft’s keynote
Microsoft, though, mentioned only one Metro-enabled tablet during the keynote — the same unit distributed to developers in September. Just hours before, however, Lenovo had announced the IdeaPad Yoga, a 13.3-inch dual-hinged tablet/notebook combo unit.
At a press conference even earlier on Monday, NVidia demo’d Windows 8 running on a tablet powered by its Tegra 3 processors. On Tuesday, Qualcomm followed suit, showing off a Windows 8 tablet outfitted with its Snapdragon chips.
Tablet makers ranging from Texas Instruments (TI) to Kupa have pre-announced plans to show Windows 8 tablets. Yet why Ballmer didn’t demo any other tablets during his keynote remains a mystery.
Windows 8 will also run Windows 7 apps, since the OS consists of the Metro UI layered on top of Windows 7. Development is definitely under way, though, for new Windows 8 apps. For example, at CES this week, CyberLink has already announced three Metro apps: the PowerDVD Metro media player; YouCam Metro, for capturing videos and applying special effects; and PowerDirector Metro, for video editing.
When will Windows 8 get a ‘natural UI’?
Meanwhile, also as part of the keynote, Microsoft made a string of partnership announcements with Fox News, Comcast, and Sesame Street, around Kinect, a sensor-driven hardware device that provides the “natural interface” for Microsoft’s XBox machines.
Furthermore, on February 1, Microsoft plans to deliver Kinect hardware and software for Windows computers, Ballmer announced during his keynote.
In a demo of a prototype Sesame Street app, Microsoft showed how Kinect is now moving from “one-way” to “two-way” TV experiences. A young girl enlisted to help with the demos was able to influence the outcome of a Sesame Street vignette by deciding whether or not to virtually “throw coconuts” to Elmo. After complying with Elmo’s initial request to pitch a coconut to him, the girl said “nope” to a second request, forcing Elmo to get a second coconut from Cookie.
These “two-way” kinds of TV experiences will be coming to Kinect “soon,” Ballmer said, although again, he did not specify when.
Will Windows 8 apps ever run on Windows phones?
Ballmer also touted new Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones such as the Nokia Lumia 900 and AT&T’s HTC Titan II. Yet although Windows Phone 7.5 uses the same Metro UI as Windows 8, it cannot run Windows 8 apps.
Ballmer, though, didn’t touch on speculation that an upcoming Windows 8 Phone OS might include the same core kernel elements as Windows 8, a move that could give Microsoft a leg up against Apple and Android by making its own phone and tablet/PC OS interoperable.
Related Articles:
- Behind the Scenes at CES: The Latest Laptops
- CES 2012: Samsung Unveils Series 9 Mobile PCs and Series 5 Ultrabooks
- CES 2012: Verbatim Outs Rugged Store ‘n’ Go Plus USB Drive
- CES 2012: Corel Rolls Out AfterShot Pro for Windows, Mac and Linux
- CES 2012: Windows 8 Gaze and Lenovo’s Android ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ TV
- CES 2012: OCZ SSDs on Indilinx’s Everest Platform Announced
- CES 2012: Iomega Announces Advanced Network Storage Device
- CES 2012: CEA Predicts ‘The Year of the (User) Interface’
CES 2012: Microsoft Keynote Recap
It’s hard to write about Microsoft’s final Consumer Electronics Show keynote without feeling a little bit depressed. What should have been the company’s CES swan song felt more like a rambling late night phone call from an old friend who just wants to talk about the way things used to be. During the company’s 60 minute kick at the can–which started 30 minutes late–CEO Steve Ballmer and dreamy corporate shill Ryan Seacrest didn’t provide the keynote’s attendees with a single piece of information they didn’t already have.
Touching briefly on the topics of the company’s Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform and their partnership with Intel in rolling out 78 different iterations of Ultrabook ultra portable computers over the next year, Ballmer and Seacrest quickly moved on to focus on Windows 8.
Sadly, there wasn’t much new here either. As we’d already heard late last year, the next version of Windows is being designed to operate on both ARM and x86 processors, paving the way for hardware manufacturers to install the OS on a wider variety of high-powered and ultra efficient low-powered personal computers, tablets and other devices than ever before. As Microsoft had previously indicated, Windows 8 will rely heavily on HTML5, not just for application design, but for playing video as well: Neither Flash nor the company’s own SilverLight technology will be offered on Windows 8.
The fact that Windows 8 users, just like Mac owners, will have access to an App Store was rehashed as well. The Windows Store for Windows 8 will go live on February 1, featuring a number of free applications that anyone using the Windows 8 Developer Preview will have access to. On the same day as the Windows Store comes online, PC users can also anticipate the arrival of a PC compatible version of Microsoft’s Kinnect motion-control hardware, which up until now has only been available to users of the company’s Xbox 360 console.
Remember all of those commercials during the holidays that featured friends and family using voice controls to search for and order videos and movies via Xbox Live embedded services like Netflix and ESPN? They riffed on that too. There was some good news here for Xbox owners though: Microsoft has brokered deals with a number of new content providers. Verizon customers who own an Xbox will have access to 26 Fios channels. Other services such as Infinity on Demand, as well as content from News Corp. and Fox will also be making an appearance on the gaming console as well. In addition to this, Ballmer noted that Microsoft was working with a number of companies such as American Express and Mattel to bring new Kinnect-enabled applications to market.
For a final showing at one of the largest tech-centric showcases in the world, we’re sad to say that what Microsoft provided us with this year was weaker than we could have imagined. Here’s hoping that moving forward, the company is able to not only deliver on what it rehashed last night, but also wow consumers with a something awesome in the weeks and months to come.
