New Mixed Reality Headset Betters Rivals in Many Ways

Popular VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are excellent at immersing people in detailed virtual worlds, but there are some limitations to them as well. They all require external cameras and beacons as well as a lot of physical space to work. These are all problems addressed with great success by Acer’s Windows Mixed Reality Headset. Instead of having all the aforementioned hardware and being unnecessarily bulky or difficult to set up, all of the cameras for tracking your head, body and hand controllers are built into the headset making, setup much faster and simpler. Once set up, the motion controllers allow you to bring your movements into the virtual world in which you can become fully immersed. Read more »

Cloud services are advancing impressively with time and cool person in technology Nikola Bozinovic is pushing them further than ever with his product, MAINFRAME2.  Bozinovic’s service runs any Windows software in the cloud and lets people access and control that software through their browsers.  Users who own Macs, Linux PCs and Google Chromebooks can now run and access any Windows software they choose with Bozinovic’s cloud-based product.  MAINFRAME2 connects people through a simple browser interface that lets users run and interact with whatever Windows programs they want.  Since MAINFRAME2 is cloud-based, users can access their apps and data from anywhere at any time. Bozinovic is making the complete vision of cloud-based computer technology a reality for everyone, allowing people to run any app they want regardless of their local hardware.  If anyone has problems logging into this cool person’s service online, a cloud computer support company may be able to help determine what is causing the difficulty. Read more »

Having a digital personal assistant has been a science fiction fantasy for many consumers for decades.  Computers that speak to you and act as a personal assistant has been a common trope in popular television shows, books and films over the years.  However, only recently did the idea become a viable reality for the everyday consumer.  When Apple’s Siri feature for the iPhone debuted several years ago, it was a major hit. The conversational interaction that triggered the feature tapped into to many people’s fantasies about artificial intelligence.  Suddenly, people had the ability to ask their smartphone to make appointments, look up information and perform basic online tasks with just a few spoken words.  Flash forward a few years later and now there is a cool product called GoDog Fetch that acts in a similar way, but does so for other platforms besides the iPhone, such as Android and Windows devices.  Users who have trouble downloading the product for any of their devices can get help from a smartphone IT support service. Read more »

Despite its many successes in the software field, it is virtually impossible to deny that in many ways, Microsoft has been chasing Apple for years.  While Microsoft was still utilizing keyboard-based DOS, Apple had a mouse-based interface that captivated its users and made life easier for them.  That Microsoft Windows largely made PC’s more like Macintosh computers is a pretty old argument.  But as more and more details are leaked from Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8, it is hard not to see the parallels between the new operating system from Microsoft and Apple’s iOS. Read more »

It seems like every few months, there is a new smartphone that hits the market to offer a new feature, service or style that makes consumers rethink the smartphone they already have.  Early on in the race to make better smartphones, the addition of cameras or video technology made for a compelling smartphone release.  Now, it is all about speed and versatility.  If the smartphone is not a 4G smartphone or on an LTE network, it barely registers with consumers.  Nokia’s new Lumia 900 not only registers, it is already thrilling consumers! Read more »

Windows 8 is just around the corner. Microsoft released its new operating system for the developer’s pre-beta testing phase in September and a beta version will come out in February. The reviews so far from the pre-beta phase are extremely encouraging about Windows 8.

According to developers who are already using the pre-beta version, Windows 8 is a very different operating system from its predecessors. The entire operating system is a rethought and redesigned product to fulfill the needs of users better on all platforms.

That is right, all platforms. Instead of using a different operating system for smartphones and tablets than they use for computers, Windows 8 will be available for all devices. It will to work the same on every device, as well as be able to synchronize your trusted devices so that you can pull up the same programs when moving from one device to another. This should simplify computer support for any of your devices.

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A few years back, Microsoft had some legal troubles.  The U.S. government decided to aggressively pursue the Microsoft Corporation for antitrust violations.  This resulted in a restructuring of much of the way Microsoft does business and as Microsoft progresses past that dark chapter in its corporate history, it is once more growing steadily.  The results of the government probes and prosecution would have been much worse, had it not been for Mary E. Snapp.

Mary E. Snapp is the Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel in the Law and Corporate Affairs branch of Microsoft.  She specializes in providing legal advice for the Products and Services Division of Microsoft.  As Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of the vital Products and Services division, Snapp oversees 150 lawyers working to protect Microsoft’s legal claims for some of the most widely-used Microsoft products.

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The Kinect for Xbox 360 has been the ‘next big thing’ for gaming since it came out in November of 2010, but now it may become the ‘next big thing’ for computers too. Microsoft recently announced that they are releasing a Kinect for Windows in February of this year.

According to Todd Bishop on MSNBC, however, the Kinect for Windows are “more likely to show up first in business settings, such as car dealerships and retail stores. This is not coming to your home computer in a couple weeks.” He says this because what Microsoft was announcing was the release of the software development kit so that businesses could develop programs for the Kinect for Windows.

At this point, The Kinect for Windows has limited or no computer support with your personal home computer unless you develop the software for it yourself. Down the road though, the Kinect for Windows has great potential to change how we think about computers and their functionality. With its ability to detect movement both close up in Near Mode and farther away like the Kinect for Xbox, the Kinect for Windows will be a great new way to interface with the computer.

The Kinect for Windows is able to more accurately detect movements than its predecessor, so that when companies develop software for it, this technology will be useful and precise. It will also be able to recognize voice commands more accurately than ever before. This new user interface device will be a truly revolutionary product, when it becomes available widely to the public.

One of the downsides, however, is that because Microsoft owns the Kinect, this technology will only be compatible with Windows computers. Most likely, it will only work with Windows 7 and 8 (to be released this year). Other companies are working on this kind of motion sensing devices for televisions and other electronic devices, but Microsoft may have a monopoly on this type of technology as it applies to computers for a while.

There are plenty of other applications for this technology, as demonstrated on the Xbox Kinect website itself. There are videos there presenting the innovative ways people are already using their Kinects, including helping doctors look at MRIs and CAT scans, teaching autistic children, and helping stroke patients regain motor skills.

The Kinect for Windows could lead to some completely new applications as well. With its ability to track movement and recognize faces, the Kinect for Windows, might be the latest step in moving towards completely immersive gaming and computing. Admittedly, that is a long way off still, but it cannot hurt to dream!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Virtually anyone can manipulate statistics in so many different ways that it is sometimes funny what passes for news using statistics.  As the annual Consumer Electronics Show launched in Las Vegas this year, the NPD Group (formerly National Purchase Diary Group) came out with what appeared to be ominous financial statistics for the technology sector.  This was treated as potentially devastating news among many members of the technology press, most of whom were off covering the Consumer Electronics Show.

Is it possible the technology reporters and bloggers did not actually read the NPD report?  Is it possible that the mainstream media that picked up the story did not understand it?  Either way, the tech sector ought not to be reeling from the NPD Group’s assertion that holiday consumer electronics spending dropped six percent during the holiday shopping season in 2011.

This would actually be news . . . if it were true.

The NPD Group’s methodology in determining that consumer electronics sales dropped is a flawed one.  In fact, they use methodology so flawed as to make the results meaningless.  The NPD report states that total consumer technology sales “excluding cell phones, tablets, e-readers, and video games” dropped.  What?!  Why is anyone taking the report seriously when it excludes some of the biggest consumer spending items of the holiday season?!  Every major poll in every single respectable publication put the Amazon Kindle Fire at the top of both “most wanted” and “most purchased” gift lists.  The Apple iPad was also a highly sought-after and delivered gift.

Saying that consumer electronic spending is down without including tablets, e-readers and video games, is like saying that cars are being pulled over less by police . . . when red and black cars are excluded.  Given that red and black cars comprise the greatest number of cars on the road in the United States, any statistic correlating cars and car color is worthless without including them.  So, too, is a statistic about holiday spending on consumer electronics that omits the most popular consumer electronics of the holiday season!

Why did the NPD release such a worthless statistic?  To be fair, the data is virtually impossible to come by.  Amazon is notoriously tight-lipped about how many of its e-readers have sold, and, with the Kindle Fire, they have been characteristically opaque.  Apple is also less eager to release its sales figures on tablet computers, though it is widely predicted that when you consider tablets a personal computers, Apple is now the largest PC manufacturer on Earth.

Regardless of what the NPD wants consumers to think, ten days in the 2011 holiday shopping season saw billion dollar sales, which is more than any other holiday season ever before.  To think that consumer electronics like tablets, e-readers and video games did not contribute tremendously to that is naïve.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

If you spend time going through the corporate biographies of executives in the tech sector, it is very easy to get bored.  The story with so many executives is a familiar one: they went to business school, they took a business job, and they became a business leader.  Wow, someone started on a career path and they ended up at the end position of their chosen career path!  This is a pretty predictable story and one that plagues so many corporate biographies.  So, it is the atypical executive who stands out.  Gurdeep Singh Pall is just one such executive!

Gurdeep Singh Pall is the Vice President of Information Platform And Experience at the Microsoft Corporation.  In that role, Pall developed and promoted the Microsoft Lync system which has made video telecommunication more of a reality than ever before.  Pall is responsible for many important aspects of Microsoft’s Bing platform as well, including its research and development and promotion.  His real passion seems to be for working on the Bing platform’s speech recognition, mapping and mobile applications.

Part of what makes Gurdeep Singh Pall’s story so interesting is how he ascended to the position of Vice President, Information Platform & Experience.  He began at Microsoft as a software engineer, like so many people do.  Like visionaries in the field like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates before him, Pall had a vision to solve a complicated computer problem and he helped to design the LAN Manager Remote Access Service.  With that heady accomplishment, he moved to the Windows NT development team where he made several valuable contributions to the emerging OS through several of its incarnations.  In 1996, Pall was recognized for his achievements in pioneering VPN, the virtual private network.

After that, the software engineer became more of an executive.  Microsoft promoted Pall to the general manager of Windows Real-Time Communications and he served as the Vice President of the Office Lync And Speech Group.  There, he continued to use his engineering experience as he guided the team to the release of Lync.  Pall holds over twenty patents for technology he developed, most of which is in the emerging field of voice over internet protocol.  He helped pioneer the computer telecommunications field; when we have actual video phones, no doubt they will be based upon programming Pall developed!

Gurdeep Singh Pall has had an interesting career with Microsoft rising fast in the company because of his innovative ideas and technical acumen.  It is hard to imagine what he will come up with next!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com