Windows Experience Blog

Yet another DirectX 11 Graphics Card from AMD!

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:52:20 GMT

Hot on the heels of the ATI Radeon HD 5450, AMD today has announced the ATI Radeon HD 5570.

The Radeon HD 5570 is designed for small form-factor PCs and it too supports DirectX 11 in Windows 7. You can find the specs for this graphics card here on AMD’s product page. For this card, they were able to jam the same multimedia capabilities as what AMD calls the “enthusiast-class” ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card into this power efficient, lower priced graphics card.

AMD’s press release doesn’t include a price other than “affordable price”.

Of course both the ATI Radeon HD 5570 and previously announced Radeon HD 5450 carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo – as does AMD’s entire HD 5000 Series of graphics cards.

AMD Announces Low-cost DirectX 11 Graphics Card

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:00:58 GMT

Earlier today, AMD announced the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card – the latest addition to the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series of graphics cards.

The ATI Radeon HD 5450 will cost less than $60 (USD) for a 512MB memory configuration and supporting DirectX 11 making it one sweet deal if you’re looking for a DirectX 11 graphics card for your Windows 7 PC.

The Radeon HD 5450 offers entry level performance and ultra-low power consumption and also supports AMD’s multi-monitor technology called ATI Eyefinity and their ATI Stream technology. There will be variations of this card depending on partner offers including passive cooling models or whisper-quiet, single slot fan-cooled models.

This graphics card is perfect for someone putting together a home theater PC (HTPC) with Windows 7 as it comes with features like HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

For a complete list of specs on the ATI Radeon HD 5450, click here.

Internet Explorer 8 Officially Becomes World’s Most-Used Browser

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:03:43 GMT

This week, Net Applications released their January browser market share report. Their report shows that Internet Explorer 8 is not only the most popular browser on Windows with 27.9% usage share, but that it now has 25.6% of market share across all OS’s on a worldwide-weighted usage share basis (data provided by Net Applications). We launched just less than a year ago, so it’s both humbling and thrilling to see so many people choose our product so quickly – making it the most popular browser of choice worldwide.

There are many reasons people choose which browser to use. Most people want to know and trust the company behind their browser. And people are looking a browser that protects them – and their privacy online. In an August 13th, 2009 post on the IEBlog, we announced Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter had hit over 80 million malware blocks. But that was back in August. As of today, Internet Explorer 8 has done over 350 million malware blocks. You can see Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter in action in this blog post. Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter blocks malware over 2 million times a day.

Phishing is a very serious threat to people browsing the Internet today – a criminal attempt to secure people’s personal information online, generally spread through email directing unsuspecting consumers to fake websites and asking them to enter sensitive information . With Internet Explorer 7, we introduced the Phishing Filter, and have continued to improve on it in Internet Explorer 8. Together, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 have blocked a total of over 125 million phishing sites.

You may have recently heard about organizations including Google recommending that people update their browsers and move off older versions, such as the nearly decade-old Internet Explorer 6. Think about what technology and the Internet were like in the year 2000 – and consider how they’ve evolved since then. In 2000, “phishing” was something that happened at the lake, not online. There was no social networking, no RSS feeds, and no real blogs. It was a different time – and people’s browsing needs were different. Today’s Internet calls for more.

We support this recommendation to move off Internet Explorer 6. Modern browsers such as Internet Explorer 8 bring benefits for customers and developers alike. We realize there are some customers today who depend on Internet Explorer 6, and while we continue to support them through the lifecycle of the product, we are also investing in the tools and training to help them upgrade as well.

Dell Launches Alienware M11x 11” Gaming Laptop

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:45:14 GMT

Unveiled at CES in early January, Dell today is launching the highly anticipated extremely portable gaming laptop: the Alienware M11x. At CES, the M11x won both CNET's Award for the Best Gaming Product at CES 2010 and IGN’s Award for Best Computer. The M11x is one of the smallest gaming laptops hitting the market with an 11” design. Dell literally went and packed in the power of a 15” laptop in an 11” design with this PC. And it weighs in at less than 4.5 pounds. Dell recently did a blog post called A Brief History of the Alienware M11x which gives some more perspective and back story to the PC.

The M11x can be configured with (and up to) the follow specs:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Processor: Up to Intel Core2 Duo SU7300 (1.3GHz, 800 MHz, 3 MB)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M - 1GB GDDR3
Memory: Up to 8GB - DDR3 1066MHz
Hard Drive: a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive or a 256GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
Network: 802.11 b/g/n & Optional Internal WWAN
Ports: HDMI / VGA / 3 USB / Media Card Reader / FireWire

The keyboard integrates back lit keys which are fully customizable through the exclusive Alienware Command center, featuring AlienFX software. The Alienware M11x will be available in 2 color options: Cosmic Black or Lunar Shadow (Silver).

You can order the Alienware M11x today starting at $799. Dell is working to bring this PC to international markets, including South Asia. Look for Dell to announce more details when those plans are finalized.

If you’re a gamer and want a PC with some impressive specs yet retains a great deal of mobility – the Alienware M11x is the perfect PC to take a look at!

Jordan Brand taps into key Microsoft technologies to help celebrate its 25th Anniversary

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:32:55 GMT

Jordan Brand will be celebrating its 25th year anniversary at this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend. During this celebration, one way that Jordan Brand would like to engage with consumers is through rich experiences enabled by new and emergent technology. The Jordan Brand has partnered with Microsoft and Wirestone to help them do so with Silverlight, Windows Azure, Microsoft Surface and Windows 7.

The first exciting experience Jordan Brand has unveiled is a social mosaic, called Mosaic 23/25. Using Silverlight 3 and Deep Zoom, Jordan Brand enthusiasts can upload photos of their Air Jordan shoes and other Jordan Brand apparel. The Silverlight Deep Zoom technology allows folks to pan and zoom deep into the mosaic of photos to see their photo and photos of others who are contributing to the Jordan Brand community from around the globe. For more information on the use of Silverlight for the Jordan Brand photo mosaic, click here to read this blog post on the Silverlight Team Blog.

So how does the Windows Azure tie into this? Well, Social Mosaic was built on the Windows Azure platform! For some details on how the mosaic was built using Windows Azure, read this blog post on the Windows Azure Team Blog.

During the NBA All-Star Weekend taking place in Dallas, the Jordan Brand is building out a space near the American Airlines arena called the 23/25 Space which you can visit Feb. 11th – 14th. In this space there will be interactive kiosks with large multitouch flat-screens that will be running a Windows 7 multitouch experience which will allow enthusiasts to interact with the history of the Jordan Brand over 25 years. Also at the event will be Microsoft Surface units, and these will enable multiple users to collaboratively and simultaneously interact with the Jordan Brand and each other. If you’re going to be in Dallas for the NBA All-Star games, you definitely need to visit the 23/25 Space!

I’ll be talking more about a lot of this technology once we get to the NBA All-Star Weekend.

In the meantime, I need to go out and pick myself up a pair of Air Jordan’s and upload my photo to the social mosaic!

Playlist 7 Highlights Free Music from Top Emerging Artists Sponsored by Windows 7

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:22:01 GMT

Early last month, Windows announced a new music discovery program in partnership with ReverbNation called Playlist 7. This program is exclusively for members of our Facebook, MySpace and Twitter communities.

If you’re already a Fan / Friend / Follower of Windows on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter then you already have access to 7 songs of your choice from 600 participating musicians every week when you visit the Playlist 7 website. If you’re not already a Fan / Friend / Follower of Windows, then you can become one instantly on the network of your choice, direct from the Playlist 7 website.

Once you’ve “connected” to Playlist 7, you will be able to check out this week’s Current Contenders to sample and can download your choice of any 7 songs. Current Contenders change every week (until the program ends of course), so you will want to keep checking Playlist 7 each week for new downloads. The 7 Featured Artist songs are the most downloaded songs from the prior week – they are also free to download for everyone who is connected.

In the first month, we’ve seen a fantastic early response for Playlist 7. Since November 30th, 20,509 Fans, Friends, and Followers of Windows have connected to the Playlist 7 and have downloaded 203,744 songs (which are absolutely free) in just 6 weeks of the program! And we’ve got 5 more weeks to go! Keep checking Playlist 7 each week for a new set of Current Contenders and songs from Featured Artists!

Going out and buying a Windows 7 PC

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:36:46 GMT

Last weekend, I decided to go out and buy a new PC for at home. This PC would be used only as a “work PC” for when I do work at home. Sure, I could use my laptop but I’m sort of still a desktop guy. A lot of PC shopping happens online. Folks like Dell, HP, and many others have fantastic websites designed to give the consumer everything they need to make a purchasing decision for a PC. But a lot of PC shopping happens physically in stores too. I decided instead of ordering online, I would visit a local Best Buy and make my purchase there (of course if I found a PC I liked!).

I set out to find a PC based on the following criteria: doesn’t have to be a super powerful PC, has to be relatively low priced (around $500), had to have a small form factor (a desktop PC not a laptop), and had to carry the Windows 7 logo.

I wanted to primarily use this PC for blogging, email, and a bunch of scenario, hardware and software testing that I would end up blogging about. This PC wouldn’t be doing anything intensive like HD video editing.

I wanted in to Best Buy and went straight over to the Computers. I asked one of the Best Buy folks where I could find the small form-factor desktop PCs. He pointed me in the right direction. They had a row of tables with desktop PCs on them and section specifically for small-form factor desktop PCs. For most of their PCs, Best Buy puts out a label that has its price as well as hardware configuring usually listing a PCs processor, how much memory it has, how much storage (hard drive) it has, and sometimes graphics. I went an analyzed a few of these labels and weighed in spec and price for a few PCs. In the end – I found the perfect PC that met my needs exactly: the HP Pavilion (s5310y) Slimline PC.

The HP Pavilion Slimline PC came with the following specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 250 (3Ghz, 2MB L2, 400Mhz System Bus
Memory: 4GB DDR3 Memory
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE Integrated Graphics*
Network: NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps
Optical: SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology**
Storage: 600GB Hard drive

*Up to 256MB of system memory may be allocated to support graphics. This may result in Windows 7 reporting that you have 4GB of memory but 3.75GB “usable”.

**What exactly is LightScribe? Here’s a good explanation.

The PC is small, and slim which it gets its name from. It’s about 4 inches wide (thick), 12 inches tall (when standing up), and 15 inches deep (from front to back). It’s exactly what I needed to sit on a small shelf next to my desk next to my Windows Home Server.

Total cost for the PC was $509.99. Not bad. Just about what had been expecting to spend.

For work, I needed to join this PC to the corporate Microsoft domain. This allows me to enjoy access to our internal Microsoft stuff. However, the PC ships with Windows 7 Home Premium which does not allow for domain join. I ended up picking up a copy of Windows Anytime Upgrade to move from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional.

Moving from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional was extremely easy. Essentially the Windows Anytime Upgrade package provides you with a product key. This product key enables the upgrade to happen. On the PC I purchased with Windows 7 Home Premium, I went to the Start Menu and All Programs and chose Windows Anytime Upgrade. There I entered the key I had and the upgrade commenced.

The upgrade was pretty quick (took 2 reboots). I am now running Windows 7 Professional.

The rest of the evening I spent time downloading and installing the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta and setting the PC up just the way I want it (Windows Live Essentials, Zune, etc.). I joined it to the domain; Outlook 2010 picked up our corporate Exchange 2010 server and downloaded all my email. I now have a nice little work PC here in my home office!

From going to the store, buying the PC, and upgrading it to Windows 7 Professional, took less than 2 hours. I had a great experience – hope when you go out shopping for a PC it’s a great experience too!

Interview with Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur on Seesmic Look

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:28:49 GMT

Today Seesmic has announced a brand new Twitter app for the Windows Platform specifically designed for the mainstream consumer called Seesmic Look. Seesmic Look brings a lot to the table making it easy for the average consumer, like your mom, to digest and take in Twitter content. This Windows app works with or without a Twitter account! Earlier this week in the midst of traveling to New York for today’s event, Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur was able to spare some time to chat with me about Seesmic Look. We go into great detail on Seesmic Look and the future of Seesmic including some discussion on Seesmic for Windows! Loic is Seesmic’s Founder and CEO. Business Week Magazine named Loic as one of the 25 most influential people on the web recently.

Brandon LeBlanc: Seesmic Look is your new application. Tell us about it, what is different, and why should users download it right away?

Loic Le Meur: So, Look will be our “avatar” of Twitter clients because it is an entirely new category that is aiming at providing very rich and engaging ways for end-users to interact with Twitter. Basically for anyone - not just the computer savvy (or what we call “the geeks”). And that is what Look is. Helping, you know, anyone getting information and interact with Twitter in a way that we believe has never been done before. Especially thinking about, you know, people watch CNN and hear about Twitter, people been watching Oprah and heard about Twitter, and they may not have a Twitter account, they likely don’t have a Twitter account yet, and we’ve designed Look for them. It’s for everyone else basically who doesn’t use Twitter yet.

Brandon: So you don’t have to have a Twitter account to use Seesmic Look? It can totally be used and is accessible to the general consumer that doesn’t have a Twitter account – correct?

Loic: It’s the very first application that we know of that lets you interact, that lets you read, get information, get news about all your favorite topics without having to have or use a Twitter account – at all. The reason we made that choice is because we wanted it to be accessible to anyone. So you just download Look, you get it up and running instantly, and nothing prevents you from reading information – enjoying information about celebrities, about sports… but we’ll come back to that. Anything that is interesting to you. That’s something that no one has done, something that no one has done via the user experience and is rich and engaging.

The other thing really is we tried to make it feel like an experience close to watching TV if you just want to consume information and you can just sit back and relax and watch Twitter. That is something also that no one else has done and a very engaging, rich, way you can obviously… you can even use Look from your couch if you like with a remote control, something else that is new.

But the other thing which makes Look entirely unique is you can interact with it using touch. So it’s been optimized and is usable with all the new devices that use a touch UI. But also a remote control so you can actually sit from a couch and watch Twitter and that is absolutely new and extremely addictive. We’re trying to get an experience very close to watching TV – the other thing you can do with Look is use the “TV mode” button for Look (Note: in the app it is called Playback Mode). If you click it, you can see the tweets coming to you without doing anything. And that is also very entertaining because it is what enables Look to basically watch Twitter.

Brandon: So what you’re saying is if I have a Media Center PC in my living room, I could put Look on that PC that’s connected to my 42” LCD HDTV and using my Media Center remote to navigate and play around with Look like I would Media Center, right?

Loic: Exactly. I’ve been using it for a few weeks myself on a HP TouchSmart PC. And just using it and navigating it with my fingers or the remote control which is provided. It’s a very new way to interact with Twitter and also what I enjoy myself and we’re expecting our users to also enjoy is that you can go to your favorite categories. For example if you want to follow what is happening in Haiti and you really want to stay on top of news coming in you can select the “news” section of Look and put it in TV mode and let it run this way, all day if you like, which is also something not done before, and just watch the news coming in to you straight onto your, yeah, pretty much like a Media Center experience absolutely. It would be totally appropriate to have on a, you know, a LCD screen or TV – anything like that.

Brandon: You’ve talked about Seesmic Look making Twitter accessible for everyone. How does this change the experience for someone that is using Twitter for the very first time?

Loic: Basically we make it very easy for them to learn and also to discover users - which is why we have the directory there because when you start on Twitter you need to find people to follow. And also mainstream non-tech savvy users want to find popular names and brands. And that is what we have built into Look as well. When you open Look and go to News you will see the Wall Street Journal, you will see CNN, you will see brands that are reassuring for mainstream users and the same with celebrities or sports.

Brandon: What sorts of things does Seesmic Look bring to the table for consumers to consume Twitter content, like what are some of the features they will take advantage of?

Loic: The very first one is that we make it simple to consume information. First, the way Look opens is that it opens on Trends. So it gives you the most current trends and lets you go deep real-time wise on what everybody is talking about. Then what we have created entirely exclusively for Look and something Seesmic has never done before is a directory of interests so that you can go and check the main categories we have.

We have News, we have Sports, we have Entertainment, Celebrities, and I could go on and on but these are again consistent to our goal of helping Twitter reach the masses and with everybody watching TV and reading newspapers – this is very different. Basically Twitter has reached a point now it has to go mainstream. To go mainstream, it has to be extremely simple, to enter it and access it, for users who don’t know Twitter at all. So that’s a goal I think we’ve achieved with Look.

For example if you go to Celebrities and you hit (click) one of those Twitter accounts you will see that the user interface is extremely rich and innovative in the fact that we use the Twitter background for that celebrity (from their profile) and display it as the entire background in the application.

And so basically each time you check the user or celebrity or go to CNN you will have a unique experience per user. It offers environment which is something very, very new.

Brandon: What’s the difference between Seesmic Look and Seesmic for Windows?

Loic: Seesmic for Windows is an application which become quite popular is really designed for more of the power user. For daily, multiple hours a day users who almost some of them use it at a professional level to manage their communities where as Seesmic Look is really again designed for the mainstream, for people who will interact with Twitter with help – we should come back to that – we made it very easy to create a Twitter account and we are partners with Twitter on this application. But it is really designed for my mother – for “normal” people where Seesmic for Windows is a full featured application for current Twitter users to really manage their community online and are already into social networks and that is very different.

Brandon: Seesmic Look introduces several new features never before seen in a Twitter client – one of those is branded Channels. Can you tell me a little bit more about Channels?

Loic: Our objective was to get in front of the new Twitter users or people who are discovering it, with a reassuring environment with brands they trust and they know. We are working with a group of launch partners and what we call a channel is a branded environment, which is basically a piece of real-estate we created from scratch that is very rich in terms of interaction. And that lets the user access those brands and environments they know. So you will find Red Bull in there for example. As launch partners – we have a number of brands free that will feature more than other than just Red Bull.

So if you go to Red Bull, you will find an environment that basically respects the way the brand communicates to consumers. And what they (Red Bull) chose to feature to them (consumer). And you will see that it’s not actually featuring the products at all but it’s more about featuring the Twitters who are basically in the Red Bull environment in all their different categories like Air, Athletic, Moto, Action, and so on and so forth. And when you get into that, you find you can actually discover interesting Twitter users and athletes who can do all kinds of things like jumping out of airplanes, doing some moto-racing, and so on. And this is just for Red Bull.

This is one example of something never done before in any (Twitter) application that brings so much integration of the brand environment which is entirely powered by Twitter.

We have a number of brand launch partners, and we’re very excited to make this real-estate available in Look.

Brandon: Now you’ve been very busy lately. In December you announced Seesmic for Windows, you’ve announced a few mobile apps, and you’ve acquired Ping.fm and now you’re launching Seesmic Look. So what’s next for Seesmic?

Loic: We’re very busy and we’re the only company in the Twitter ecosystem that operates on so many screens. And that is a vision we shared with Ray Ozzie on stage at the PDC conference where Ray explained he wanted Microsoft and specifically Silverlight and Windows to help developers get on all the screens and that’s exactly what we’re doing because as you said we’re on 2 mobile platforms, to answer your question we have more mobile platforms coming. We want to be everywhere the consumer is in terms of interacting with Twitter and social networks. That includes the desktop and also on the web.

So Look completes our offering because we felt really strongly that we needed an application that could be used by the millions of users who aren’t power users.

And what’s coming next is something we’ve announced at PDC – we’re working on a plug-in architecture for Seesmic for Windows which is coming together very well with the next month. And that will open new opportunities for developers to tap into our user base which will be to create any form of application and services that can get integrated into Seesmic for Windows. So right now geo-location is very fashionable and there are a number of applications in that field like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp – we want to support all of them. But with a small time, obviously we cannot build everything that is available (into Seesmic for Windows) ourselves so the plug-in architecture will allow anyone to create a plug-in and get in to Seesmic for Windows. We’re getting ready to launch this in the coming months and is our main focus right now (after of course launching Look!).

Brandon: In a world where some people are talking about everything going to the web, Seesmic has made an investment and a bet on these apps running on richer client experiences. Why is that important?

Loic: I agree many people have been explaining everything should go web-based, and while we have Seesmic Web for our pure Web presence, we believe there are a number of interactions and user experiences that you cannot provide when you’re only web-based. And there is a category of users who really value that design and that experience that you can only do/get in a desktop application. Or even a mobile application. And it’s the same on mobile by the way, you have a lot of web clients which work really well with applications but you can see by how mobile apps are downloadable – mobile apps are booming these days which shows the desktop and mobile applications have a huge future ahead of them.

There is no other way to provide that kind of interaction which is very close to somewhat like a gaming environment than just reading webpages. And we really believe that interaction and design are extremely important and probably more important than features themselves. Look is fully featured of course but the look and feel of Look is very unique because it’s an application. And it couldn’t be made on a web app at all – and we really think it’s going to make a big difference.

Brandon: Thanks Loic for taking the time to talk us through Seesmic Look today and congrats on an awesome release! It’s fantastic to see Seesmic launch such a bleeding-edge Windows app for consuming Twitter content.

So what are you waiting for?

Go download Seesmic Look today and give it a spin!

If you’ve got some not-so-tech-savvy family members or friends who might like to read what’s happening in the “Twitterverse” you should point Seesmic Look out to them. I know my mom is going to love Seesmic Look to follow all the celebrity tweets. She loves that kind of stuff. But even some of my more geeky friends will also love Seesmic Look.

Pssst, you Seesmic for Windows fan outs there keep your eyes peeled… I’m told a Seesmic for Windows update is coming soon!

Introducing the Windows Experience Pack

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:11:14 GMT

I want to take a moment and let folks know about the Windows Experience Pack we are making available starting today for people with PCs running Windows 7 and/or Windows Live Essentials. While we can’t send all of you on vacation, we can give you something special to help you daydream and customize your PC and online experience.

With the Windows Experience Pack, you are able create an alter-ego of yourself in a specific destination – a beach, mountain, safari, or city. When you create your alter-ego, you create a fully customized avatar for that destination that becomes a part of a Windows Live Messenger and Windows 7 theme for your PC. You’ll also be able to download a .jpg image of your avatar to share, print, or use as your icon on social networks.

For a specific destination you pick, the following Windows Live Messenger elements are created for you to use in Messenger for your alter-ego:

1 static Display Picture
Up to 4 Dynamic Display Pictures
A Wink
7 new Emoticons
A new Messenger Scene

For Windows 7, you are given the choice between 3 desktop backgrounds for your destination and a screensaver featuring multiple photos from your destination.

The Windows Experience Pack was created and optimized for Windows 7, but it can be downloaded and used on PCs running Windows XP or Windows Vista too (although performance and features may vary).

Have fun!

Vancouver 2010 - The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games – Available via Games On Demand

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:31:53 GMT

Are you a gamer and into sports and a fan of the Olympics? I was just sent along word that Vancouver 2010, the official game for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, is now available via Games on Demand through Games for Windows – LIVE.

The game is pretty much a sports simulation, with courses modeled after Vancouver 2010 Olympic venues. You can participate in 14 events to try and win the Gold Medal.

To purchase Vancouver 2010 today, just fire up the Games for Windows – LIVE client and hit the Marketplace to purchase and download the game. If you don’t have the Games for Windows – LIVE client installed, you can grab the installer here.

Watch the Live Webcast of 2010 International CES Microsoft Keynote

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:36:01 GMT

You can watch the live webcast of the 2010 International CES Microsoft Keynote starting at 6:30 today (January 6th) over at the CES 2010 Virtual Pressroom on the new Microsoft News Center (previously PressPass). Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer and Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Division, will deliver the keynote address this year.

Celebrate the Arrival of 2010 with a New Windows 7 Theme!

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:09:36 GMT

Smashing Magazine, an online (and independent) publication focused on web designers and developers, and the design community, has released 35 really neat desktop wallpapers for January 2010. A calendar is embedded into each of the wallpapers.

These wallpapers were created by designers all across the world. Smashing Magazine features a quote from designer on how they created their wallpaper in their post. They plan to post wallpapers by designers for each month.

Fellow Microsoftie (and fan of Smashing Magazine) Tim Heuer decided to take those 35 wallpapers and create a Windows 7 theme for everyone to download and install on their Windows 7 PCs!

Download: Smashing Magazine January 2010 Wallpaper Windows 7 Theme

Those who don’t know Tim - Tim is a Program Manager on the Silverlight Team.

Tim’s Windows 7 theme of these amazing wallpapers from Smashing Magazine is another great way to celebrate the arrival of 2010! For more Windows 7 personalization, click here.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year! Bring on 2010.

Official Expedition Software for Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro Provided by Microsoft

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:40:07 GMT

Microsoft is providing the official Expedition Software with Windows 7, Bing, and Windows Live Messenger for Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro.

Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro, the brain child of musician and philanthropist Kenna, is an effort to drive global awareness around the clean water crisis facing the planet with celebrities and educators such as Jessica Biel, Lupe Fiasco, Santigold and Elizabeth Gore climbing to the top Mt. Kilimanjaro. The climb starts January 7th, 2010. You can track the climb via the Summit on the Summit website. 1 billion people today don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water.

You don’t have to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro to be involved. You can sponsor a foot and donate to the cause. You can also download the Summit on the Summit theme for Windows 7 and the Summit on the Summit theme for Windows Live Messenger too! There are lots of tools you can take advantage of to show your support of this effort here.

HP is providing the official Expedition Technology for Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro. HP PCs will come with Windows 7 with Bing as the search engine and Windows Live Messenger installed.

UPDATE 12/31: Added a bit more information regarding the climbers and background on the effort.

Games on Demand for Games for Windows – LIVE

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:26:54 GMT

This week we announced Games on Demand for Games for Windows – LIVE. Through the Games for Windows – LIVE PC client, you can now purchase, download, and install full games for your PC!

Download: Games for Windows - LIVE (Version 3.2)

You can download 4 of 7 games I blogged about earlier this week in my post on 7 hot games for Windows 7 for the holidays. Those games include DIRT 2, a DirectX 11 game, and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

When you install Games for Windows – LIVE in Windows 7, Games for Windows – LIVE is added as a Game Provider in Games Explorer.

You can stay on top of all the latest Games for Windows – LIVE news right from Games Explorer in Windows 7.

Games for Windows – LIVE titles let PC gamers log in and take advantage of Xbox LIVE – including improving their Gamerscore and playing against other games on Xbox LIVE.

Try Games on Demand today!

Through January 4th, 2010 – we’re offering Shadowrun and Viva Piñata 50% off through Games on Demand.

7 Hot Games for Windows 7 for the Holidays

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:32:41 GMT

The holidays are here, and that usually means spending time with family and friends. For some of you however, that might mean logging in heavy hours online mercilessly shredding your friends on some sort of virtual war-torn landscape. I thought I would take a moment to offer up a recommendation for 7 of the hottest new games that let you raid, frag and dominate on Windows 7.

DIRT 2 - Games for Windows - LIVE

Car racing has been around since the dawn of gaming. But when you add a mud-flinging off-road adventure to the mix and a host of ultra-cool rigs to choose from, you’ve got loads of fun for the racing addict in your house. DIRT 2 gets an extra power boost from DirectX 11 (Click here to learn about DirectX 11 and why it’s awesome).

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Games for Windows - LIVE

Straight from the pages of DC Comics to your PC screen, Batman: Arkham Asylum brings the intense graphics of Gotham City and Arkham Asylum together. In this action packed title, Batman faces down many of his toughest enemies, such as the Joker, Harley Quinn, Bane, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc, who have taken over Arkham Asylum. This game is a must have for Batman fans like me.

Street Fighter IV - Games for Windows - LIVE

All of the classic Street Fighter characters, moves and graphics that had gamers spending huge amounts of quarters at the arcade are brought back in Street Fighter IV. This time it’s combined with spectacular 3-D environments and new moves that would’ve broken your wrist on the coin-ops.

Dark Void - Games for Windows

Fall into the Dark Void and you are in for the fight of your life against a seemingly insurmountable robot alien race. Use a cool personal jet pack to traverse a dangerous landscape with thousand foot cliffs and heavily armed killing machines around every corner. Load up and keep your finger on the trigger at all times.

Resident Evil 5 - Games for Windows - LIVE

Resident Evil is a classic single-shooter game that explores your worst fears of living through apocalyptic events. Resident Evil 5 takes you through lots of new challenges with fighting off brain-dead evil zombies. A new challenge for Resident Evil fans!

Left 4 Dead 2

Zombie Killers unite! In Left 4 Dead 2, your faced with one of the best, most nerve-wracking “I’m surrounded-and-need-to-fight-my-way-out” challenge that I’ve seen in a long time. This is one that the gamer in your household will love playing with friends.

Borderlands

War-torn landscapes, nasty alien creatures, an arsenal of great weaponry and a puzzling story. Just what every single person shooter loves in a gaming experience!

Did you know that, all 25 of the top 25 selling game in NPD’s October 2009 report run on Windows - that’s something that no other platform can claim! As new games go through development, game shops are making Windows 7 a top priority because it features the innovative technologies in DirectX 11, which allow for faster and more realistic PC gaming experiences. Simply put – more awesome games can be developed using DirectX 11 and Windows 7.

Here’s what Chris Kingsley, CTO of game development studio Rebellion says about how they were able to deliver a great gaming experience using Windows 7 and DirectX 11:

At Rebellion we're excited that Windows 7 and DirectX 11 allows us to create in our upcoming title ‘Aliens vs. Predator’ new, super immersive gaming experiences with state of the art HD Graphics for our customers.

For more on Rebellion’s upcoming Aliens vs. Predator from SEGA – click here.

Let me briefly get even geekier with specifics regarding DirectX 11. DirectX 11 brings key technologies to the table such as Tessellation, Multi-threading and DirectCompute that make it a hit with developers.

There are also Windows 7 PCs that are designed specifically for the power gamer. If you’re in the market for a new gaming rig, I’d recommend checking these PCs out:

ASUS G51J
Alienware M17x
Alienware Area 51 (for you desktop fans out there)

When it comes to gaming on the PC – Windows 7 offers gamers a fantastic gaming experience. Game developers look to Windows 7 and DirectX for blow-your-hair-back powerful gaming. These 7 hot new games are ready and waiting for you to play on Windows 7 with more coming! Psst, you’ll notice none of these games are available on any other OS ;-)