Well it is all out now, Microsoft Windows 8 & Surface Tablets or notebook if you add the keyboard. What did Jim and I think about them…and many others too? Listen in and find out.
Here is some information about those and the others things we discussed today.
Have fun!
Microsoft Windows 8 & Surface?
a) Windows 8, Ron doubts this one.
b) Surface, iffy?
Here are some other Windows items that didn’t work so well:
- Windows for Pen, was Windows 3.1 with a stylus.
- Bob, 1995, was a Windows 3.x layer no icons but rooms with animated characters. (Clippy and the dog stayed around for a while.)
- Pocket PC 2000 eventually became Windows Mobile, similar to Palm Pilot with a stylus.
- Windows XP Tablets hit in 2002 but didn’t make it.
- Portable Media Center (a year before iPods) large and not friendly.
- Origami Ultra Mobile PCs were an early touch screen PC experiment in 2006, with finger touch. Many apps wouldn’t run.
- Zune, 2006, made to compete with iPods but failed again with less than 2% of the market.
- KIN, Windows phone, May 2010, for 15-30 year olds a "hip" phone. Verizon stopped selling them in July 2010 (yes, 2 months) due to poor sales.
- Windows 7 phones, seem to be doing poorly with about 2% of the market, compared to Android (48.5%), iOS (32%), and BlackBerry (11.6%).
Now, the Surface with Windows 8 (which uses the default Zune font), will it sell?
Windows is the number one OS in the world with 83.7% of the market as of October 2012, so they aren’t hurting.
What will become of Windows 8?
| Operating System Popularity | |||||||
| 2012 | Win7 | WinXP | Mac | Linux | Vista | NT | Mobile |
| October | 56.8% | 22.1% | 9.2% | 4.8% | 3.0% | 1.8% | 1.8% |
New words added to oxforddictionaries.com
- A few samples…mostly geek stuff.
- Dunbar’s number, n.: a theoretical limit to the number of people with whom any individual is able to sustain a stable or meaningful social relationship (usually considered to be roughly 150).
- e-cigarette, n.: another term for electronic cigarette.
- e-learning, n.: learning conducted via electronic media, typically on the Internet.
- ethical hacker, n.: a person who hacks into a computer network in order to test or evaluate its security, rather than with malicious or criminal intent.
- lolz, pl. n.: fun, laughter, or amusement.
- OH, n.: a person’s wife, husband, or partner (used in electronic communication, previously known as "Other Half:).
- tweeps, pl. n.: a person’s followers on the social networking site Twitter.
- UI, n.: short for ‘user interface’.
- user experience, n.: the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or a computer application, esp. in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use (also UX, n.).
(this app can be found on Google Play from your Android phone,
tablet or viewed on your PC from the link below.)
This simple application will automatically switch speaker status on\off during a phone call according to phone position. It uses the proximity sensor to know if the phone is near your ear or not.
Say you take a call while in your car, pull your phone away from you ear and lay it on the dash. The headset immediately cuts off and the speaker cuts on, without having to press any buttons and take your eyes off of the road.
Google.ORG Google.org
As the philanthropic arm of Google, Google.org develops technologies to help address global challenges and supports innovative partners through grants, investments and in-kind resources.
We focus on problems where Google’s assets and core capabilities—technology innovation, global presence, making massive amounts of information universally accessible and useful—play strongest and where the solutions we create have the most potential to scale.
Equipping the Saints
A great place to donate your older technology equipment like computers, phones, printers, etc. Try to make sure they are working pretty well.
Google Nexus 7
A great "do it all" Android tablet with a good price point.
At only 12 oz., this tablet is designed to go wherever you go — and now with up to 32GB of storage, and the ability to connect to most mobile data networks — Nexus 7 is your perfect travel companion.
A no compromise Android tablet. With the latest version of Android, a stunning 7-inch display, powerful quad-core processor, up to 10 hours of web browsing or e-reading, and a staggering 300 hours of standby time, Nexus 7 was built for top of the line grab-and-go performance.
That’s it for this month. I hope to see and hear you back next month on Monday, December 17 at 10 AM on WSVA Radio. Listen on the WSVA site and stream it live.
Thanks,
Ron
