It's not really a secret the Microsoft had planned on bringing bits of Windows Phone 7's Metro UI to Windows 8, but we haven't seen a lot of really telling evidence. However, with the Windows 8 milestone 3 build now available to Microsoft Connect partners, it was really just a matter of time before we started to get a peek. Thanks to Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, we've now had a glimpse at what the Windows 8 welcome screen will look like. As you can see, the typography is very Metro indeed. Within Windows also mentions that the background image is customizable, and we're wondering if it might not pull from your current Windows 8 theme. This particular shot shows the CTRL + ALT + DELETE login option, but we imagine you'll still be able to log in by clicking your account picture tile as well. Rivera and Thurrott also mention that the tablet version of the welcome screen will allow you to log in by swiping a pattern on the screen -- as you can on current Android devices.
Just a little under two months after its release candidate went live, Windows Home Server (WHS) 2011 has been finalized and released into the wild. The new version of Microsoft's slick, do-it-all server OS is a big step forward from its predecessor. Built on the Windows Server 2008 R2 base, Home Server 2011 features a simpler dashboard, a better backup solution, dead simple remote access to your home computers, and Silverlight-powered remote media streaming. For a more detailed look at what's new in Windows Home Server 2011, you check out Microsoft's official breakdown. Drive Extender, of course, didn't resurface for the final release of WHS 2011 and that's something a lot of power users are still pretty irked about. Even without Extender, Windows Home Server offers a boatload of useful functionality and might be a good fit for your home network. Manufacturers have already begun building hardware, so you should be able to pick up a device in the very near future. An evaluation download for Windows Home Server 2011 will be made available in April -- we'll let you know when the links are ready.
Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Video: ?Eyeborg? Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera IBM Assembles Record 120-Petabyte Storage Array Japanese Company Develops World?s Smallest And Lightest Chargers For Electric Vehicles Hey, Ladies, Would You Like To Look At My VR-Controlled RC Car? Kickstarter: Kammok, A Hammock For Outdoorsmen and City Folk Alike
Almost a year ago, an exodus on the Google Wallet team sent former members running away to companies like Square and other stealth projects. We wrote about one such stealth startup called Tappmo, co-created by the founding engineer and product lead on Google Wallet. The company is inching closer to launch, and they’ve renamed themselves Index. The team includes seven of the original members of the Google Wallet team and no, they’re not relying on NFC or near-field communications. While co-founders Marc Freed-Finnegan and Jonathan Wall aren’t sharing too many specifics about the user experience, Index will offer top tier merchants (as in the biggest 50 or so in the country) a software integration that plugs into their point-of-sale terminals. They will not require the use of new hardware. On the consumer side, a person can walk into a store and either use an app from the retailer or from Index to interact with the product. From this, Index hopes to offer merchants better, more precise data about each and every one of their customers for highly personal in-store service. There will also be a basic integration for nudging customers to take actions like posting check-ins, liking the Facebook Page, or tweeting. “What we’ve done is pretty clever in terms of the application,” Wall said. “We have a cross merchant application and we also have an SDK that merchants can embed into their own apps, so they can have a rich brand-specific experience. We think it’s the best of both worlds.” Index is not sharing names of their retail partners yet, but they’re aiming at the 150 biggest retailers in the country, not small-to-medium-sized businesses. They’re announcing a new retail advisory board this week that includes Whole Foods’ former senior vices president of purchasing, marketing and distribution Michael Bensacon, former Jamba Juice CEO and Burger King CMO Paul Clayton, AngelList’s Naval Ravikant and Michael Dadario, who worked for more than 25 years for home furnishing and fashion retailers like West Elm, Williams-Sonoma Inc., J.Crew and Banana Republic and Gap. Index is in the process of raising funding.
As iPhone owners can verify, the iPhone has an external speaker that doesn’t produce the loudest sound. Kubxlab has a new case that’s designed to double the sound output from the iPhone 5 without draining the phone’s battery or requiring any other power source. The ampjacket for iPhone 5 is a bit thicker than most [...]
One Laptop Per Child had a nice little surprise up its not-for-profit sleeves earlier this week in the form of its its latest computing device dedicated for developing world education. We'll be sitting down with the organization's VP of business development Giulia D'Amico and CFO Bob Hacker.
"In the Studio" this week welcomes a former economist who worked for his country's treasury department and reserve bank, a former intern with The Economist Group, and by way of his very unique company bio page, a former windsurfer and kiteboarder who is now settled in San Francisco and the founder and CEO of one of the most interesting data companies I've come across.
Gentlemen, brace yourselves: once upon a time, you were a girl. Strictly speaking, when you were just an overgrown ball of cells in the womb you were female—but fortunately a few things happened along the way to ensure you were all man by birth. More »
Google's Nexus 7 excited the budget tablet space, forcing other manufacturers to compete on features on price. And it's telling that this year's CES has been relatively devoid of new Android tablets. One of the few exceptions is Acer, which announced its new Iconia B1 tablet this week. U.S. pricing has yet to be announced, but in the UK it'll sell for £99, a full £60 less than the cheapest Nexus 7.
When designing a tablet at this price point, there are some corners that need to be cut. The B1 is a plasticky device with a fairly low-quality 1024x600 LCD display, and a rather odd beveled pattern around the back. It's not a premium product, but something designed to offer a basic Android experience at the lowest possible price point. Its size and weight is roughly comparable to that of the Nexus 7.
Inside is a Mediatek 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and 512MB of RAM, which copes with running Jelly Bean fairly well considering it's far from bleeding edge hardware, although we noticed some lag and stuttering during our time with a CES demo unit. There's 8GB of internal storage available out of the box, expandable through the tablet's microSD slot.
The Acer Iconia B1 is set to become available from late January. U.S. pricing has yet to be revealed, but in the eurozone it's expected to retail for under €130.
Don’t really want to purchase a new Mac or PC in your next round of hardware upgrades? Well the CuBox Pro is an open source mini computer that will support Linux-based distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian or even Android. This little box is only 2″ square, weighs in at 3.2 ounces and yet packs an 800MHz [...]