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Microsoft Adds 3D Printing Support To Windows 8.1 For App Developers
Microsoft is doing its bit to help push forward the 3D printing revolution, by adding in native 3D printer support in Windows 8.1. A new API will let developers on its platform put 3D printing capabilities right into their apps, so that you’ll be able to print that elegant ashtray you’re modelling right on the spot. The API will help consumers using devices including those from Makerbot and Form Labs create their own stuff even more easily at home.
This is great news for the prospects of 3D printing becoming a mainstream thing, instead of just an enthusiast’s hobby. And Microsoft is clearly interested in attracting developers who are interested in 3D printing to the Windows software ecosystem. Whether that’s just a way for it to look ‘hip, cool and cutting edge,’ or a genuine big bet on the future of the tech remains to be seen, but at least it’s there to be taken advantage of.
Microsoft support along with the merger of Makerbot with Stratasys means there’s a lot of energy going into mainstreaming home 3D printing tech right now, from some of the largest players in the space. That doesn’t mean we’ll all be printing our own phones at home in two years’ time, but it does mean we’ll probably see a lot more investment focused on this area in the near future.
Microsoft's New Camera App For Windows 8.1 Lets You Take Photo Sphere-Like Panoramas
With its Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft today also launched a new version of its camera app. For the most part, the app hasn’t really changed all that much, but Microsoft has added a cool (though derivative) new feature to the app: panoramas. Given the company’s history with these apps, starting with PhotoSynth many years ago, this doesn’t really come as a surprise, though it is surprising that Microsoft would first launch this feature on Windows 8.1 and not on Windows Phone.
The way the app works is pretty straightforward (Microsoft provided me with a Surface Pro tablet to test Windows 8.1 Preview) and feels similar to PhotoSynth on the iPhone. You simply hit the new panorama button in the camera app and start rotating. The app automatically recognizes when it’s time to take a new photo (the viewfinder gives you some subtle clues, too). Just keep moving and the panorama is automatically filled.
As Microsoft’s Windows User Experience lead Jensen Harris noted in a press briefing earlier this week, the idea here was to make “the best panorama feature on the market.” In my tests, it did indeed work very well, and while it’s not all that novel a feature, it’s a nice addition to the standard Windows 8 camera app.
The only issue is that it saves files in what looks to be its own proprietary .pano format, which I haven’t been able to open on a non-Windows 8.1 Preview machine yet.
Xbox Music For Windows 8.1 Preview Adds Pandora-Like Radio Feature
One of the redesigned apps Microsoft is introducing in the Windows 8.1 Preview is an update to its Xbox Music app that now puts the emphasis back on your own music – whether in the cloud or on your local machine – and less on music discovery, which the previous version focused on.
When you first open the app, you’ll immediately notice that it’s now designed around your music collection, and while the ‘explore’ feature is still available, it has been somewhat de-emphasized in this update. As Microsoft notes, this new version now lets you play your music with just two clicks, while before, it often took six clicks or more to listen to your collection.
The main new feature in this update, however, is the introduction of a Pandora-like radio feature that lets you pick any song in the Xbox Music collection and start a new station with related results. This feature, it’s worth noting, is even available when you don’t have an Xbox Music subscription. This means, of course, that you will have to watch an ad every now and then, similar to when you listen to other free radio-like services.
One thing Xbox Music doesn’t seem to allow you to do, however, is to vote songs up or down to influence the song selection for a given station. In return, though, there doesn’t seem to be a limit on how many songs you can skip per hour per station.
Turning Websites Into Playlists
The coolest feature of Xbox Music, however, is sadly not in the Windows 8.1 Preview yet. At a press event before today’s official unveiling Microsoft showed a feature that allows you to take a website about music (think a top-10 list, review, set list or something similar) and automatically turn it into a playlist for Xbox Music. From Internet Explorer, you can simply invoke the regular Share charm, click on ‘Music’ and the service will scan the page for artists’ names, songs and other information to put together this playlist.
Microsoft says this feature will launch “by the end of this year” but didn’t provide an exact date. It’s fair to assume that it’ll be available by the time the final version of Windows 8.1 launches.
Windows 8.1 Preview Gets Redesigned Windows Store With Automatic App Updates And Bing-Powered Recommendations
For the Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft took a close look at its Windows Store and decided to give it a facelift and make a few changes to how the operating system handles apps from the Store. Windows Store apps are now automatically updated in the background, for example, and the store features a new look that puts a strong emphasis on recommendations instead of the focus on categories in the last version.
Automatic Updates
Auto-updates are clearly the most important new feature of this release. As Microsoft noted during a press event ahead of today’s launch, this will give developers the assurance that most users will always run the latest version of their apps. Users can turn these automatic updates off, but there are no granular controls over which apps do or don’t update automatically.
Redesign
The redesign isn’t just about the look of the Windows Store, Microsoft notes. It’s really a change in how Microsoft markets apps from its developers. The focus is now squarely on recommendations. When you open up the Windows Store in the Windows 8.1 Preview, the first thing you see is an editorial selection of some of the top new apps, but as you scroll to the right, you immediately see the new “picks for you” section that uses Bing’s ability to crunch lots of data to provide you with a personalized list of apps based on apps you use, other apps you have installed and a number of other factors.
The store also features a list of recently launched apps and apps that are currently popular with other users. The top level of the store, of course, still includes a list of top paid and free apps as well.
The app description pages themselves also got a facelift, of course. They still feature large screenshots of the app, but instead of hiding reviews, star ratings and other information behind tabs, the design of these pages is now flat and includes screenshots, ratings, top reviews, details about the app and a list of related apps and apps by the same developer on one single side-scrolling page.
Microsoft says the old category view felt very static, but the company had decided that it wants to showcase the breadth of the developer ecosystem in the earlier store. Now that there are close to 100,000 apps in the catalog, that’s not necessary anymore and the team decided to focus on recommendations and a more dynamic experience instead.
Microsoft's Windows 8.1 Preview Introduces A Smarter Virtual Keyboard For Touchscreens
The Windows 8.1 Preview, which is launching today, includes a number of small improvements, and one of the cooler ones is the new touchscreen keyboard that’s now significantly smarter and allows you to type much faster than before.
While it doesn’t adopt a Swype-like mode, the keyboard now supports a number of gestures that will make your life a bit easier. Type-ahead suggestions now appear right underneath the word and by default, Windows 8.1 Preview will always show you three options.
As Microsoft’s user experience lead for Windows 8.1 Preview Jensen Harris noted in a press briefing yesterday, it’s pretty annoying to move your hand away from the keyboard and tap on a word, so the company came up with a better way of doing this. You can now use the space bar on the keyboard to swipe left and right to select the right word. Just choose the one you want and hit space.
The other major improvement to the touchscreen keyboard is that you can now bring up special characters and numbers by tapping a letter and holding your finger down. After a moment, a small menu with other letters will appear around the virtual key.
This means, for example, that it’s very easy to select a letter with an umlaut, but it’s also very easy to type quotation marks (just hold the apostrophe button), colons (keep the period key pressed) and other special characters. The cool thing here is that once you figure out where every letter is on the secondary menu, you can also just swipe your finger from the original key into the right direction to select it. This takes a bit of practice, but actually works very well after you’ve got the gestures down.
Microsoft Launches Windows 8.1 Preview With Start Button, Deep SkyDrive Integration, Smarter Search Tool & More
Microsoft today officially launched Windows 8.1 Preview, the first public beta of its flagship operating system’s next version, at its Build developer conference in San Francisco today. For Microsoft, Windows 8.1 represents a chance to fix some of the issues with Windows 8. The fact that Microsoft is bringing back the Start button and now allowing users to boot right into the desktop is a sign that the company has been listening to its users. In many ways, 8.1 — even in this Preview version — is what Windows 8 should have been.
As Microsoft has said for a while now, the usual three-year update cycles for Windows don’t really work anymore in today’s environment. Even though Microsoft delivered over 700 improvements to Windows 8 since its launch, Windows 8.1 represents quite a bit more than just the culmination of these efforts. It’s not just a service pack but actually includes a good number of new features that do make it far more usable than the previous version.
Start Button, Boot To Desktop And More
The Start button is obviously the main attraction here for many users. It’s worth noting, though, that while the Start button is back, the Start Menu isn’t coming back anytime soon. By default, clicking the Start button takes you to the good-old Start menu. Thankfully, however, Microsoft has added a new Apps screen that can take the place of the Start menu when you click the Start button. The Apps screen simply lists all your apps without the interference of live tiles and other embellishments. You can sort the list by name, most often used and newest apps. You can also invoke the Apps screen by swiping up from the Start screen.
As Microsoft announced earlier this year, it’s also now finally possible to boot directly into the desktop again. When combined with the Apps screen, this allows you to almost completely bypass the Start menu when you use Windows 8.1.
Ahead of the official unveiling, there had been rumors that Windows 8. 1 would also allow users to customize how the OS would handle corner navigation, but so far, it only looks as if the only options are to turn this feature off.
Talking about the Start screen: Microsoft has added quite a few new features to it to improve its usefulness. It’s now much easier to rearrange apps (including multiple apps at the same time), and app tiles can now be both larger and smaller than before. You can also select animated backgrounds for the Start menu (which are actually pretty cool) or choose to use the same background for your desktop and the Start screen.
Search
Another marquee feature of Windows 8.1 is the new search tool. As Microsoft previously revealed, the built-in search tool can now look for way more than files and settings. Instead, it’s now a universal search tool that looks for results on the web (using Bing), your hard drive, SkyDrive, inside your documents and in apps that support this feature. The search charm will, for example, show you results from the revamped Xbox Music service and let you play songs right from the search results. When you open the search results, you can also immediately find links to related Wikipedia entries, see images and, if relevant, nearby attractions, upcoming events and an artist’s songs, albums and similar info.
Here is what this looks like:
Windows Store Apps: Up To 4 Side-By-Side
The other major change in Windows 8.1 is that when you use two Windows Store apps (previously known as Metro or Modern UI apps) side-by-side, you can now resize these windows at will. Previously, you could only choose between relegating one app to a sidebar and having the other fill the rest of the screen. The other issues with Windows 8 and Store apps was that you could only see two of them at a time and if you had a second screen, these apps were stuck on one screen only. Now, Windows Store apps can take over all of your screens and you can see up to four per screen if your resolution is high enough. The general rule is one app for every 500 pixels of screen width. This is one of the many Windows 8. 1 features Windows 8 should’ve had right from the beginning, but it’s good to see that Microsoft has finally added this now.
Skydrive Everywhere (With Better Photo Editing)
For Windows 8.1, SkyDrive is the cloud. This new version deeply integrates SkyDrive, so you don’t need a separate app for syncing your files with SkyDrive anymore. Many of your PC’s settings are also now stored on SkyDrive, so when you log in to a new PC, everything should quickly feel at home.
It’s worth noting that not every file is automatically synced to every device. Most files will only be available after you have opened them on a given machine.
One feature Microsoft has also added to the SkyDrive app in the Windows 8.1 Preview is basic photo editing with filters and a smart color enhancement feature that lets you pump up the color of the sky or grass in an image.
Updated Settings Menu
Here is another annoyance Microsoft fixed: previously, when you wanted to switch certain settings on your PC, there was also quite a bit of confusion about which settings were available through the modern UI and which would invoke the old-school Windows 7-like settings windows on the desktop. In Windows 8.1, Microsoft has finally consolidated virtually all the settings you would regularly need in a settings menu in the modern UI mode. From there, you can manage everything from keyboard and Bluetooth settings to how you want to set up your multi-screen desktop and handle SkyDrive syncing with your PC.
Windows Store Now Focuses on Discovery, Not Categories, Takes Away Install Limits
With this update, Microsoft is also introducing a redesigned Windows Store, and apps you buy from the store now automatically update when a new version arrives (this is on by default, but you can always turn it off, too). The new store isn’t focused on categories anymore but now stresses app discovery and recommendations. When you open the store, the first thing you will see, however, is an editorial selection of some of the most interesting new apps according to Microsoft. As you scroll to the right, though, you begin to see personalized recommendations (powered by Bing), lists of popular apps and new releases. Finally, the standard lists of top free and paid apps are displayed. You can still get to the categories view by swiping down from the top of the screen (or right-clicking).
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is bringing the Windows Store to 70 new markets, which takes the total to 191, and it’s also introducing gift cards for loading up your Windows accounts in 41 markets.
With this update, Microsoft is also removing the previous five-device limit of how many devices you could install a given app on. Instead of enforcing a strict limit, Microsoft now uses its fraud detection algorithms to detect cheaters.
Other Updates
There are obviously plenty of other updates in Windows 8.1 Preview. There’s a new Xbox Music experience with a focus on your music collection and a Pandora-like radio feature, new apps for cooking and fitness and numerous other smaller updates. Internet Explorer 11, for example, isn’t a major revamp of the browser, but you can now open an infinite number of tabs, and bookmarks sync between all of your Windows devices and can even include nested favorites. The Mail app now features automatic filtering for newsletters, shortcuts for finding emails from your favorites and the sweep feature that Outlook.com users are already used to.
Another cool feature in Windows 8.1 is “reading lists,” which let you bookmark virtually anything from within apps or a browser that you want to get back to later.
The lock screen now functions as a personalized picture frame when you are not using the computer and you can answer Skype calls right from the lock screen without having to sign in.
What Windows 8 Should Have Been
After having spent some time with the Windows 8.1 Preview on a Surface Pro now, it definitely feels like a very robust system already. It’s a shame that many of the features Microsoft is introducing now weren’t in Windows 8 already.
With Echoes Of Summly And Siri, Wibbitz Relaunches Its Text-To-Video Service As A Consumer App
Chalk up another point for the growth of apps coming out of Israel that are focused on consumers, but draw on the country’s better-known heritage for producing big data and enterprise startups. Wibbitz, a platform that draws on natural language technology, artificial intelligence and some clever algorithms to automatically translate texts into videos, is today launching a consumer-focused app.
The startup, whose lead backer is Horizons Ventures — the same VC that backed Google-acquired Waze, as well as two other services built around using natural language processing to make mobile life easier, Yahoo-acquired Summly and Siri — says that this is the latest step for taking its technology mainstream. Last year, the company picked up a Series A round of $2.3 million from Horizons, Initial Capital and lool Ventures and launched as a web-based service aimed mainly at enterprises, with some 50,000 sites taking up the service and generating close to 20 million video views each month.
If you go back to that news from a year ago, you will see how the app used to look, and it provides a useful marker show just how far it’s come along, in its first major update since that funding was announced.
Today, as you can see in the video below, there are significantly more dynamic video clips, infographics and an overall smoother look to the product. Zohar Dayan, the CEO and co-founder of the company, says that Wibbitz has been working on the product you see today for over two years. “A lot of core technology and machine learning created by some very talented people went into this,” he says.
And the mobile app is just the beginning: “Right now we’re focusing on mobile, where reading text is difficult on a small screen. We see the most potential and highest need there,” he says. But he says that Wibbitz “also sees pain in smart TVs as well.” As more web content makes its way to bigger screens, he says, it can be just as difficult to read that as it is on small screens: “Reading text articles on TVs is impossible,” he says.
Launching a consumer app does not mean that Wibbitz is abandoning its B2B prospects, either. In a “stage two” in a few months time, Dayan says that it will be releasing the technology as an embedded service on third-party apps. One of the first that will use this is the Telegraph newspaper in the UK.
It is also in the process of raising another round of financing to keep moving ahead with its bigger plans to move away from text in places where it may be too challenging to read.
A demo of how Wibbitz looks today is embedded here:
Wibbitz – Your News in Motion from Wibbitz on Vimeo.
Telefonica To Give Windows Phone 8 An Extra Push To Try To Dilute Android, iOS
Microsoft continues to throw money down the Windows Phone well, perhaps buoyed by signs its ongoing marketing and platform support efforts are shifting the needle a few fractions. Today more evidence — presumably — of Ballmer’s money-throwing commitment to make its smartphone OS stick: carrier Telefonica has announced it will be collaborating with Microsoft to “promote and foster sales” of Windows Phone 8.
Microsoft has been shelling out to pay developers to port their apps to WP8, as it plays app catch-up with the rival Android and iOS ecosystems. It’s unclear exactly how much cash Redmond has paid out on this, or on WP8 marketing in general, but it’s currently running a promotion for which developers can get $100 per app submitted up to a maximum of $2,000 each if they submit a stack of apps.
Flagship apps — such as Angry Birds — are likely to have commanded much larger payouts to be ported over of course. WP8′s lowly marketshare means it’s likely not worth such developers’ while to support the platform. Or at least not without the sweetener of a substantial cash incentive.
Daily Rando report for Tuesday, June 11, 2013 {iOS Downloads 1,191 | Android Downloads 1,086 | wp8 Downloads 9}
— ANGEL (@millsustwo) June 13, 2013
Meanwhile Instagram, another big name app that still stands aloof of the Windows Phone ecosystem, has apparently been offered millions of dollars to port the app by Microsoft and Nokia. For whatever reason, it’s one app WP8 still lacks however.
Returning to the Telefonica-Microsoft love-in, the pair say this new “enhanced” marketing effort will initially run for a year, and will be targeted at six markets where Telefonica carrier brands operate: namely the U.K., Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. These markets appear to be ones where Microsoft’s OS has already managed to generate a little marketshare momentum. According to earlier Kantar data, for the three-month period ending February 2013, Windows Phone had a 6.7% share in the U.K., 6.8% in Germany and 5.9% in Mexico, for instance.
Telefonica declined to answer questions about how much money — its own and/or Microsoft’s — will be poured into this enhanced marketing effort, saying the information is confidential. The only question it would answer is which Windows Phone device is the biggest seller in most of its markets — and that device is the Nokia Lumia 920. Microsoft also declined to comment further.
It’s possible Microsoft is bankrolling the entire enhanced marketing program itself, although Telefonica says its motivation in helping to promote WP8 is to diversify the devices it offers to consumers and “improve the current balance of mobile operating platforms on the market, encouraging it to be more diverse and less of a duopoly”. For duopoly read: Android and iOS.
Why would a carrier want to encourage more diversity? Surely that just means creating more work and outlay for itself as it has to train its staff to sell different types of phones? There are plenty of reasons. With Android so dominant, power over development and direction of the mobile landscape is increasingly concentrated in Google’s hands. Carriers would obviously prefer they hold more of the cards, so that they can push their own over-the-top services to build the new revenue streams they need to as their traditional moneyspinners (talk and text) continue to decline.
Plus, if most of the phones run the same OS, there’s less incentive for consumers to buy a new device. Pushing customers to switch to something new is arguably a more compelling upgrade sell for carriers to foist on their customers now that smartphone hardware has become so similarly capable. A different OS — and WP8 does certainly look different to the two market leaders — gives them something new to try to pull the punters in. This is especially important in saturated markets like Europe where smartphone penetration (and Android usage) is so high.
Telefonica said it will be working with suppliers and WP8 mobile makers to “ensure the availability of high-quality devices” and “make their commercial offering available throughout the duration of this enhanced marketing effort with Microsoft”.
Smartphone market figures for Q1 released by analyst IDC yesterday named Windows Phone as now the third biggest smartphone OS in Europe, behind Android and OS, with a two percentage point increasing taking its share from 4% in Q1 2012 to 6% in Q1 this year. Despite being third, it is still very far behind, with Android hugely dominant — with a massive 69% share — while Apple’s iOS share shrunk to a fifth (20%).
Google “Gay” For A Fabulous Easter Egg
In celebration of equal rights, the proudly gay-friendly search giant has hidden a fabulous easter egg for users who search “gay.” This isn’t the first time Google has come out in support of gay marriage. Just about every year, they issue a statement or release a video or tool to help support impending gay rights laws. Below is one they did last year when four states were considering gay marriage ballot initiatives.
The Internet has erupted in celebration as the Supreme Court has struck down marriage discrimination and this blogger happily stands with them. #Freedom
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