Sneak peek into Windows with Leap Motion

Imagine if you could do things on your computer just like you do them in real life. If natural movements replaced all those clicks and taps and drags and drops. Imagine if technology finally figured out people, instead of the other way around. That’s the Leap Motion Controller.

Do almost anything without touching anything

Check how Leap Motion technology works seamlessly and easily with Windows. Whatever is possible in Windows 8 and Windows 7 can be done, even multi touch inputs, all this without actually touching.

“With Leap Motion technology, Windows OS is natural, easy, and fun to use. You'll navigate your desktop, browse the web, flip through photos, and do everything you do everyday in extraordinary ways —all with the wave of a hand or lift of a finger.”

More details and Pre-order from https://www.leapmotion.com/product

Bing Secret phrase will take you where No Homepage Has Gone Before

Bing has teamed up with Paramount Pictures to help you get in the Starfleet Spirit as the next installment of Star Trek hits theaters on May 16th in US.For all the Star Trek fans, yesterday Bing had added Klingon to Bing Translator. Now in a few simple clicks you can translate text from English to Klingon (and vice versa!)

And today Bing will take you where no Home page has taken you before. Visit Bing today and enter one of the secret phrases in the search box to be transported to the Final Frontier.

Go to Bing Home page and just enter ‘Beam me up’ and press enter for an amazing experience. Keep your Speakers ON. Once transported, click on the pages to get more amazing pics. Give it a try.

Beam Me up might be first secret phrase, we might see more. As its known, will be added here.

US college students can get 6 months of Free Office 365 and extra 20 GB of SkyDrive storage

Microsoft is offering a great offer for college students in the U.S.. College students in the U.S. can get

• 3 free months of Office 365 University
• An extra 20GB of SkyDrive storage 

And all this for FREE! And if you share this offer on Facebook, can get an extra 3 months free of Office.

To redeem the offer you can go to the link and provide your .edu email address and redeem the offer.

You and your classmates can create, collaborate and edit full Office documents from nearly anywhere. With SkyDrive, you can all make changes at the same time on the same document, in real time.

Whether you are on a PC or Mac, you can work on documents together using SkyDrive and Office.

Save your Office documents to SkyDrive and they're available to view and share from the SkyDrive app on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

I hope this great offer is extended to all Students across the globe and not only to U.S. Students. And if you are not a student? You can still try Office 365 Home Premium free for 1 month.

Check out the video -

[video] This is what the future will look like, Microsoft Envisioning Center opened

Technology could transform our life at work, on the go, and at home based on extensive research. This is a snapshot of what the future will look like five to ten years from now. In the years ahead, technology will amplify our senses; help us stay connected to the people we care about and transform the way we live, work and play.

Microsoft has opened Microsoft Envisioning Center. The Envisioning Center is located in the Redmond campus and it's been rebuilt from the ground up to incorporate the newest ideas and latest technologies.

The facility encompasses scenarios at home, at work and places in between, and is inspired by  product teams, Microsoft Research and by the trends across the industry.

“As part of today’s opening, we put together a short video that gives a sense of what’s inside – and while none of these ideas are meant to be predictive about our products, they do highlight some of the key trends we’re investing in, such as machine learning and NUI. They also give you a sense of where these technologies could lead us over the next five to ten years.”

(Source)

Microsoft extends the Messenger to Skype transition start date to Apr 8th

Earlier Microsoft had set the existing Messenger service retirement date as 15th March 2013. Now the Messenger Team has again sent mails to its users about upgrading its customers from Messenger to Skype. And now the date has been stated as April 8th 2013

So starting April 8th, upgrading customers from Messenger to Skype begins. This extension from March 15th to April 8th , 2013 is done to provide more time for customers to make transition.

Here’s what the Messenger and Skype Teams mail said -

Hello,
Starting April 8th, we will begin upgrading customers from Messenger to Skype. The process will take a few weeks to complete. April 8th is the first day you may be required to upgrade. This is a bit later than the March 15th date we previously mentioned to some of you as we wanted to give you more time to make the transition.
To keep chatting with your Messenger contacts, simply upgrade to the latest version of Skype using the instructions below and sign in using a Microsoft account (this is the same ID you use to sign into Messenger). Once signed in, your contacts will already be there. You'll be able to instant message and make video calls with them just like before, and start discovering new ways of staying in touch, including Skype on your mobile or tablet.
Upgrade now

Yours sincerely,

The Messenger and Skype Teams

Fly your AR.Drone 2.0 with Windows Store App

Recently I came across this post on flying AR.Drone 2.0 using Windows Store App. Those who are into coding can check for more details at the source.

The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 is an awesome device packed with cool features. The drone contains two cameras, one pointed forward that streams live video, and one pointed downwards (for all your surveillance needs). Its got four powerful engines that make it fast and maneuverable. The drone’s firmware keeps it stable and level while stationary or performing maneuvers, handling a huge burden for the user. It’s a fun device to write code for, and even more fun to pilot when you’re done!

There are few projects that have created AR.Drone APIs that can be used for Windows 8 Desktop Apps. While in this post it shows how to fly the Drone using Windows Store App as the author Peter Dwersteg has built his own API compatible with WinRT.

Check out the Source- Channel 9 for the demo video and for more details. For any query on this, please contact the authors - Clint Rutkas, Peter Dwersteg

SkyDrive app gets Live Tiles feature

Yes, we have been seeing that SkyDrive is getting continuously improved as new features being added regularly. SkyDrive team listens to user’s feedback and implements them too. And the latest addition in this list is SkyDrive app getting Live Tiles feature. So your SkyDrive app on Windows 8 Start Screen will keep you up-to-date displaying the recent additions to your SkyDrive with its Live Tile. SkyDrive Team announced about this today.

From today the SkyDrive app from Windows Store will start showing the notifications thus updating its Live Tile whenever you add new files to SkyDrive, whether the files are added directly to it or via other apps. So the SkyDrive Live Tile, not only be used to launch it but from now on will show you what’s going on with its at-a-glance view dynamically. It’ll show you relevant details of the new files added.

For example, if you have added a document, you’ll see the document’s name, when it was added, and what folder it’s in.

If you have added photos, it’ll provide a nice view of these photos as can be seen above. And like other Live Tiles, now the SkyDrive tile too comes alive being dynamic and enhances your Windows 8 Start Screen. So you make the SkyDrive Tile larger if its set to show ‘smaller’ view.

And if by any chance, you do not want it to be a Live Tile, there’s always the option to ‘Turn Live Tile Off’ . Just right click on the Tile to get this option and click on 'Turn Live Tile off' from the app bar.

This new feature has already started rolling out and will be rolling out throughout the day and if you don’t see this on your SkyDrive tile yet, you’ll get it soon. I checked my SkyDrive and it already got this feature.