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I like the commercial. [via]

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Microsoft’s New Campaign – I Am Microsoft

Windows 7 build 7700:

Windows 7 Build 7700 IE 8:

Windows 7 Build 7700 Windows Media Player:

Office 2010 Escrow RTM build, notice that there is no Beta in the program names:

The screen shots show nothing new.

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Office 2010 Escrow RTM Build & Windows 7 Build 7700 Screen Shots Surface

This year’s Tech Vista – Microsoft Research India’s annual event for students and the community was special to Microsoft India as it coincided with their 5th anniversary. The event is to provide a platform for students to interact with the industry representatives and take a look at what Microsoft Research has been doing. At this year’s event – Tech Vista 2010, Microsoft India launched a new portal for students.

The portal is designed help them understand what research in the computer field is and interact with each other. The portal is aptly titled Research and You. As of now the website has editorial content and resources giving insights into research as a career and research in the computing field. With a forum open for all to register and participate, Microsoft India defines the website as:

A platform for young minds to ideate and discuss various facets of Computer Science […]

While India has one of the most respected research institutes — BARC, research and innovation in technology have eluded India since the education system has never put an emphasis on them. It is nice to see corporate India coming forward with such initiatives.

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Microsoft India Launches Research Portal For Computer Science Students

Microsoft had stated that Bing would be the search page and live.com would be dedicated to their Windows Live offerings. Here’s a quick round up of the expected feature additions to the Windows Live Essentials suite:

• Windows Live Writer:

Sitting at a boring ITPro meet my eyes popped open when I noticed the Ribbon interface added to Windows Live Writer. A couple of months later the first screen shots showing the Ribbon UI were obtained by Neowin. Screen shots:

• Live Messenger:

Windows Live Messenger Wave 3 brought support for Jumplists in Windows 7, Live Wave 4 will bring window controls for switching the status. Some of the other expected features according to the leaked images spotted by Neowin & LiveSino are:

• Tabs for the conversation window
• Share images from Bing search and Windows Live Photos is added too.
• However, my favorite feature would have to be the Social stream that will shows Facebook and twitter updates by your friends and also an icon showing whether that particular contact’s status.

Screen shots:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery:

A nice utility for basic image management and applying basic image tweaks, from the leaked images obtained by GeekSmack the application will also fall in line and get the Ribbon UI. I hope they fix the performance issues, allow me to remove certain folders from being indexed and let me edit images when I open them from Explorer rather than going to the Gallery first. Screen shots:

• Windows Live Mail:

I love this software, it is my second my most used software in the background, after Explorer. I had done a review of Windows Live Mail some time back as well.

For some reason I don’t use Outlook, I find it to be an overkill for me and with live Wave 4, I don’t see myself moving to Outlook anytime soon. According separate leaks (one spotted by LiveSide and the other by LiveSino) Windows Live Mail Wave 4 is set to be bring in quite a few handy and useful features such as:

• Ribbon UI
• Threaded conversation view for email
• Gmail’s label & star support

Screen shot:

• Hotmail (aka Live Mail)

According to Hotmail, I’ve been using it since even before it was bought by Microsoft, early adopter, eh? Though Hotmail has been (very) slow to catch up with Gmail, it’s integration with the desktop client – Windows Live Mail has been a USP and with Wave 4 it is expected to improve. Features expected:

• Flag integration between the desktop and web client.
• Auto refresh of the webpage
• Keyboard shortcuts (working now)
• Embedded Live Messenger to have better contact control.

Screen shot:

• Windows Live Mobile:

Courtesy the lively guys at LiveSide, screen shots showing mobile versions Live Calendar & Groups will be making their way into Windows Live Mobile Wave 4. Screen shots:

I’m hoping that Windows Live Spaces gets a refresh as well.

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Windows Live Wave 4 – What’s Known So Far

• Drag and move the tabs within the Quick Tabs interface.
• Tab thumbnails would enlarge on mouse-hover.
• In case your tab row was over flowing with tabs and in Quick Tabs you were to hover the mouse on a tab not currently visible on the tab bar, the overflow icons would change appearance.

Patent images illustrating the above concepts:

The red highlight shows a darker border to the right overflow icon compared to the one for left, indicating that the web page for Thumbnail Site 13 is on the right.

Internet Explorer 9 was talked about at PDC09 and is expected to be announced at MIX10. This might be one of the many improvements Microsoft is working on for the next release. The Quick Tabs feature isn’t talked about a lot but is very useful while browsing multiple tabs.

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IE 9 To Enhance Tab Browsing – Quick Tabs To Be Improved