Microsoft
Microsoft Surface 2.0: From 'Minority Report' to Reality
The Designer Tech Series is supported by the exquisitely crafted, new with Lincoln Drive Control.
How Picture Password Works in Windows 8
Microsoft is talking a lot about passwords lately."The essence of Picture Password is to use one of your own personal photos as a key to the device. It’ll only work for a touchscreen device — a smartphone, tablet or touchscreen PC — since it involves tracking finger gestures on the screen.
Once you pick a photo to use, Picture Password records three gestures that you “draw” on the screen. Each gesture must be either a tap, a drawn line between two points, or a circle. Once you’ve entered them, the device will call up the photo at login, prompting you to duplicate them. If you get them all correct, in the right order AND in the right direction (for lines and circles), you have access.
Why just the three gestures instead of free-form movements, which would probably be more secure? Time. Microsoft found in its testing that people took much longer to duplicate free-from gestures than simple shapes, making the tool a chore.
It turns out that taps, circles and lines are secure enough, and Microsoft presents the math to prove it." by Dec 17
Windows Azure Adds Node.js Support, Hadoop Preview - ReadWriteCloud
When Windows Azure was launched in 2008, it was with the intention, Microsoft said, of running .NET Framework applications from the cloud. What ended up happening was that the PaaS market matured much faster than anyone in 2008 could have anticipated, so any cloud apps platform that needs to stay competitive must run with the languages the development world is using. Hosted JavaScript certainly was in Microsoft's original plans, but JavaScript that runs as a host, was not.Windows 8 Will Bring Personal Cloud to Billions, Says Microsoft
The next version of Microsoft's still dominant PC operating system, Windows 8, "represents an incredible opportunity to bring the benefits of the personal cloud to billions of PC users." That's according to a blog post written by the Group Program Managers for SkyDrive , Microsoft's consumer cloud product. When it was launched back in August 2007 , SkyDrive was described as "a personal 'harddrive' on the internet".
Windows 8: The Top 4 Things You Should Know
What a Windows 7 User Needs to Know About Windows 8
With Windows 8 hovering on the not-so-distant horizon, there's been plenty of curiosity about Microsoft's newest operating system. After previewing an early version of Windows 8, we've now had a chance to use Microsoft's Consumer Preview and have a few initial impressions to share.
I'm writing this article on a Windows 8 tablet. Thankfully, I've got a wireless keyboard and mouse as well as a dock to help the Samsung developer tablet act more like a regular PC.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly [REVIEW]
