Month: November 2012

A Google Doodle to celebrate my birthday? This was a weird and odd surprise, but strangely gratifying for a geek!

Well, you would think so anyway!

Check it out! It is funny!

So, sounds like they are doing OK. They sold 4 million copies the first day, and in the first month 40 Million… not too shabby.

Windows 8 – 40 Million Licenses Sold

“As we pass the one month anniversary of the general availability of Windows 8, we are pleased to announce that to-date Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses. Tami Reller shared this news with industry and financial analysts, investors and media today at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference. Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of upgrades. We built Windows 8 to work great on existing Windows 7 PCs. And we also set out to make upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 super easy.

From Tami’s presentation:

‘The journey is just beginning, but I am pleased to announce today that we have sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses so far.’

The launch of Windows 8 at the end of October also saw the grand opening of the Windows Store. There were more apps in the Windows Store at launch than any other app store at their launch and since then, the number of apps in the Windows Store has doubled. A number of apps in the Windows Store have crossed the $25,000 revenue mark and the developer keeps 80% of the revenue they make off downloads for the life of their app. A lot of great new apps have been added to the Windows Store since launch such as CBS, ABC News, ABC Family, Engadget, Flixster, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Vimeo and my (current) personal favorite – Top Gear.”

Keeping a stiff upper lip, the British vote is in… not so interested in Windows 8! But, they might buy a Windows 8 tablet.

Less than half of British web users want Windows 8

“A new survey of British web users has shown a less than stellar appetite for the new Windows 8 operating system.

Toluna QuickSurveys received 2,000 responses from a broad internet survey of Britons and found that only 13.5 per per cent said they were ‘very likely’ to upgrade to the new Microsoft OS.

25.1 per cent of users said they would be ‘quite likely’ to upgrade to Windows 8. That leaves over 60 per cent of respondents who were either unlikely or very unlikely to upgrade, or just didn’t care either way.

Perhaps more tellingly for the PC industry as a whole, which is banking on Windows 8 to revive its fortunes, almost half of all those surveyed had no intention of buying a new PC in the next year.

Windows 7 still king

The study also asked users of their preferred choice of operating system. 14 per cent of respondents selected Windows 8, while 28 per cent opted for Windows 7.

This is likely down to the continued popularity of Windows 7 among users. Earlier this week we learned that only 1 per cent of PCs are running the new OS almost a month after it went on sale.

However, the report wasn’t all doom and gloom for Microsoft. When asked about tablet purchases, 13 per cent said they’d buy a Windows 8 tablet – the same number who mentioned iOS and Android tablets.”

They are ramping up on the number of available Windows 8 apps, and many, actually most, are free!

Windows 8 store adds 7,000 apps in two weeks to pass 20,000 mark, almost 18,000 are free

“The Windows Store in Windows 8 has passed 20,000 apps. It’s not clear exactly when it happened, but Win App Update, which keeps track of the totals, posted on Thursday that the milestone was likely reached on Tuesday.

The last time we covered Windows 8’s store, it was at 12,895 apps on November 5. This means some 7,715 apps were added in the last 17 days. That’s more than 453 apps per day, which means the store’s growth is once again accelerating (Windows 8 was sucking down a firm 500 apps daily after its launch, but it had dropped to the 300s more recently).

At this rate, the Windows 8 store will easily pass the 30,000 mark before the end of the year, and may even near 40,000 apps. This is to be expected as the holiday season nears and developers start preparing to ride the Windows 8 wave. There will be millions of Windows 8 devices sold this month and next, so it makes sense app creators want to take advantage.

It looks like Microsoft is doing just fine on the quantity side of things. 20,000 apps is pretty damn good for a new store to achieve so quickly. Quality, on the other hand, is a different story, and will take much longer to improve.”

Now THIS is cool! Dreamworks animation tool was used to great effect in the new “Rise of the Guardians” movie! Now they are giving the code away! This is a great addition to the Open Source community!

DreamWorks makes ‘Rise of the Guardians’ special effects tool open source

“Yesterday DreamWorks released its latest animated feature with the holiday-themed Rise of the Guardians. But for animators who watch the film and wish they could do something similar, there’s good news — one of the tools used on the project is free and open source. Called OpenVDB, the tool is used to create volumetric 3D effects like smoke, and DreamWorks previously used it on both Puss in Boots and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. The studio’s hope is that by making OpenVDB free, it will eventually become an industry standard. ‘That ends up benefiting us,’ DreamWorks’ David Prescott told the Wall Street Journal.

The plan to go open source was originally announced this summer, and according to DreamWorks’ David Lipton, OpenVDB allows special effects teams to ‘overcome the memory limitations to which other data formats are subject.’ Just don’t expect animation house to start making all of its tools so readily available. ‘There’s other stuff that we’ve developed in house that we’re like, ‘No, you’re not getting that,” Prescott told the WSJ. You can learn more about OpenVDB at its official site.”

From the Dreamworks Press Release:

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA) today announced the launch of OpenVDB (openvdb.org), a previously proprietary sparse volume data format, to the Open Source community. OpenVDB enables a dramatic increase in the scale of achievable volumetric effects.

‘DreamWorks Animation’s technology in the hands of our artists has created our rich, iconic characters and worlds. Our OpenVDB technology in particular has been the focus of intense industry interest,’ said Dr. Lincoln Wallen, Head of Animation Technology at DreamWorks Animation. ‘We have benefitted from using Open Source, and we are pleased to contribute back into the Open Source community in sharing OpenVDB.'”