SEATTLE – As promised, Microsoft on Wednesday shipped version 1.0 of the Kinect for Windows SDK and runtime and said partners have started selling the Kinect hardware.

The Kinect motion and voice sensor was initially designed for use with Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console. But it soon became clear that developers wanted the chance to build new kinds of applications using the sensor. Microsoft has been letting people build Kinect apps for PCs, but only for non-commercial use. This release of the SDK (software development kit) means that developers can launch commercial products using the sensor.

The SDK and runtime include a few improvements over the most recent beta version, Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows, wrote in a blog post. They enable support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer, include improved skeletal tracking of users and have a “near mode” for tracking movement as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device.

They also have the latest Microsoft speech recognition technology and an installer that developers can use in their application set-up programs.

Eisler wrote that the company expects to release updates to the SDK and runtime two to three times a year.

He didn’t name who is selling the Kinect hardware but said the suggested price is US$249. Amazon.com is selling it for that price. Microsoft plans to soon offer a special academic price of $149 for qualified educational uses.

At CES in January, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the company planned to release the Kinect SDK and hardware on Feb. 1.

Late last year Microsoft kicked off a program designed to give Kinect developers a leg up. The company is selecting 10 people or startups who will spend three months in Seattle working out of the Kinect offices. They’ll receive technical training and support and have access to investors and Microsoft executives. They also get $20,000.

Microsoft has highlighted a wide array of applications that might be possible or are already in development for the Kinect. In one video, Microsoft shows people using the Kinect to play instruments without the instrument, a doctor in an operating room flipping through X-ray images without having to touch them, and a teacher controlling a display of the night sky by waving his arms.

By Justin Haywald
November 2, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft’s Kinect hasn’t had many good video game titles come out and even then, only a handful are interesting to hardcore gamers. Make that less than a handful if you hate dancing. But it’s interesting tech nonetheless, and Microsoft is pushing to have it have a life outside of gaming.

According to an article in the Financial Times, “Hundreds of commercial applications are under development for the $150 motion-sensing camera, ranging from aiding surgeons in operating theatres to selling cars….Microsoft has been working on a pilot programme with more than 200 companies for use of the Kinect across 25 industries, from healthcare to education, advertising and the automotive industry.” The article points out that Toyota has already created a “virtual showroom,” and a separate program allows doctors to explore patients’ records on PC by just waving their hands.

According to Microsoft’s CFO, the widespread interest comes from the device’s relatively low price point, $150 — two years ago, the in-development project still cost between $30,000 to $40,000.

But I guess this means you shouldn’t find it strange if, the next time you’re standing in a grocery checkout line you have to wave your arms around to scroll through menus, and talk to the screen to try and process your payment.

By Jeff Bertolucci
October 27, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft is eager for Windows XP, its 10-year-old operating system, to fade into computing history. The sooner the better, in fact. But for that to happen, the Redmond company needs millions of XP users to drop creaky, old XP and migrate (hopefully) to Windows 7, or even to Windows 8, which won’t arrive until next year.

Your Daddy’s OS

If ominous support deadlines won’t do the trick, Microsoft is open to more subtle forms of persuasion too. In an October 25 post on the Windows Experience Blog, Microsoft’s Kristina Libby discusses how much our lives have changed in the past decade. She writes:

Subtext: You’re hopelessly behind the times, XP users. Libby’s post even includes a colorful infographic to drive the point home.

By Gregg Keizer
October 4, 2011

FRAMINGHAM – Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) last month continued to shed users, losing the largest chunk of share since December 2010, Web measurement firm Net Applications reported Saturday.

During September, IE lost nine-tenths of a percentage point of share to slip to 54.4%, a record low for the browser. Last month’s drop was the seventh straight decline and the most since last December, when IE fell by 1.1 points.

The beneficiaries of IE’s slide were again Google’s Chrome, which grew its share by seven-tenths of a point, and Apple’s Safari, which gained four-tenths of a percentage point.

Chrome ended the month with a 16.2% share, while Safari accounted for 5% of all browsers used worldwide.

Microsoft, however, preferred to look on the bright side by again plugging the success of IE9 on Windows 7.

Roger Capriotti, the head of IE’s marketing, used Net Applications’ data to highlight the gains of IE9 — the browser Microsoft launched last March — by noting its 21% global share of browsers running on Windows 7, an increase of seven-tenths of a point. Microsoft’s message has been consistent: It believes the future of IE is in the hands of its newest browser.

On Windows 7, IE9 is the second-most-popular browser, with a 21% share compared to IE8′s leading 31.6%. In third and fourth place, respectively, were Firefox 6 and Chrome 13 with 13.9% and 13.1%.

Microsoft has never outlined an alternate strategy for stopping IE defections. While the focus on IE9 may pay off down the road — perhaps when the huge numbers of Windows XP users finally retire that OS — it’s failed to slow defections. Since IE9′s debut, Microsoft has lost 4 percentage points of share.

That was again illustrated last month: At the same time that IE9 gained eight-tenths of a point for a 8.7% share of the browsers running on all operating systems, the other editions collectively sloughed almost twice as much share. IE8, for instance, lost about two-tenths of a point, slipping to 29.9%, while IE7 and IE6 lost two-tenths of a point and 1.1 points, respectively.

IE6, which Microsoft has been trying to kill for more than two years, dropped by 1.1 points, the biggest decline since January 2011. Globally, IE6 — a decade-old browser introduced just before the launch of Windows XP — now accounts for an 8.6% share.

“And if you remove China’s figures, IE6 only represents 3.5% usage share worldwide,” said Capriotti in a Saturday blog .

Microsoft has been tracking the decline of IE6 on a deathwatch-style website for the last six months.

Chrome gained most of the share that IE lost, a trend in place since late 2009 when Mozilla Firefox’s growth stalled. Firefox lost about one-tenth of a percentage point in September to end the month at 22.5%.

Firefox is in danger of losing its second-place spot to Chrome: If the two browsers keep to their pace over the last year, Chrome will overtake Firefox in June 2012. That’s about six months later than projections based on data from rival metrics company StatCounter.

Chrome will crack the 20% mark in March 2012 if maintains its current tempo.

Apple’s Safari was the only other browser besides Chrome to gain share in September. Using a boost in browsing by Mac machines, Safari exceeded 5% for the first time, said Net Applications.

Net Applications calculates browser usage share with data obtained from more than 160 million unique visitors who browse 40,000 Web sites that the company monitors for clients. More browser statistics can be found on the company’s site.

By Richard Edwards, Ovum Principal Analyst
September 17, 2011

By Jason Cross
September 15, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft has spent so much time at the BUILD conference this week talking about how Windows 8 will operate like a tablet OS that you might feel left out if you plan to continue working on a desktop or laptop. But whether you’re an IT manager, PC enthusiast, or professional just trying to get some work done, Windows 8 will have enough new features to make it worth your interest.

First, there’s performance. Microsoft promises that Windows 8 will run on every machine Windows 7 runs on, but if our early demos are any indication, it should actually run better. A clean boot of Windows 8 should use less RAM and CPU resources than Windows 7 currently does. The new Metro-style, full-screen, immersive applications suspend themselves when you can’t see them, consuming no CPU cycles (though they still occupy some RAM).

Boot-up times are fantastic. The increased speed is most noticeable on new systems with the optimized UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface); but even if you have an existing system with no special hardware, you should see a massive reduction in the time it takes to go from pressing the power button to getting up and running.

Though the Start Screen is made for touch, it works just fine for keyboard-and-mouse users whose PCs lack touchscreens. Just start typing, and it instantly brings up the search interface, looking for applications as you type. The Windows key brings you back to the Start Screen from wherever you are, and keyboard shortcuts abound. Windows-D, for example, opens the traditional desktop interface. Move the mouse to the lower-left corner of the screen, and the five “Charms” of Windows 8 (Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings) pop up. The scrollwheel moves you left and right through your screens of tiles, but scrollbars also appear along the side and bottom when necessary.

I’ve used a keyboard and mouse with the Samsung test device, and while the arrangement certainly takes some getting used to, it doesn’t feel like a slow, cumbersome way to operate a Windows 8 PC. The best results come from a combination of using the touchscreen when it is most efficient and turning to the keyboard and mouse when that’s the quickest and most precise way to get things done.

We’ve all had to spend hours at some point reinstalling Windows, and then reinstalling all of our applications and user data, just to eliminate the malware, toolbars, messed-up file associations, and other junk that has filled our machines (or our parents’, kids’, or coworkers’ machines). The new Reset and Refresh features in Windows 8 should eliminate much of that pain.

Reset obliterates all data on your system and returns the computer to its out-of-the-box state in about 10 or 15 minutes. Refresh is even better, though–it preserves your user data (including the Metro apps you’ve downloaded from the online Windows Store) and clears out everything else. So you get a “fresh” PC, but you don’t have to copy your pictures, music, and documents to external storage and then back to your system. By default, Refresh won’t restore your standard desktop Win32 applications, but power users can modify its behavior: You install your core applications, getting your machine to the condition you want it, and then you use a command-line tool to ensure that when you use Refresh, the system will return to that state.

Tinkerers will love the new Task Manager, too. It’s cleaner and more attractive, providing a simpler look into how your system resources are being consumed. It also builds in some additional functionality that you used to find in other applications, such as real-time resource-use charts (as in Resource Monitor) and control over startup applications (as you would find in Msconfig).

Have other PCs to manage, or just like to log on to your home or work PC remotely? The new remote-desktop Metro-style application supports multitouch and multiple simultaneous remote desktops. If you prefer the traditional windowed remote-desktop tool, it will still be available.

If you want to test software on various Windows installations, or maybe try out some beta programs without messing up your machine, Windows 8 gives you a way to do it: Hyper-V virtualization will be built into the Windows client.

The basic shell and Explorer will undergo several improvements, though we’re told that the standard desktop interface is by no means complete. Explorer’s new Ribbon interface is a contentious issue, but it certainly brings a lot of functionality to the surface. And everyone can appreciate little tweaks such as the Up button to the left of the location bar: It takes you to the folder one step higher in the hierarchy. (As opposed to the back button in the current version of Explorer, which takes you to the last folder you viewed.) You can directly mount ISO and VHD files from within Explorer, too. Double-clicking a virtual hard disk (VHD) file mounts it as a hard disk with a new drive letter, while doing the same to an ISO treats it as a new optical drive.

If you have multiple monitors, you’ll be happy to know that Microsoft is doing more to make your life easy. Windows 8 will finally enable desktop backgrounds that properly span multiple monitors. You can also fine-tune how the taskbar behaves. For instance, you can set up your taskbar so that the Internet Explorer icon moves from monitor to monitor as you move the app, meaning that the icon will always be right below the application window.

Some changes are purely under the hood, but should make significant differences in how snappy the OS feels. For example, apps should take up less memory, thanks to changes that handle RAM more efficiently. The memory manager uses a new “page combining” technique that will collapse identical 4K memory pages in use by multiple applications into a single page, until they are altered. If one of the apps changes its version of the memory page, it splits off into another page. This means that multiple applications loading the same resources will no longer duplicate data in memory.

Microsoft isn’t done talking about features for enthusiasts, business, and IT. The focus here at the BUILD conference is on the dramatically new Start Screen and Metro applications and their development, but we’ll hear more about PC fundamentals and features for power users over the coming months.

By Gregg Keizer
September 15, 2011

FRAMINGHAM – The company also dealt with more fallout from the June hack of DigiNotar by flipping the “kill switch” on SSL (secure socket layer) certificates issued by Dutch certificate authority, or CA.

But none of the information Microsoft released today about the five updates or the 15 bugs was news: On Friday, the company leaked drafts of the security bulletins, the term Microsoft uses for the advisories that accompany each update.

All of the updates and vulnerabilities were rated “important,” the second-most-serious rating in the company’s four-step system.

Two of the vulnerabilities are in Windows; five are in Excel, the spreadsheet included with Office; two involve non-application Office components; and six affect SharePoint and associated software, such as Groove and Office Web Apps.

Of the 15, two are “DLL load hijacking” vulnerabilities, a term that describes a class of bugs first revealed in August 2010. Microsoft has been patching its software to fix the problem — which can be exploited by tricking an application into loading a malicious file with the same name as a required dynamic link library, or DLL — since last November.

Apparently that job isn’t finished: Microsoft has yet to close a 2010 advisory that warns users of DLL load hijacking bugs in the company’s software.

The update users should deploy first is MS11-072, which includes bug fixes for all supported versions of Excel, including the newest Excel 2010 on Windows and Excel 2011 on the Mac, several security professionals said today.

“The Excel one because of the attack vector, through malformed files,” said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, when asked which update should move to the top of the list.

Others experts agreed.

“Top priority should be given to MS11-072, which fixes an arbitrary code execution vulnerability in Excel,” said Wolfgang Kandek, the chief technology officer for Qualys, in an email. “It affects all versions of Excel including the most recent 2010 version…[and] to exploit this issue, attackers could create malicious Excel files, which, when opened on vulnerable hosts, can take control of the system.”

“Excel-related email attachments and links have commonly been used in attacks on organizations and this one should be addressed,” added Kurt Baumgartner, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

Other updates quashed bugs in WINS (Windows Internet Name Service), a component of Windows Server last fixed in May; and patched a cross-site scripting vulnerability in SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft’s collaboration software.

Alongside the five updates, Microsoft delivered yet another update to deal with the theft of more than 500 digital certificates from DigiNotar.

“We are releasing another update, adding six additional DigiNotar root certificates that are cross-signed…to the Untrusted Certificate Store,” said Pete Voss, a spokesman for Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, in a blog post.

Cross-signed certificates are those that DigiNotar issued, but then had co-signed by another CA — in this case Entrust or GTE — to allow them to be used by Windows PCs or browsers which were not already equipped with a DigiNotar certificate.

Certificates issued by Entrust or GTE will not be affected by the today’s update, said Storms.

Microsoft and others, including rival browser makers Google and Mozilla, and operating system competitor Apple, have scrambled for the last two weeks to block or ban DigiNotar certificates.

Today’s ban expansion came a week after Microsoft blocked others on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

September’s security patches can be downloaded and installed via the Microsoft Update and Windows Update services, as well as through Windows Server Update Services.