Asus made an impact in the industry with the Eee PC and they seem to be gearing up to ride the tablets wave we are seeing this year. The yet to be officially Eee PC T101MT (teaser video seen before) seems to have leaked out been previewed eary and hands on videos are around the web. The design is a convertible touchscreen (tablet + netbook) and specs sheet is average with an Atom N450 CPU (1.6GHz), 2GB RAM, WiFi, 320GB HDD, 0.3MP webcam & the 10.1″ multitouch screen. Running on Windows 7, this sure tests how finger friendly Microsoft has gone. The version previewed in the video below seems to be a prototype and is expectedly crude.
Got a Tata Photon+? Happy about the 3.1mbps connection? Well it sure works like charm – and I would confess here that all vidoes we uploaded to youtube during the IIT Techfest coverage this year was using a Tata Photon+. So after being impressed by this product that I borrowed from my Dad for a week, I decided to buy one. And here began a 48 hour mad chase hunting for the Windows 7 drivers to get this working.
Incidentally the Photon+ I used was an older model by Huawei and the newer models shipped are the EpiValley modems. For some reason the one I took last week didn’t work on Windows 7. bummer! Search for Epi Valley SEC-8089 drivers on Google and you would come across fake sites using the keywords to give you nothing at all . Search for Tata Indicom / Photon Windows 7 drivers didn’t help either (thanks to the wonderful website they have built from a SEO perspective). So if you are one of those who are looking for the Tata Photon+ Windows 7 drivers (and believe me there are plenty of us out there), here are the links.
Now that all the applause and hype surrounding Windows 7 has abated (somewhat, anyway), it is time to take a cold, hard look at the OS’ prospects. And the more one looks at the mass market, the more one realises a rather startling fact – the real challenge for Win 7 is not its predecessor (the not-so-lamented Vista), or the latest from Cupertino, or even the newest distro from Penguintown, but a eight year old product, that should by conventional tech history have been obsolete – Windows XP.
On the surface, that should be an absurd notion. An eight year old product should be the least of a new product’s problems. But the more one talks to XP users (and there are still millions of those around) the more one realises the challenge it poses to Windows 7. Most XP users’ arguments are simple – in terms of functionality, they can do most of their basic as well as (more…)
The OG team happened to be one of the lucky few to attend multiple Windows 7 community launches, here are a few exclusive shots from the #7party in Delhi on 1st November. Hosted at Oxford Store’s awesome ChaBar, this was quite a contrast from Mumbai’s Boat Club(more…)
Boat Club hosted the #7party in Mumbai where Microsoft enthusiasts turned out in numbers. Here is the Windows 7 community launch Mumbai in pictures: (more…)
PCs vs Mac Ads are back with Apple taking a dig at Windows’ reputation of giving the customers ‘pain & frustration’. The new set of Ads suggest that instead of putting the efforts to move from a XP to Windows 7, users should simply switch to a Mac which gives the best ‘customer satisfaction’. Enjoy the Ads but be sure, we haven’t seen the end of this for sure
It is a few days to the official release of Windows 7, but in true tech media tradition, we managed to lay our mitts on a copy of Windows 7 (the Ultimate edition, no less) a few days ago and have been putting it through its paces. These are early days but we must confess that we are really liking what we see and that Microsoft might finally have closed the gap on the Mac crowd and buried the Vista legacy with Win 7. We could write reams on why we think so, but this being a blog, we will simply stick to seven reasons why we think Win 7 is a winner: (more…)
Your PC, your life: The latest commercial from Microsoft promoting the upcoming Windows 7 OS. The commercial tries to touch the bonding that we have with our systems, though it doesn’t particularly highlight any Win7 features.
In an attempt to attract upgrades from XP and Vista to the new Windows 7, Microsoft has decided to keep Windows 7 pricing below that of Windows Vista. Microsoft has also decided to keep the pricing for new Windows 7 lower enough to lure new customers.
On Thursday, Microsoft finally came upto a pricing decision for its new generation OS. The decision comes as the outcome of learning from the pitfalls of Windows Vista pricing.
Microsoft will be launching three Windows 7 editions in the global market- Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. At $120, Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade would cost the customers about $40 less than the Vista Upgrade offered two years back. The stand-alone version would be available at $200 with a similar drop in the pricing. There has been no changes in the pricing of Windows 7 Professional and Windows Vista Professional. Which means that Professional edition of Windows 7 would also cost $200 for an upgrade and $300 for the new copy. Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade would cost $220 as compared to the Windows Vista Ultimate’s $260. The new copy of Windows 7 Ultimate would cost $320, $80 less than Vista Ultimate’s pricing 2 years ago.
The customers willing to pre-order the new Windows OS would have to pay even less. The Windows 7 starts shipping on (more…)
Its Official: Windows 7 is indeed launching in October this year. The date though is 22nd October – a day earlier than what Acer leaked last month (i.e. 23th Oct). Windows 7 has been in testing since a long time now and the RC is currently out with early adopters / testers.
Windows 7 would have this great feature that would create virtual wireless adapter from your PC. The virtual WiFi network would help to Easy sharing of WiFi networks.
I always wanted such a feature for easy sharing of the WiFi internet. The networking through the Windows 7’s Native Virtual WiFi should be easier to put up the show.
The tech lets one piece of WiFi hardware be represented in Windows as two separate adapters, meaning you can connect to two hotspots simultaneously if you like, or turn your virtual device into an access point that others can connect to. [engadget]
Thanks to a slip up by Acer UK while announcing the Acer Z5600 PC (specially designed for Windows 7) the official release date of Win7 is confirmed as 23rd October 2009 (as rumored by us way back in 2008). Also confirmed that all Vista purchases 30 days prior to Windows7 release shall be elligible for a free upgrade.
Nvidia has released drivers for GeForce users running Windows 7 beta. Windows 7 is said to be the first WinOS that would fully integrate and take advantage of the GPU for both graphics and parallel computing.
The new GeForce drivers version 181.71, which come in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors, support the new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.1 which is a tweaked graphics driver architecture standard for Windows 7 [Source]
Windows 7 has given high hopes to many and the stakes are really high. Apparently Microsoft has been pushing hardware makers to ensure Win7 compatibility early this time to ensure that the Vista story is not repeated with non compatible hardware floating around. Also Microsoft would be eying to replace Xp/Vista with Windows7 ASAP after final release.
For all those who decided to give Windows Vista a skip and stick to XP (yes I know plenty out there, including us); here is some good news. Apparently the good looking Windows 7 would come cheaper to you. Microsoft has officially confirmed that Windows XP users would be allowed a direct update to Win7.
“I can confirm that customers will be able to purchase upgrade media and an upgrade license to move from Windows XP to Windows 7 – however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7,”
“This requires the user to back up their data, install Windows 7, re-install the programs and restore their data. For PCs running Windows Vista customers have the option of an in-place upgrade of Windows 7 keeping their data and programs intact or to perform a clean install of Windows 7.”
Though this would require a clean install the good part is that you would probably shell out lesser $$ for Windows 7. Also revealed some time back was that Windows 7 would come in six different packs (Windows 7 Starter Edition, Home Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate).
All the noise with Windows 7 seems to have overshadowed Vista. But hey, Vista is not dead – the WinVISTA SP2 RC is on its way this week (probably already in hands of testers). Engadget reports that you might see this go public as soon as Q2 2009 (being an escrow build). The good thing is sooner they are done with Vista, we shall see WIN7!
An “escrow” build is a version on which development has stopped but that is handed to developers and testers, who are asked to shake out the code one final time to make sure there are no show-stopping bugs.
Vista may not be that bad, but its certainly got a bad name now. And Microsoft realizes that. So after stretching XP far by keeping it alive so far, MS is planning a quick jump to Windows7. We already know that Microsoft is bullish on touch based computers and Windows 7 would cater to that (yeah ever we believe that iPhone caused that). While Apple has integrated some touch gestures on its Macbooks; Windows 7 would be a big jump and a crucial one for the Redmond giant.
Leaked versions of Windows 7 are going around on the Internet, and some lucky chaps have managed to get their hands on it. Initial usage shows that win seven loads in 27 secs. While Win Vista loads in 34secs and XP in 27 secs.
Though I agree with our Twitter friend that the whole Vista Sux thing has been overrated and is more of a perception. But its certain that consumers are sticking to XP and waiting for something better! Most notebook buyers @ SAPL demand a XP installation instead of Vista that comes bundled. So is MS looking to revive Vista or move one?
The enterprise adoption of Vista is as low as 10%, and we sure know that XP did beat Vista for the Olympics games at least. And since almost a year now we are hearing about Windows 7. Touch functionality and faster / more responsive OS is what Microsoft is targeting with Windows 7. Microsoft employees working in Bangalore have had the opportunity to view Win7 pretty closely since a long time and their initial reviews are “WoW”.
On the other hand Microsoft is also keeping the market buzz pretty live, with Windows7 demos to word to device makers to get Win7 certification on time they are certainly working overtime on it! Rumors are that Windows 7 might hit the markets as soon as 2009, but a more realistic and accepted date is sometime in 2010.
With the growing competition from Open source OS’s and Mac, Windows certainly will start to feel the heat if Windows 7 doesn’t click as expected.
The netbook that redefined the straregy for laptop manufacturers – Asus EEE; is all set to keep pace with changing trends. Word is out that Asus EEE would feature Windows 7 as soon as the OS is goes public. Windows 7 is expected to feature touch features, and don’t be surprised if EEE PC offers touch functionality next year!
. Search for Tata Indicom / Photon Windows 7 drivers didn’t help either (thanks to the wonderful website they have built from a SEO perspective). So if you are one of those who are looking for the Tata Photon+ Windows 7 drivers (and believe me there are plenty of us out there), here are the links.
Now that all the applause and 
