Acer has renewed its commitment to Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets, with chairman JT Wang saying that the company's criticisms of Microsoft's Surface don't mean it is ditching its Windows slate plans. The company made headlines after criticizing Microsoft's own-brand hardware, arguing that the tablets would "create a huge negative impact" to the Windows ecosystem. Now, DigiTimes reports the Acer CEO Wang has tempered his comments, though still believes that Surface will do more harm than good.

The Microsoft slates one of which will run Windows RT, the other Windows 8 will be more negative overall than positive, Wang says, but Acer still intends to launch its own products running the new OS. In fact, Wang claims to be "the most optimistic CEO" about Windows, claiming that the company's concerns were around understanding "the new rules of the game".

Microsoft, he said, was now considering possible differentiation strategies to minimize any possible impact on OEM partners, including introducing an artificial price gap. Still, it sound like Acer's expectations of Surface are somewhat skewed in the first place; Wang supposedly claimed that the major damage would be done if Microsoft priced the entry-level tablet at $199 thus directly competing with the Nexus 7, a figure which would be very unlikely. If Surface was $499-599, however, Wang sees less of an issue.

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Microsoft popular Email service "Hotmail" is now officially called "Outlook". The New website for the service is Outlook.com, it changes the design and layout of Hotmail to bring it more in line with the minimalist design aesthetic of Windows 8 Metro, emphasizing straight lines, thin fonts and white space.

Microsoft New Outlook.com

Don't worry, If you have a Hotmail Plus account, that still works with Outlook Plus, and you won't see any ads, ever. The right side is blank in your regular view, and when you click on a newsletter, you'll simply see the option to search for the sender on Bing.

With no message selected, the only "action" item available is to compose a new message. Also note the text ads to the right of the Inbox.

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Microsoft Surface tablet has just been Officially announced, but Microsoft didn't reveal the internal specifications of the tablet yet.

However, NVIDIA was quick to acknowledge that the Windows RT Microsoft Surface tablet will sport a Tegra processor, probably the Quad-core Tegra 3 with 4-PLUS-1 architechture. One possibility is that the chip will be implemented using the NVIDIA KAI platform, which promises fluid performance at a competitive price point.

Having a Tegra 3+ setup in the ARM-based Microsoft Surface tablet does not seem impossible either, although we are not quite sure whether this platform would be a good match for the device.

E3 event just ended last week, and as expected Microsoft provided absolutely no details about the Next-Ge Xbox product line. However, there are some new supposedly leaked details that shed insight to what the company is working on behind-the-scenes. Based on what has been presented as a confidential series of concept art, it looks like Kinect isn't going away.

In fact, it appears to be one of the major points of the Xbox 720. If these leaks are to be believed, the new console will have "Kinect v2" built directly into the console, so there will be no need for an extra peripheral. Among the enhancements referenced are the ability to track four players simultaneously, stronger integration with other devices like the PC and Windows Phone 8, and just all-around more powerful performance.

Another interesting thing mentioned in the leak is a project Microsoft is reportedly working on, called Kinect Glasses, which has hints of Google's Project Glass in it. Few solid details are laid out, but it looks like they'll both enhance your core experience with the Xbox 720, and can be used on-the-go as well. And the biggest piece of information from this alleged document - the console will launch at a nice price point of $299.

Just days after Microsoft launched the Release Candidate of Windows 8, the company proudly announced another great achievement Windows 7 has been sold in more than 600 million copies. Steven Guggenheimer, CVP of the OEM team at Microsoft made the announcement at Computex adding that more than 75 million licenses were sold in the past four months alone.

Microsoft also has a treat for those who purchase a system with Windows 7 installed from June 2 onward and will offer an upgrade to Windows 8 for just 15$.

Microsoft next-generation machine code-named "Durango". That name was partially verified on Feb,28 but its market Name is rumored to be "Xbox 720", when a senior technical artist at Crytek tweeted that he was "enjoying the Durango developers summit in London. So far, great swag and interesting talks." He then deleted the tweet and his account. In meetings, Microsoft reportedly showed details of the new console hardware.

Now Xbox World magazine is reporting that development kits for the new console were shipped to developers in March. Those kits include an IBM PowerPC central processing unit (CPU) with 16 cores, compared to just three cores on the Xbox 360 CPU. The graphics chip is equivalent to an Advanced Micro Devices AMD Radeon HD 7000-series graphics card, and the machine has a Blu-ray optical drive. The report mentioned that Kinect 2 will chow up as many as four cores tracking multiple players.

Windows users can now enjoy the benefits of high quality video, granted they have a webcam capable of recording HD video, as well as a fast enough internet connection.

This update also finally sees the integration of group screen share, which enables sharing your screen in conference calls, rather than with just one person at a time. Group screen share is currently only available to Skype Premium members, however.

Features and improvements of Skype 5.8 for Windows are:

• Full HD video-calling

• Support for Facebook audio and video-calling (beta)

• Group screen sharing

• Hide offline Facebook contacts

• Push to Talk

• Skype updater service

• Bing Toolbar integration

Microsoft is testing prototypes of Kinect-enabled notebooks using motion-sensing as an interface forWindows 8, it is been revealed, ahead of what are believed to be plans to license the technology to laptop vendors.

Specially modified ASUS netbooks are being used to demonstrate the system, which builds on Microsoft freshly-announced Kinect for Windows hardware, The Daily reports the ultraportables replace the single webcam above the screen with a row of sensors that can track movement.

Android app virtualization specialists BlueStacks have announced a version of its cross-platform software support for Windows 8, adding titles created for Android phones and tablets to the Metro UI of Microsoft upcoming OS.

The new version of BlueStacks App Player software will come preloaded on some new Windows 8 PCs later in the year, the company has confirmed.

Microsoft has released two new apps for the iOS platform, Microsoft Lync 2010 for iPhone and Lync 2010 for iPad, targeted at enterprise users with an Apple gadget in their pocket or bag. Both free downloads though requiring a Lync Server or Office365/Lync Online account in order to actually function the two apps offer instant messaging, audio conferencing and VoIP calls while on the move.

Real-time availability updates are given, as well as single-touch Lync conference call participation to avoid having to punch in lengthy passcodes. There is also transport layer security (TLS) and perimeter/internal network protection, neither of which demand a VPN, for increased data security.