Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Microsoft Brings Penny Arcade Artist To An Engineering Team To Work Out Surface Pro 3 Issues ~ By Darrell Etherington

Microsoft is gearing up to begin shipping its Surface Pro 3 tablet, and many have already had a chance to test out the latest in tablet/laptop hybrids. One early tester is Penny Arcade’s Mike Krahulik (aka Gabe) who was a huge fan of the Surface Pro 2, because with the stylus, it was an awesome digital artist tool for hand-drawn creations. Gabe wasn’t so impressed with the Surface Pro 3. He said it introduced some lag into the equation for menu navigation and drawing (I’ve tried it myself and I found the same thing), and which put the home button in a new, much more inconvenient location.
Microsoft took this feedback to heart — so much so that they brought Gabe in to provide feedback to a team of Surface Pro 3 product engineers and designers. He offered his thoughts on the home button placement, general performance issues and the way the pressure sensitivity feels “off.” The team took vigorous notes while they were doing this, and presented Gabe with a sampling of the various Surface Pro 3 hardware configurations. After about a week, they came to the Penny Arcade offices and showed him some modified devices that included fixes, such as a temporary disabling of the Windows Home hardware button when the pen is in use on the screen.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 Could Be a Laptop-Killer~By Samantha Murphy Kelly

By Samantha Murphy Kelly

Microsoft unveiled its third-generation Surface Pro 3 device at an event in New York City on Tuesday, with larger surface area than its previous model and even lighter than a MacBook A The launch of the 12-inch Surface Pro 3 comes less than a year after Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro 2, which received positive reviews for being a powerful PC inside a tablet form factor but has struggled to gain traction in the market.

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 — **Microsoft debuted its Surface Pro 3 tablet with a 12-inch screen at an event in New York City on Tuesday.**

The Surface Pro 3, which comes with a multi-position kickstand, aims to not take on other tablets but the MacBook Air, with its eyes set on getting business professionals on board with its new design.
The pre-sale starts Wednesday for $799 for an Intel Core i3 version. Devices with i5 and i7 processors will also be available.
The company announced the news at its "small" Surface event, but didn't launch the Surface Mini rumored to debut at the presentation.
"This is the tablet that can replace your laptop," said Panos Panay, corporate VP of Microsoft, said during the event. "We designed it in thinness around every corner. This is faster than the Surface Pro 2 you've loved to date and is much thinner."
The Surface Pro 3 is 12 inches, up from 10.6 inches, to increase productivity and weighs 1.76 pounds, without a keyboard. It measures in at just 9.1mm and is the "thinnest Intel Core product ever made," Microsoft says. It comes with a 2160x1440 screen, microSD card reader and a USB 3.0 port.

**Microsoft Surface Pro 3 screen vs. the Surface Pro 2.**

It also comes with an updated trackpad: "We got no praise for our [last] trackpad. We heard you."
In addition to an improved hinge, users can now tilt the screen to an angle of up to 150 degrees. The SP3 keyboard is different than before too, capitalizing on how it sits in your lap and cuts down on shaking that occurs when you type.
The device features a pen too, which during the on-stage demo seemed to work seamlessly when writing letters into a New York Times crossword puzzle. By clicking the pen, it impressively turned on a note-taking app too.

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Samantha Murphy Kelly

Samantha Murphy is a Tech Reporter for Mashable, where she covers all things tech and entertainment. She joined the Mashable team in 2011 and is based in New York.

Samantha is regularly featured on national TV broadcasts -- including Fox, Fox Business, CNBC and the BBC -- contributes to radio segments (NPR, Wall Street Journal Radio) and has served as a panelist and moderator at conferences.

Before joining Mashable, Samantha covered the tech industry as a senior writer for TechNewsDaily and wrote stories for sister publications LiveScience.com and Laptop Magazine. Her stories have been syndicated to various sites including CNN, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News and CBS News. She also spent five years at a retail trade magazine writing about social media and technology, worked at ABC News in the Brian Ross investigative unit and got her start in journalism at CourtTV.com, where she reported on high-profile court cases. She’s a graduate of New York University with a degree in journalism.

Samantha has taught English in Thailand, climbed Mt. Fuji in Japan and has a thing for pizza.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Become a Game Tester

In the next 4 minutes I'm going to show you EXACTLY how you can MAKE MONEY playing the NEWEST video games WAY before they're even released!
Fellow Gamer,
If you spend just 3 hours a day playing video games, I'm going to show you how to have all your rent and bills take care of THEMSELVES while you have some serious fun playing the newest game titles BEFORE they even hit the stores!
This year ALONE, I've been paid a total of $71,560 by 24 different game development companies to TEST their newest releases without ever having to leave my couch!
As a video game tester, you get to point out mistakes while playing the game! What better way of jumping into the gaming industry than drinking a coke, sprawling out on your couch and playing out the NEWEST blockbuster hit - WHILE you get paid $20-$50 an hour to do it!
And that's just the start of it.
As a Video Game Tester, You:
GET PAID to test the NEWEST, MOST POPULAR releases from companies like Blizzard, CAPCOM, EA Games, Microsoft, Nintendo and more - months before anyone else!
"WORK" FROM HOME and game as little or as much as you WANT - completely around your own schedule! The more games you play, the more you get paid!
Pay your RENT and ALL YOUR BILLS by spending as much time gaming as you do now - only playing the newest games to be JUST developed!
KEEP all the games you test! Imagine how much you can save on video game costs alone!
GET ACCESS to all of the hidden cheat codes, level secrets and developer codes ONLY game testers ever find out about!
Get REAL experience for FURTHER game industry careers! Ask any major game company for a job as a game developer or designer - and they'll ask you how many years you've spent testing their games!
Get essential high-level CONNECTIONS. No level of education will get your foot in the door in the video game industry unless you "know people". If you're passionate about games - game testers network and make the best high-level private connections!
So How Does This All Work?
The video game industry has shot up like a rocket over the past few years.. it's not only a $50 billion a year business today, but it's one of the ONLY industries that was unaffected by the recession!
When you think about it - did the "big, scary recession" stop you from buying any of your favourite games over the past 2 years? No? Me neither.
And what that means for you is a BIGGER and FATTER bank account as game companies make more and more games every year!
Every major game company is DESPERATELY looking for game testers with the increased demand for games today - and they want to pay you BIG BUCKS in return!
And if you're thinking..