july

Windows Start button could make a comeback, Microsoft exec says

NEW YORK--The Windows Start button could make a comeback in future versions of the software, Microsoft's head of Windows confirmed Tuesday.

Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows at Microsoft, said the company is having "meaningful discussions" about bringing certain older features of the Microsoft's operating system to Windows 8. That could include a Start button that remains on the screen.

However, she said Microsoft believes "fully in the start screen and model of having live tiles and access to everything you want in a glance."

"The Start menu was never built for … Read more

Ouya's keynote conversation polarizes SXSW

AUSTIN, Texas--The annual South by Southwest conference here prides itself on being a place for "disruption," but the only real disruption during a fairly pedestrian conversation between the founder of crowd-funded Ouya and the editor-in-chief of The Verge today were angry tweets followed by empty seats.

Ouya founder Julie Uhrman got on stage with The Verge Editor-in-Chief Joshua Topolsky to discuss her company's enormously successful Kickstarter campaign and the product it funded: an Android-based, open-source gaming console. The torrent of Tweets that followed revealed the audience members to be critical of just about everything except the room … Read more

Why Microsoft redesigned Windows

Windows 8 has its fans and foes, but Microsoft felt the time was ripe for a new look and feel for a product used by more than 1.2 billion people.

Julie Larson-Green, the new head of Windows product development, recently spoke with MIT Technology Review about the reasons behind the major changes in the latest version of Windows.

Touting the new Windows 8 Start screen, Larson-Green said that in the past Windows users worked at a desktop with a monitor. In her view, people typically launched one window, put it away, and then launched another window. But in Windows … Read more

Ultimate Ears' new ultimate: The Personal Reference Monitor

With most speakers or headphones, you're stuck with the designer's sound, but with the Logitech UE Personal Reference Monitors (PRM) you get to play headphone designer and dial in exactly the sound you want.

Each pair is totally unique; they're built with the individually designed equalization curves you selected. My PRMs sound absolutely amazing, but I'm a little biased, I designed them to please my ears! Every PRM buyer will do the same, and if they totally screw up and hate the result, Ultimate Ears will give them another try. Each PRM set is handmade in UE's facilities in California.

The price for this level of customization doesn't come cheap, though; the Personal Reference Monitors sell for $1,999. That's extreme, but so are $285,000 luxury cars. I cover the full gamut of audio, from affordable to the craziest expensive gear. … Read more

Rock stars put their ears in audiologist Julie Glick's hands

I met Julie Glick a few months ago with some folks from Ultimate Ears at a Head-Fi meeting in NY. UE was promoting a new set of custom-molded in-ear headphones, the Personal Reference Monitors, which are just now entering full production. In her NYC office, Glick can fully demonstrate these unique headphones, which are not only custom-molded to your ears but fine-tuned, soundwise, to your liking. Ultimate Ears technicians use the frequency curve you create to build your Personal Reference Monitors. I crafted my EQ curve in Glick's office; it was a lot of fun to design my sound. … Read more

Too fast, too furious: San Diego fireworks torched by tech glitch

You've seen one fireworks display, and, well, the next one doesn't seem all that different.

However, those who went to see San Diego's Independence Day fireworks last night surely left with a feeling like no fireworks display had ever given them.

For instead of 20 minutes of flash! whoosh! red, white, blue! ooooooooh! -- the whole shebang went off with a bang. At once.

Yes, they were gone in 15 seconds.

As CNN explains it, San Diego's "Big Bay Boom" was definitely big and definitely booming, as the fireworks were set off five minutes … Read more

Google uses July 4 to doodle and get political

I worry that Google's doodlers have been given a little time off, just at the time when something supremely animated was needed to lift America's dreariness on July 4.

Today, instead of some glorious and uplifting doodle, Google offers a very simple affair, the logo spelling out the words: "This Land Was Made For You And Me."

The only unusual accompaniment is that of an acoustic guitar, a homage to Woody Guthrie, whose "This Land Is My Land" includes the doodle's line.

Guthrie was very keen to offer of his guitar that "… Read more

1960s 'Batman' in Lego form: Biff! Bam! Pow!

I'm a little conflicted about the 1960s "Batman" show.

On one hand, it was a campy show that has given us more than 40 years of lame headlines with Biff! Bam! Pow! any time there's a comic-book-related story.

On the other hand, there's Julie Newmar.

Same thing goes for Lego. I love building stuff with them (sometimes I let my kids help me, too), but I'm not so wild about their tendency to turn into caltrops when I'm walking around barefoot.

But if you mix Lego and Batman, it's like alchemy. The Lego Batman video game was a hit at our house, so I have a feeling this video will be, too. Thanks to 15-year-old French-Canadian animator and YouTuber "LGFB," we can enjoy the opening sequence to "Batman" as nature intended: in Lego form. … Read more

FTC official: Do not count on Do Not Track just yet

WASHINGTON--A Federal Trade Commission official says that industry hasn't yet done enough to implement Do Not Track and that legislation to mandate it may still be necessary.

"I don't think we're quite there yet," Julie Brill, a Democratic FTC commissioner, said this week at a conference organized by the Online Trust Alliance.

As interest-based advertising, sometimes called behavioral advertising, has spread, so has interest in some form of Do Not Track mechanism inspired by the federal Do Not Call Registry. Developers have added tools to Chrome, Firefox, and Safari to implement different versions of Do … Read more