Office on Windows Phone 8

Can this one be extra fluid and fast since the whole Windows Phone 7 is done from scratch? Previously, it seems that Windows Phone 7 is supposed to fast and fluid but from what you can see from the start screen, you can notice that some of the apps are not fast and fluid enough as if there are some remaining traces of glassy stuffs which can spoil the performance of Windows Phone 7 devices. Now with Office for Windows Phone 8, it is basically based on Office 15 for Windows Phone 8 devices and that’s extra fluid and fast for sure.

Your office documents are on the cloud with Skydrive or Office 365 and you can use them from the computers, tablets and even smartphone devices. There’s also the Tap + Send feature in Windows Phone 8 that allows you to share documents to another NFC-capable device.

In PowerPoint for Windows Phone 8, it seamlessly renders all shapes and SmartArt Graphics and honors the transition effects and timing. There’s also the portrait mode with speaker notes, slide thumbnails make navigation between slides a lot easier.

In Excel, you’re able to zoom and to edit the workbooks but I don’t know if there will be the scrollbar in any case. I guess that when zoomed out, you can move anywhere you want but when zoomed in, you may end up selecting the cells to edit or enter in plus selecting multiple cells. Also, the View Cell Text feature is as useful as editing cells in the desktop version of Excel.

OneNote Mobile – Oh man, try not to treat this as the secondary Messenger for issuing tasks like that like we already saw in one of the Windows 7 commercials. You can use this to take notes, tasks and other stuffs you may want. Also, there’s even the Voice Notes which may be cool enough.

What’s more is that you can use Lync, Skype and Yammer for perhaps multiple ways of communication and collaboration effectively from your mobile devices, tablets and even the computers. Outlook provides the integrated email, contacts, calendar and tasks which may be the hallmark experience on Windows Phone. For Skype and Lync as we know of, you can use voice, video, IM, email, SMS, feeds and presence for communication. It’s easy to participate in meetings from your mobile device without typing in any access codes. Unfortunately, it seems that the developers will provide more details about their enterprise social experiences in the coming months perhaps once Windows Phone 8 is out.

Bing Apps on Windows 8 Available as part of the launch

The day after the launch of the operating system has the excitement still on-going as the event at Times Square is not over yet. Exclusive to Windows 8 version of Bing search page, there’s the 360 degree panorama that allows you to zoom, pinch and swipe as you explore the images but you can do the same on any modern browser that supports HTML5 with the mouse or other same controls. For Windows 8 users, you may need to go to Windows Store and get the Bing apps and update them to get the latest features.

• Bing Search – Well, if there’s an instant search feature similar to the one on Google Search, that will make this one extra fast and fluid. Finger-friendly results and images are front and center letting you quickly find what you’re looking for. You can rely on the same great Bing web experience in Internet Explorer 10 but it can shine as well on Windows 8 Bing apps.
• Bing Weather – This one brings you the beautiful preview of the weather backgrounds that helps you prepare for the latest conditions with hourly, daily and 10-day forecasts. To help plan when to do something, historical data is available to examine the respective weather conditions for a given time period. Also, like the Weather apps on other devices, you can add additional time zones of weather predictions for tracking real time and daily predictions for other sets of places of interest to you.
• Bing Media apps – You know, I’ve been checking for the latest news regarding Technology so these apps are not for me. These include Finance, Travel, News in any type and Sports and I’m not into them so I’m sticking back to probably Pulse app or perhaps Rockmelt to check out more news of Technology.

Quicker Replies in Outlook 15

Using Quick Response, you can quickly reply without leaving the inbox in Outlook 15. This saves time without having to take some time to reply to messages by going back to Inbox and then selecting which messages you need to reply to that open up the message window. Instead, there’s a right pane for quick reply to whatever message you’ve received in the inbox. Also, there’s the draft indicator whose drafts will be there until you send your response or discard it just like composing the respective messages you want to send to. The draft indicator may make it easy for you to see which messages you still need to act on without switching to Drafts folder or looking around for open reply windows. When you click on a conversation that shows the indicator, you will automatically be brought back to the mail you were composing so you can pick up where you left off.

Well, that’s about it but you can find out the full details of Quicker Replies in Outlook 15 at the official Outlook Blog. Hopefully, they won’t screw up in case.

Box for Windows 8 Final Version

Alright, looks like Windows 8 is finally released to the stores and the event at Times Square must be really big. Today marks the big day for Windows 8 but let’s talk about other news we recently discovered.

Previously, Box was available for the release preview version of Windows 8 but with the final version coming in, it seems that there are some improvements.

The collaboration and sharing play well with this metro app that you can make use of the Share Charm to share files taken from your Box cloud storage to the respective social networking sites. You can also share by mail in case you’re still doing some work with your teammates which may be useful. The Box app also has the SSO login support and a passcode lock feature so that you can rest safe to know that you’re using the company credentials and that you can protect your content from curious fingers if you happen to lose your device that you can revoke it.

The limited time bonuses are that if you happen to be using Windows 8 on any HP device, you get the 25GB bonus for using Box Sync and a 50GB account for using Box on Samsung ATIV Tab.

Office for Windows RT Update

Office 15 for Windows RT had recently hit RTM stage but it’s a huge shame for Surface users to get the prototype version instead when it’s going to be launched in October 26th. And having to upgrade through Windows Update in the desktop way is a son of a butt for tablet users. This is stupidly tedious compared to updating Office for IOS, Android and Windows Phone devices. There will be signs of restarting the tablets which may be bullshit but hopefully, there shouldn’t be any restart requirement anyway. And speaking of patches for the OSes, Windows RT should be updated in the similar way its rival operating systems do. It should be patched with like version updates with all the planned patches in there instead. Even service packs have to go for tablet users but I doubt that they should be replaced in anyway. OK, there can be alternatives for service packs but that doesn’t mean the tablet has to keep on updating itself with every patch. The service pack alternative patches can include the patches for other Microsoft products which may be neater for tablets.

Model 2 Collection for PSN and XBLA

The title inaccurately says it all but some of the Model 2 games previously released for PSN and XBLA were already in true widescreen such as a Virtual On game previously released as well as Daytona USA widescreen edition. There was also the widescreen HD version of Daytona USA in the arcades but that was named Sega Racing Classic and there were some removals due to licensing issues.

This contains Virtua Fighter 2, Sonic The Fighters, Virtua Striker, Fighting Vipers and so on. Perhaps Classic Game Room may be proud but where’s Fighting MegaMix, you may ask? This may be why this compilation may be inaccurate because not all games are in it.

We don’t know the release date for this but that was what the video showed us.

Skype for Windows 8 final version

The Metro version of Skype is almost ready and we’re still stuck with the desktop version. Apparently, it is part of the RTM Windows Store that you may have to wait until October 26 to get this. What’s better than the desktop version is that, even if the Skype app is closed, you still can receive voice and video calls as well as the chat messages similar to other apps on the smartphones and tablets. Even better is that you can snap the Skype app and easily tell whatever you’re doing through the voice call, video call and even instant messages. However, the way you’re going to show off the proof is still inaccurate as if even having two webcams simultaneously won’t even help.

In addition, the Skype also brings the contacts from the People App for easier importing. By logging in to the Skype App with your Microsoft account, all your Skype contacts will show up in the People App. The People App can also show you what’s going on from your friends on the respective social networking sites. You can also reach them who aren’t on Skype yet through phone calls if you have a phone number stored in their contact information and a little Skype credit or a subscription.

Google Drive for Chrome OS

Google Chrome OS is the Linux based cloud OS for the respective Chromebooks but you can also use the Chromium OS on any computer you want. However, Chromium OS we used didn’t seem to be official but for Jolicloud OS, the rival to Chrome OS, it is kind of neater that way as we’re able to use the web edition of Jolicloud OS on the browser that brings the similar features. The only difference is that web edition is not the online operating system itself but rather the service that brings similar features to using Jolicloud OS itself. Google Drive is the upgrade from Google Docs with improved and new features to the existing apps such as doing spreadsheet, presentation, word processing and even more. It is recently available for Chrome OS and Chrome Web Store and we can call Google Drive as another cloud storage service and the rival to other cloud storage services as we know and use.

Xbox SmartGlass update

In addition to games, the Xbox Live service has been spread to the rest of the entertainment and Xbox SmartGlass will be the more advanced version of Xbox Companion app. Who knows if people may like this or not but to them, it may be less useful? Recently, there was already an update for Xbox 360 that allows you to view music, TV shows, movies and other stuffs from the store through Xbox Live Marketplace and the release of Windows 8 will receive the same rollout as well on computers, tablets and even the phones but for mobile phones running Windows Phone 8, the update will occur even later after Windows 8’s release. How is this a good evolution from the game console to the service? Wasn’t DirectX just for games the other time? Well, this surely takes you back to the past where DirectX was also used for other programs that make use of it perhaps for advanced multimedia stuffs in addition to the games.

Just like the modern game consoles today, we’re able to use them as the media players as well with videos, music and even pictures similar to using the smartphones and tablets. We’re able to surf the net on game consoles but this is not as good as using smartphones and tablets. Even with Xbox SmartGlass, we still end up surfing the net on those devices instead of controlling the Xbox 360 console remotely.

Windows 8 International TV Ads

Will this be a great release or perhaps a flawed one after certain realization? Well, the advertising campaign is going live in 42 countries and hopefully this can bring a complete Metro overhaul as the previous commercials don’t seem to be anything fluid yet with Office 2k10 and Windows 7 as the non-Metroized ones yet. OK, they’re still trying to promote Windows 7 too much like hell with Metroized promotions and flyers and other advertisements regarding Windows while the development and the preparation for Windows 8 are still in progress even until October 26th. Wait a minute, perhaps there should be ads about Windows 8 globally so there must be some blogging mistake here.

Well, behold in terms of musical choice, they’re not planning to put in the overly popular music in the commercials unlike Google Japan I guess, perhaps to prevent some sort of conflicts like I already ranted about the Xbox Music Service.

And lastly, if you’re living in New York, don’t miss the event at Times Square where Windows 8 will be featured on over 39 digital boards in the largest takeover of Times Square to date as if the whole display on the screens will be showing off the Start Screen. In fact, there can be blank spaces whatsoever like trying to display the colorful backgrounds while showing off the tiles AS LONG AS THE START SCREEN TAKES PLACE IN MULTIPLE SCREENS AS ONE WHOLE. That’s right, the whole Start Screen should be extended throughout multiple screens and they should be connected in Extended Screen mode perhaps to show off the Metro patterns. During the event, you’re able to try out the newly released Windows 8 that will happen in October 25th thru 27th.

Gesen Love Plus Pengo Soundtrack

Well, this surely contains Action Love which is basically Action Game Skills Test, Shmup Skills Test, CombatZeal and Pengo. For Shmup Skills Test, it is redone for the 4:3 horizontal orientation and there are newer stages and replaced ones. Perhaps, this re-change is suited for the 4:3 horizontal orientation instead of the original resolution as well as 4 player support. Also, the soundtrack is redone with additional stuffs for Shmup Skills Test such as the 8-Bit stage clear BGM for example as well as the new Game Over BGM. There are more of these from the overall game soundtrack to find out once the soundtrack CD is out at the end of this month. Pengo on the other hand, it is redone by Triangle Service because we can recognize the sound effects as well as the famous phrases of the respective loves for games and game genres.

It’s a shame that the Skills Test games are probably the best due to enough old-school fun of button-mashing as well as to tackle those enemies in old-school form. We surely had fun button-mashing the buttons in some of the stages in Shmup Skills Test and my favorite stages in that game are, the one where you shoot off the meteors without running into them, the one where you shoot off the flippers from Xevious, the one where you shoot off the boss after its core lights up and the 8-Bit stage. For the one where you shoot the boss quickly before it forms, it is the reference to Star Force and Star Soldier where you have to quickly shoot any boss piece before all the pieces form to get the bonus but try not to run into any one of these because it’s a waste of a life. Be extra careful not to shoot the boss before its core lights up in that stage or it’ll be hard to destroy it because the health points may be somewhat multiplied. If the pieces form a whole boss, that’s it, you may have wasted a special bonus for not being quick and you’ll have to destroy the boss to move on. Larios and Lazaros are the famous ones but the way they form by pieces may be different. Perhaps, you’ll need Takahashi Meijin’s skills for Shmup Skills Test to see how suitable you are at this genre. For me, I don’t play action games probably a lot but this old-school style skills test game may be for you if you like those old-school game genres.

Western Digital Portable Hard Disks with Windows To Go

Windows To Go is the portable version of Windows 8 to be run on USB devices similar to running Linux OSes on optical discs and USB devices. We know that the Windows To Go will freeze for a minute before shutting down if you remove the USB device but I don’t know of the technical consequence if you remove the USB device that is running the Linux OSes. So introducing the first portable hard disk from Western Digital to run Windows To Go, My Passport Enterprise.

It may seem that it is for enterprise use and it is assumed to be freaking expensive compared to those portable hard disks that cost from <$100-$100+. You can use this at work as well as at home for maximum portability whenever you go but be careful, since this is the USB device running the OS itself, it may be vulnerable like you or someone may end up plugging it off without knowing that it is actually running the OS. So what should you do? Do you watch out for some fan-tards or something during your activity over some operating system or perhaps do you invent a custom large slot on the desktop computer just for portable USB hard drives like you can stick one in there so that they can be less vulnerable? For the second option, it should be but then the USB cable can be a problem to fit in if that’s the case like inserting a cartridge-like hard disk drive into the NAS device. The problem is, how can you connect and disconnect like that? It may be why you should take good care of the USB devices while they’re connected to the computer. Of course, the mistakes may happen one day so be careful of that.

There’s also the BitLocker full disk encryption and I guess that the portable Windows 8 OS is based on Enterprise edition or so and that’s what it drives us, good data security.

Dodonpachi Maximum for IOS

Originally a Windows Phone 7 shmup game, this on IOS is going to be much sharper due to the fact that it is going to be released on Iphone 4 and above and especially the tablet version. The Iphone 4 version to a surprise has a larger resolution than the Windows Phone 7 resolution although it is 4:3 by the way that there’s already a workaround for the IOS version of the game. There will be letterboxing no matter which device you’re using. On Iphone 5 which uses widescreen resolution, there is still letterboxing due to different widescreen resolution but it may seem that the Android version may be chanceful due to the use of widescreen resolutions. On the tablet, the graphics are the sharpest but I don’t know how the game will be like on Ipad 3.

Meanwhile, there will be additional ships to play as as well as some unknown DLCs for the game but in the meantime, the IOS version will be released in October 26th. This can save your ass from seeing the release of some catastrophic operating system as we know of that will change the way we use the computers in the future.

Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7

Repeat slacker and repeat ignorant, huh, IE? It wasn’t like that the last time like I was able to use it but some trolls who have been against technology must have been against me like that even until today. And because of this technical offense, I had completely uninstalled IE from my computers in favor of other web browsers. HOW, HOW could they mean to offend me like this for no technical reasons that caused this reaction from me?

Hoho, why IT manufacturing companies? I’ve been supporting the hell out of you but you let someone who’s anti-technology troll on me like that. In any case, I may want to see and make sure that Internet Explorer 10 is getting good, damn it and especially for the Windows 7 version of the browser that will be in November. Well, this has been it for me. The idiotic trolling will continue until few years or perhaps several years later in which the lesson will be learnt on not to mess with me again. You may be spared for knowing my online profile but if you try to test parts of my profile like that, you may be perhaps a selfish one or something.

Legend Cross for IIDX Tricoro

Remember that the previous Beatmania IIDX games have the boss battles? This one has additional bosses for you to deal with. I think that the first IIDX game to feature such boss battles is DJ Troopers where you can attack the bosses while you tap the corresponding notes to the song. By tapping the corresponding notes, you’re attacking the boss but if you MISS, you get attacked back. In DJ Troopers, you can see the health bar on top of the screen and you may want to destroy the bosses completely at the end of the songs so you may have to do very well because those boss songs are already difficult enough. Do it not well and the bosses may survive and your grading for those songs may be affected.

For Legend Cross Mode, it is the continuation of Lincle Kingdom which is the RPG element mode ever since IIDX Lincle. All the songs there are exclusive to IIDX Tricoro but the references can bring you back to the past through the previous IIDX games. One of the songs was previously used in DDR X2 and there’s also the extended version of the song which is assumed to be extra cool. In Legend Cross Mode, you get to make use of your RPG character you’re playing as to attack the bosses shown on the screen while playing the notes to the song. One of the songs has a serious disadvantage to me that the characters shown on the screen don’t happen to look like the bosses so it’s kind of pointless to call that song a boss song.

Zaxxon Escape for IOS and Android

After 30 years, there comes a new Zaxxon game which takes place at the end of the original game where you escape from the enemy fortress or perhaps the enemy base. The original game is the isometric 2D shooter where you’re flying above the ground surface, shooting at things. In Zaxxon Escape, you escape from the enemy fortress in the style of Temple Run. How is this considered escaping from the enemy base when you’re escaping endlessly? This is more like wandering through the base in the style of Temple Run than escaping completely because escaping from the enemy base requires one emergency exit path or few to do so, not those complicated paths of escaping as seen in Gradius III. Sure, the flares are chasing you from behind but that doesn’t mean you have to take complicated paths to escape because the flares are supposed to spread so quickly around the enemy base to prove that it is already exploding into pieces.

The controls may be fun and the graphical concept makes this game look like a futuristic Temple Run game. You can buy various enhancements to the ship as well as other ships but are those in previous Zaxxon games as well? Eventually, escaping endlessly through complicated paths should not be how you escape from the enemy base after defeating the antagonist because you may end up dying in the middle of the escape that the original game may give you the bad ending. So, it’s an excellent mini game that is the tribute to the original Zaxxon.

Music GunGun Best Hit Tunes

This one, there’s not much to say other than featuring the original tunes taken from the first and second series. Well, I might have recognized some of the original tunes from the series like the theme of the first game but then, there’s also the secondary theme of the first game. Oh man, the major update for the first game doesn’t mean it’s the second season of the game. Sure, the sequel has more songs as well as different concept and it has improved gameplay taken from the updated version of the original game but this is what the soundtrack CD is, it basically features all the original tunes taken from the whole series.

Once again, this is another rhythm game with Vocaloid tracks you may want to play.

Soundtrack starring Donpachi, Dodonpachi and Dodonpachi II

Well, there’s not much to say about this newly released soundtrack compilation but this was Sweeprecord’s latest soundtrack CD. There will be another soundtrack compilation CD to talk about in the next blog post but let’s note on what will this contain. It will contain Donpachi, Dodonpachi and Dodonpachi II music as well as the Sega Saturn exclusive stage BGM. And remember on how terrible Dodonpachi II is? You know, this is not how the next Dodonpachi game should be made, right? We should expect slowdowns, epic danmaku as well as proper gameplay quality.  Why are the normal enemies taking more than 1 hit to be defeated? Why are the larger ones taking even longer to be destroyed and besides, you can’t even destroy as many things part of scenery as you want easily. Lastly, what the hell is up with the intro and ending scenes as well as the character concept and the plot? THESE have nothing to do with the series as if Dodonpachi Daioujou is the true sequel to Dodonpachi. We surely understand that IGS games are in Chinese but the Chinese character concept may be unnecessary for sure because it is out of place.

Alto for Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and .Mac

Maybe the real musical traitor may be the one who was the artist of the worst western autotuned song of last year that she was given the death threats like nobody’s gonna save her, not even Alto, the new email service from AOL can save her ass. This may be when some corrupt politicians have captured her in the middle of the execution of the bad laws like she’s forced to sing in front of the people working at the government during the internet war of the future. But enough of that, it seems that AOL is planning the new cloud-based email product called, Alto, the successor to AOL Mail we’ve been using. It is designed to be used with existing email accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, .Mac and .Me accounts. This new free email platform reimagines the email experience from the group up with a focus on combatting inbox fatigue and speaking of reimgination, it is going to be a messy reference to Windows 8’s development motto. Alto blends powerful organizational features and an elegant, clear user experience to provide users with visual relief from inboxes overloaded with a constant flow of daily deals, newsletters, social notifications and more. Its ultimate goal is to put the user back in control of their email experience.

The basis is organization by design, using a new tool called “stacks” that automatically pull out and organize important pieces of a user’s inbox for easy access and quick viewing. You can drag and drop individual emails to create your own stacks based on sender, recipients, keywords and so on. Alto doesn’t require new email address and instead, you can use existing email accounts just like importing your existing email accounts to the IOS Mail app.

Alto provides users with a visual story of their email inboxes using a variety of innovative features designed to make it easy to sort through and find what is really important.

• Stacks – Alto automatically creates stacks which give users an easy, intelligent and dynamic way to deal with inbox clutter. These stacks are built around the important pieces of a user’s email, are intuitively designed and simple to use. For example, Alto is pre-loaded with stacks that are built to automatically surface photos, attachments and social notifications, retailers and daily deals.
• Photo Stacks – Photos can also be stacked from social networking sites. You can take a look at the long buried photos or instantly see new ones as they arrive.
• Attachments – Alto is cloud based email service that downloads or additional applications are not needed.
• People – Like other email services, you can import other accounts of yours such as your social networking accounts and you can use this service to see the latest social updates of your contacts and people you have in common similar to your Hotmail and Yahoo accounts and their messenger apps.

Alto is available in limited preview today which accepts new users on a first come, first serve basis. You can sign up at www.altomail.com

Windows 8 Training Sessions

Remember that Microsoft is going to plan out the a bunch of certified courses in the future regarding Windows 8 operating systems and its server variants? Remember that IT Free Training has made such announcements about those future courses? Well, it seems that Microsoft is planning the Windows 8 training sessions at its stores. They are hoping to educate consumers on these new systems with free training sessions. You know, we may rather want the advanced training or some sort in addition to the challenging ones. And of course, since Windows 8 is like a week away, we can still wait until there’s an Asian version of these training sessions so that we can eventually learn things about the new operating system environment.

Microsoft Surface Street Art

Last time, there was a teaser video of the upcoming Microsoft Surface tablet and now there is the second one which takes place in some place where the workers are seen painting the walls of the buildings with the artworks of Surface. How do you call this the art by then as the whole thing may look way too clean? According to some video from Surface YouTube channel, the location looks like the particular location in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. It seems that Microsoft will be doing the same thing with other locations like Paris and Italy for example to promote the upcoming Surface tablet devices.

New Xbox 360 Dashboard update starts rolling out

Last time, there was a public beta of the update and anyone who had taken part for the beta update was not allowed to share or blog things about the update because certain things were confidential. Sharing would obviously get you banned from future participation of the future technology as I think.

• Refreshed Xbox 360 Dashboard – It brings out additional apps and services such as tuning to videos, movies, TV shows, music and even trying out more apps.
• Internet Explorer for Xbox – Just like the web browsers on other home consoles, Internet Explorer for Xbox 360 has modern support for HTML5. So how do you view online videos from video sharing sites like that? Well, that will be YouTube app but that requires gold subscription. And please don’t me that this is one technical offender which refuses to work on me again like an ignorant browser.
• Recommendations and Ratings – Recommendations are based on your views of movies, TV shows and even music that allow you to discover new favorites, generated based on a number of variables including the content you previously viewed, what your friends are consuming and what is most relevant and popular within the Xbox community. Well, is there a reason not to have the Hotmail community as well so that people can try out the Xbox Live media services that are similar to ITunes even if they don’t own the Xbox 360 console?
• Pinning – Well, this is going to be quite weird and time consuming for Xbox 360 Dashboard. Sure, you can do this in Windows Phone and Windows 8 devices but on Xbox 360, it’s kind of weird for me. If there are various tabs on top of the screen that represent the respective stuffs, why do you need to pin stuffs in here?
• Recent Play – I believe that Quick Play was on late last year’s release of the new Xbox 360 Dashboard that will allow you to view the content you previously viewed.
• Enhanced Search – Last year, there was a voice support for Bing but I don’t use voice commands at all because it’s kind of embarrassing or perhaps I fear that it may have already attracted retards to say out such stupid things to the devices in which they don’t even understand. Perhaps there is nothing specially interesting that will attract more people to use voice commands but I’m sure that the otakus in Japan will be surprised to use the Siri-like technology on their Docomo Android devices. Sure, there may be mascots for the upcoming Windows 8 as well but I don’t know if you really want to buy that edition of the OS to check out the newer voice clips. This year, they added genre search to the list and Bing voice search now includes results for video across the Web including YouTube.

For Xbox SmartGlass, it will be coming in October 26th as well and that day will drive Microsoft hyper-busy for sure with thousands of sellers attempting to sell off the products with Microsoft’s future technology to the customers. It will be available for the tablets, computers and smartphones and feature key foundational experiences for interacting with your Xbox 360 such as dashboard and app navigation and Internet Explorer control. How do you use this as the bottom DS screen which displays additional information while you play games? In fact, you can even this app to remotely select the game features but I don’t know if you can remotely control the character by using this app to do so. By controlling the character in 3D games remotely, you are actually using that device as the controller for the console provided that your Xbox 360 and the device you’re using are connected to each other. If there’s an opportunity for this to happen…

One last thing, the Xbox Music app that is part of today’s Dashboard update will launch with free streaming on all Windows 8 devices on October 26th and Windows Phone 8 as devices arrive in the market. In the meantime, you can enjoy the new Xbox Music on your console while waiting for Windows 8 to be out.

Xbox Music offers streaming to Windows 8, RT, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox 360

Wow, download-to-own music services similar to ITunes as well as Internet Radio Services and subscription services that allow us to consume all the music you want. ONLY WESTERNIZED MUSIC IS THERE! WHO’S GONNA USE THIS SERVICE IF THERE’S NO EASTERN ONE? At least in Itunes, things are already fair enough that there will be no complaints whatsoever and this whole musical power Microsoft has is a JOKE! It’s like Google has better power in that case. And in fact, I still haven’t even seen the Korean music CDs in any case like people end up tuning to those music online perhaps through video sharing sites.

You know, you can buy songs through credit cards from ITunes Music Store and store them to your mobile devices and ITunes Music Store is one of those digital purchase services which may be a future way of enjoying the music you want easily on any device. For Xbox Music, you can subscribe to the music you want or download the songs to your devices. Through the power of the cloud, it effortlessly integrates the music experience across your devices.

There will be free temporary streaming of music for Windows 8 and RT devices while Xbox Music Pass allows unlimited access to the songs including the offline access. The real challenge is that Xbox Music Pass is costly monthly of US$9.99 per month. This service will be available tomorrow for Xbox 360, in October 26th for Windows 8 and RT devices, Windows Phone 8 later and IOS and Android in the future.

Tune in the music if you want with Xbox Music but you’re screwing your money over!

Shabette Concier for Android

On March this year, the service which is the answer to Apple IOS’ Siri was released by NTT Docomo for Android. It enables customers to obtain a wide range of information and perform diverse tasks simply by speaking into their Docomo smartphones and tablets. Remember, this service is in Japan only and the whole thing is in Japanese language. Communication in other langauges is not an option because it may be confusing to the device and besides, NTT Docomo is the leading Japanese Telco company. Maybe I can call that the leading ISP in Japan but I may be wrong. The app may be free but be careful, packet communication charges may apply when downloading or using the app. The app is an advanced voice-activated user interface that enables customers to intuitively and directly operate services and smartphone features with voice commands similar to IOS’ Siri. In response to a verbal question, for example, the app analyzes the inquiry and then provides an answer using the information mined from leading content providers in addition to official content on Docomo’s dmenu portal site. You can also make tasks with voice commands as well but you have to ensure that you’re making sense of whatever you say or you may have to amend on whatever you find it unacceptable due to your mistakes.

As the app searches for online information based on what you say for combined information, it will eventually take technical actions based on the tasks or perhaps the questions you ask like they will be answered with information given back to you so this whole voice processing is in the cloud via mobile network.

The launch of the app follows Translator Phone, an auto-interpretation trial cloud service that Docomo introduced in November last year. What is Translator Phone? Does it do all the translation for you? If that’s the case, stick on Google Translate on your Android devices. Docomo expects to upgrade Shabette Concier with increasingly natural language interfaces for enhanced functionality, as well as to link it to a variety of services powered by Docomo and add additional interesting stuffs. Interestingly enough, there are even anime characters for you to converse with with this app but this upgrade will take place next month as part of this year’s fall update.

Once again, NTT Docomo is the leading Telco company in Japan and its services are Japan only as well so Asian or Western release of this app may be almost impossible for Android devices. Sure, there won’t be bonus content for Asian and Westernized releases of this app such as the anime contents because there’s no way we can talk to those characters in other languages. Simply hiring English voice actors for English version of these contents for this app in English can worsen the reputation as well and that will be unacceptable to the otakus.

Windows 8 Mascots

Oh man, will you backport those themes back to Windows 7 or something besides using them in Windows 8? I guess so there’s no reason for the technical problem to occur. However, there are some exclusive event occurrences for Windows 8 such as the notifications on the top right of the screen with exclusive sounds. That’s right, the RTM version may different sound schemes now for Windows 8. Just like Windows 7, there will also be the DSP 64-bit edition with the newer mascots.

In addition to the newer themes, there will also be a Microsoft Wedge touch mouse with the Windows 8 logo. I don’t know if this can work with Windows 7 and below and for touch mouse, I still have yet to take some time to grab some opportunity to buy like newer mice. You know, every few or several months, the mice are starting to dis-behave on me that I may have to get another one. Each pack will cost about 19980 yen each. The limited Akihabara editions will be offered in Tokyo’s Akihabara shopping district with additional exclusive voice samples. The bundled mouse in each Limited Akihabara edition will have an illustration of the respective characters.

There’s something I didn’t even notice of for Windows 7 mascot. In addition to the freaking commercial and the image song as I had already known of, there are also the mini-games as well as Cloud Girl manga which is to explain the Windows Azure cloud services system. Some mini game called Heart Crisis was launched by Microsoft Smart Business Center as a business card battle game. In this game, you use cards containing different attack moves for the mascot to defeat computer-related monster cards.

Office 15 reached RTM

They might have signed off on the RTM build of Office 15 but what about the performance of PowerPoint when there are so many advanced stuffs on the slides? You know, I tried out working on Zigg-Zagg PDA PPT Animation with PowerPoint 15 Beta but the whole thing is unstable that I decided to stick back to Office 2k10 version of PowerPoint to do the work. Thankfully, Office 15 is not shameful a lot compared to Windows 8 which is going to be a development catastrophe. Everything in Office 15 is Metro-ized and that means it’s completely clean and fluid but the same cannot go to Windows 8 in which we still see some some glassy stuffs and that’s not fluid enough. It’s more like getting technically worse if not, even more unstable no matter how simple things can look. At least, Windows Phone 7.5 is even more fluid than the original Windows Phone 7 as it still contains some elements which are not even fluid yet. However, only mobile version of Office 2k10 is NOT considered fluid like this perfectly so hopefully Windows Phone 8 should have the next version of Office Mobile but still, this is what a fluid product should be like.

With cloud technology, it looks like we’re entering the future with Office 15 and it may be the same with Skydrive as both Windows 8 Metro app and desktop app although there will be no signs of easier synchronization for Cloud Storage apps if you’re using a tablet as using the desktop app of Skydrive on tablets may be difficult to interact. Who knows if you can synchronize the local photos stored on the tablet to Skydrive which may mean synchronizing the photos that can be open in Photos app to Skydrive just like Camera Upload folder for Dropbox for smartphones. Camera Upload folder for Dropbox is somewhat a special folder for storing synchronized photos you take and that’s pretty brave and if Skydrive can do the same with Office documents and photos in special ways, that will be a good thing.

Office 15 will be planned to be released in general in the first quarter of next year. Starting October 19, customers purchasing Office 2k10 from local retailers or resellers will receive the new Office for free upon availability and speaking of next year’s release of Office 15, it sounds kind of bullshit though that Windows RT users will end up getting the prototype version of Office 15 for Windows RT. We can still use Office 2k10 in the meantime but for Windows RT users, this is in-excusable.

For business users, there will be roll-out of new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise Customers in the next service update starting in November through general availability. Sure, Office 15 had recently reached RTM so the release may be kind of safe but even then, this is one month too late as if Windows RT business users will have to wait until a month to get the final version of Office for Windows RT. Volume Licensing customers will get the product on December 1st while the IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.

Overall, the business users of Windows RT may be patient enough to wait but the same cannot go for other users of Windows RT as waiting for next year is insane. Perhaps the future is still not fluid like this.

Game Maker Studio for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

Game Maker Studio may seem to be multi-platform export compatible and Windows 8, Windows Phone and Steam versions are the next. But for Windows 8, it is going to be a confusing mix when it comes to games and apps used on it.  There may be games that will work on tablet only which is one bullshit factor as they are supposed to have support for multiple controls such as touch, mouse and keyboard, not touch only. Suppose that there’s a racing game to be run on Windows 8, the control concept should support keyboard, game controller and tablet controls which may involve touch and device tilting. That’s how the fairness should be when it comes to Metro games on Windows 8. If that’s the case for Game Maker Studio, games made for tablets and smartphones should have exact controls when ported to these platforms but Windows 8 is going to be an exception, they should support other controls besides touch because it is going to be a waste of people’s money if the games support like one control type only and not the others so what’s the point of getting those anyway? For Windows Phone 8 devices, the resolutions can be identical to certain Android devices but not all Windows Phone 8 devices support that high resolution so the development may be less difficult with common resolutions and less time consuming. But for IOS devices, it is obvious that porting from IOS to Android may take you more time due to different resolutions between the two OSes. For Windows 8 games ported from Android or Windows Phone 8 with 720P as the target resolution, you may expect the graphics to be kind of blur because the tablet resolutions may be somewhat higher than 720P. At least porting HD games from Ipad to Windows 8 may be a little bit challenging due to the fact that Windows 8 tablets are in widescreen. It’s the same deal for Android tablets when porting games from Ipad to Android.

However, how about the games that are going to be developed for all of these mentioned tablet and smartphone platforms? This can make the simultaneous development more challenging and time consuming because you may have to divide the same game into multiple versions. On the computer, the resolution doesn’t matter as much but you may have to tell the resolution requirement under System Requirements for whatever games you have made. If the computer is running the game at lower resolution than the game’s resolution, I can guess that there will be signs of pixel loss but I don’t know if this can pose more problems for running the Game Maker games like that. It’s kind of worse when running in Window Mode because you’re not able to see other parts of the game screen unless the screen resolution is set to the one higher than the game’s resolution.

Even better with Game Maker Studio is that the games can also be made for HTML5 in which games can be played online just like playing Adobe Flash games on the net.

So, you’ve known that Windows 8 had hit RTM stage but the development tool for Windows 8 will soon be out on the Windows Store under Desktop Store. The best platform for developing games with Game Maker Studio will be on the computers and if you want to test your creations that are simply made for tablets, smartphones or both, you can simply export to those platforms and then test it from there.

Sega ID account update

Last time, I had the Aime card registered through the Aime site in three ways. Today, I registered it on the Project Diva Arcade machine. Man, maybe I should have registered earlier like one to years ago by requesting for the card.

So I played PDA for the first time with the card registered. With the card, you can choose to enable the trial challenge as well as to beat your rival’s score and go to gameplay contest modes which consists of certain songs you’re supposed to play. In case you forget which songs you’ve completed or attempted, you can scroll through the song lists to look for certain songs you’ve forgotten or some sort.

And the touch-screeeeeeeeeen, the touch screen effect is away from the fingers that it made my registration entry kind of difficult to enter my nickname like that.

Lastly, an unbelievable result occurred on me when I got the Full Combo on Melancholic in Advanced difficulty in Maimai. Well, I still have yet to unlock other songs.

Lumines Electronic Symphony Obtained

OK, the third Vita game I’ve bought today and you can remember that I bought Lumines II on PSP as well. On Lumines Electronic Symphony, there are newer contents. The visuals are looking nicer than ever that they can fit with electronic music and gameplay. The downside is the touchscreen for gameplay which is unnecessary to me as we prefer the normal controls. Different than other Lumines games is that there’s the Master Mode as well as the Contribution settings in which there are like 2 MILLION BLOCKS TO ELIMINATE. This is kind of tedious to do this contribution alone but the more you play, the more blocks you will eliminate. Sure looks like a game you may want to keep playing but this is NOT the casual one. Graphics on the other hand have gone 3D and looking much better than the ones on the PSP Lumines games. Just like other Lumines games, you will be taking lots of time in unlocking lots of skins and songs although it can be tedious having to unlock all in my opinion.

Windows Server 8 Essentials reached RTM

Just like Windows Server 8 in other editions, the Essentials edition is a significant milestone in the developers’ efforts to cloud-enable small businesses and home offices. It is  designed to protect business data to allow highly secure access to information you need from virtually anywhere by using almost any device and to offer the flexibility to choose which applications and services you want to run on-premises and in the cloud and besides, it is made even easier before to run itself in a hosted environment. However, since the Essentials is likely to be a combination of Small Business and Home Server editions, I may believe that the target audience for this may be different. Mostly, the small business users may seem to be using it but for Home Server users, you can still take the opportunity to try provided that the add-ons and apps are for both types of users commonly and especially for the features.

The release date will be in November 1st after it had just reached RTM yesterday so in the meantime, you can try out the trial copy from the Evaluation Center and if you’re an MSDN or Technet Subscriber, you can download the Essentials edition from those sites as well. Now, here are the quick product highlights the developers may want to share:

• Enable a dynamic, modern work style with access from devices by using Remote Web Access and take advantage of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices for a superior experience with rich modern “My Server” apps. Oh come on, how much factors do you need for Remote Web Access? I already have an external router that has the UPnP support which is good for media viewing but even then, there were still technical problems when trying out the prototype version of Windows Home Server 7 and Small Business Server 7. I don’t even know if this technical problem will occur in this as well.
• On-site backups with Windows Azure Online Backup for peace of mind enjoyment? Now this is where things are quite uncommon and small business users will have to learn about Windows Azure technology before using this online backup feature as I believe that Windows Azure is likely to be for business users and not home users. Your best bet will be to establish your home office somewhere in your home and then start working on whatever work you have from the company you work at. That’s how you can use this technology for personal backup as a business user. You can also utilize integrated support for the new Windows 8 File History feature and I don’t know if this is like Volume Shadow Copies or some sort.
• Oh, hosted service provider for email and collaboration option? This one again is for small business users but for users of both types, you can probably choose Office 365.
• Storage Spaces may be useful for both types of users and THIS is one common feature and it is also in Windows 8 as well as other editions of Windows Server 8. In case you need multiple storages for storing data, this one is for you.
• Line-of-business applications can be run that you depend on by leveraging the greatly improved application compatibility, with the logo certification for all Windows Server 8 editions. Man, this one is gonna be confusing unless there are like multiple logo certifications for all Windows Server 8 editions. Also, this product highlight may seem to be for small business users.
• If the needs of your small business grow, you can upgrade to Windows Server 8 Standard edition which gives you the standard features of Windows Server 8 in case you may want to use Windows Server 8 Standard edition for whatever purpose. You can also use the Standard edition for home use but I don’t know if you can install that on your home servers.

Microsoft Points for music and video will be phased out

No official article from Microsoft about this but it seems that they are planning to remove the Points system as a method of payment for credit cards which includes the official pricing of apps. This may be for apps, music, video for Windows Phone and 8 but I don’t if this is the same for games on those two platforms. Even weirder was that it has been widely used for Xbox Live and Zune Marketplace to buy various forms of media and applications. In newer builds of Windows 8, applications and media can be paid for on a credit card with the MS Point system being used as the second option so I guess that the system is not phased out yet.

In the meantime, the Xbox Live is still using the Microsoft Points system as a method of payment but this is all we have discovered on Neowin and Engadget with their original article taken from The Verge.

Windows Azure Services Beta for Windows Server

System Center series for the servers running Windows Server OSes may be useful for certain technical purposes such as clustering, websites, storages and other stuffs. Last week, there was some launch event in Southeast Asia for Windows Server 8 where people were quite interested in many of the new individual technologies. While this was so, there was a real sense that they also find the broader vision Microsoft has laid out highly compelling. In the future, the datacenter with servers will be in the cloud with Windows Azure and Windows Server 8.

Three months ago, the developers said that there will be over 200 cloud applications with some of the largest online services for the datacenters. Normally, you can use the Office 365, Hotmail and Bing if that’s the case for standard business. For gaming business, Xbox Live service may be included provided that the company has certain Xbox Live powered games. You can straight away install the new Windows Azure technology to the Windows Server OS which is currently in beta to provide high density Web Sites as well as Virtual Machine provisioning and management. They may be designed for easy incorporation into hosting service providers’ offerings for deployment to their broad customer base.

The first thing is the web sites in which hosting service providers can now deliver scalable, high density web site hosting solutions on Windows Server to help them lower costs and increase revenue and profitability. Delegated administration and features such as Reserved Instances allow tenant self-service and scaling while providing a smooth ramp from low cost offerings to premium services. Using the Web App Gallery, it can allow customers to quickly provision popular Microsoft and 3rd party web applications without the need to code everything. Can Web App Gallery save the asses from having to code the stuffs all over the place?

Virtual Machines on the other hand may require even higher system requirements so think twice if you may want to try the shit out of Windows Azure beta for Windows Server as we believe that this is for business and not personal use. Virtual Machine provisioning and management is a core part of the value proposition of the Microsoft Private Cloud offering for Enterprises, built on Windows Server 8 for example. Hosting service providers can now also use this technology to offer a high quality self-service experience for their customers to provision and manage virtual machines. With the use of the new Service Management API for integration of their customer portal, they can control System Center and Windows Server to make, operate and update virtual machines. I don’t know if certain companies will offer you the virtual machine to use but I guess that certain companies like Amazon may give you the opportunity to try out the similar technology stuffs but they are actually powered with Linux technology so it may be more complicated back then.

As part of the new two service offerings in Windows Azure, there is a new portal that has received rave reviews and has dramatically eased the manageability of the cloud services. The technology preview as of three months ago, there would be the same great experience for the developers’ own hosting service providers. The portal had been designed by them from the ground up with cloud services in mind and in bringing this portal technology to Windows Server that was updated to allow their partners to adapt it to various business needs. Some partner like GoDaddy.com demonstrated how easily they were able to rebrand the Service Management Portal and how quickly a customer could deploy and then scale a new WordPress blog site using the Web Sites capability. Man, I wish I can be one of such customers in any case as I already have my own WordPress Blog.

Other partners may include Parallels in which they showed how they replaced the Service Management Portal with their Parallels Automation System by integrating directly with the Service Management API and it seemed like they’re the third party company for this portal for sure.

Lastly, for enterprise customers, the right solution for a dynamic datacenter and private cloud environment is the combination of Windows Server and System Center. With this combination, you’ll find the capabilities needed to aggregate resources and delegate them with the organization to allow for self-service provisioning and management of your VMs and applications, whether in your datacenter if you will or through the Windows Azure subscription. Careful, I believe that Windows Azure subscription is costly so you may want System Center alone for the servers running Windows Server OSes in your datacenter if that’s the case while still trying out the new technology. Next year, there will be the Service Pack 1 release of the new System Center that will enable the customers to see and utilize capacity they’ve provisioned from service providers in the same way as they consume their own resources or those in Windows Azure.

In the beta version, the release is now feature complete but be reminded that these technologies are not something incremental that needs to be purchased by hosters. This is simply part of the broad solution you tap into when you deploy Windows Server 8 and the new System Center. Here are the following features you’ll find in the beta version of the bits:

• Service Management Portal and API
• Distributed Installation of the Service Management Portal and API as well as Web Sites controller separate from them
• Users are now able to sign up for multiple plans
• Web Sites
• HTTPS/SSL support for tenants that are now able to upload custom certificates and use them for programmatic access
• Distributed installation with High Availability and Live Upgrade
• Generic FastCGI and custom stack support
• Virtual Machines
• Customized way in creating VMs from VM Template with rich wizard experience
• Hardware profile for making VMs from the VHDs
• Tenants are now VMM Tenant Admins and utilize the new VMM on-behalf of features

So before you start, you need to have at least four virtual machines running Windows Server 2k8 R2 and above in addition to the new System Center on the VHD. Install .NET Framework 3.5 and 4 and all updates on these virtual machines. It may seem to be complicated but you can read the quick start guide or detailed step-by-step installation guide and like I have predicted, this is for business use.

Aime card obtained

Finally, with this card, I’m able to play other Aime compatible games with my Sega ID at the arcades. It was surprising that other players had already signed up their Sega ID with their Diva cards or Aime cards. Glad to see the operators having those cards on sale provided that you ask them for these cards. But first, there are three steps when it comes to playing Maimai with your own Sega ID.

1. Obtain the Aime card at the arcade where the game can be found and register your card at the game like I already did for the first time and key in your name. With this, you’re able to play up to 3 tracks per run.
2. Register your new Sega ID account at the website as shown on the card.
3. Register your card you bought at the Card Registration page. From there, enter the access code so that it can display what games you played at the arcade with the card you scanned.

And what’s bastard about playing for the first time with the card is that, you still have to insert a quarter before you start scanning your Aime card.

And special thanks to those three guys who played this game for long. How did they reach such a crazy level like this? Did they go to the arcades to play the same game like that regularly? I don’t know but maybe going to the arcades is almost like going to the cinemas as if some movies there can’t be watched at home with the BD and DVD players being the video viewing consoles. What’s the reason for going for Advanced difficulty in Maimai? Well, Extreme and Master difficulties can be ridiculously difficult for me and any difficulty above these like some more and I’ll be no match for that. As I saw from their playing one of the anime songs, Connect, in Master difficulty, it seemed that they were trying all along to clear it but that was already difficult enough. Even better is that they had their playing recorded but man, I don’t like to record myself playing this game as it may seem to be embarrassing to me so my showoff of this game on YouTube is kind of pointless as photography or video taking on the arcades is not allowed.

I don’t know if Nico Nico Douga account is needed for this game but here were the following gameplay videos taking place in October 5th at Tampines Mall arcade.

• http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm19052258
• http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm19052280

Credits go to those guys who played there…

DJ Max Technika Tune Obtained

Oh god, I don’t know much of the songs in this one but it seems that I already knew like several of DJ Max songs so far. After completing like most parts of Project Diva F and Puyo Puyo 7, it seemed that I couldn’t wait to buy another game for Vita. My plans for buying additional Vita games were promised all along with DJ Max Technika Tune. Well, I started it off with the DJ Max songs I know of but for difficulties, I think the gameplay should take me time to get used to because the screen for the PS Vita is between the tablets and smartphone devices but I think that the Vita is quite fine enough to play this game. Also, the K-Pop music is something I’m not into but it’s the normal thing that I can also appreciate. The rear touch pad may add to the challenge but it may seem to be unnecessary to me. Better still, the tablet version of DJ Max Technika may be best suited anyway under DJ Max Technika HD which is tablet exclusive. There may be no smartphone version for me as these devices may be like too small to play in the modern way. I mean, the fingers can be the huge blockages to the screen and that’s the problem with other games in other genres on smartphone devices. Your best bet will be to do some measurement on smartphone devices and see how many horizontal rows of notes are fittable when it comes to Technika gameplay as I may predict that the number of horizontal lines on the whole screen may be a bit lower than having six horizontal row of notes available on the Vita screen. There should be seven for Vita screen if you exclude the HUD on top.

Then there’s a DJ Max Technika clone on IOS called Rhythmix. It may be suited on the Ipad but on the smartphone, the rows of notes are like squeezed even though the number of horizontal rows is like already six just like the Technika Tune. The serious downside though is that the clone is put on hold due to being caught red-handed and sued by Pentavision for ripping off the on-going DJ Max Technika series. But what it does offer exclusively in terms of gameplay is the freaking flick notes. *Clone flattened by a huge falling object* That’s a fag for not having major differences when it comes to inspirations for your work.

Touhou 13.5 Hopeless Masquerade

Last year, there was Ten Desires or Touhou 13 but what’s a current year without a Touhou game? This year, Touhou 13.5 is a fighting game by Twilight Frontier but right now, the website turns out to be the teaser site with some screenshots below. The screenshots indicate that the game will be in widescreen and featuring 3D graphics but we’ll get to know more here once the website is completely updated.

Xbox Music Service on October 26th

A new music service to replace Zune? Well, it was a shame on Microsoft for having the Zune franchise exclusive to the westernized countries that we were not able to experience the media experience using the Zune service. I probably might want that as well but can the Xbox Music service be available globally for equal fairness? Previously, you can use the Zune Player on your computer to connect to your Windows Phone devices which might be kind of late compared to the use of ITunes for your IOS device and your computer for early and regular connection. Rather than having Zune for your Xbox 360 console, the Xbox series may have gone into other things besides being gaming related. Not only you can listen to the music, view photos and watch videos powered by Xbox Live service, but also play games on other devices powered by that same service. It should be everywhere on your Windows Phone devices, Windows tablets, Windows 8 and Xbox 360. Hopefully, the Xbox Live service should be able to match the ITunes service entirely and globally. You know, the ITunes service today already has enough fairness and popularity but the Zune devices were what we were not able to try because they were not available. Compared to Windows Media Center on Xbox 360, the usage of Music, Pictures and Videos apps on it are kind of easier to access the data taken from the computers via easy connectivity, leaving WMC on Xbox 360 to be crippled compared to using WMC on the computer.

Skype.com Beta in Metro form

Until today, the Skype website as we know of is still looking bright and chromeful until Skype and Microsoft have decided to metro-ize the god damn website. Oh, the program as we use today is still not metro-ized yet but it seems that it’s fine that way. It is everywhere on mobile devices, computers, tablets, smartphones, TVs and even game consoles. The beta version is available for some visitors of Skype.com but not for the others and some Neowin guys had managed to visit the new site.

Well, it turns out that there must be some tricks in entering the beta site through the web address trick and according to some comments at Neowin, the web address should be like this: http://www.skype.com/beta. Also, I just managed to get in the new website thanks to certain tricks found in the comments.

Non-game software on Steam

Perhaps Steam is the better service to use on desktop and laptop computers than that freaking Windows Store and the non-gaming software store from Steam may be the answer to Windows Store. The software there is interesting to explore but the apps there are seriously costly. Here are the following titles for you to purchase from Steam:

• Game Maker Studio: The latest program in the family that allows people to make their own games for Steam Workshop, IOS, Android, computers and even HTML5. It saves time in development rather than having to code for native languages but depending on the development quality, the development of the game can take up from weeks to months in order to make the creation even better. Optionally, there can be updated versions of the creations perhaps for better features and bug fixes. The only downside of the free version compared to Game Maker Lite is that the resources are very limited.
• 3D Coat: A 3D modeling CGI program that allows you to model the characters and character dresses. There will be layers to paint with, voxel sculpting, UV-Mapping, Retotoplogy and best of all, the linking with Photoshop. You can use this as well as Photoshop for better texturing processes through multiple layers.
• ArtRage Studio: It may be like Photoshop and Illustrator but damn, it looks kind of professional enough to be on par with them. Even better is that you can import and export PSD files which keep layers, layer groups, blend modes and editable text layers.
• CameraBag 2: The photo tweaking and enhancement program that allows you to enhance your photos even further. Choose from 100+ built-in styles and filters or create and share your own. There are full suites of 25+ manual photographic tools including advanced curve editors. Using Analog Engine, it has high-fidelity, 32-bits-per-channel, non-destructive, multi-threaded image processing which can be fast and smooth. Its old-school looks are particularly high tech in recreating the natural blemishes and random variations which may be one of the hardest digital challenges and that’s where the research of the developers of this program is much devoted. With the Analog Engine, even the most heavily-modified photos will retain smooth, film-like colors. The program may be best suited for laptops but you can also use it for the desktop for advanced multimedia purposes.
• Source Filmmaker: The program that is currently in public beta and it is the movie-making tool built and used by Valve to make movies inside the Source game engine. Because it uses the same assets as the game, anything that exists in the game can be used in the movie and vice versa. You can get started with this prototype program and see the base game assets from Team Fortress 2 along with assets from some of the first Meet The Team short films. Go use it now, you’re gonna want this for advanced video making.

New MSN For Windows 8

Oh man, I bet that there will be lawsuits for browser unfairness like this. Why is the New MSN exclusive to Internet Explorer 10? What about the other browsers in the metro style, huh?

Well, at least things can be easier and optimized for tablets but then this kind of experience will be available in October 26th. In addition to the news in various categories, there’s also the weather gadget on the site where you can choose to share whatever you want to Facebook, Skype or perhaps Twitter. You can also view Hotmail account from there like you may want to check out the incoming mails. In addition to the home page, there will be gadgets on other pages as well but I don’t know if they are considered gadgets or not because on the home page, the weather thing surely looks like the freaking gadget.

OK, I already had enough of Internet Explorer as it kept on refusing to corporate with my whole home network that I switched to other browsers instead but guess what, it seems that XINMSN is still stuck on the current way like it hasn’t evolved yet. The evolution will take on October 26th where everything looks Metro-ized but I don’t know how XINMSN will look like for Internet Explorer 10. Try using other web browsers in metro style and I don’t think it’s gonna work that way but hopefully, this will not be another disappointment for Windows tablet users.

DJ Max Ray for IOS

What, NO WAY! Why it is like Tap Sonic all over again? Hadn’t Pentavision learnt the lawful mistake from last time in which their previous DJ MAX games are already ripping off the Beatmania series? But come on, there are already other games similar to Tap Sonic on IOS and I don’t know if this one will crash on me as well.

Thankfully, this one is free just like Tap Sonic but the packs are not just like Jubeat Plus on IOS where music packs will have to be purchased as DLCs. If you probably expect the Technika like game where it is kind of legal enough on the IOS, well, you should think again because how the hell can the Technika like game be fit onto the smaller IOS devices? At least, the PS Vita is quite fittable enough for DJ Max Technika game but on the smaller IOS device, it may be too small to be frank. Just two horizontal rows of notes for top and bottom parts and it can be a boring result. However on the Ipad, a TECHNIKA LIKE GAME CAN BE FITTABLE! So all I can say is, the tablet users will be disappointed with this game. Even if this game is on Android, well, the disappointment is still there.

So what’s new in DJ Max Ray? Well, you can customize the skin of the gameplay interface, notes and other stuffs. Common features in the gameplay like speed, fade-in, fade-out, mirror and other stuffs are back from Tap Sonic but this time, things have been improved here. Another new thing is even more new songs exclusively to this game and HOW ABOUT THE EDIT MODE FOR DJ Max Technika Tune so that you can put in the custom songs, custom notecharts and that will save your ass from using those clones on the PC? I believe that the Fever scoring is also in Tap Sonic in addition to the previous DJ Max games including Technika series.

So do you probably need this when you already have Tap Sonic? Well, this is an arcade way of sequelizing the previous game like there will be additional features, additional songs and other changes to the game and the gameplay.

Project Diva series updates

Oh man, freaking DLCs for Project Diva F featuring additional accessories and additional characters? Looks like those additional characters are back after their additional debuts in Project Diva 2nd and Extend but to have them available in Project Diva extend, you’re going to need Project Diva 2nd in order to import some stuffs from Project Diva 2nd. It is really disappointing that the only way to extend the second series will be the modules, not the songs themselves and even the Dreamy Theater Extend is guilty of this disappointment. Other announcements include the songs and modules taken from Project Mirai that will be used in Project Diva Arcade. Wow, it’s like the characters have gone back to normal form. If only there’s Edit Mode for Project Mirai, it could have gained even more replayability just like the on-going Project Diva series but it’s too bad that it might have become a real disappointing spin-off. What’s good though is the character concept, the AR Mode, new gameplay, My Room Mode and even the songs but those are not enough to keep increasing the momentum of the game and the sales are sort of affected as well. The last announcement involves the Playstation 3 version of Project Diva F that will be released next year as well as the collaboration with other game by Sony on the Playstation 3 and Vita in which those accessories will be added to Project Diva F as DLCs. Previously, there was a similar collaboration but that was for the Playstation 3 of that Sony game. Another one involves the Vocaloid Live On Stage on Playstation Home which was used to promote the release of original Project Diva on PSP. It’s a shame that the momentum is kind of insufficient enough even for Project Diva F due to the fact that the Playstation Vita is already struggling due to lack of needed games.

These were all shown at Tokyo Game Show late last month by Sega.

Sound Voltex Late September Update

Wow, another rhythm game with Touhou music? That looks quite surprising to us and Konami had already contacted the sole creator of the Touhou franchise which might be an awesome opportunity. This isn’t the first rhythm game that has the Touhou music in the arcades. The previous one is the MGG series by Taito in which this was not the first time Taito had collaborated with ZUN. The first time Taito had collaborated with him took us back to the early 2000s via Graffiti Kingdom for Playstation 2 where you can use some Touhou character which had made the cameo appearance but you can use that game to model other Touhou characters in the better way as it allows you to model whatever character you want. Also, you have to define the emotions, attacks, poses etc. for the custom characters. This which is Touhou X Sound Voltex is what Konami took their opportunity to take some Touhou music on their own accord while contacting ZUN for some permissions as if he was already surprised on his Twitter account. That was after IOSYS, Sound Holic, etc. had contributed by adding their original songs and previous remixes to IIDX Lincle and this as well. Remember the Bad Apple black and white shadow art video? It was previously added to Taito’s MGG series and it is now in Sound Voltex Booth. Perhaps that is one of the most popular Touhou remixes so far. Other two remixes may include the remixes of UN Owen Was Her by IOSYS and Sound Holic. The one by IOSYS may have some reference to Second Heaven like you’re throwing out the party at the concert or so.

Bravos to Konami for this contribution but is there a reason not to HAVE the Bemani remixes of Touhou music instead? Nice flavor from Konami after doing good contributions to IIDX Lincle and Sound Voltex, IOSYS and Sound Holic. Hopefully, you two circles should be putting your own new songs to IIDX Tricoro one day.