Tech Olive

After months of rumors and a ton of community hacks, Microsoft has officially announced that Kinect will receive PC support for Windows 7 users. The free Windows driver pack will come with an SDK (Software Development Kit) that will allow gamers to code Kinect support into their own games and applications.

The driver kit and SDK are scheduled to release this Spring. Of course, the hardware itself is already widely available in the Xbox 360 section of your local electronics store.

via [Big Download]

Microsoft has announced today that Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 will be available via Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update. For those of you who are TechNet and MSDN Subscribers, you’ll be able to snatch it on February 16th.

[Windows Blog via Twitter]

It’s been almost a week since the Kinect for Xbox 360 from Microsoft came out, and already we’re seeing the results of clever hands at work on this amazing device. A member of the NUI Group managed to create an open-source driver for the Kinect that controls the NUI Motor and be able to display the real-time accelerometer data on his Windows 7 machine. Obviously this isn’t much. It’s not like you’ll be able to game with it on your PC, but it does show that it can work on a PC.

It seems like he’s not going to let us all in on his secret (figures), but he does plan to use the hack in his company’s visual software CL Studio Live. There’s a couple of videos after the break, so be sure to check those out to see the hacking evidence caught on tape.

Continue Reading »

Can you believe it’s only been a year since Windows 7 released? It feels like it’s been way longer than that. To celebrate, Microsoft is having their own little birthday party and they’ll cry if they want to — cry out their sales numbers (that was bad, I know). Redmond has sold over 240 million copies since the OS released one year ago.

It’s been a good first year and a lot of memories were created. I still remember the first time I loaded up Windows 7 Ultimate on my desktop. That was a good day.

What about you guys? What are some memories of Windows 7 that you’ve captured over this past year?

[Windows Team Blog]

Wow, so it’s totally been a year since Windows 7 was officially launched (RTM, that is). We felt like we should recognize such a birthday, since Windows 7 is probably one of Microsoft’s best pieces of software in a long time. So, what’s next for the revolutionary OS? For starters, Service Pack 1 should be arriving sometime early next year, but the public beta is already out and about.

So, Windows 7, it’s been a good 365 days. Hopefully the next 365 days and days beyond will be even better. Happy Birthday!

UPDATE: Also, on top of Window 7′s first birthday, Microsoft has announced that they sold over 175 million licenses since the OS’s release.

We already know about Microsoft’s Fable III coming to the PC this Fall, but according to an internal Q&A document meant for Microsoft spokespeople (a.k.a. “cheat sheet”) that was obtained by Kotaku, Microsoft clearly states that they’re prepping up more fun-filled PC action for the summer:

“Windows 7 is a world-class gaming platform, and you can bet Microsoft has a vested interest in using it as a platform for amazing first party content. “Fable III” on Windows as well as Xbox 360 this holiday is a great first step, and we’ll have more news for you later this summer.”

via [Kotaku]

Image Credit: Robert Scoble

A public beta of the first Service Pack for Windows 7 will be coming later in July, according to Microsoft’s Windows Blog. However, there’s nothing too exciting about this one. It will only include some minor performance improvements and updates, as well as a combination of existing updates. Plus, Windows 7 doesn’t really absolutely need a Service Pack as Vista did, but any updates for the better are always welcome.

via [Maximum PC]

Yesterday was the six month anniversary of Windows 7 and Microsoft has sold more than 100 million licenses of the new OS. According to the company’s Windows Team Blog, that’s more than 10% of all PCs in the entire world.

It makes sense that so many users are quickly making the switch. Thanks to the beta program and Release Candidates, Microsoft rebounded from Vista and made a more solid OS.

[Windows Team Blog]

Here at the Olive, we’re no strangers to HD video and playback, and after being annoyed by Windows 7′s inability to display thumbnails or detailed information of our .MKV HD video files, we decided to do something about it. Some research revealed to us DivX’s Tech Preview, which adds this functionality to Windows 7 free of charge. So, we decided to put together a quick tutorial and share the information! Read on after the jump.

Continue Reading »

Huzzah! The beta build of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 has been upped onto torrent sites. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. No one?

It looks like a pretty recent build, with the compile date being March 27th. Geek Smack was brave enough to download and install the leaked Service Pack and they’ve even taken quite a few screenshots of the installation process. They specially noted that the installation was much quicker than service packs on Vista, which is to be expected since anything is faster when it doesn’t run on Vista.

For those curious about getting in on this, look for the full build string, which is 6.1.7601.16537.amd64fre.win7.100327-0053.

As for me, I can live without SP1 for now. I’ll be waiting until the official release.