Get Windows 7 Free

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer today announced that Windows 7 the long awaited sequel to Microsoft's somewhat crappy previous windows release Vista will be available FREE as a public BETA release on Friday 9th Jan 2009.

Though Windows 7 beta has been available through the Bit Torrent from the next day it was unveiled but if you were waiting for a more genuine copy of the OS to try your hands on this is your lucky chance. Grab a copy and take it for a Spin !!

MS goes on to claim that Windows 7 has sub 30 second boot time.Cool!!.

If you are thinking of giving it a try here is what you would need to run Windows 7:
A 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit),
1GB of main memory,
16GB of available disk space,
support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface), and a DVD-R/W drive.

Go ahead have fun!!

Computing on the go from MS

There was this cool patent registration yesterday.Microsoft had applied for a patent in 2007 for a concept called computing on the go.

The Patent's abstract explains this as "a standard PC is given away or heavily subsidized. The consumer then pays to use the computer, with charges based on length of usage time and performance levels.".

What this means is for example:
Consider a situation involving three "bundles" of applications and performance: office, gaming, and browsing.
"The office bundle may include word-processing and spreadsheet applications, medium graphics performance and two of three processor cores," the document reads. "The gaming bundle may include no productivity applications but may include 3D graphics support and three of three processor cores. The browsing bundle may include no productivity applications, medium graphics performance and high-speed network interface."

"Charging for the various bundles may be by bundle and by duration. For example, the office bundle may be $1.00 [68 pence] per hour, the gaming bundle may be $1.25 per hour and the browsing bundle may be $0.80 per hour. The usage charges may be abstracted to 'units/hour' to make currency conversions simpler. Alternatively, a bundle may incur a one-time charge that is operable until changed or for a fixed-usage period,"
Debasys