Have you upgraded your old Windows operating system to Windows 7? If not, then here is a great chance for you to get Windows 7 copy. Microsoft has come up with an exciting idea for students.

Microsoft team is offering Windows 7 Professional for $29.99. For those who don’t know, the original copy of the same OS will cost you $199.99. In that case, you are actually saving whooping $170. Isn’t it amazing?

Unfortunately, the offer is currently available for US students, and it’s non-transferable. There are some terms and conditions that need to be followed in order to take advantage of this offer.

How to get Windows 7 Professional for $29.99?

1. You must have a valid e-mail address at an educational institution ending with the domain suffix .EDU (i.e., leina@contoso.edu) OR have a valid email address at one of the educational institutions listed here.
2. You must be a student at a U.S. educational institution and must be actively enrolled in at least 0.5 course credit and be able to provide proof of enrollment upon request.

For more information, head over to this page.

Apart from Windows 7 Professional, Microsoft has also included Office Professional Academic 2010 for $79.95 and Microsoft Office Language Pack 2010 for $9.95 for students pursuing their education from the US colleges or universities.

What are you waiting for? Go grab your copy now!

[via – Microsoft]

Guess what? Microsoft is planning to give away Windows Phone 7 devices to its 90,000+ employees.

The software giant want its employees to have a look at the new innovation, which is being developed since last 12-15 months. The employees have worked really hard to develop Windows Phone 7 OS, and now the marketing team is trying to advertise it through such giveaway.

Mobile phones giveaway is certainly not a new thing to the tech world as many other companies, including Google, have done in the past. However, Microsoft employees are very much pleased with the announcement and looking forward to get their hands on the devices.

The developers have already started receiving Windows Phone 7 devices in this week, and final release is scheduled for late 2010. Although the new operating system has got good early response, some developers are not really happy about the overall performance.

[via – Engadget]

Hewlett Packard, also known as HP, has successfully filed an application for registration of PalmPad as a trademark. The company has been planning to launch a tablet device for touch screen lovers, but they couldn’t capitalize on their plans last year.

HP has also bought Palm to bring webOS on their computers and other devices. However, everyone is still speculating that the Palm’s operating system could be a part of their upcoming innovation.

No one is really sure about company’s strategy for tablet device, but PalmPad trademark at least gives us a fair bit of freedom to predict the new product. Some sources have also reported that HP is not going to drop down their idea of bringing a tablet device in the market.

PalmPad is just a trademark filed by HP. Many companies register such trademarks each year to name their future products. So, it’s really hard to comment on whether PalmPad will be the next tablet device.

As far as iPad is concerned, Apple has done commendable job to capture the attraction of world. iPad is doing great job for the company. If HP tries to introduce such product in the market, they will have to deal with huge competition. Some other media reports also suggest that Microsoft is thinking to launch tablet PCs in Q2 or Q3 of 2011.

I think there is no point in exaggerating HP’s future tablet device. Let’s wait for company’s official announcement on PalmPad.

Windows 95 has already been ported to Windows Mobile based HTC HD2, and now Microsoft’s operating system has got a new place to reside in. A developer at XDA forums has managed to run Windows 95 on Android platform.

Yes, it is possible to boot the old OS from certain Android phones. The developer has provided two emulators, QEMU and BOSCH, for Android devices. You can find the download the link at the end of this post.

Although Windows 95 is available for Android phones, it is not recommended for normal users. There are few things that need to be fixed so that users can get full-fledged Windows 95 feel on their devices.

Notes from the developer -

BOCHS is too slow to be useable, but very stable.
QEMU is really fast – but buggy. SB16 emulation is working, but no MIDI music. FPU emulation is incorrect/incomplete, so it may cause some programs not to run or behave strangely. Network is not working. Keyboard/mouse emulation is far from perfect.
Windows 9x would work in QEMU if you’ll disable 32-bit disk drivers in it. This is a bug in Android (pread/pwrite functions are not working). Windows 9x speed is really fast.
This QEMU build is based on 0.9.1, newer versions have bugs in ARM TCG and can’t boot Windows or similar OS.

I would not continue working on these 2 projects. If anyone is interested – I’ll provide all sources and some information on building. Knowledge of C++, ARM and x86 asm is required.

Windows 95 runs on Nexus One

Pocket Now guys have posted a video on YouTube to show Windows 95 OS running on Nexus One. Watch it after the break.

Isn’t it cool? Well, you can also get Windows 95 on your Android devices that has good RAM memory as well as VGA screen.

Download Windows 95 Emulators for Android Phones

Download Link

[via – XDA Developers]

Windows Phone 7 has been receiving a good response from early developers. Microsoft is also keen to release its highly anticipated Windows Phone OS in later part of this year.

The third party Windows Phone developers are exploring new things in recently released emulator build. Now, they have extracted Windows Phone 7 ringtones and alarms from the firmware so that it can be used on other mobile phones.

Long Zheng has published a video of Windows Phone 7 SDK Beta emulator. The ringtones and alarms have taken from the same following video.

Download Windows Phone 7 Ringtones and Alarms

Download Link – XDA Forums

Since the announcement of Windows Phone 7, we have seen lots of updates, news and rumors about the mobile operating system and its services. Today, Microsoft has revealed Windows Phone Live service for future Windows Phone 7 enabled devices.

The service is nothing but an upgraded version of Windows Mobile’s MyPhone service. Windows Phone Live allows user to sync contacts, calendars, OneNote files, pictures and more. It will also provide device location and remote wipe facilities for free of cost.

Windows Phone 7 is set to launch later this year and devices will be released in the first quarter of 2011. The operating system will officially support 5 languages viz. English, French, Italian, Spanish and German.

You can check the service at – windowsphone.live.com

It will give you an error message, as Windows Phone 7 devices are not available in the market.

[via - BGR]

Apart from all iPhone 4, iPad news and Steve Jobs email controversy, there are some interesting things going on in the tech world. Microsoft has been planning to launch Kinect a.k.a. Project Natal in next few months.

Microsoft team had announced the official ‘Kinect’ name in this year’s E3 event and now they are trying out some promotional strategies to make it a next big thing in the gaming industry.

Microsoft Kinect is expected to release in November 2010, but many enthusiasts want to try and feel the new technology before the launch date. Well, the company has planned to showcase Kinect in Macy’s stores in the US. Now, everyone has a great chance to explore the Kinect gaming experience.

Macy’s store is going to reveal Kinect for Xbox 360 in their 13 stores on July 15. Isn’t it amazing? There are so many months remaining for the official launch, but Microsoft is trying hard to promote its most awaited hardware for gamers. The success of Kinect will obviously depend on how users respond to the new technology.

Windows 7 has done great job for the company, and now everyone is hoping for the success of Kinect. Some of the leaked documents also suggest that Windows 8 is going to have Kinect technology in it. So, there are some cool things lined-up for Microsoft lovers and followers.

What do you think about Kinect? Will it make an impact on the new generation gaming?

Windows 7 have received a huge response from all parts of the world, and it is being said that Microsoft development team has also started developing its upcoming operating system, Windows 8.

We have seen the roadmap of Windows operating systems, which depicts a major release in 2012. The release date is not fixed yet, but Windows 8 confidential details have started leaking on the Internet.

The early leaked information suggests that Microsoft has planned something special and advanced for everyone. Looking at the following screenshots, Microsoft seems to be working on implementation of Kinect technology into Windows 8. This technology will allow computer to detect the human behavior like facial expressions.

Apart from desktop PCs, Microsoft is also looking to cover the ‘slate’ market. The software manufacturing company is not going to develop any new Windows based touch device, but they are including face recognition and touch friendly environment features in Windows 8. Have a look at the screenshot below.

Since Windows 8 would be a major release in the future, it would require similar hardware to run smoothly. So, here are some of the leaked specifications.

Another interesting thing that Microsoft may add in Windows 8 is the “Attention Tracking”. This technology will be focused on future games, and it would be easier for computers to recognize and track the attention of gamers.

Well, these are some of the leaked features of Windows 8. For more detailed information, head over to – BeingManan, Microsoft Kitchen

The Project Natal finally has an official name – the Microsoft Kinect. Microsoft announced the official name of the Project Natal at the Xbox E3 event. The event was specifically held to give the world a premiere of the Project Natal. No live stream of the event was available, but readers can catch the premiere of ‘Kinect’ on MTV on Tuesday.

Microsoft demonstrated quite a few game demos, which included Star Wars. A video chat application called “Video Chat” (huh!) was also demonstrated. Up to four users can video chat simultaneously, and can share photos.  From the demo which MS showed, Kinect sure looks interesting.

Engadget reports that most of the games which Microsoft demonstrated, especially sports games, were made for only a single player. There were a few games like river rafting where two people could play simultaneously. Nevertheless, two players can connect via Xbox Live and play a sports game.

The user interface of the Kinect menu is also very simple. Everything is done by just a motion of your hand. For example –: A user waves his hand to control a glowing cursor and pushes his hand forward to select the element on screen. Twitter, Facebook and Netflix have also been integrated into Kinect.

Sadly, Microsoft did not allow any hands-on at the event. They also did not mention the launch date, and the pricing of the Kinect. Hopefully, the Kinect will be launched by the holiday season and if the rumors are to be believed, the Kinect will cost around $150.

Microsoft’s one of the most popular products, Windows XP, has become an old operating system as compared to today’s generation operating systems. During the release of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, Microsoft had decided to end the support for Service Pack 2.

As per the earlier decision, support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 will end on July 13, 2010, which means users have 2 months to upgrade their old operating system. Also, Windows 2000 will not receive any support or security patches from July 13.

Extended support for Windows XP will be continued till April 8, 2014, and then the highly acclaimed OS will be declared as an outdated OS. XP users still have a good chance to upgrade their operating system to Windows 7. If you don’t want to buy new operating system at this moment, then at least upgrade it to Service Pack 3.

Service packs always provide useful fixes and patches to protect PCs from vulnerable files and worms. Windows 7 has been doing great since its launch date, and many people have upgraded their old OSes to new Windows OS.

It’s always recommended to keep your software updated with latest updates. Don’t leave your system unsecured for hackers!

For more information, read here.