Sounds like a Zune Phone is on the way, don’t you think?

The story gets even more interesting when Foley reminds us that Microsoft was once working on its own touchscreen tablet device. Now, rumors are swirling that MS has reignited interest in this notion, since everyone in the world seems to be jumping on the tablet bandwagon. Microsoft’s ace in the hole is Surface — its advanced touchscreen table device being manufactured for hotels and restaurants. Scuttlebutt suggests that MS could be looking to leverage its Surface technology for its proposed tablet device.

Anyone who’s seen the highly impressive Surface in action will immediately be intrigued by this notion, because Surface can do all sorts of things that no other touchscreen device can do, like “Object Recognition” — Surface’s ability to interact with various kinds of objects, including other gadgets like cell phones.

Foley suggests that MS isn’t likely to go public with its Surface Tablet until after Apple launches its long-rumored “iPad” tablet. The Project Pink phone is expected to run on Windows Mobile 7, which won’t be available until late next year, so that’s at least a year off.

What do you think? Would you be interested in a Zune Phone or a Surface Tablet?

Zune image: Microsoft Corporation. “Zune Phone” mockup by Robin Parrish.

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft planning Zune phone? New tablet?

Zune was launched almost 2 years ago in the hopes of getting a music player out there, a vertical market for Microsoft. Almost all other vendors have realized that Apple was running away with all the money from a very successful iPod product and such is the launch of Microsoft. The software giant’s selling point was the price and the large disk capacity. While Apple was still hovering in the 16 GB capacity, Microsoft had their Zune at 4 GB, 8 GB, 30 GB and 80 GB. They had built a customized Zune by allowing consumers to order directly from Zune.net and have an art imprinted permanently at the back of the music player. Aside from that Microsoft built the Zune marketplace where users can download songs, they have inked a deal to have the highly successful TV series Heroes on their device. All these efforts have somehow allowed Microsoft to gain market share despite it’s late entry in the game. Today Microsoft is trying to be the first on the Zune product by putting in high definition abilities with the help of Tegra.

Senior analyst for mobile content at ABI research, Jeff Orr, says that NVidia is bringing power graphics to portable media players and he notes that this is a unique capability.

The power behind Zune is the combination of Microsoft, Zune, NVidia Tegra which brings together eight independent processors that provide users unparalleled high definition viewing of videos, flash and other media on it’s OLED touch screen. The Zune would remain slim amidst the power being put on it.

Mike Rayfield, general manager at NVidia says that Apple may have built a ery good SoC (System on Chip) but what they have on the iPod touch doesn’t come close to the power management and graphics that Tegra brings. He says they have benchmarked everything out there and the concluded they have the most powerful graphics card out there.

I am really excited with these things and I hope that Zune has the powerful abilities to sustain long hours of viewing on high definition.  The other thing I hope Microsoft does a good job on this is building a community of vendors that build accessories from cases, plugins, devices, that allow to extend the Zune device. When I first bought my Zune there was barely accessories to choose from and it was difficult to purchase one especially when you see Apple has a lot of these useless, I mean useful accessories out there.

Image from Zune.net

Post from: EveryJoe

NVidia Tegra Processors and the Zune Saga

Image: Zune Logo

PsyOrg.com reports (with photo) that information on Microsoft’s new Zune HD has leaked.

“The Zune HD will feature a multitouch OLED screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio and an HDMI TV output port. The Zune HD will be available in a 16 and 32 GB version. Both versions will have wireless support that will allow you to sync the device with a computer. There’s also some speculation that the Zune HD may use the Nvidia’s Tegra chipset that would support 3D xbox games.”

Of course this is all speculation until it’s all confirmed later, but it sounds like a pretty solid piece if the software holds up and it doesn’t have crashing issues. Then they have to price the thing to be competitive as well. 32 gb doesn’t sound too bad, but I just don’t understand why tey don’t pack these kind of things with more memory. I’ve got 80 gbs for my iPod and that doesn’t seem like much when you own as much music as I do.

No doubt Apple is working hard to in anticipation of the Zune HD’s release to ensure that they have something a step ahead as they usually do.

Post from: EveryJoe

Zune HD To Compete With iPod Touch

Jason, celebrating his three-year anniversary at Microsoft Weblog, sees a surge in Zune’s popularity since the 30GB Zune owners started experiencing widespread failure and Microsoft subsequently updating them about its fix. He still wants to buy Zune, but do you recommend it?

Clair introduces us to a cool terminal user whom all lovers of CLI can follow on Twitter and Identi.ca, and teaches two techniques off adding watermark to your images.

Jayvee laments about the closing of Electronic Gaming Monthly and cheers the usage of Youtube by Ohio Police to solve a crime.

Milo lists 4 correct moves made by Microsoft in 2008 and reacts to 5 things that Steve wouldn’t tell about Windows 7.

Post from: EveryJoe

Tech Channel Roundup From Steve Jobs to Steve Ballmer