Darren Straight's Blog

ICT Enthusiast and photographer.

By - Darren Straight

Launch date for iPhone revealed

Apple has confirmed that its much-anticipated iPhone product will launch on 29 June in the US. The date was given in a series of TV adverts broadcast on Sunday, and was later confirmed by a spokesman for the California-based company. The device, which combines the features of a mobile phone and personal digital assistant, will sell for $499 (£251) and

By - Darren Straight

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs together at D5 conference 2007

Not sure how many of you haven’t seen the interview Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg conducted with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the D5 (All Things Digital) conference on May 30, 2007. But here’s a bunch of text and video coverage links to the complete Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview: Steve Jobs and Bill

By - Darren Straight

Virtual Earth updated Imagery for May 2007

This months installment of the monthly imagery publish into Windows Live Maps / Virtual Earth includes an amazing 11.5 terabytes of new data making it the largest update ever to Virtual Earth. Birds Eye imagery in Europe got a major boost including the completion of London.  High resolution aerial imagery from many of the Virtual Earth’s partners worldwide rounds out the update. Here is

By - Darren Straight

New York, New York, in 3D – Seeing Is Believing!

Have you always wanted to visit New York City, but never had the chance to make it happen? Have you lived in the city for years, but still struggle to find your way around? Microsoft Live Search Maps will today begin offering three-dimensional, photo-realistic views of New York City buildings and landscapes, with perspectives that few people apart from Superman

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft has now sold a little over a million Zunes!

There are no official figures yet, but it has been revealed in an interesting interview with Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, that they have sold a little over a million Zunes, which is pretty cool considering it’s not even the end of June, which Microsoft had set as their original target for selling a million players. Question: Can you

By - Darren Straight

iPod Amnesty Bin: Bite Me!

Got to love this iPod Amnesty Bin spotted by fimoculous at the Microsoft Zune headquarters. Makes you wonder whether or not anyone will actually throw there’s away! I’m guessing not, but still it’s marketing with humour, though what would be even cooler is if we saw the bin slowly fill up with ipods over the next few days/weeks, or even better how

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft UK Regional & Local Press Releases on Windows Live Hotmail

Last month I was contacted by Microsoft’s Press Office here in the UK asking me if I was interested in taking part in the Windows Live Hotmail celebrations, by speaking to the local media (newspapers/radio stations) to highlight the crucial role I had taken in developing Windows Live Hotmail. This of course sounded like a great opportunity, so I agreed

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft Launches Popfly Alpha!

Microsoft have today lauched Microsoft PopFly, but what is it? and how can it help you? Read below for some Questions and Answers gatherd from the PopFly Website. What is Popfly? Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts: Popfly Creator is a set of online visual

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft: Second Life On XBox Live?

During a recent Halo 3 event, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Game Studios – Shane Kim revealed that he has spent some time with the Linden Lab guys (developers of Second Life). Apparently, the guys are trying to build and incorporate a Second Life on Xbox Live or YouTube, Facebook, any of those big social networking services and sites to