According to Microsoft Windows CFO Tami Reller, the company will support the most popular apps in the Apple App Store within their own app store. However, Microsoft believes that the actual Apple iTunes software is not coming anytime soon. There are now over 60,000 apps in the Windows Store with about 250 million downloads.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has sold 100 million Windows 8 licenses in the six months since launching on October 26th. These sales numbers matches the numbers that Windows 7 had three years previously.
Twitter has launched a native application for Windows 8 and Windows RT. The Twitter app is available in the Windows Store and it’s design was consistent with Microsoft’s signature tiled interface.
Starting next month, the cost of upgrading PCs to Windows 8 Pro will cost $200. This is way up from the promotional upgrade price of $40. And the standard Windows 8 upgrade edition will cost $119.99. If you already have Windows 8 and you want to upgrade to Pro Pack, it will cost $99.99. PC owners that have Windows 8 Pro can add the Windows Media Center functionality for $9.99. [Source: Ubergizmo]
Dropbox has arrived on the Windows Store and is compatible with the Windows 8 operating system and Windows RT devices. Dropbox is a cloud storage service that passed 100 million registered users in November. The company recently hired Python creator Guido Van Rossum and acquired Audiogalaxy. Dropbox also acquired a photo cloud aggregation company called SnapJoy last month.
Tobii will be integrating their eye-tracking technology into Windows 8 machines. The last time we wrote about Tobii’s eye-tracking technology was when Apple partnered with them in 2009. The Gaze user interface lets you navigate, zoom, select, and scroll on a Windows 8 laptop using pupils and a touchpad. This year Tobii is introducing new technology called REX, which is a USB-connected peripheral that can add the aforementioned features into a Windows 8 PC.
The VLC Media Player is probably the greatest media player available today. Yesterday VideoLAN, the organization behind the media player, reached their Kickstarter goal of around $65,000 to build a Metro version of the software for Windows 8. The project was funded by over 2,600 people. They beat their funding goal with five days to spare. VideoLAN even released an update for “backers only.”
Windows 8 has been available for consumers for almost a couple months now. If you use computers a lot, you may prefer to use keyboard shortcuts for various functions rather than depending heavily on the mouse. Below is a list of some of the most useful Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts.
