Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7, the next generation of the Windows operating system, is on track to be released in 2010, three years after the failure that is Windows Vista was made publicly available.

Details about Windows 7 are scant, and no one knows what Microsoft has up their sleeve to help it compete with the next generation of operating systems. Hopefully we’ll see something truly innovative instead of the more common blatant copying of features from the competition.

Expect more news as public betas are released, most likely mid-2009.

Microsoft recently showed off their LucidTouch concept technology that lets you control a mobile device via touchscreens on the front and back.

Although currently just a concept (the proof-of-concept device shown has a clunky camera sticking out from the back to monitor the user’s fingers), Microsoft hopes to eventually implement the technology in a small portable gadget. Read more »

Canon and Casio have been looking into Microsoft’s JPEG XR format recently, and have decided that it makes a good middle ground between regular JPEG and camera RAW. The format has a much higher quality than JPEG, in addition to better compression. It allows a camera to fire off a lot of high quality shots quickly, without needing the horsepower to handle large RAW images.

This will undoubtedly create a generaton of cheaper, better cameras, and we love to see cheaper and better in the same sentence.

Have you heard of the Microsoft Surface? If not, it’s essentially a replica of an iPhone, only with multi-touch, powered by a full-blown computer, and with a much, much bigger screen. This thing is absolutely awesome - come on, who doesn’t want to be able to play with their coffee table?

Well, due to high consumer demand to bring this toy to their homes, Microsoft has announced that they plan to have Surface available sooner than their original five year prediction.

First, though, the tech giant still has to fulfill orders from the hotel, casino, and retail industries. Seeing as they are already behind, the future does not look too optimistic.

We hope, however, that Microsoft can keep its promise. A Surface might be replacing our coffee tables when it goes on sale and the sooner, the better.

Following hot on the heels of an OS X 10.5.2 update to Leopard announcement, it seems that the Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) might be released on February 15th. Thanks for the (day late) Valentine’s Day present, Microsoft!

Although this is just a rumor without any confirmation by Microsoft (which is simply sticking with a “Q1 release date”), it is believe that the middle of February will be when this update is released, making the 15th a likely choice.

A summary of the (extremely verbose) changelog can be found here.

TG Daily is reporting that Microsoft has shipped a “Milestone 1″ release of Windows 7 to “key partners.” They also received a roadmap which points to a second half of 2009 release.

With this release a few new features of the next Windows have been unveiled. The operating system can handle a graphics system consisting of multiple graphics cards from different vendors - something unheard of in today’s software. Also, a new version of Windows Media Center has made its way into the release.

Other features that will possibly be included in the operating system are MinWin (a smaller kernel which takes up only 40 MB of memory) and new touchscreen features. The rest remains under wraps.

Previously, the release was expected in 2010. Hopefully Microsoft can stick to the new plan so we can all get rid of Vista once and for all. Realistically, though, we can probably expect the release closer to 2011 given Microsoft’s history of not making deadlines.