Mark your calendars you Star Wars gaming fans and Xbox Jedi wannabes as we now have the date that we will finally be able to get our hands on the much touted Kinect Star Wars.

April 3, 2012.

That’s it, that’s the date, and Microsoft had already announced that they would be shipping it also as part of a Star Wars Xbox 360 and Kinect theme bundle, and it is available for pre-order for $449. The bundle comes with a white Kinect sensor (regular one is black) along with with a C3-PO themed wireless controller and an R2-D2 finished Xbox 360 console.

This game has been a very long time coming having been touted as a premier example of what the game play using the Kinect could be like when it came down to the ‘serious’ games for the hardcore console gamers. Now finally after more than a few delays the new game will be available for around $50, depending on where you buy it I imagine.

Microsoft’s gaming spokesperson Major Nelson also let us know that there will be a s “Jedi Destiny Mode” that will let gamers duel with Count Dooku and Darth Vader.

via SlashGear

April 3 is the drop date for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect Star Wars bundle is a post from: The Inquisitr

Microsoft Flight, the company’s casual, free-to-play approach to the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, has finally been given a release date.

Microsoft announced today that Microsoft Flight will be made available later this month on February 29. The core game is absolutely free to download and play to your heart’s content, but Microsoft isn’t about to launch Microsoft Flight without any paid content options.

Alongside the launch of the base game, Microsoft will be releasing the “Hawaiian Adventure Pack”, which allows you to fly around all of the Hawaiian Islands, not just one. Additionally, you’ll be able to get a new plane and 20 additional missions. The pack will set you back $20, or 1600 Microsoft Points. Microsoft will also be offering two additional planes to purchase, the Maule M-7-260C and the North American P-51 Mustang.

“There was an overwhelming demand for access to the ‘Microsoft Flight’ beta and the number of requests was far more than what we initially planned for,” said executive producer Joshua Howard. “We received amazing feedback from the beta participants and it’s great to see this level of excitement from fans as we move toward the release of ‘Microsoft Flight.”

You’ll be able to download Microsoft Flight when it releases on February 29 over at MicrosoftFlight.com.

Microsoft Flight gets a release date, launch DLC is a post from: The Inquisitr

If having YouTube and the other recently-released video content apps isn’t quite enough to satisfy all of your video streaming desires, Microsoft has added two more apps, Crackle and CinemaNow, to Xbox Live.

Crackle, for the unitiated, is a video streaming service with movies and television shows that is absolutely free of charge. Crackle’s selection is admittedly not the best, but the service does have a few goodies available for your viewing pleasure and, again, it’s free.

Provided that you’re willing to cough up some money, Best Buy’s “CinemaNow” app offers a wider selection of content, including a respectable amount of new releases. It isn’t known at the moment just how much it will cost you to do your streaming through CinemaNow, nor is Microsoft saying when the two apps will be made available.

Crackle and CinemaNow are the latest in a wave of video content apps that Microsoft began launching back in December. Microsoft says that even more video content providers are on the way, so stay tuned for more information on that.

Source: MTV Multiplayer

Xbox Live getting Crackle, CinemaNow apps is a post from: The Inquisitr

This news should be causing more than a few smiles in Redmond as the news that the Xbox 360 beat out Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s Playstation 3 when it comes to worldwide sales for the first time ever.

It’s old news for for the Microsoft gaming console to beat out its competition nationally but it has never bested either one of them, let alone both, in the global gaming console marketplace.

The news of this champagne popping news came after Sony released its earning report yesterday which showed that the company had only sold 6.5 million units worldwide over the holiday quarter and when it combined with Nintendo’s sales of only 5.6 million for the Wii in the same quarter it showed both companies coming in behind Xbox 360′s sales of 8.2 million.

Now according to the team over at GeekWire this is the first time since 2006 that Xbox has lead worldwide holiday sales which is the same time that both the PS3 and Wii were just being launched.

Here’s the bigger news: The Xbox 360′s strong holiday quarter also put the Microsoft console ahead in worldwide sales globally for the full year of 2011, with 14.9 million units sold, compared with 14.1 million for the PS3 and 10.33 million for the Wii.

According to our data, compiled from historical earnings reports, it’s first time the Xbox 360 has topped the worldwide console market for a full year of head-to-head competition with the PS3 and Wii.

via GeekWire

Congrats to Microsoft and the Xbox team.

For the first time ever Xbox sales top Wii and PS3 worldwide is a post from: The Inquisitr

Back near the end of the summer of last year both Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab, a security software company, worked together to bring down one of the reported biggest spam botnets that was responsible for polluting machines around t he world.

Called the Kelihos botnet the network consisted of around 45,000 infected computers but despite those low numbers it was able to pump out nearly 4 billion spam messages a day. These spam messages were used to promote everything from pornography to illegal pharmaceutical drugs and stock scams.

The two companies worked together to create what is referred to as a ‘sinkhole’ which is used then to get the infected machines to talk with it. Of course researchers knew that it was only a matter of time before those that controlled the botnet regained control of the infrastructure mainly because neither Microsoft or Kaspersky Lab could forcefully clean the infected machines since they were in countries where this action would be considered illegal.

Meddling with another person’s computer could be considered a form of hacking, even with the best intentions of security researchers. Unfortunately, it appears that many of the machines infected with Kelihos are now controlled by the bad guys again.

There are also other new variants of Kelihos that are using updated forms of encryption to mask the communication with the botnet controllers, Herkanaidu said. Maria Garnaeva, a researcher with Kaspersky Lab, wrotethat two different RSA keys are being used for encryption, which means it is possible two different groups are controlling Kelihos.

via Techworld

The end result of this is that we could very soon see a whole new wave of spam start to hit the web even as Microsoft and Kaspersky get back to working on studying the new variants and trying to once more stop a spam invasion.

Possible increase in spam expected as once crippled botnet rises from thhe dead is a post from: The Inquisitr

Microsoft is the latest to join in the debate about Google and their recent changes to their privacy policy. Recently, Google announced they will be making changes to their privacy policy and consolidating all of the privacy policies across their slew of products, into one single privacy policy.

This raised a lot of concerns as some of the things it would allow is to take your search history and use it on other products, which would allow advertisers to retarget users across different products. The company has come out about the changes and even sent a letter to Congress explaining things.

Via Informationweek:

“The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information,” said Microsoft chief spokesman Frank Shaw, in a blog entry Wednesday. “We take a different approach–we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both.”

“Shaw said that, in contrast to some versions of Google’s products, Microsoft services like Hotmail and Office 365 don’t serve up user information to advertisers. He also touted Internet Explorer’s built-in tracking protection feature. To further emphasize the point, Microsoft is running an ad in major newspapers this week that says the company is “Putting People First.”

In the ad, they say the privacy changes are cloaked in comfortable language, language that makes it seem like Google has users’ best interest at heart when in all actuality, they’re making it easier for them to connect the dots between everything you do while using any of their services.

Have you looked at Google’s new privacy policy? Do you think Microsoft is fair in their statement?

Microsoft Attacks Google Over Recent Privacy Changes is a post from: The Inquisitr

It seems this is the month of shutting down file sharing sites. Microsoft and Adobe have filed to take down ex.ua, a file sharing service in the Ukraine. The site has been shut down after a six month investigation into claims of piracy.

Ex.ua is a very popular site in the Ukraine and even accounted for as much as 25% of Internet traffic in the country. Companies take piracy very seriously as they rely greatly off of software sales. Even though the concept of file sharing isn’t illegal, companies manage to find a way around it due to copyright infringement.

If thousands and thousands of people download say a $300 piece of software, well, it adds up in the long run. With the file sharing service being shut down, there’s a lot of data at stake too.

Via TheNextWeb:

“Ukranian news site Watcher reports that the Ministry of Internal Affiars states “the police closed ex.ua under criminal investigation under part 2 of article 176 of the criminal proceedings”. The article in question covers violation of copyright and related rights.”

“In all it’s being reported that 200 servers were confiscated, carrying among them 6,000 terabytes of data. At present, 16 people are facing charges in the investigation, which could lead to a maximum prison sentence of 5 years.”

To give you an idea of how much data that is, 1 terabyte is 1000 gigabytes. The average computer has 250 gigabytes of hard drive space so you do the math. Either way, it’s not good for the Ukranian file sharing service. With piracy and copyright infringement lawsuits heating up, these takedowns aren’t going to end anytime soon.

Do you believe Microsoft and Adobe had the right to get the service shut down?

Microsoft And Adobe Take Down File Sharing Service In Ukraine is a post from: The Inquisitr

I know that the Tux Brigade and open source diehards like to paint Microsoft as some great big bad monopolistic company that is out to destroy everything Linux and turn open source into a bad word; and for the most in the past this might have truly been the case.

Not so much any more though as Microsoft has been making some interesting moves when it comes to open source and Linux, and it doesn’t involve any nuclear options but instead the company has been embracing many of the fantastic products that have come out of the open source movement.

The most recent example of course is the company’s support of Node.js with their Azure cloud initiative as well as supporting Hadoop at the expense of their own large data project, Dryad.

Much of this change of heart is laid out in a new post from Wired and places all of the credit for the move to embrace open source at the feet of the last man you would probably expect – Bill Gates

From the Wired article:

At the invitation of the company’s chief legal minds — Smith and Gutierrez — Ramji sat down with Gates, chief software architect Ray Ozzie, and a few others to discuss whether Microsoft could actually start using open source software. Ramji and Ozzie were on one side of the argument, insisting that Microsoft embrace open source, and Gutierrez offered a legal framework that could make that possible. But other top executives strongly challenged the idea.

Then Bill Gates stood up.

He walked to the whiteboard and drew a diagram of how the system could work, from copyrights to code contribution to patents, and he said — in no uncertain terms — that the company had to make the move.

For Ramji — who would spend more than three and a half years as the company’s chief open source strategist — the moment Bill Gates stood up was the moment Microsoft turned the corner on its approach to free software. “He was given little to no credit by the open source community — or anyone in the tech industry — for really understanding open source and why it can be important, how it can be a competitive advantage, and why when your competitors start to use it, you have to too. He really got it, and in that moment, he taught us all.”

Microsoft may have done a lot of things wrong but there is no denying the fact that when the company decides to change course it doesn’t mess around and woe be to anyone who stands in their way or tries to stop them.

via GigaOM

Have you been wondering about Microsoft change of heart on open source? Thank Bill Gates for that. is a post from: The Inquisitr

When Microsoft first announced that they would be making a Developer Preview of Windows 8 available for people to play with we could be assured that there would be a lot of things that people were going to rant and pout about, and of course we weren’t let down.

Of all the talk about the new touch interface and the other cool things like possibly having Windows 8 for ARM on launch the one thing that garnered the most chatter, and complaints, was the decision by Microsoft to bring its famous, and much maligned Ribbon Bar to Explorer, Windows’ file management tool.

It was one of those things that you either were going to like, or at least be willing to live with, or you were on the side of the ragers and had no hesitation in blasting Microsoft over the decision.

Well it seems that while Microsoft has said for the most part that the user interface in Windows 8 is a done deal there are some changes that they are willing to make based on the incredible amount of feedback they have had on the next-gen operating system. In a post that went up on the Windows 8 blog the company outlined some of the changes slash improvements that they planned on making in time for the next ‘beta’ release and right up there was the Ribbon Bar.

It seems that rather than shipping Explorers with the “full” Ribbon Bar part of the Explorer interface being the default display after installing Windows 8 they have decided that Explorer will be sporting the minimized style of the Ribbon Bar by default. In  other words it will be like the old style as in Windows 7, or very similar, and if you want the full Ribbon Bar experience you will have to turn it on.

• Some of the other changes coming in the next release of Windows 8 are:
• New details information in the Copy File Conflicts dialog
• Copying will know use the fasted available method to copy over network on the fly (wireless or wired)
• Fixed the navigation pane scrolling issue
• Explorer will now respect picture orientation metadata
• Explorer overlay changes to improve performance

There’s more information at the Windows 8 blog in case you are interested.

via VentureBeat

Changes to Windows 8 coming to next ‘beta’ release according to Microsoft – including the Ribbon in Explorer is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Xbox 720 is expected to be out next year in 2013 and new details emerge as to what we can see from the next generation console from Microsoft.

A new rumor has emerged that says the software giant will be announcing the next generation console at E3 in June and it will be out next year, most likely in time for the holiday shopping season. The company faces increased competition from the likes of Sony and Nintendo. While the 360 continues to be a great seller, it’s over 6 years old and something new is definitely due.

Microsoft made it clear that the new console won’t be out this year. Nintendo on the other hand plans on the Wii U launch to be a great success. Their gaming console will be out this holiday season. What makes the Wii U different from the Wii is, for one, it’s more powerful and is even said to be twice as powerful as the Xbox 360.

When the Wii came out, it wasn’t that powerful and didn’t have nearly as good graphics compared to its counterparts. And that was fine as the gaming system didn’t appeal nor was targeted towards hardcore gamers. It still managed to sell incredibly well and carved a nice niche for itself in the market, even pushing its competitors to develop their own motion based technology.

A great example of that is the Microsoft Kinect which has been a great success. So what are the two versions of Microsoft’s next generation console?

Via Eurogamer:

“The first is described as a “pared down machine” to be released as cheaply as possible. It is likened to a set-top box, and will act as a Kinect-themed gaming portal. The second is a “more fully-featured machine” with optical drive, hard disk and backwards compatibility. This would be aimed at hardcore gamers and released at a higher price-point. Kinect, Digital Foundry has heard, will be bundled with both SKUs.”

Will you buying the Xbox 720 when it comes out next year?

Xbox 720 Will Be Released In Two Versions In 2013 [Rumor] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Asus, maker of computer hardware, laptops, and even PC’s, is rumored to be working on Kinect ready laptops. Microsoft announced Kinect for Windows a while back which brings some cool motion controlled technology to computers and laptops.

The Kinect is quite a sensation and has even broken sales records which put it in the Guinness World Records under fastest selling consumer device. The company managed to sell 10 Million units in just the first 3 months of its launch.

The Daily, a news source that is available exclusively on the iPad, said that they spotted two prototypes from Asus which appear to be netbooks that are running Windows 8 and include Kinect sensors on the top of the screen where you would normally see a webcam. On the bottom of the screen, there are LEDs.

Nowadays, most laptops have a built-in webcam. It’s something that has pretty much become standard. Also, a lot of desktop computers have a webcam so the integration is there, but the big question that we have yet to see, is will people actually use motion controls? With that said, PCWorld explains why the technology in a laptop:

“In any case, why put Kinect in a laptop? The technology works best when you’re standing back a dozen feet from the sensor, and even then it’s hit and miss — a low-res camera that only tracks your movements semi-accurately (if at all, when moving quickly). Park that in a laptop screen and . . . what, you’re going to control movies? Play games? Manipulate 3D objects Minority Report-style? Because sitting a few feet from a laptop, as all laptop users do, isn’t close enough to do any of those things far more competently with a mouse or trackpad and keyboard?”

Do you think Asus is on to something here with Kinect or will it never catch on?

Asus Rumored To Be Working On Kinect Ready Laptops is a post from: The Inquisitr

Marriage Equality has gotten a big boost in Washington State.  In addition to Group Health, Nike and Microsoft now Starbucks has added its name to a list of corporate powerhouses that support same sex marriage.

The Seattle Times has published a statement from Kalen Holmes, Executive Vice President of Starbucks. the statement read,

“Starbucks is proud to join other leading Northwest employers in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples … This important legislation is aligned with Starbucks business practices and upholds our belief in the equal treatment of partners. It is core to who we are and what we value as a company. We are deeply dedicated to embracing diversity and treating one another with respect and dignity, and remain committed to providing an inclusive, supportive and safe work environment for all of our partners. We look forward to seeing this legislation enacted into law.”

Microsoft is another Washington State mega corporation that has lent its own support to the cause.   Microsoft issued a statement this month on its own blog titled “Marriage Equality in Washington State Would Be Good for Business”.

An excerpt from the statement reads as follows,

“Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples – Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. This in turn will help us continue to compete for talent.”

Several states over the last few years have legalized same sex marriage. Some have had it legalized through the courts and others through legislation.  The issue is taking center stage in the presidential elections coming up in 2012 elections also.

How do you feel about marriage equality?  Do you support same sex marriage?

Starbucks Supports Same Sex Marriage in Washington State is a post from: The Inquisitr

There was a whole lot of chatter regarding the next Xbox late last year, with multiple rumors popping up from a variety of sources, most of which indicated Microsoft is preparing to make the big reveal at some point this year.

Microsoft still hasn’t said anything, but that isn’t stopping the rumor mill from churning. A couple of new reports surfaced that once again suggests that Microsoft will be announcing their next-gen console this year, and it may have “six times” the processing power of the Xbox 360.

The rumors all started with a report from Fudzilla, which said that Microsoft has already begun production of the system’s GPU. The report claims that the chip, apparently called Oban, has a  “PowerPC CPU that is married to an ATI Southern Islands GPU”, and will be equivalent to a 7-series ATI card.

Following up on Fudzilla’s report, IGN backed up several of the claims. According to IGN, mass production of the hardware is expected to begin by late 2012, but the next Xbox won’t be packing a 7-series GPU–instead, IGN’s sources say that Microsoft’s next-gen console will have a GPU equivalent to ATI’s Radeon HD 6670.

Early dev kits are said to already be in the hands of developers, and finalized builds are expected to be released by August. As expected, Microsoft declined to comment on the rumors.

[Rumor] Next Xbox to have “six times” the processing power of Xbox 360 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Capcom confirmed awhile back that the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions of Street Fighter X Tekken would have at least two characters, and the latest trailers suggest there could even be more still. Surely, then, the Xbox 360 will have a few exclusives as well, right?

Apparently, the answer to that question is “no”. It was suggested back in June of last year that the Xbox 360 version could see an exclusive character or two as well, but that appears to no longer be the case. In an interview with X360A, SFXT producer Yoshinori Ono had this to say:

“We weren’t able to decide on a character because of differences in timing and things like that,” Ono told X360A. “So unfortunately for Street Fighter X Tekken, only the PlayStation family will be getting the exclusive characters, but it’s something we wish could have happened. It’s just too bad, basically.”

Ono went on to say that Capcom did at least have a few Xbox 360-exclusive Street Fighter X Tekken characters in mind.

“In terms of characters we wish we could have put in the game, Master Chief or Marcus Fenix from Gears of War would have been really cool, but it was just really difficult,” Ono added. “We have Cole from inFamous on PS3, which is really cool, but that’s just the way it turned out.”

Are you disappointed that the Xbox 360 version of Street Fighter X Tekken won’t have any exclusive characters, or is the base roster good enough for you?

Source: X360A

Street Fighter X Tekken won’t have any Xbox 360-exclusive characters is a post from: The Inquisitr

Following up on their reveal earlier this month, Microsoft has released details on its 2012 XBLA House Party promotion, including release dates and prices for all four titles.

Major Nelson posted the House Party details over on his blog, and it looks like this year’s House Party promotion is set to kick off with Warp on February 15 for 800 Microsoft Points. Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is set to follow one week later, releasing February 22 for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Next up will be Alientrap’s CryEngine 3-powered FPS, Nexuiz, which makes its debut on XBLA on February 29 for 800 Microsoft Points. The House Party promotion comes to a close with Ubisoft’s long-in-limbo title, I Am Alive, which releases March 7 for 1200 Microsoft Points.

As is the case with just about every XBLA promotion, Microsoft is offering a bonus to anyone who picks up all of the House Party titles. If you pick up all four between February 15 and March 13, you’ll get back 800 Microsoft Points to spend on a game of your choosing.

Is there any particular game in this year’s House Party line-up that you’re interested in? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Major Nelson

Microsoft dates, prices XBLA House Party line-up is a post from: The Inquisitr

4J Studios, the developer tasked with porting Mojang’s Minecraft to the Xbox 360 by way of Xbox Live Arcade, says that the team is working closely with Microsoft to possibly have regular updates to Minecraft on the Xbox 360.

The PC version has seen a steady stream of updates ever since it went alpha, but it isn’t so easy to constantly roll out updates on the Xbox 360. Microsoft has a strict certification process for any update that makes its way to Xbox Live, making the roll-out of a patch a slow process.

Microsoft is, however, aware that the process needs to be faster to keep the XBLA version of Minecraft close to its PC counterpart. In an interview with Edge, 4J Studios’ Paddy Burns says that Microsoft is aiming to streamline the process of getting updates out the door.

“Microsoft knows that to do a similar thing that’s on PC where they constantly update it, that’s a very difficult thing to do on Xbox because you have to go through the full tests,” he told us. “But they are quite keen to move towards that – they do see it as the future, so I think we might be the first to do constant updates.”

While Burns admits that it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see updates as regularly as the PC version, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that an update could come every two months or so.

“We’ll have to see how that goes,” Burns said. “I’m really looking forward to it being updated with patches and new features after it’s released.”

Microsoft working towards constant updates for Minecraft XBLA is a post from: The Inquisitr

You may recall that back in October of 2010, Doom mysteriously vanished from Xbox Live Arcade. Well, mysterious at first–ZeniMax later confirmed that the reason behind the disappearance had to do with “expiring rights”, but that it should be back “soon”.

Fast forward over a year later–which I suppose is someone’s definition of “soon”–to today, and Doom has finally made its return to Xbox Live. Bethesda sent word today that the infamous shooter from id Software is available once more on Xbox Live in all regions.

In case you missed Doom on Xbox Live the first time around, this is a port of the original, not a remake. That doesn’t mean it’s without any new features–players can partake in co-op chaos with their buddies over Xbox Live, or dive into some competitive versus multiplayer.

The game may be nearly 20 years old now, but I’d say it’s still worth the reasonable 400 Microsoft Point ($5) asking price for those who want to take a trip down nostalgia lane, or possibly even experience the FPS for the first time. I’m sure there’s someone who hasn’t already played it.

Will you be picking up Doom now that it’s back on Xbox Live?

Doom returns to Xbox Live is a post from: The Inquisitr

We all know that Windows 8 is coming and with it will be a flood of Windows 8 tablets but as with all things Windows there is the concern that OEMs will follow the same path of hardware history and pump out crappy hardware to go with the new operating system.

However Microsoft has come out with a list of minimum requirements that OEMs will have to meet in order to put Windows 8 on their tablets. Of course the Microsoft nay-sayers will have their keyboards all primed to spout the usual anti-Microsoft spiel that they usually do but the fact is that it is about time that Microsoft does put its foot down; as it did with Windows Phone.

To that note here’s some of the requirements that Microsoft will expect on any tablets running their best and newest Windows platform:

• The tablets must have 5 buttons: Power, Rotation Lock, Windows Key, Volume Up, Volume Down. As a side note to this the good old Ctrl-Alt-Del key combination to reboot Windows will be replaced by the Win+Power button combination.
• All tablets with NFC technology; which is not a requirement by Microsoft, must have “touch marks” to show the users exactly where the two gadgets must touch for the NFC option to work.
• Screen resolution must be a minimum of 1366×768 (720p)
• The tablet must have a minimum of 10Gb of free space out of the box
• Camera must be 720p
• Tablet must have both WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0
• A Magnetometer
• An Accelerometer
• A Gyrospcope
• USB 2.0
• UEFI firmware
• Direct3D 10 with WDDM 1.2 driver support
• Ambient light sensor
• Speakers
• Any x86 based tablet hardware must resume within 2 seconds
• Installing new driver should not require a reboot

As with Windows Phone it seems that Microsoft is placing the importance of the general user experience at the top of the list, and while you can be guaranteed that there will be an uproar over this it is good to see Microsoft going down this path and hopefully unlike past attempts to do this they will stick to their guns.

via Mobile Syrup

Windows 8 tablet hardware requirements set in stone is a post from: The Inquisitr

Arfa Karim became the youngest person in the world to be awarded the  ”Microsoft Certified Professional” title seven years ago when at just nine years old she mastered the company’s programs. Now at 16-years-old we’re sad to report that the girl nicknamed “Pakistan’s girl wonder” has passed away.

According to her parents Arfa died from complications caused by an epileptic stroke.

After becoming certified in Microsoft’s programs the youngster was awarded a trip to Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters where she met various executives and even Bill Gates.

Arfa had hoped to eventually work at Microsoft after completing her studies but became hospitalized because of her illness.

Bill Gates reached out to the girl and her family and even offered to pay her medical care if she would fly to the US for treatment. Doctors however said the trip would be dangerous because she was on a ventilator.

After her death her father thanks Bill Gates for his efforts, he then described his daughter as a spark “that got attention and love from everyone on the globe.”

Arfa Karim had been in a coma since last month when she suffered a seizure.

Our condolences go out to Arfa’s family in their time of grief. She was an inspiration to not only programmers but anyone striving for a dream the world over.

16-Year-Old Microsoft Prodigy Dies From Medical Complications is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a partnership with Samsung, Microsoft’s latest Surface gadget, 2.0, is now available for pre-order and will be shipping this month. What is Microsoft Surface? Introduced years ago (and in a much more bulky package might I add), it’s a tabletop that is basically a complete touch screen and essentially a giant tablet.

At one time, it was pegged as the future of computing and was very futuristic at it’s time, but it never really did take off. The biggest reason is the price tag. The original Microsoft Surface cost $12,500 for a commercial unit and that’s just the unit itself without the stand.

This new version however is priced less, but not much less. Version 2.0 will run you $8,400 for just the tabletop and $9,049 including the matching stand. For that price, you’d expect pretty amazing specs, right? As far as hardware goes, not exactly, but it gets the job done.

• 40 inch 1080p LCD touchscreen Gorilla Glass display
• 2.9GHZ AMD Athlon II X2 processor
• AMD Radeon HD 6750 graphics card with 1GB GDDR5 RAM
• 4GB RAM
• 320GB storage
• 4 USB ports, SD card reader, Gigabit ethernet, Wireless N support, Bluetooth
• Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

What’s interesting to note is that the touchscreen is capable of supporting up to 50 simultaneous touch points. Quite a bit more than your average iPad or tablet.

Now, this is a pretty amazing device at the end of the day. The price tag will keep it out of the mass majority of consumers hands and more into businesses hands. The concept is still fairly new and maybe one day we’ll see an affordable tabletop of this nature in more homes across the globe.

Microsoft Surface 2.0 Now Available, Not Your Average Tabletop is a post from: The Inquisitr