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Apple opens its first retail store in France

Max Majewski — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:49:28 +0000

Today Apple opened its second store on mainland Europe at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, France. They don't stop there, however; another store in Montpellier, France opens next week on November 14th and one near the Opera Ganier to debut in the summer of 2010. France's first Apple store opens today at 10AM CET. This is a prestigious location to be sure, right across the famous inverted pyramid inside the Louvre museum. Just for that it would be worthwhile to visit this store, which spans two floors. 150 employees work in the store to offer the same services, which have made the Apple Store experience a success all over the world.

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Google introduces Google Dashboard

Sam Symons — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:53:29 +0000

Google's one of the biggest companies on the Internet; between search, IM, email and everything else, they have a huge user base. Though, with that comes the worry of how much user data they've collected; to remedy this, a tool has been announced, showing users that exact data. Google has an extremely vast range of services.

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Windows 7 surpasses Snow Leopard in under two weeks

Andrew Lyle — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:17:55 +0000

In only two weeks since the official commercial launch of Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7 has managed to surpass Apple's Snow Leopard market share. Snow Leopard has been on the market for three months while Windows 7 has only been on the market for two weeks. Microsoft still stands dominant in the market share, holding strong at 92.52% of all computers in October, compared to Mac OS X with 5.27%, Linux with 0.96% and 1.25% with other operating systems. Windows 7 managed to surpass Snow Leopard's market share (1.17%); Windows 7 managed to grab 2.15% of the market share, where Vista shows 18.83% and Windows XP with 70.48%.

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EU embraces "Internet Freedom"

Brad Sams — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:07:42 +0000

The EU took a big step forward last night and approved a measure to ensure "internet freedom" would remain and that individuals would not have their internet cutoff unjustly. The Internet freedom provision, which was part of a massive telecommunications package, was approved late last night after France determined that its own HADOPI law assumed guilt rather than innocence. The passage still allows for countries to adopt a three strike policy but "must presume innocence, guard privacy, and allow for judicial appeal". This differs from previous policies that gave EU governments the full ability to cut off ones internet with little chance for appeal.

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Rivals challenge Microsoft browser settlement

Matthew Hopson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:22:09 +0000

Three rivals of Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser are seeking last minute changes to a proposal, that would see new users of Windows presented with a ballot screen of the top five browsers. Rivals believe that the current ballot screen proposal still gives Internet Explorer an unfair advantage. After a complaint from the makers of the Opera web browser, the European Commission decided in January that Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows constituted an abuse of their dominant market position. In October, the Redmond-based company proposed a so-called browser "ballot screen", which would display a list of the top five browsers to consumers when they boot a new computer for the first time.

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How the default Windows 7 wallpaper evolved

Tom Warren — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:11:36 +0000

Gizmodo tracked down Chuck Anderson, the creator of Windows 7's box art, default wallpaper and login screen. In an exclusive overview of the evolution of the Windows 7 wallpaper and login screen, the gadget lovers managed to secure some rare development shots of how Microsoft decided on the wallpaper that is now used worldwide. Chuck Anderson is a 20 something digital media artist living in the US. Both the login screen and wallpapers took approximately four months, start to finish according to Gizmodo. They were achieved by a mix of pen and paper, wacom tablet and Photoshop.

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Bing aiming to win this Christmas

Tom Warren — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:37:37 +0000

The holiday season is nearly upon us and Microsoft has signaled it wants to be the search engine for Christmas this year. A new commercial, released earlier this week and spotted first by the folks at LiveSide, highlights the familiar "search overload syndrome" that Microsoft referred to in its first Bing commercials in June when Bing officially launched to the world. Since the launch of Bing, Microsoft has managed to snatch 10.7% market share with 1.1 billion searches in August alone. The advert has a holiday season feel as a young child visits Santa to explain his wish list for Christmas.

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Fortune names Steve Jobs 'CEO of the decade'

Tom Warren — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:19:37 +0000

Fortune magazine has named Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, as "CEO of the decade". In an article confirming the title, Fortune wrote: "How's this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley." Jobs has certainly turned Apple around.

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Windows 7 sales exceed Vista sales by 234%

Tom Warren — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:59:50 +0000

Consumer Market Research firm NPD has confirmed that initial sales of Windows 7 have surpassed those of the Windows Vista launch. According to NPD's weekly tracking service, Windows 7 software unit sales in the U.S. were 234 percent higher than Vista's first few days of sales. The most popular choice for consumers was the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade followed by the Pro upgrade and Home Premium Family Pack. According to NPD, software sales of Windows 7 were strong compared to Vista's sales partly due to early discounts on pre-sales and a wide range of promotions.

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Neowin's top 5 Windows 7 Features

Sean Bradford — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:08:54 +0000

We've all been playing with Windows 7 for quite some time now, and now that general availability has passed we recently asked the community what their favorite feature of Windows 7 was. We've tallied the results, and just in case you haven't explored these features yet here's an in depth overview of our community's favorite features: #5 Libraries Since the days of Windows XP, Microsoft has continued to simplify the way users can store their data on a PC. Windows 7 has introduced users to a new way of file organization by adding a new structure called libraries. What exactly is a library? By default Windows 7 has four separate libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.

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