Microsoft is making moves to assert its position in the Home Automation and IOT (Internet of Things) space; the green market is ripe with potential and there is not a clear cut leader at this time. While Microsoft started making efforts in this area earlier this year, the company is kicking things into high gear and has formed it's plan of attack for this new market.

Back in August, the company released the first preview OS for IOT and has been working to attract developers ever since the launch of that platform. But more than that, Microsoft ran an accelerator that was targeted at Home Automation startups, and thanks to Microsoft's Careers page, we can learn a bit more about where the company is headed in this emerging sector.

Microsoft has formed a new team to tackle the challenges that IOT presents, according to a new job posting. This job posting specifically calls out home automation, among other use-cases, and how the company is building a platform that bridges client and cloud worlds.

Microsoft sees the IOT market as significantly larger than the entire PC market with 2 billion IOT devices in 2012 with projections up to 20 billion devices in 2020, according to a different job posting. The company believes that there is no clear leader in this "strategic green field" and with IOT set to become a massive market, larger than PCs, Microsoft is gearing up to to win a large percentage of this market.

Based on this information and past conversations with Microsoft, they are targeting to postilion Windows 10 as the gear in a spoke and hub setup. What we mean is that, while there are plenty of competing platforms like Alljoyn, there needs to be a central platform that makes it possible to connect into all of these services.

Take a look at what Microsoft has done with Health, they built a central hub that can connect to many different fitness devices. The company is looking to do the same but on a much broader (and more native) scale with the IOT market and we can already see this effort starting to materialize with the announcement AllJoyn support in Windows 10.

More than ALlJoyn, Microsoft wants to make Windows 10 work with all open source IOT platforms, expect to see more developments in this area in the near future but know that if a platform exists today, Microsoft is trying to find ways to tie it into Windows 10.

The IOT market represents a huge opportunity and like many other markets, expect the IOT arena to be saturated with disparate platforms. Microsoft, with its new strategy of being open and having its products work with every platform, is going to try and position itself as the hub of these devices.

It's a strategy we have seen before from Nadella and company with Microsoft Health and it looks like they will be taking this approach as well with IOT too.

The work in this area is slowly coming together and we will likely hear more about this early in 2015. We are not sure if the conversation about IOT will come up at the January 21st Windows 10 event as that is more supposed to be consumer-side focused but we do know current road maps would make it possible for announcements to be made at that time.

Microsoft has moved ahead with Internet Explorer's new forked rendering engine, including it in the latest 'official' build of Windows 10. A new flag in the browser allows users to control when it is used. The new engine is Microsoft's attempt to break away from legacy features in Internet Explorer.

Microsoft earlier decided to 'fork' the Trident rendering engine into two parts. If a website calls for compatibility mode, then the older and more resource intensive Trident engine from IE11 will display the site, otherwise, the more lightweight and updated IE12 Trident engine called "Edge 12.0" will handle it instead.

By default, Internet Explorer will decide which engine is used, however, that can be changed on a new "flags" page included in IE12, called "Experimental Features", which is located by typing "about:flags" into the address bar. Other versions including IE11 on Windows 8.1, do not have this page.

On the new configuration page, Microsoft refers to the new rending engine as "Experimental Web Platform Features" and gives you three options, including "automatic", "enabled", and "disabled".

The new engine and flag appears in Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9879.

Source: McAkins

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Windows 8 is the all-new version of the Windows operating system, launched by Microsoft in the last week of October 2012. Windows 8 is actually a leap forward from the way normal Windows operating systems work, as this latest OS can be used in PCs, desktops, laptops, tablets and mobiles.

PC and desktop versions of the OS support both old mouse-driven systems and also touch-enabled devices. This new OS has caused a shift in the industry with opportunities for more innovation in the design. Windows 8 offers great scope for designers and developers. Developers can use the same programming languages like C#, .NET, ASP.NET, etc., and develop their software and applications using the same old steps and procedures.

Here are a few facts you should be aware of before stepping into Windows 8 design or development.

Metro style design

Image Credit - Alessio Di Salvo

Metro is an internal code name of a typography-based design language created by Microsoft. Windows 8 features a Metro style UI which is designed for user-friendliness. (Microsoft is temporarily referring to Metro UI as Modern UI, following a trademark infringement notice from a German company.) Microsoft has provided specific guidelines regarding the look and feel so as to focus on the content of applications, relying more on typography and less on graphics. The Metro style design follows the principle of “bold, vibrant colors” and “content before chrome” where the idea is to use only the most relevant elements on screen. Windows 8’s Metro style design consists of guidelines that supply a framework for designers and developers to build and expand on. You need not waste a lot of time thinking about how buttons, tabs and menus should be placed.

Information architecture & navigation

Image Credit - Murdocke23

The information architecture (organization and labeling) of Windows 8 focuses on the usability of a product. Be it a website or an app, it concentrates on how it can be improved to serve users better. The screen hierarchy of Microsoft is limited to three levels: Hub, Section, and Detail pages. The hub is an outline of content and functionality that links to various sections. The section page displays the content/functionality available within each category. The content on the section page can be displayed as tiles or lists. The details page is the end node in the above-mentioned hierarchy. It consists of content like text, pictures, songs or videos. By tapping on the headers or tiles of Windows 8, users can navigate to various screens. Some Windows 8 apps have a navigational bar or make use of a drop-down menu to serve this purpose.

Design For Touch

Image Credit - Florencia Prada

Apart from the conventional laptops and desktops, Windows 8 runs on mobile devices like tablets and phones. As this OS runs on many touch-enabled devices, it is important to ensure that you design for touch. This means that every element on the screen should be placed in ergonomically friendly positions. Windows 8 provides a touch language that defines the common interactions that can be performed even by using a keyboard and mouse. While designing for Windows 8, all the elements that are placed must provide enough space for touch targeting and immediate feedback when pressed.

You could make some decent money from Windows 8

Market size really helps in the success of an application. Every device that runs Windows 7 is capable of running Windows 8. We can expect more than half of those computers to be upgraded, which still represents millions of computers. Microsoft predicts that more than 400 million devices will be running Windows 8 shortly. Windows 8 will be the single largest platform for designers to achieve great heights. Earlier in 2012, Microsoft announced a good pay out model of 70/30 revenue share for Windows app developers. Developers are also offered a raise in the share to 80 percent when the app yields more than $25,000.

The new Windows Store will be a huge boon to developers. To create an app for Windows 8, developers require good programming knowledge and understanding of principles and guidelines of Windows 8 development.

Author the Author :-

Brian Taylor is the VP, Business Development at Forixwebdesign.com, OR. Forix specializes in web design and development for small, medium and large company websites, e-commerce systems and more.

According to Microsoft, that is. The company has finally opened a little about Windows 10, its next operating system. And this time we have some official statistics to go by.

The Windows Insider Program is a raging success, it seems.

Redmond says that more than 1 million users have signed up for the program, with the intention of helping with the development and providing feedback to Microsoft regarding the next version of Windows. That’s quite a lot, actually, though hardly surprising.

This information comes from Joe Belfiore, by the way:

Seeing as most people that signed up for the program also probably downloaded the bits, we can assume that the install base of Windows 10 Technical Preview is at least a million strong.

Obviously, some even accessed the direct links and bypassed the program altogether, and others surely deployed the Enterprise release of the preview. But this is a solid number to go by, and will likely increase in the coming months.

Microsoft also confirmed that it had received more than 200,000 pieces of user feedback that was submitted via the Windows Feedback.

Hopefully, a lot of it is put to good use during development.

If you are yet to install Windows 10 Preview, you can download it here. Or visit this link for more information about the Windows Insider Program.

The Windows Insider Program is a raging success, it seems.

Redmond says that more than 1 million users have signed up for the program, with the intention of helping with the development and providing feedback to Microsoft regarding the next version of Windows. That’s quite a lot, actually, though hardly surprising.

This information comes from Joe Belfiore, by the way:

Seeing as most people that signed up for the program also probably downloaded the bits, we can assume that the install base of Windows 10 Technical Preview is at least a million strong.

Obviously, some even accessed the direct links and bypassed the program altogether, and others surely deployed the Enterprise release of the preview. But this is a solid number to go by, and will likely increase in the coming months.

Microsoft also confirmed that it had received more than 200,000 pieces of user feedback that was submitted via the Windows Feedback.

Hopefully, a lot of it is put to good use during development.

If you are yet to install Windows 10 Preview, you can download it here. Or visit this link for more information about the Windows Insider Program.