windows 8

A team at Microsoft advertising set out last year to create “a series of new and truly unique ad experiences.”

Today, they are finished and are presenting prototypes from their journey. Five iconic brands including All Saints Clothing, Mercedes-Benz USA, Vans Shoes, MasterCard, and Dell are ready to strut their stuff. Let’s take a look at some of the ads Microsoft has been working on.

E3 time is upon us once again, loyal readers. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is the single largest gaming event of the year. E3 2013 takes place from June 11-13 (plus press conferences on Monday the 10^th) at the Los Angeles Convention Center and is open only to members of the gaming industry.

During E3, all of the major console gaming developers and publishers crowd into the Convention Center and exhibit a selection of their latest and upcoming games for attendees to watch and play. Many new games will be announced, while others that we already know about will be revealed in action for the first time. Check out last year’s E3 2012 stories to get an idea of what goes down.

The very largest publishers and platform holders also hold press conferences on Monday, just before the show opens. Microsoft’s annual Media Briefing runs from 9:30-11am PDT. This is when the big MS will reveal the scope of its gaming plans for the Xbox One, including an assortment of previously unannounced launch titles for the new console. Windows Phone Central will be there and live blogging from the briefing, so make sure you check back with us Monday morning!

What should you expect in the way of Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Xbox news from E3 2013? Read on for our predictions!

Microsoft really wants consumers to put down their iPads and pick up its own ARM based Windows RT devices. So far, we have seen aggressive campaigning against Apple’s portable computing tablet. Now, Microsoft plans to cut the cost of Windows RT licenses and make tablets running the operating system even cheaper; this intel comes from anonymous sources, as the exact pricing for Microsoft’s Windows RT operating system is confidential.

Considering the Windows 8 ecosystem’s relative newness, Microsoft’s PC and tablet OS certainly has room to grow in the app department. Wouldn’t it be great if one machine could run both Windows 8 and another established tablet OS such as Android? The newly announced Asus Transformer Book Trio does just that, packing both operating systems into a dockable tablet model. One major caveat though: the Windows portion only works when docked.

Windows 8.1 (codenamed "Blue") is the upcoming update for Microsoft's desktop operating system, Windows 8. The company has been pushing out its latest major release of Windows since late last year with bumps in the road and goals ahead to smash. Details as to what consumers can expect to see in Windows 8.1 have been rather vague, but today Antoine Leblond, Corporate Vice President, Windows Program Management revealed some of the changes.

Microsoft has a goal for its well-received line of Windows 8 tablets, according to Paul Thurrott. Sources have revealed the company plans to take up and maintain 50 percent of all Windows tablet sales in the coming year with their Surface lineup. Microsoft already achieved this figure in Q1 2013 when Surface hardware took 50 percent of the Windows tablet pie, but there's more to the story.

The Microsoft Design Language (aka Metro) was made to work perfectly with any mode of input. That’s one point a lot critics seem to miss about Windows 8, the Xbox, and Windows Phone. The language allows for any type of input for interaction. Now, as a case in point, let’s see how the Leap Motion Controller complements Windows 8.