United Kingdom

The sales for Kinect for the Xbox 360 have been amazing with 18 million sold this last year. The end result has been countless hours of incredible fun with family and friends dancing and playing sports in the confines of their living rooms. Kinect has also opened the door for developers and businesses to create new and innovative experiences through natural user interface (NUI) on the PC. The explosion of imaginative ideas that can be done with Kinect is something we call the Kinect Effect.

Over the past few years I have been very fortunate to meet so many of you face to face during my travels with the Springboard Series Tours. I have spent time in Finland and Rome talking MDT, ACT and MAP, London and Barcelona discussing AppCompat, and even sharing with you twenty Windows tools you did not know existed in Chicago, Boston and Toronto. Yet, I am constantly asked, when will I come to South America? I am very proud to announce that next month, I will do exactly that.

So where will I be and how can you attend?

UK based custom pc and laptop manufacturer PC Specialist Ltd, have taken the first steps towards entering the Windows Home Server Hardware market.

Using their intelligent configurator, you can quickly scan through the vast range of cases and components to design your perfect Home Server. PC Specialist will then build, test and deliver your custom built Home Server within just two weeks!

HTC just unveiled two new Windows Phones that will be landing in stores around the world later this year, running our latest version of Windows Phone. A lot of people ask me via Twitter “what phone are you using now”. I’m delighted to say in rotating through various phones and helping our partners finish them with high quality, I’ve spent quite a bit of time carrying one of the prototypes of these HTC phones and it’s terrific. For those of you who haven’t read the press details—here’s a quick recap.

Today we’re releasing the next version of the Zune software. As one of the Zune program managers, I wanted to provide a brief look at what’s new in the 4.8 release, which you can download here. To update your current version, click Settings > Software > General, and then click Check For Updates.

Back in January, we released the first version of Microsoft OneNote app for iPhone. Today, the OneNote team has announced that there’s a new version available (1.2) which introduces search, shared notebooks, and more customization options.

On this blog, we’ve discussed the ways that scammers can attack your PC, through malicious software, rogue security alerts, phishing attacks and more. But the bad guys have now devised a new vector: the phone. I first learned about this when I heard my parents had received a call that they had been identified as having rogue software on their PC. The caller, who said he was from Microsoft, needed to remote access their PC to resolve the issue.

Last July, we announced the availability of the second beta of Windows Intune, Microsoft’s cloud solution for PC management. In the fall, we told you that Windows Intune would be available in 2011.

Rob and Minka hit the “Little Apple” – Manhattan, OH and bedlam breaks out!

Stop number four on the Springboard Series Tour took us just outside of London to Reading, UK. Over 200 IT pros showed up for a day full day of IT pro guidance around Windows, Office and MDOP as well as getting a chance to learn about certification from our friends at MCT Europe.

Check out the great audience and packed event for yourself!