Microsoft’s very proud touting of their 100 million licenses sold figure for Windows 8 has had some industry analysts wondering whether or not the corporate giant is being entirely truthful about what this figure means.

Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy points out that there’s a distinct difference between “licenses sold” and “computers actually being used”. As far as Microsoft is concerned, a license is “sold” the instant the Windows 8-powered device rolls off the factory line, meaning that there are literally shelves and warehouses full of Windows 8 licenses that have been “sold”, but are not being used by consumers.

Figures gathered by California analytics company Net Applications show that of the Windows PCs connected to the internet in April, only 4.2% of them were running Windows 8. With Microsoft claiming that there are 1.4 billion Windows PCs in the world, that puts active Windows 8 PCs at only 58.6 million, far less than the 100 million licenses sold that Microsoft are claiming.

Net Applications’ figures aren’t entirely reliable, but even as a broad indicator, the numbers don’t quite add up. Interesting stuff.

Source: PC World (thanks, PalZer0)

Welcome to the Friday Tech Roundup! Contained herein is a weekly dose of some of the best tech news from across the internet, rounded up for your edification and entertainment. Read on for all the details of AMD’s belief that there will be no Direct X 12, fancy Google Street View videos, and how the next Xbox could take control of your TV.

Microsoft’s president of Interactive Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick, has admitted that while Valve might be “doing some innovative stuff”, he doesn’t see their Steam Box as a serious competitor to what Microsoft is offering the living-room gamer.

“I love Gabe, I was there for his lifetime achievement award so it’s wonderful to see what they’re creating,” said Mattrick, but commented that Microsoft’s — and everybody else’s — offerings were “a little bit richer” than what Valve could deliver.

“The scale of products and things that are being brought to market are probably a little bit richer when I look at Sony, Nintendo, Apple, and Google,” Mattrick said.

“There’s a certain level of technical and production competency that people have to get through because we’re trying to curate great experiences,” said Mattrick when asked about moving to something similar to Valve’s more open model. “We’re trying to make sure that what exists upon our service on our system is done to a quality level and has interest for people who are likely to use it.”

Source: The Verge

Welcome to the Friday Tech Roundup! Contained herein is a weekly dose of some of the best tech news from across the internet, rounded up for your edification and entertainment. Read on for all the details of how Google is getting ready to deploy their new Glass tech in a public test (for an enormous price), more on the upcoming stoush between AMD and Intel, and how one day — maybe soon — we’ll actually be able to lick the internet.

A rumour swirling around across the weekend implied that both Microsoft XNA and DirectX were to be phased out — but fortunately, only one of those is true. Microsoft announced in a letter to select XNA developers that their game-making framework, which is mostly used to power XBox LIVE indie games but also Windows Phone and PC games, is no longer in development at the company.

“XNA Game Studio remains a supported toolset for developing games for Xbox 360, Windows and Windows Phone,” a Microsoft representative claimed to Polygon. “Many developers have found financial success creating Xbox LIVE Indie Games using XNA. However, there are no plans for future versions of the XNA product.”

“Microsoft is actively investing in DirectX as the unified graphics foundation for all of our platforms, including Windows, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone. DirectX is evolving and will continue to evolve. We have absolutely no intention of stopping innovation with DirectX.”

Source: Polygon, PalZer0

Paul Thurrott on the Windows Supersite is reporting that an insider source claims Microsoft is “disappointed” by Windows 8 sales that are are “below expectations”.

“Sales of Windows 8 PCs are well below Microsoft’s internal projections,” claims Thurrott of his insider source, “and have been described inside the company as disappointing. But here’s the catch: The software giant blames the slow start on lackluster PC maker designs and availability, further justifying its new Surface strategy.”

The source went on to claim that PC manufacturers “inability to deliver” was what was causing Windows 8 to be slow in taking off.

Source: Gamespot

Want some DirectX 11.1 in your Windows 7? Looking forward to the native stereoscopic 3D support it brings? Well, you’re out of luck: Microsoft have confirmed over the weekend that the next version of DirectX — and presumably, all future versions — will be exclusive to Windows 8.

In a post on the Microsoft Answers Forum, an Microsoft employee by the name of Daniel Moth inadvertently revealed the information when confirming a separate DirectX issue.

“DirectX 11.1 is part of Windows 8, just like DirectX 11 was part of Windows 7,” Moth stated. “DirectX 11 was made available for Vista but at this point there is no plan for DirectX 11.1 to be made available on Windows 7.”

Currently, DirectX 11 does not have native stereoscopic 3D support, which means game developers have had to program with specific cards in mind. Windows 8′s DirectX 11.1 gets around this, but Windows 7 users appear to be hamstrung on the 3D front for the foreseeable future.

Source: Neowin (Thanks, PalZer0)

Welcome to the Friday Tech Roundup! Contained herein is a weekly dose of some of the best tech news from across the internet, rounded up for your edification and entertainment. Read on for all the details of how Intel are slashing power draw on their latest SSDs in half, carbon nanotube chips from IBM that are expected to be five to ten times faster than current processors can even dream of, and possibly the snarkiest thing Apple has ever done.

Earlier this week we discussed how Windows 8 defaults to local currency for music and video pricing, and how it may mean the future for the XBox LIVE service is also in local currency.

Not long after, Microsoft came forward first to confirm that Windows 8 will be using real world currency, and secondly to debunk any theories we may have regarding the change from Microsoft Points to local currency. “Microsoft Points continue to be the currency for purchasing content for the Xbox 360 console,” a spokesperson told Polygon, and they don’t have anything new to announce regarding that.

They certainly didn’t comment on the future though, as Polygon remarks — so the theory that they’re in the very early stages of phasing Microsoft Points out still stands.

Source: Polygon

There have been rumours in the past about Microsoft eventually planning to switch its XBox LIVE service over from Microsoft Points to real-world currency. While there still hasn’t been any confirmation either way, Polygon‘s latest preview of Windows 8 adds fuel to the rumour fire.

The upcoming OS apparently uses local currency and credit card payments as default, rather than MS Points, for music downloads or movie rentals. In previous betas, the OS was still using MS Points for all purchases and rentals.

Microsoft haven’t commented on this change yet, and while the XBox LIVE service is still using MS Points, Polygon seems to think a switch over later this month is pretty likely.

Source: Polygon

Early in 2012, there were rumours that Microsoft was going to start using real money in XBox Live, as opposed to Microsoft Points, by the end of the year. Now in August, significantly closer to the end of said year, there still hasn’t been any announcement to that effect.

But what did happen last week was what Microsoft calls a totally unrelated glitch, whereby some avatar items showed up with local currency prices. The prices later reverted back to MS points.

Microsoft is claiming it was simply an “error in how the offers were configured in our services”, but the timing does seem suspect. Hopefully it is an indicator of the currency change coming sooner rather than later, or worse, never.

Source: TweakTown (thanks to PalZer0)

If you were undecided about Microsoft’s new, uh, interesting-looking Windows 8, maybe this will help you decide! Microsoft will be revamping Window’s iconic built-in time wasters, Solitaire, Minesweeper and Mahjong, and will be adding achievements. That’s right, you’ll be able to boost your Gamerscore by wasting time playing Solitaire. Though admittedly, the achievements are a bit of a loose definition, with Minesweeper having four ‘cheevies including “start a game”, “complete a game”, “complete a game without using flags” and “trigger a mine”.

Source: The Escapist