Dedicated Amazon Prime Video App Now Available on All Windows 10 Devices Across Indian Market

Customers in India can now access Prime Video through a dedicated app available on the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 devices.

Using the new Amazon Prime Video for Windows app, customers are now able to stream Prime Video content online or download Prime Video content for offline viewing on their device. This feature only works through the app on the Windows 10 operating system and includes desktop PCs, laptops, and tablets. The online streaming experience will be the same as the current experience on the Prime Video website today.

Customers can find the new Amazon Prime Video for PC app through the Microsoft Store on their Windows 10 device.

Has Apple unleashed Snow Leopard earlier into the wild?

Apple released its Snow Leopard into the wild a little early, while Microsoft revealed its release plans for Windows 7 this week.

Apple began shipping its newest operating system to customers on Friday, a little earlier than expected. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is not as much about adding new features as it is about refining the code in the operating system. For instance, according to Apple, 90 percent of the Mac OS X code has been worked on for the Snow Leopard release.

The CNET Reviews team took the new OS for a spin and gave it a rating of excellent in its review:

Interface enhancements like Expose in the Dock and better file and folder viewing in Stacks make finding apps and files much easier. A completely overhauled QuickTime X now sports a cleaner interface and recording tools. The much-anticipated Exchange support across Mail, the Address Book, and iCal is huge for those who take their Macs to work.

However, the team notes that Snow Leopard will work only on Intel-powered Macs; PowerPC users are out of luck.

Snow Leopard could include some features that would make it secure, or at least push it closer to the level of security that Vista and Windows 7 have, experts said this week.

Contrary to popular belief, Macintosh is not more secure from a software standpoint than modern Windows; it's merely safer to use because malware writers prefer to target the platform with the biggest install base, according to Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, co-authors of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, which came out this spring.

"Apple hasn't implemented all the security features that Vista has," Miller said. "They made some improvements in Leopard, but they are still behind."

Mac OS X Snow Leopard will cost $29 as an upgrade for Leopard users. For Mac OS X Tiger users, the Mac Box Set, which includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09, will cost $169.

CNET.com

Will Google-Microsoft war cut down PC prices?

Google Inc's bid to compete with Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system may help lower the cost of personal computers at a time when prices are already being pinched by inexpensive netbooks.

Google said it will offer its just-announced Chrome operating system for free when it is launched in the second half of 2010, a move that could force Microsoft into a price war.

Although Windows is the dominant operating system -- installed on 90 percent of the world's PCs, Microsoft won't take Google's challenge lightly, analysts said. Its new Windows 7 operating system will be available in October.

"Microsoft's strategy is likely to be to compete on price," said Brent Williams, an analyst with the Benchmark Co. "Now there's a competitor with the muscle and the brand recognition. Google is that company."

Google said Chrome OS, which is based on the open-source Linux code, is being designed for all PCs but will debut on netbooks. It makes sense for Google to initially target the stripped-down, Web-centric netbooks, one of the only segments showing any growth in a PC market that is contracting.

Netbooks generally sell for $300 to $400, but prices are dropping as new offerings flood the market and wireless carriers offer subsidies with the purchase of a data plan.

Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu noted that while the prices on nearly all PC components have been falling, "the one thing that has not been coming down is the cost of the operating system. This is going to put some pressure on Microsoft."

Microsoft doesn't say how much it charges PC brands for Windows, but analysts estimate it gets $20 to $40 for the older XP system used in the vast majority of netbooks, and at least $150 for the current Vista system.

Wu said price competition could ultimately give a bump to PC makers' margins.

"I think overall it should improve the profitability for PC vendors. It's really a question of how much they pass on to the customers," he said.

REWRITING THE RULES

Between 20 million and 30 million netbooks are expected to be shipped this year, and the devices continue to rewrite the rules for the PC industry.

Even as heavyweights such as Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc roll out new netbooks, analysts expect new players, including Taiwan-based equipment manufacturers and carriers such as AT&T Inc, to release branded netbooks running on either Intel Corp's x86 chip platform or ARM chips.

Google said Chrome will work on either architecture.

Agencies

Microsoft's Windows 7 free for 13 months

Microsoft Corp released a near-final version of the Windows 7 operating system to a large group of technology-savvy testers that adds a few new features, including a way to run Windows XP applications.

The Windows 7 `release candidate' will be available for anyone to download and try out on May 5. The release candidate is typically the version used by Microsoft's corporate customers to test how the new system will work for them. Software developers, hardware makers and other partners also base their next-generation products on this version because they trust that it's stable and close to finished.

Windows 7 RC, slated for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers by the general public on May 5, doesn't expire until June 1, 2010, Microsoft confirmed.

The spokeswoman, however, refused to comment why the company is giving users such a long free pass for the software.

The 13-month life span of Windows 7 RC is longer than the time limit Microsoft put on Vista’s release candidates.

The software giant published the Vista release candidate about five months before the final version went on sale. If Windows 7 were to follow the same trajectory, it could be available by the start of October. Officially, Microsoft expects to start selling Windows 7 by the end of January 2010, but has said this week that it is possible it could launch in time for the holiday shopping season.

The software maker is counting on Windows 7 to win over businesses that put off upgrading to Vista, which got off to a rough start because it didn't work well with many existing programs and devices.

And Microsoft drew criticism from consumers when many computers advertised beforehand as ``Vista capable'' were actually too weak to run Vista's highly touted new interface and other features. People who wanted to upgrade Windows XP computers found their graphics cards and other components weren't up to the task.

The new system is already set up for a smoother debut because it shares much of Vista's underlying technology, which means hardware and software makers have had more than two years to catch up to a more demanding set of requirements. And Microsoft has pushed the notion that the high-end version of Windows 7 will run on many more computers than Vista, including tiny, low-powered laptops called netbooks. Today, Microsoft sells Windows XP, a much less profitable version of its operating system, to PC makers like Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard to install on Netbooks.

Microsoft revealed that the basic requirements for running a high-end version of Windows 7 aren't much different from those needed to run the bulkier versions of Vista. However, critics said the Vista requirements for memory and other components should have been set higher, and Microsoft says Windows 7 is better at managing memory and not bogging down less-powerful machines.

Microsoft unveiled a few new features in the release candidate that didn't exist in the January beta, including something called Windows XP Mode. The feature, available for the release candidate as a separate download, will let people run many XP-era programs from a Windows 7 computer.

The release candidate also adds a way for people to access music and other media files stored on their home PC over the Internet from other Windows 7 machines.

Agencies

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft Corp is set to publicly launch Internet Explorer 8 early on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating Web browser.

The application, an integral part of Microsoft's eagerly awaited Windows 7 operating system, can be downloaded from Microsoft's website from 9 am Pacific time, free for people using licensed Microsoft operating systems.

IE8, as it is commonly referred to, has been in public beta testing for about a year, but Thursday's launch marks its full public rollout.

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, said IE8 will run with Windows Vista, its latest operating system, and also Windows XP, the previous version which some users still prefer over Vista.

The application replaces IE7, which has a lock on the browser market. According to a recent survey by IT consultants Janco Associates Inc, Internet explorer has a 72.2 perc ent market share, ahead of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser with 17.2 per cent. Google Inc's new Chrome browser has only 2.8 per cent of the market, while Apple Inc's Safari has less than 1 per cent.

Microsoft has run afoul of US and European antitrust regulators for bundling its browser with its operating system, which competitors say is an attempt to drive them out of the market.

Last month, Google joined Mozilla and Norway's Opera in protesting Microsoft's dominance in the browser market. In January, European regulators brought formal charges against Microsoft for abusing its dominant market position by bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser with its Windows operating system, which is used in 95 percent of the world's personal computers.

Microsoft has already announced that users of Windows 7, expected later this year or early next year, will be able to turn key programs like Internet Explorer off, making it easier to use other browsers.

New features in IE8 include right-clicking on addresses or other Web features to go straight to a map or put into a blog or other website, which Microsoft calls an "accelerator". Users will also be able to put in keywords in the address bar to recall sites visited related to that word.

The new browser also has enhanced security protection, for example warning users if they are about to download something from a site known to be a source of malicious software, or "malware".

Agencies

Microsoft delays Windows 7 beta download

Microsoft Corp said on Friday it has paused offering downloads of the public test version of its new version of Windows due to "high demand."

The "beta" launch of the highly anticipated update to Microsoft's Windows franchise began early on Friday, but the company had to halt downloads to add more servers.

"We are adding servers as fast as we can add them," a Microsoft spokesman said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

He declined to say when Windows 7 downloads would resume.

Microsoft said at CES on Wednesday it would let consumers test the next generation of its computer operating system starting Friday.

Microsoft, the world's biggest maker of software, has said Windows 7 will incorporate touch screen technology and allow users to more easily personalize the system. It promised more user-friendly features, such as a new taskbar that previews all open windows from a single application by hovering over the program's icon.