Windows 8 Access Will be Available by Late October according to Microsoft

Finally Microsoft officials confirmed that Windows 8 on track to be released to manufacturing by the first week of August and to be accessible by late October.

According to the statement of the corporate vice president of Windows, Windows 8 is on track to be released to manufacturing the first week of August, and will be available by late October 2012. The statement is also with a connotation that Windows Server 2012 will be released to manufacturing by the first week of August. But the server bits will not be available to customers until September. 

The business users (volume licensees with Software Assurance) will have access to the final Windows 8 bits "as early as the beginning of August."

The October general availability date has been rumored for months. A late July RTM date for Windows 8 has been rumored for a while. Microsoft has sold 630 million Windows 7 licenses to date, up from 600 million at the beginning of June.

The Windows team's @BuildWindows8 account on Twitter recently repeated that the official guidance was that as of May 31, Microsoft execs had said to expect Microsoft to enter the "final phases" of the RTM process "in about two months," assuming all was seen as progressing well by Microsoft and its partners.

Microsoft officials said in late June that the newly announced Microsoft Surface PC/tablets running Windows RT would be available at the time Windows 8 is generally available. So that means the ARM-based Surfaces will be out by then, one would expect.

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Listen up: iPhone and iPad Users Can Get Angry Birds Seasons for Free

To enrich your game life, Apple is giving away this level-packed game for both iPhone and iPad users.

I think you have been waiting for quite a long time, just for this moment, the free release of Angry Birds Seasons.

Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Seasons HD (for iPad) are the iTunes free apps of the week. They're normally priced at 99 cents and $1.99, respectively.

True to its name, Angry Birds Seasons is a theme-oriented spin-off of the original game -- that theme being, well, seasons. Thus you've got level collections ranging from summer and winter to St. Patrick's Day and Halloween.

Rovio updates Seasons on a regular basis, with the game now approaching a whopping 300 levels. All the new themes and levels come free, making for almost unparalleled bang for the buck.

In this case, bang for the click, as no money will change hands unless you make an in-game purchase. (The 99-cent Mighty Eagle, for example, can help you get past a particularly tricky level.)

It's worth noting that these are the full, ad-free versions of Angry Birds Seasons. If you don't yet own the game and want to see what all the fuss is about, this is the freebie for you.

More Posts about Angry Birds:

Free to Download Angry Birds Wallpapers and Make Your Desktop Shake with the Game

The Angry Birds Movie to be Slingshot into a Theater Soon?

Motorola Defy Pro Was Announced Surprisingly

It seems that there has been a long time since the last minute we heard something new from Motorola. And currently with the release of the new Motorola Defy Pro, we seize something new from the mobile manufacturer.

Motorola Defy Pro was released several days ago. According to the introduction, it can resist dust, water and scratches, but it still looks sleek enough to be your day-to-day phone. It is qeuipped with a 2.7-inch Gorilla Glass touchscreen display and with a four-row physical QWERY keyboard. The handset also has three different "dashboards" or user profiles, which include outdoor, hiking, and workout view. These views give you details on the weather, track your hiking trails, and monitor your workouts, respectively.

This Android-based device also has BlueTooth capabilities, comes loaded with Quickoffice and sports a 5-megapixel camera with flash. According to report, it will be available in Brazil starting July 15. We only need to wait several days and then get access to the latest phone from Motorola.

Top 10 iPad Apps to Bring You with more Fun

2012 summer holiday is on the way right now. I start my holiday journey with my iPad. In the following I will list some apps which add fun to all along my way.

● Flipboard: Flipboard launched on the iPad and is a fantastic way to view news and social networking updates. It gives Internet feeds a magazine look and feel and after testing it out a while ago I now use it every day to enjoy content.

● MLB At Bat: When you travel outside your local area you end up having to watch whatever sports are on in the hotel for that particular destination. With MLB At Bat you can view and/or listen to your favorite home team on the go. I love the pitch tracking feature and all the real time stats too and as you may know serious baseball fans love their stats.

● Angry Birds Seasons: Rovio just released an update to Angry Birds Seasons for the iPad that includes a new water feature. That's right, you sling your bird through the air and then figure out how to get through the water in the scene to knock out the pigs. I love that they keep updating the game with new levels and functions.

● Evernote: I use Evernote to capture lots of things and with the solid camera on the new iPad it is handy for receipts, lists of movies to watch, attractions you want to visit, and much more. Evernote takes advantage of the large display on the iPad to give you an excellent experience that I even prefer over the version on my Macbook Pro.

● ABC Player: We no longer have cable TV in my house so I catch up on all the shows I missed on ABC through the ABC Player app. I can't stop laughing through episodes of Modern Family and enjoy the intrigue in Castle. The ABC Player app is free and is great for viewing TV content. I even use the app with the adapter to play shows on my HD TV at home so the whole family can enjoy TV without paying for cable.

● Facebook: My family and friends share most of their photos and activities on Facebook and during the summer it is fun to see where people have been, invite people over for barbeques, and share memories with Facebook on the iPad. Every once in a while I will login too and use Facebook to chat live with family and friends.

● Newstand (Mac Life): I am moving away from paper magazine subscriptions and have a couple magazines I subscribed to through Newstand. The iPad is perfect for modeling the magazine experience and it is much easier to carry an iPad loaded with five magazines rather than five physical magazines. There is quite a good selection of titles and you can buy single issues or subscribe at a much lower monthly rate.

● Kayak: I use both TripIt Pro and Kayak for travel, but have to say the Kayak iPad app is much better than TripIt. I love the way it uses the full screen to present your itinerary and since my iPad is always with me when I travel it is great to have along, especially since it is free. You can also use Kayak to plan trips on the go with its powerful search features.

● IA Writer: I was using the default Apple Notes application to write in the past, but when I sent this content to copy and use in my posts the margins were all goofed up. I recently discovered IA Writer for the iPad, after hearing others talk about it for quite some time, and already wrote a couple ZDNet posts and extensive Facebook posts using this app. IA Writer gives you a full screen, basic experience for writing and is already proving that 99 cents is cheap for such a powerful document creation tool.

● Skydrive: There are a number of cloud storage solutions out there now and I have accounts with several of them. I was signed up early for Skydrive so I have a free 25GB account and use this on all my devices to keep documents backed up for easy access from my devices.

More related topics:

Top 10 iPad Apps You Must Have to Gain more Fun

Top 10 Android Smartphone Apps to Add Fun to Your Summer Holiday

Top 10 Android Smartphone Apps to Add Fun to Your Summer Holiday

Summary: There are hundreds of thousands of Android apps on the Google Play Store and with fantastic devices like the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III I wanted to share what apps I use during the summer to enjoy my travels and time off.

Now that the Samsung Galaxy S III is rolling out on the various carriers, my top pick of the 5 hottest summer smartphones, I wanted to share my ten favorite Android apps to use during the summer. It is likely I will be picking up my own T-Mobile Galaxy S III and the Android apps I have in my image gallery are great for this device and other Android smartphones.

● Flipboard: This application is now officially available for all Android devices, launched as a full version on the Galaxy S III, and has been available on iOS for some time. You can setup your favorite feeds (news, sports, entertainment, etc.) and social networks to be pulled into Flipboard and presented to you in a magazine-like layout. I love the user interface and find it a much better way to view news feeds. The latest update, released last week on Android, adds in support for Google+. You can also setup your Pocket or Instapaper account to read longer stories at a later time.

● Wunderlist: I am a long time user of Evernote and have it on all my devices, but it isn't always the quickest for writing down quite task lists and managing them. My buddy Kevin Tofel recommended I try Wunderlist for these types of task lists and I am very happy with it. I use it in the summer for my Honey Do lists, packing lists for trips, grocery lists when preparing for summer parties and barbecues, and even my ZDNet review plans. There are clients for multiple platforms and desktop computers too.

● Weatherbug: You need to know the weather before traveling and one of my favorite weather applications is Weatherbug. I have about 10 locations that I monitor, some for where I normally travel, some for places I know I am going to, and some for places where I want to travel. It is one of the most extensive weather applications available and you can setup alerts to notifiy you of current conditions.

● Sports Tracker: Summer is a great time to get out and run and an app I use for monitoring these and sharing my data with others is Sports Tracker. You can even capture images along the way, great to do when you are out for a run while on a business trip or vacation, and have them geotagged to show up along your tracked route. Sports Tracker has a slick interface and does an excellent job of accurately tracking my route and speed.

● Kobo: While I read for hours on end with an eInk device, when I am out and about I use my Android smartphone to read a few pages. I am a big fan of the Kobo Touch eReader and thus use the Kobo Android application to read my books on the go. I like the Kobo home screen widget that shows me the status of the book I am reading and when I last read it. Kobo is one of the more social ebook apps where you can share with others and also discuss books within the Kobo community.

● Chrome web browser: The Android web browser is good, but my default browser is Google Chrome. Since I use Chrome on the desktop, having the cross platform syncing on my phone is outstanding and it is my ultimate favorite browser for phones. If you have an ICS phone, you must give Google Chrome a try.

● Words with Friends: I am not a heavy gamer, but I do love playing word games and challenging friends via Facebook. Words with Friends is an excellent word game with only one real improvement I would like to see. Like AlphaJax on Windows Phone, I would like to see the point total for words as I create them in the game before I submit my entry. If you want to play me, you can generally find me online during my evening train commute.

● Flixster: My family enjoys going to the movies during the summer, including our annual trip to the drive-in, and Flixster is my favorite movie application. You can setup your favorite theaters, view trailers, check out upcoming movies, read reviews, and even purchase tickets through the application.

● TripIt Pro: I saved nearly $400 on an airplane ticket last year thanks to TripIt Pro's ticket price monitoring service and am using that savings for a long weekend wine country getaway for my wife and I this summer. TripIt Pro lets me bring my travel itinerary to my Android phone so I don't have to carry printed pages for everything. I get alerts, such as gate changes, and do not travel without using TripIt Pro.

● MLS MatchDay: My family loves soccer, I have been coaching my youngest for over eight years too, and we are huge Seattle Sounders FC fans. Thus, MLS MatchDay is on my phone to monitor all of the great games being played this summer as the Sounders attempt to win the US Open Cup again and make it to the MLS playoffs. There are apps for Major League Baseball fans too.

Google I/O 2012 Issue: Google Glass Explorer Edition Priced at $1500

Google Glass is an effort to make computerized glasses with a touch screen as light as sunglasses. Google employees have been testing the prototypes and running with them to deliver first person experiences to friends. In other words, Google Glass is accelerating the development of what used to be science fiction.

Google Glass is real and will soon be shipping. Sergey Brin just took the stage at Google I/O, won the Internet with an amazing skydiving demo of the device and then announced that Google Glass is available for pre-ordering. Named Glass Explorer Edition, it’s available to those at Google I/O and costs a whopping $1,500. Plus, the device will not ship until next year. But Google Glass is real. This is big.

Google spent about 30 minutes explaining and showing off Google Glass at today’s I/O keynote. But it was strange. The presentation wasn’t as polished as the keynote’s other events. It felt off the cuff. As Sergey explained at the end of the event, Google still doesn’t know all the use cases of Google Glass. The company is still building not only the product, but also the philosophy behind Glass. That’s why Google is making Glass available to those that really love Google. It needs help.

Right now Glass Explorer Edition is only for the US and the device is only available for pre-order by I/O attendees. Sergey explained that there are some regulatory issues to resolve prior to International shipping.

Other Google I/O 2012 news:

The First Jelly Bean Android Tablet: Google Nexus 7

Focus on Google I/O 2012: Google Nexus Q Streamer the Small Ball Rocks Your World

T-Mobile's Samsung Galaxy Note Leaked Press Shots Leaked, is Bound to Kick off on July 11

We've seen plenty of evidence over the past few months, and it is just recently approved by the FCC for a U.S. release. The Samsung Galaxy Note appears to on schedule for its rumored mid-July release at T-Mobile, as leaked images of the device have shown up sporting this carrier's logo.

The latest news claims that the T-Mobile Galaxy Note will be available July 11. The phone will reportedly come with HSPA+ on T-Mobile’s 850/1900 bands. T-Mobile will apparently release the phone/tablet in the navy blue version. At this point it's unclear what this carrier's price will be. Samsung's mobile head JK Shin today predicted that Samsung would hit a cumulative 10 million Galaxy Note sales by July. That would be on par with the 5 million units sold in five months on the market.

Samsung Galaxy S3 (download video to Galaxy S3) is unveiled not long before. We hope that the new Samsung Galaxy Note phone/tablet will surprise us with something stunning.

More about the Samsung Galaxy Note

This product's 5.3-inch, 1280 x 800, Super AMOLED Touchscreen (it is perfect to enjoy video on Samsung Galaxy Note) makes it a hybrid device, both acting as a tablet and a smartphone. Internally, the Note features a dual-core 1.5GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. Some versions of the handset have 16GB of internal storage, while others have 32GB. All have a microSD memory card slot for additional capacity.

This model debuted last year running Android 2.3, but a recently-released upgrade brings it up the latest version of Google's mobile operating system, Android OS 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Other features include a rear-facing 8MP camera, 2500 mAh battery, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS among others.

The Samsung Galaxy Note has been a success; so far, over 7 million units have shipped. It's apparently sold well enough that Samsung is working on a successor that will have an even larger touchscreen.