build

Really fast boot times on Windows 8 hardly sounds like a problem. But it is. Here's why.

Startup can be so fast that you whiz by familiar sign posts that prompt for input, wrote Chris Clark, a program manager in the Windows User Experience team, today in a Building Windows 8 blog post.

"When you turn on a Windows 8 PC, there's no longer [enough time] to detect keystrokes like F2 or F8, much less time to read a message such as 'Press F2 for Setup'," Clark said.

On a solid-state drive-equipped ultrabook, for example, Windows … Read more

If it's time to organize those years of photographs, or just the dozens from your last vacation, you can get a professional-looking slideshow with Bolide Slideshow Creator, a free tool designed to made it easy to create your own quality slideshow presentations.

The tool has a very straightforward interface. Putting together a slideshow presentation is a simple matter of drag and drop; just pick the photos and background music from among your collection. We liked the option to add comments to the photos and the number of transition effects you can choose from to make the presentation more visually … Read more

Apple and Austin are in business together for the company's new Texas campus, following a vote from the local court.

The Austin-based Statesman newspaper reports that the Travis County Commissioners Court today voted 4-1 in favor of a deal that will give Apple $5.4 million to $6.4 million in tax rebates over the next 15 years as the company constructs a campus that will bring some 3,600 jobs to the area.

The decision comes days after a local official said a deal was "in peril." Concerns were raised about the contract, which remained under … Read more

Hackers overrode the tallest building in Cambridge, Mass., last week, turning the 21-story Green Building at MIT into a giant Tetris puzzle game controllable from a nearby joystick attached to a podium.

The successful attempt comes after a glitch-filled try to run Tetris on the same building in September of last year. Hackers used 153 wirelessly controlled color-changing LED lights for the giant game on a building that hosts MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science facilities.

The MIT-hosted Hack Gallery notes, "MIT hackers have long considered 'Tetris on the Green Building' to be the Holy Grail of hacks, as the side of the building is a wonderful grid for the game." … Read more

With each turn in Triple Town, you are given an object -- grass, a bush, a tree -- to place onto your 6x6 playing board for use as a building block. Place three of the same object next to each other, and they'll combine to form a single, more valuable object. Three patches of grass make a bush, three bushes make a tree, three trees make a house, and so on. Your goal is to build the most advanced town possible before all the slots on your board fill up.

The difficulty of Triple Town lies in planning ahead, … Read more

A sign we live in the future: the next SimCity requires an Internet connection to launch the game, Maxis lead designer Stone Librande said in a recent interview with Joystiq.

Origin, everyone's favorite game distribution punching bag, must run on the computer to launch SimCity. After the initial Origin log-in, you can play SimCity offline without an always-on Internet connection.

The emphasis on an online experience revolves around the expanded multiplayer element, which includes a global economy, regional opportunities, and wide-area issues (pollution, disasters, etc.). This development may startle some veterans of the city builder, as one typically built cities and regions in an offline environment when playing previous versions of SimCity. … Read more

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson and Mojang employees today unveiled the first set dedicated to the building game at Lego World in Copenhagen.

The 480-piece Lego Minecraft Micro World set (due in summer) features four different areas that you can link together with cylindrical connectors.

While the miniature take on the popular game is a bit pricey at $34.99, we admire the attention to detail in recreating the Minecraft experience. It's also neat that this came together from a community-driven movement, but we hope there will be bigger and better sets soon. Resource gatherers can take joy in exploring the "hidden resources, extra pieces for wood, dirt, and stone," according to the official product description. We strongly recommend you avoid the lava area, though.

Do not miss the hilarious launch video created by Notch and friends: … Read more

Microsoft is enhancing some of the accessibility features in Windows 8 to make the new OS easier for people with disabilities.

Certain "assistive technologies" have long been a part of Windows. The built-in Narrator can read text aloud to people who are blind. The Magnifier can zoom in to display content for people who have trouble seeing. Speech recognition allows people who are unable to type to navigate via voice.

But as described in the latest Building Windows 8 blog by Jennifer Norberg, a senior program manager on Microsoft's Human Interaction Platform team, Windows 8 is taking those features a few steps further.… Read more

Microsoft does listen to user feedback, at least when it comes to fine-tuning some of the features in Windows 8.

Through their Building Windows 8 blog, the folks in Redmond have worked to reveal changes in store for Windows 8, notably in the area of file management. Among them are improvements to the cut, copy, paste, rename, and delete commands; refinements for file collisions; and a new look and feel for Windows Explorer.

In reaction to those blog posts, more than 2,000 users chimed in with suggestions for further tweaking the new file management. And Microsoft apparently listened.

Detailed … Read more