Results tagged “microsoft”

Since its release in 1983, Microsoft Word has WYSIWYGed its way onto approximately a bazillion desktops worldwide, but a little Toronto tech company with a really ugly website could force Microsoft to stop selling current versions of their cash-cow word processor. Word uses custom XML tagging technology that i4i says they hold a patent on, and an injunction issued yesterday by a judge in patent haven Texas seems to support that claim. The details are all very nerdy and boring, but there's no way that Microsoft is going to bail on one of their most important flagship products, so dukes will be up and bank accounts will be looted. Et plus ça change…even more reason why it may be time to abolish obscure software patents.

It's like a bunch of ad executives got together in a boardroom and decided "You know what gets the kids' attention these days? Community alerts about sexual predators!" It's like that old joke "SEX—Now that I have your attention..." except replace SEX with RAPIST or PROWLER or some other such thing.

Wizard needs weekend plans, badly. Clever wizards know that the place to be this Friday and Saturday (June 27-28, 12–5 p.m.) is Evolution: 30 Years of Computer Games at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre (9 Ossington Avenue). 20 PC games are on display and available for play on their original consoles, showing how gaming technology has evolved since 1978.

The third annual Toronto Independent Game Development Jam ran from the 9th to the 11th of May this year with over 125 developers managing to produce 34 different games across the intense three day period, and their pain is now our pleasure as all of the successfully completed games have been released online.

Today’s release on Xbox Live Arcade is Trigger Heart Exelica, an originally Japan-only Dreamcast "bullet hell" vertically scrolling shooter, and if that sentence doesn’t make any sense to you whatsoever, that’s totally fine.

Some Canadian cattle will now be allowed into the United States following a 4-year ban in the wake of several cases of "mad cow" disease. American Homeland Security regulations will still require that any bovines wishing to cross the border carry a valid passport.

Microsoft has agreed to buy 1.6% of Facebook for $240,000,000, giving the social networking site a valuation of around $15 billion. The deal is good for both parties, with Bill Gates finally hanging out with the cool kids, and 23-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg getting to throw an awesome kegger.

"Honest Ed" Mirvish dies at 92. As the man himself would say: He may be gone, but his bargains sure aren't. Torontoist's obituary for him can be found here. Details on the funeral are here.

Toronto's overwhelming reception of Al Gore yesterday prompted David Miller to toughen his stance on climate change. Mayor Miller promised an aggressive change in policy on pollution, transit and construction, which will be formally proposed in late March.

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Try as you might, you can't look anywhere in our city without seeing some sort of ad for Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista. Alongside an unusually aggressive advertising campaign through more traditional methods, the company also went all out and paid for an elaborate ice house in Dundas Square. As the corporation should have expected, the backlash towards the over-the-top promotion began almost right away: there were the obvious jokes about "freezing"; impromptu dance parties organized inside the house; even some analysis of Microsoft's method of disposing the house --- letting it melt below the Gardiner.

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet.

You'd never notice from its squat, generic appearance, but just north of Eglinton on Leslie Street sits the headquarters of one of the world's most luxurious hotel chains. Started in 1960 by Ryerson architecture grad Isadore "Issy" Sharp, Four Seasons Hotels now operates 73 hotels in 31 countries. With more than 25 other properties currently being developed, the Toronto-based chain has attracted the eye of two of the world's richest men.

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Microsoft's brilliant marketing installation, an 1800sqft ice house in Dundas Square, tells you precisely what will happen when you install Vista: your computer will freeze. Perhaps the Redmond, Washington-based software company believed Canadians, who all live in igloos, would feel right at home in their icy digs. We kid, but when three University of Toronto students saw the house that Gates built, they immediately thought "house party".

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So, about that giant ice house that Microsoft put up in Dundas Square: apparently 270,000 pounds of ice went into the construction of the 1,800 square foot structure, which includes a fully sculpted kitchen, dining room, study, living room, two bedrooms and bathroom all wired-up with televisions and computers (real, as opposed to of the ice variety) running demos of Vista and Office 2007. It's lucky that the weather has finally decided to act wintery, because expensive electronics don't tend to get along with melting slush.

Microsoft put up an ice house in Dundas Square yesterday to promote the launch of Windows Vista. WARNING: Only click through to the article if you have never read a "tee hee I don't know shit about computers but I sure like to play Minesweeper, does Windows Vista have Minesweeper on it?" type of article and are interested in a fresh experience, complete with - yes - a reference to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Because when I think timely and topical allegories, I think of a movie from 1968. What, was referring to Deep Blue too edgy or something?

think. It just made us wonder: if it were up to the -ist-a-verse, what would we be voting for?

Microsoft has recently announced its alliance with The University of Toronto for it's Live Book Search utility (which is not live yet.) The University will turn over digital copies of their collection to be legally placed online, "readily accessible to customers."

Don't let that scare you off from going to see Cast Iron, though: You don't have to be fluent in Bajan like Torontoist (who speaks over 126 dialects and can lift a car with his bare hands) to get the story. Anyone who speaks English will understand most of it and get the rest intuitively. It's definitely worth seeing for a real stomper of a performance by Alison Sealy-Smith (pictured), the stellar actor who won a Dora for her work in Djanet Sears’ Harlem Duet and was recently seen in Sears’ The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God. (The sage-like Sears was in the house last night encouraging her friend.)