Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most prolific polymaths who ever lived. A true Renaissance man, his interests allowed him to succeed as a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer. Leonardo’s studies were recorded in notebooks that were maintained daily throughout his life as he made continual observations of the world around him. Leonardo’s notebooks encompass over 13,000 pages of notes and drawings.

You now have access to page through the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci thanks to a joint effort between Microsoft and the British Library. Two of da Vinci’s notebooks have been digitized for an updated version of an application called “Turning the Pages” which allows people to browse parts of the British Library’s 150 million piece collection via a web browser.

The British Library will make selections from the Codex Arundel and …

The consumer versions of Microsoft Windows Vista are finally available today around the world. Vista is available both at retail outlets and, in a first, via download. Microsoft’s tag line for Vista is The “Wow” starts now. And most consumers will be “Wowed” by the ridiculous number of different versions to choose from. Do you want Home Basic, Business, Home Premium or Ultimate? Good question. Most of the decision depends on knowing what you want to do. Unfortunately the technology experts in every family will end up answering many questions about Vista and most of them will not be happy about it. How many of them will answer, “Buy a Mac,” remains to be seen.

New Windows releases have been an event ever since Microsoft hired the Rolling Stones to perform for the Windows 95 release. …

Customers with business accounts have had Windows Vista available to them for almost two months, and the launch to general consumers is just a few days away, scheduled for the 30th of January.

Even with the limited exposure the new OS has had, there have already been reported issues with drivers, some anti-virus software and Quickbooks to name a few. To help with this, Microsoft has created a page to help you get ready for Windows Vista, walking users through the different editions of Vista, a product guide, and upgrade information. An upgrade advisor is available, which is a tool that can be downloaded to run on your PC to help identify compatible and non-compatible device and software issues. Be sure when you run it to have any devices that you want …

Bill Gates showcased OQO’s newest UMPC, the model 02, during his keynote address at CES 2007 in Las Vegas. The model 02 is a fully-featured, pocket-sized PC that is capable of supporting Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system.

Design
The OQO model 02 is housed in a rugged, black magnesium alloy chassis that measures 5.6″(W) x 3.3″(H) x 1.0″(D) and weighs under 1lb with the standard battery (battery life of up to 6 hours). The design features a shock-mounted hard drive and drop-detect technology.

Specifications
The model 02 has a 5″ WVGA LCD with 1000×600 and 1200×720 interpolated display modes. The processing options for the model 02 include your choice of Via’s C7-M ULV processor in 1.2GHz or 1.5GHz flavors. The model 02 can be configured with up to a 60GB hard drive and 1GB of DDR2 533MHz SDRAM.

Input and Navigation
Input on the model …

Microsoft revealed three new mechanisms for customers looking to buy, upgrade, or otherwise license Windows Vista. The new options are designed to offer greater flexibility in obtaining the new operating system and to ensure users have the edition of Windows Vista that matches their needs. The announcement is made in the shadow of the worldwide availability of Windows Vista on January 30th.

The new purchase options are:

Windows Anytime Upgrade – Windows Anytime Upgrade allows customers to upgrade their current version of Windows Vista to a more advanced or feature-rich edition through an Internet transaction. This option will be available in the Start menu in Windows and allows users to select the desired upgrade version and purchase it online.

Windows Marketplace – Windows Marketplace makes Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office release available for direct …

Sharp has recently updated its Mebius line of notebook computers with three new basic designs into 5 models which all include the new Windows Vista OS from Microsoft, among a few other nice hardware upgrades.

The Mebius PC-WT70S features a Turion 64 X2 processor (1.60GHz), up to 2GB of memory, 100GB HDD and 1,280Ã-800 resolution on a 15.4 inch screen. A lithium ion battery give it up to 1.2 hours of run time and the highest end version has dimensions of 360Ã-258Ã-36.7mm and weighs approximately 2.6kg.

The Mebius PC-WE40S/WE50S, a smaller sibling, sports an AMD Sempron 3200+ (1.60GHz) processor, half the memory at 512MB, an 80GB HDD and the 15.4 inch display. The battery time for this model is pretty similar to it’s bigger sibling with 1.3 hours of run time with the same dimensions and weight.

The Mebius PC-CH40S/CS50S has …

Today was the opening day of Consumer Electronics Show 2007 (CES). As you’ve no doubt noticed we’ve been bringing you coverage and news from the show.

The three day event hosts close to 3,000 companies and about 150,000 people. The show is centered at the Las Vegas Convention Center but it also spills over into surrounding casinos.

The event features speeches by notables such as Michael Dell and Bill Gates. Gates, Microsoft Chairman, gave a keynote that sounded to some like a late night infomercial for Vista, the Zune and its partnership with Ford. Microsoft has positioned Vista to be the center of a home entertainment web that includes Zune and the Xbox 360 which will get the ability to download and and record Television shows.

Microsoft is eying the juicy entertainment section just like its arch rival Apple Computer. …

In previous articles about NVIDIA Cards ( BFG GeForce 8800 GTS and Asus EN8800 GTX ) we mentioned the fact that the only thing missing was the DirectX 10 games. That’s true but there is also something else missing that’s pretty vital, the drivers! It appears that NVIDIA has delayed releasing drivers to the general public for the N80 line of video cards.

From NVIDIA’s Vista page: ** GeForce 8800 requires updated drivers for Vista, which will be available to download when Vista is available at retail in late January..

So all of you gamers that are anxious to get your hands on this line of cards to try out the performance in Vista may want to hold off at least until the end of January. Of course if you are planning on sticking with Windows …

Windows Vista, the latest and greatest OS from Microsoft, hasn’t even been released to general consumers yet and experts are finding vulnerability exploits and related code being sold and discussed on the internet through underground sites. This operating system has been touted by Microsoft as being the most secure operating system yet, but the security has been brought into question due to some flaws reported on a Russian and US sites recently.

One of the threats involves a hacker gaining additional privileges to a PC through direct access to the PC or through someone installing software with the hack. This is according to Mikko Hypponen, a chief research officer for F-Secure Corp. “The bottom line is you couldn’t use a vulnerability like this to write a worm or hack a Vista system remotely,” Hypponen said. “It only has historical significance in …

Microsoft has announced that Windows Vista will be available to the general consumer on January 30th, 2007. This release comes shortly after the release of Vista to business users at the end of November, 2006. After January 30th, the Windows Vista operating system will be availabe as both a stand alone purchase and pre-installed on new PC’s.

Windows Vista is coming in 4 different editions:

Home Basic: This looks like a real scaled down version that is stated for use in basic home needs such as emailing and surfing the internet.
Home Premium: This version looks to still be a truely a home version of the application, but has some added features including the Media Center and integration with Xbox 360, as well as enhanced desktop navigation and Tablet support.
Business: The business edition is designed for small and mid-sized organizations, and does not have the …

Keeping on track with earlier Vista release information, Microsoft has said that it’s enterprise version of the new Vista operating system will be available on November 30th to business customers along with Office 2007 and MS Exchange Server 2007. Vista is not expected to be available to the general public until early next year, but PC manufacturers should start seeing the copies of the new OS within a couple weeks to be able to start shipping to their business customers. The global launch event is scheduled to be held in New York with a number of smaller launches following in January and February in 15 different US cities.

Various reports have come out recently such as one from M&C Tech Munich stating that “Microsoft has offered to equip PC’s bought now with the new operating system called Vista under special conditions.” I’m interpreting this …

Microsoft confirmed that it is on track to deliver its new operating system, Windows Vista, for worldwide consumption to its volume license business customers in November; while worldwide general availability is expected in January. Microsoft also confirmed that it would be releasing Windows Vista in Europe and Korea on schedule, following discussions with the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

“We are excited to bring the security enhancements and innovative new features of Windows Vista to our customers and partners around the world, and we are committed to adhering to local law in every region of the world,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft.

Microsoft has agreed to make a number of changes to Windows Vista in response to guidance the company received from the European Commission. These discussions involved changes to Vista Search Features, the Microsoft Office for fixed …