It seems that while the company was filing their submission to go public, the engineers and designers haven’t taken their foot off the pedal. Today also marks the release of an updated photo viewer. Photos posted on users walls open to a lightbox when clicked, but instead of comments (and ads) being displayed at the bottom, they are now located to the right.

Sound familiar? Yep, those social networking sluts will know that Google+ treats photos in a very similar way. The difference being that G+ photos display larger, in more a full-screen mode, but essentially there’s a strong similarity between the two.

What do you think? Like the new style, or is this yet another change users will revolt against ?

While those of us who bought the Boxee Box are used to the updated 1.5 UI for Boxee, the desktop version was forgotten about. Now months later, Boxee 1.5 for Windows, OSX and Ubuntu has been released and is available to download now.

It’s easy to see the reason behind the delay in a desktop update, with the Boxee Box providing a real revenue stream, but the desktop software is given away free. With a limited development pool, it makes business sense to focus on Boxee Box first. That said, Boxee rose to fame on the back of the desktop releases, leaving passionate fans out in the cold.

With the long delay, many users would have found local and online media playback alternatives, so it’ll be interesting to see how successful this release is. By far the biggest change is the UI update, but you can take a look at a full list of what the update includes.

More information @ Boxee

Tip: To force the Dashboard Update, try running the network connection test to Xbox Live.

Update2
Microsoft have delayed the release of the Dashboard update without explanation. It’s likely a few last minute bugs were discovered that stopped the update from rolling out.

Update
@majornelson now says everyone in Australia should have the Xbox Dashboard update at 2AM tomorrow morning (Sydney timezone)

Go turn on your Xbox 360, there may be a major update waiting for you. The new Xbox 360 Dashboard is being rolled out today, the update adds a number of important new features including voice controls and applications, as well as a new Metro-style UI. Australian voice control has been missing since the launch of Kinect but is finally delivered in this update.

An increasing number titles are being released with voice capabilities exacerbating the delayed launch of Xbox voice controls in Australia. Strangely voice has been active in Kinect Labs and has worked well for months. The December 2011 Dashboard update bring Xbox-wide voice controls, meaning you can search for content by using commands like “Xbox Bing {movie title}”. The voice system is initiated by saying the word “Xbox” a list of possible commands is then displayed on each tile on the screen as well as common system functions at the bottom.

When you consider the challenges for Kinect, room acoustics, environmental noises and background conversations, it’s impressive how accurate it is. There’s also no training time like you may be used to with desktop voice systems like that of Dragon Dictate or even Microsoft’s own Windows 7 voice support. By limiting the list of possible commands, Kinect has a much easier task than attempting to interpret any words spoken in the room.

Metro-style UI
By now most of us are familiar with Microsoft’s current design philosophy Metro. It’s used on Windows Phone 7, Windows 8 and now the Xbox 360. This Dashboard update continues that theme with clean crisp text, minimal content per screen and large tiles. The use of Kinect gestures to move around the UI has also been improved from what was on offer in the Zune Marketplace. Gone are the days of having to find a ridiculously precise location to the left or right of the screen. Swipes gestures now work with a much larger region, achieving a much more natural experience.

If you don’t have a Kinect connected to your Xbox 360, don’t stress, it will continue to work just fine using normal controller operations.

Profile sync
With millions of Xbox sold around the world, it’s unsurprising that many of us find ourselves at someone else’s house, only for our profile stuck at home. With the new Dashboard update, you’re profile can now live in the cloud. This means that you can log into your account on any Xbox and have your achievements, game progress, friends list all come with you. About time right? If you’re thinking that this already existing with profile pull, it didn’t. Previously you’re account could only ever live on one console, now it can live anywhere you want with a simple sign in. This is progress.

Beacons
Setting up beacons on the Xbox, allows you to keep up to date with your best gaming buddies. While you’re contact list may have grown to dozens or more, there’s likely a few select ones that you always want to know about. Beacons also work with games. Set a beacon for Forza 4 and you’ll be alerted when one of your mates is playing that game. This information was previously only available when you started a game, it would say ‘4 friends playing this game’. Beacons will notify you Xbox-wide, so no matter what app you’re currently using, you’ll be up to date.

Gallery

Xbox as the future of TV
This afternoon, Microsoft confirmed they were bringing a number of key local applications to the Xbox 360. The following apps will be available in December.

• ABC iView
• SBS ON DEMAND
• YouTube
• Daily Motion
• Crackle
• Ninemsn – Nine News, Today, Wide World of Sports, CelebrityFIX TV

While Channel 7’s catch-up service is an omission this is actually a really impressive list, just remember they won’t be available today. Until now, 3rd party apps had been limited to Facebook, Twitter and Foxtel on Xbox 360. This announcement sets the scene for future applications to be delivered to the console.

The line-up of entertainment partners internationally makes out list look sadly depressing, but at this point we’ll take what we can get. It’s clear Microsoft is now committed to working with partners to deliver 3rd party apps. These apps will fundamentally change the way users think and use the Xbox 360. While predominantly a gaming console, Microsoft continue to push the device and an entertainment hub for the living room.

With each application that enables IPTV delivery to the big screen without switching inputs, take consumers one step closer to the ideal set-top-box. Unfortunately that ideal STB isn’t likely to arrive until the Xbox 720 (or whatever the next one’s called), when it could include tuners and DVR functionality. Searching the content on your Xbox is available now, how long do you think it’ll be before the Xbox adds search for the web and competes with GoogleTV?

A history of Dashboard updates
Which one is your favourite?

Metro-style UI

XNE Update

Original blade UI

More information @ Xbox Live

Microsoft announced today that new “fully supported” Kinect hardware will be released for the Kinect for Windows commercial program – announced earlier this month – that will roll out early in the new year.

The new hardware is based on the current Xbox 360 model and features a number of improvements and adjustments to the hardware to improve PC compatibility.

“We have optimized certain hardware components and made firmware adjustments which better enable PC-centric scenarios. Coupled with the numerous upgrades and improvements our team is making to the Software Development Kit (SDK) and runtime , the new hardware delivers features and functionality that Windows developers and Microsoft customers have been asking for.”

A few changes include:

• Shorter USB cable for better suitability across a range of different computers.
• Addition of a small dongle for compab with other USB peripherals.
• “Near Mode” via new firmware, the depth camera will be able to accurately and precisely track objects as close as 50 centimeters. Graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters. Microsoft believes that the new mode will enable a new field of “close up” applications.

Because of Microsoft’s “deep commitment” to Natural User Interface”, the corporation is adamant that licenced customers participating in Kinect for Windows will receive full and ongoing support. Customers will receive speech and human tracking updates, and other general support.

Microsoft recently announced an incubation project “Kinect Accelerator” headed by Microsoft BizSpark . Kinect Accelerator is open to developers and start-ups who have an idea to leverage the Kinect’s (Windows or Xbox) functionality. Ten developers will be chosen and flown up to Seattle, Washington, to participate n the incubation program, running from March to April. Applications close January 25th, 2012 and the project is open to all countries.

As listed on the Microsoft blog, criteria for participation includes:

• Any Kinect-enabled application on Windows or Xbox that can be a commercial business
• Manufacturing to retail, education to healthcare, art installations to gaming, social to interactive play
• Can be cloud-hosted, on any platform, but needs to be an application
• Could be one view of an application that may also have a web UI, mobile UI, etc
• Kinect-controlled applications, like what you have on your phone, but on a big screen or a computer screen
• Content you might expect to consume in your living room or in an operating room
• Your company does not necessarily need experience developing with Kinect, but the business concept does need to leverage Kinect capabilities as part of the final offering.
• Your team must also be willing to develop the technical skills required to bring your solution to a functioning prototype.

Note: This post comes from Techromp.com

If you head to Facebook right now, you may see a new feature on your Wall, sorting. After Facebook recently changed the way information on your Wall was ordered (Top stories / Highlighted stories at top), a large number of users were unhappy. This option for sorting solves that issue and essentially returns your Facebook Wall to it’s previous state.

Recent Stories First: Stories will appear in the order they were posted. Highlighted stories will be marked with a blue corner.

Highlighted Stories First: Highlighted stories you haven’t seen yet will appear at the top of your News Feed. (If you don’t see highlighted stories, it’s because there aren’t any new highlighted stories since your last visit.)

More @ Facebook.

Apple have released the first update since iPhone 5 shipped. The iOS5.0.1 update release addresses the much discussed battery life issues. It will take a few days of regular use to confirm if this is definitely solved, but Apple say it is.

Another improvement is the support for Australia voices when using dictation, that’s when you hit the microphone in the keyboard. As you can see from the screen shot below, it’s now pretty good, but not perfect. It was basically unusable before the update, so it’s a solid improvement.

Sadly there is no update to Siri, that means maps and businesses outside the US are still unavailable.

To get the update over the air, just go to Settings > General > Software Update.

Microsoft has begun rolling out their new Xbox Dashboard Update, codenamed ‘Madrid’. The update introduced the Metro UI to the Xbox 360, bringing it in line with Windows Phone and the upcoming Windows 8 release. Along with a new interface, the update also brings:

• New design with integrated Kinect voice and gesture controls  
• Facebook Sharing
• Cloud Storage for Game Saves and Xbox LIVE Profile

Last months we covered the upcoming Australian voice controls and Australian launch of Zune Music. The Aussie voice control via Kinect should arrive in this update, and remember the launch of Zune Music in Australia is scheduled for the 16th of November.

The update is restricted to a small set of beta testers who signed up at connect.microsoft.com last month. There is a Non-disclosure-agreement in place to all who were accepted into the program.

A source close to my console, says it has not yet reached all consoles. Expect this to take a while to roll out internationally. Do you know if it has landed in Australia? Leave an anonymous comment.

More @ WinRumors

It’s probably safe to say that Google Reader is the most successful RSS reader. While not exactly a mainstream service, those who do use it, tend to love it. The biggest problem with Reader is that it really hasn’t been iterated to keep it current with new competitors.

To begin, users would (and still do) visit sites each day to see what’s new. RSS introduced a mechanism to see only the latest content from the sites we love in a single list. Now, in 2011, there’s a variety of ways to get your news, including the faster Twitter and more extensively used Facebook.

Getting access to the latest news has evolved, some would say to leave RSS behind., Clicking Subscribe or Like on a company, band, movie or almost anything, will keep you up to date in a much simpler way than Google Reader ever could. It seems without innovation in this space, Google Reader missed a chance to be the destination site for all news.

When we talk about social, Google Reader has had great sharing capabilities. Adding friends would allow you to see what they are reading and discover new and exciting sites. You could also take that shared feed and send the content you like the most to a blog, social network, email – almost anywhere.

Personally I had configured http://ifttt.com to automatically post the items I shared to Twitter, taking the title and link for the tweet. Easy, simple, the click of one button. In this update to Google Reader, Google broke that functionality. The Shared button has now been removed from the bottom of each post, but hey at least they allow you to download your Shared items via a JSON Activity feed. Google says it’s the industry standard, while it may be in the future, all current services use XML as the transportable format.

While the new Google Reader is the most substantial change in years, it’s sadly not the innovation we, hardcore users were after. Google says they are removing the clutter, focusing more on the content of your feeds. While that may be part of the update, it’s clear the reason for this change was to have better integration with Google+.

It seems the left hand panel of your feeds is no longer dockable. While the default option may be to have this collapsed, there should at least be an option to enable it if you choose. Those with widescreen monitors could simply pick off individual feeds to review, now that becomes and 2-click process every time. This is a step backwards in usability.

Now for the good news.. Under View Settings you can now access View in Reader Play. This feature allows you to skim through the latest stories in your feeds, visually.

The new Google Reader is available now @ http://reader.google.com

If you’re constantly annoyed at update messages from Adobe’s Flash Player, there’s an end in sight. Flash Player 11.2 beta includes a new feature.. background updates. This means (if you choose) that Adobe will simply update Flash in the background, meaning your always up to date and avoid any of those pesky security flaws.

This background updating and hassle-free experience has been one of Google Chrome’s greatest features. Now if only Sun Microsystems would implement this with Java, we could all avoid the nearly daily updates from them.

This is clearly a new direction more and more software will move to. Users aren’t interested in maintaining a system, most just want it to work. Microsoft also use essentially the same model with automatic Windows Updates, avoiding user-interruptions. The downside of an automated system is the potential for a bad update to break the application or in this case plugin. While there’s always small issues in software, most large-scale companies use extensive testing to avoid this from occurring.

Overall I think it’s a great change in direction for Adobe and the benefits of simplicity and security, far outweigh any potential risks.

More @ Adobe Labs

This week invites went out to press for an upcoming Xbox event in Sydney on Wednesday. The event is NOT open to the general public, so don’t even try, but the good news is, Xbox Voice support in Australia will finally arrive soon. At Tech.Ed, Microsoft said voice support for the Australian accent would land before the end of the year, it looks like they will meet that deadline.

The event invitation arrived in the form of a image using the new Metro-style Xbox Dashboard UI. There’s a good chance this means Aussie voice control for Kinect will arrive when the Dashboard update does. Current indicators lead to a Novemeber release for that.

Microsoft Australia invites you to experience entertainment.

Join us as we share Microsoft’s vision for entertainment featuring natural user interfaces and the first eve Australian media preview of voice control on Kinect for xbox 360.

Guests can get hands on with Microsoft’s entertainment products, including soon to be released Xbox 360 games and applications across television, pc and phones.

At the event guests will receive a gift enabling them to experience the promise of voice control.