Software : Microsoft and Azul to put OpenJDK on Azure

Microsoft and Azul to put OpenJDK on Azure
Microsoft turns Windows 7 up to Internet Explorer 11
Nokia semi-solves the WP8 YouTube crisis with YouTube Upload app

Microsoft and Azul to put OpenJDK on Azure

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Microsoft Open Technologies (MOT) and Azul Systems are joining forces to develop an open source implementation of Java for use on Windows Server on the Windows Azure cloud platform.

California-based Azul Systems, which has been building Java Virtual Machines (JVM) since 2002, will take the lead on developing the open source Java Development Kit (OpenJDK) before distributing it under the GNU GPLv2 free software licence.

Microsoft will provide Java as a hosted service on the Windows Azure cloud as an alternative to Oracle's own Java offering on the platform, which has been the leading force in the field.

MOT, the software giant's department that focuses on bridging Microsoft technologies with those of other companies, said the partnership will serve the growing number of Java applications used by businesses of all sizes.

Open environment

Scott Sellers, Azul Systems president and CEO, said the initiative would provide a fully open Java environment with a choice of third party stacks for developers and applications deployed on Windows Azure.

Jean Paoli, president of MOT, added that the partnership will allow developers and IT professionals to make sure that mission critical apps can deploy and run smoothly on Windows Azure in an open source Java environment.

Azul said the new offering will be available to developers later this year.

Microsoft turns Windows 7 up to Internet Explorer 11

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Microsoft made its first Internet Explorer 11 developer preview for Windows 7 available today in an effort to bring its previous operating system's browser up to speed with Windows 8.1.

Making the jump from IE10 to IE11 is now possible without having to transition from to the newer Windows, the latter of which comes packed with a similar Internet Explorer 11 browser.

"IE11 for Windows 7 [has] all of the performance, security, and under-the-hood changes that enable a compatible web experience," said Microsoft in an official blog post.

"Browsing feels fast, fluid and perfect for touch with many tabs, richer suggestions, organized favorites and side-by-side experiences for comparing sites."

That speed boost is partially attributed to IE11 being the first browser to natively decode JPG images in real-time and render text on the GPU, allowing pages to load faster and use less memory.

IE11 Test Drive

As we saw in the Windows 8.1 preview, Internet Explorer 11 is also the first browser to include the W3C Resource Priorities standard, which lets developers load the most important parts of a page first.

Microsoft is also getting out in front of page loads times by including HTML5 link prefetching and pre-rendering support. That way developers can help the browser anticipate where you'll go next.

IE11 brings together the use of accelerated HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, and it can all be demoed by developers on Microsoft's new IE Test Drive site.

"You can experience IE11's leading performance first hand with new demos on the IE Test Drive site," encouraged Microsoft.

"[It has] examples of real world website patterns for graphically rich, interactive, and 3D experiences such as Levitation and Lawnmark."

The road to 700 million Windows users

Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 is still a developer preview and doesn't contain everything found in the Microsoft's newer Windows 8.1 operating system.

As expected, it's missing the "Metro" look and feel that made its debut with Windows 8 and has been refined in W8.1.

This specific developer preview is missing cryptography and adaptive bitrate support, noticed Paul Thurrott, so watching a Netflix movie without a plug-in is a no go on W7 despite the fact that it works on W8.1.

Internet Explorer 11 is faster, supports the necessary standards Microsoft refused to back in the past like WebGL, and is more developer-friendly thanks to redesigned F12 tools.

The IE11 developer preview for Windows 7 puts the previously maligned browser in the hands of testers for now, and on the road to the 700 million people that Microsoft touts as "Windows users."

Read why Microsoft finally decided to put WebGL into Internet Explorer 11.

Nokia semi-solves the WP8 YouTube crisis with YouTube Upload app

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Nokia introduced its own Nokia Lumia YouTube app, the aptly named YouTube Upload, to the Windows Phone Store this month.

There's been something of a YouTube crisis on Windows Phone 8 ever since Microsoft began pointing fingers at Google at the beginning of the year.

Since then, Microsoft and Google introducer a stock YouTube app for WP8, but with one fatal flaw: it lacked the ability to upload videos to YouTube.

Well, WP8 users won't have that problem anymore - as long as they've got a Nokia Lumia phone.

Selective problem solving

That's the luxury of a phone maker solving an app deficit by itself: It gets to decide what devices are home to the solution.

TechRadar asked Microsoft to clarify whether uploading functionality will ever come to its stock YouTube app on Windows Phone 8, but a company spokesperson said they have nothing to share at this time.

We also asked HTC, as a phone maker that's made a number of Windows Phone 8 handsets, whether it has anything similar in the works, but so far the company has been silent.

Right now Nokia's YouTube Upload app says it's available for any Lumia device with Windows Phone 8, like the Lumia 928, but The Verge claims that as of now it only works on the Lumia 1020. That will likely change, but we've asked Nokia to confirm just in case.

YouTube has some exciting things coming up, including YouTube Geek Week - don't miss it!

Yahuui Blog

Friday, July 26, 2013