Like I posted about an year ago, Microsoft’s own Bill Gates had confirmed that Project Natal would be coming to Windows PCs – however he never gave even a rough time frame of when could we see it in action on our desktops, or what exactly the use cases may be. But looks like we finally have made some progress on that front as well thanks to my Manan who dug up a couple of interesting looking patents filled by Microsoft related to a Natal implementation on Windows PCs.

The patents talk about the ability to control the PC with voice and gestures being recorded by a camera system. The particular scenarios described in the patent involved the user issuing a voice command followed by a gesture as further input. For example, the user saying move or scroll followed by moving his hand in a particular direction to move or scroll the window.

Of course that is just one particular scenario and the potential uses are limitless. Another scenario Manan described involved controlling boardroom presentations by making annotations or giving demos via gestures along with realtime communication/conferencing. That’s something pretty much related to the Microsoft Office Wall prototype I also talked about last September. Maybe the project is coming out of the research and prototyping stage and ready to move forward into commercial development.

Whatever the case may be, I have a hunch we would find out a lot more about this during the summers while counting down to the launch of Project Natal for the Xbox 360. Hit up the source link to read more about the patent fillings and a lot more illustrations demonstrating the concept.

• Purchase Office 2007—Customer buys qualifying Office 2007 product (with or without a new PC) from an authorized reseller between March 5 – September 30, 2010.
• Install and Activate Office 2007—Customer installs and activates Office 2007 by September 30,2010.
• Download Office 2010—Customer simply downloads Office 2010 for free when Office 2010 is available, or orders a DVD for a fee. Customer must request upgrade by October 31, 2010.

The following versions of Office 2007 are eligible for the upgrade:

Note that you must buy Office 2007 from an authorized retailer or get it preinstalled in a new PC during the above timeframe. Plus you would have to request your free upgrade before October 31, 2010.

Office 2010 RC (release candidate) is now available for download for all the participants of the technical beta program. Promotions like these are nothing new for Microsoft, and Windows products usually get a similar upgrade path whenever a new version is about to be released. Checkout our Office 2010 Launch Center for more news and feature updates on Office 2010.

[via Neowin]

The build number for the release is 14.0.4734.1000 which is slightly newer build compared to the recently leaked 14.0.4730.1000 Escrow build by WZor. If Microsoft follows is recent public testing strategy, then the build might be released for public download and for MSDN and Technet subscribers in a few weeks, much like the Office 2010 Beta build.

Office 2010 Beta builds have been leaked for download a couple of times and we also have seen the screenshots of the build via WZor. Office 2010 is expected to hit RTM sometime in March, making it ready for the expected June 2010 public release. Microsoft has also announced a Free Upgrade program for Office 2007 customers.

We’ll post the changes and additions to the new Release Candidate once we get access to download the build our self.

[via Neowin]

Update: Office 2010 RC (Release Candidate) is now available for download.

It did take Microsoft a while but they have finally released Office 2010 Beta for public download – after several leaks of course. Unlike the Office 2010 beta Technical Preview however, the public download build is newer than the leaked builds.

Just head on over to Office 2010 Beta center and sign up for the public beta. Alternatively, you can also download it via MSDN or TechNet if you are a subscriber. By the way, the Multi Access Keys are public, meaning that you can share your Office 2010 download keys with your friends – of course they would need the same Office 2010 beta build to use them.

The build number is Office 2010 beta 14.0.4536.1000, And in case you are wondering, here’s what’s new in Office 2010.

You might be wondering why I’m posting so much Microsoft stuff lately. It primarily because they’re coming up with so much innovation this year that its really hard to pass up on anything. And if they’re able to market even half of these research projects, we’d be well on our way into the digital interactive world we saw in futuristic movies like Minority Report.

Long Zheng originally shared this video on his blog but I had some issues streaming it so I downloaded and uploaded it to YouTube. The Video shows off a prototype of a futuristic wall we can have in our homes and offices. It uses technologies like interactive wall displays, Microsoft Surface and Project Natal.

You can interact with objects on screen via the Surface table or with your voice and gestures. The system also has a digital assistant which features voice recognition and advanced A.I., something which was also demoed in the Milo demo for Natal. I guess Microsoft were really serious when they said Natal would also be available for the PC. You can also hold up objects to the system and have them automatically scanned.

Another useful feature is interactive collaboration with coworkers around the world, plus Bing Maps 3D and Virtual Earth integration. You can actually view 3D models of places which change perspective as you move in front of them. Technologies like Microsoft Photosynth can be of use here as well.

The video clearly shows that the possibilities are endless and we already have the technology to make this happen, which includes OLEDs, Natal and Surface. Here is an older video which shows off Microsoft’s perspective of 2019. See how much of this tech can you relate to in there.

Office.com would be home to the upcoming Office Web Apps as well as other new Office 2010 online collaboration features – one of which is a Shared Calendar. I was able to sign up for an Office.com account from within outlook and publish my Calendar online for my friends and colleagues to see, though I wasn’t able to actually view the calendar most probably because I didn’t really have access to those features.

Still it was good to see that UI elements for the new service are already in place for the service, which I guess will be open for testing along with the official Office 2010 Beta later this year. Until then I’ll keep on posting about other new features in Office 2010 so make sure you stick around.

Update: Office 2010 Beta build 14.0.4536.1000 has been released for public download.

Update 2: Office 2010 RC (Release Candidate) is now available for download.

I just opened Word 2010 Technical Preview to write a report when the thought about a possible new leak crossed my mind. And a quick visit to one of the prime locations for such underground activities revealed that my gut feeling was actually true – Microsoft Office 2010 Build 4417 has been leaked into the wild.

The source of the leak can easily be traced thanks to the heavily watermarked images. While I couldn’t get my hands on the leak yet (there was no download links), the screen shots I got show some of the new additions into the Office Suite.

Most notably, the Back-Stage view has been enhanced and looks like has pretty much reached in its final form. Plus there is a new Upload Center to store and share your documents online. I’m not sure if that’s the Office Web Apps or just the Office Live Workspaces. Other additions I spotted include an improved Activation system and newer icons for all the Applications.

I’ve added a couple of screenshots below for you’re viewing pleasure. Oh and if you spot something new in the images, please do share that via the comments.

All the images are via WZOR. And sorry I won’t be providing any download links, so please don’t ask for any. I’ll have more updates once I try out the new version so make sure you subscribe via the button below.

There were rumors that Microsoft would be announcing something relating to a deal with Nokia, and as always, there were lots of speculation. Was Nokia going Windows Phone? Well that’s too good to be true. What actually happened is that Symbain would now get an official Office Mobile version.

When asked, Nokia said that they are pretty much committed to Symbian and wont be dropping it anytime soon. Though to keep our spirits up, they did mention that they would be looking forward to more exciting collaborations with the Redmond crew. Hmm now what can be more exciting? Internet Explorer instead of the crappy Nokia S60 Browser – uh second thought I just discovered a new liking for the Series 50 Browser.

[Via Microsoft PressPass]

Depending on the content of the clipboard, you are presented with a number of different advanced options for pasting content in your documents.

The options are show as small icons that appear either in the Paste drop down menu from the ribbon or in the context menu when you right click on the document.

You can choose what the default paste action would be. For example, if you have rich text on the clipboard, then your choices are Keep Source Formatting, Merge Formatting and Keep Text Only.

Keeping Source Formatting keeps the text in the same format as you copied it. Merge Formatting mixes the source formatting with your current style. For example, bolds and italics would stay the same but fonts would change. And Keep Text Only would remove all types of formatting from the copied text.

Images only have the first two options enabled, while raw data – like bitmaps have none. Nice and productive features I must say. Now I wont have to hit that Clear Formatting button every time.

I stumbled upon a rather interesting feature while messing around with the Office 2010 Technical Preview. Its called Protected View which kicks in automatically when you open a document that came from an outside source, like the Internet. A good measure I must say, which would protect your system from malicious content.

You can still view the document while in Protected View, like I was able to run the presentation in full screen. You can’t obviously edit the documents because they are locked for editing. To enable editing, you have to “indicate” that you trust the source by clicking the Enable Editing button from the info bar or the Backstage view.

I’ll continue to post more interesting stuff I find about Microsoft Office 2010 Beta. In the mean time you can read about other new features of Office 2010 that I have already posted, or subscribe to the blog for more updates.