Good news for Windows 8 and Windows RT users: updates for the Mail, Calendar and People apps are being released on March 26, Microsoft announced today on its official Windows blog.

“The features that are part of this update are designed to align with the different habits people have for staying on top of their email and schedule and staying organized,” wrote Microsoft Communications Manager Brandon LeBlanc.

Specifically, the March 26 Windows upgrade for Mail will enable users to filter messages so that only unread emails show up, and to create and delete folders directly within the app.

For even more Mail organization, it’ll also be possible to select all items within a folder and either move or delete them in one fell swoop.

Composing email will get easier with tomorrow’s update thanks to Microsoft improving the “To” field, which includes a contacts drop-down the company calls “smart contact suggestions.”

Windows Mail vs Gmail

All of these Windows Mail changes are on par with what Gmail already does – except for one convenient tweak.

Drafts will automatically sit at the top of the Mail app’s inbox, ensuring that the drafts folder isn’t filled with half-finished, long-forgotten messages.

That’s great news for everyone except tricksters like former CIA Director David Petraeus and his mistress Paula Broadwell, who allegedly used the “Save as Draft” trick to skirt watchful eyes.

Maybe they can star in a future Google-made ad for the Microsoft version of getting Scroolged.

Windows Calendar, People updates

Changes to the Calendar and People are less plentiful, with the Calendar update offering some cosmetic alterations to make the app easier to read.

“Gone are the solid blocks of colors – instead, those colors are reflected in a small bar on the left of each appointment,” wrote LeBlanc.

Functionality-wise, “work week” view returns to this version of Calendar, and Microsoft added the scheduling assistant feature for business accounts that use Microsoft Exchange.

Windows Calendar users stuck in a lot of meetings will be happy to know that it’ll be possible to forward meeting invitations, send email to all attendees, choose more recurrence options, and set end dates for events.

The People app, meanwhile, will mostly improve upon navigation with things like app commands and new filters for social media networks.

Xbox Music, Bing AppEx updates too?

Mail, Calendar, and People is the focus of the March 26 Windows app update, but Microsoft may also be readying other Windows 8 and Windows RT apps.

Xbox Music and the Bing AppEx applications were also scheduled to be refreshed this month, according to an unnamed source who spoke to ZDNet.

However, with just six days left in the month, these updates may have to wait until April, even though the publication’s tipster said the Xbox Entertainment app team is “almost done.”

Either way, expect to be pinged to update Windows Mail, Calendar, and People via the Microsoft Store within the next 24 hours.

Good news for Windows 8 and Windows RT users: updates for the Mail, Calendar and People apps are being released on March 26, Microsoft announced today on its official Windows blog.

“The features that are part of this update are designed to align with the different habits people have for staying on top of their email and schedule and staying organized,” wrote Microsoft Communications Manager Brandon LeBlanc.

Specifically, the March 26 Windows upgrade for Mail will enable users to filter messages so that only unread emails show up, and to create and delete folders directly within the app.

For even more Mail organization, it’ll also be possible to select all items within a folder and either move or delete them in one fell swoop.

Composing email will get easier with tomorrow’s update thanks to Microsoft improving the “To” field, which includes a contacts drop-down the company calls “smart contact suggestions.”

Windows Mail vs Gmail

All of these Windows Mail changes are on par with what Gmail already does – except for one convenient tweak.

Drafts will automatically sit at the top of the Mail app’s inbox, ensuring that the drafts folder isn’t filled with half-finished, long-forgotten messages.

That’s great news for everyone except tricksters like former CIA Director David Petraeus and his mistress Paula Broadwell, who allegedly used the “Save as Draft” trick to skirt watchful eyes.

Maybe they can star in a future Google-made ad for the Microsoft version of getting Scroolged.

Windows Calendar, People updates

Changes to the Calendar and People are less plentiful, with the Calendar update offering some cosmetic alterations to make the app easier to read.

“Gone are the solid blocks of colors – instead, those colors are reflected in a small bar on the left of each appointment,” wrote LeBlanc.

Functionality-wise, “work week” view returns to this version of Calendar, and Microsoft added the scheduling assistant feature for business accounts that use Microsoft Exchange.

Windows Calendar users stuck in a lot of meetings will be happy to know that it’ll be possible to forward meeting invitations, send email to all attendees, choose more recurrence options, and set end dates for events.

The People app, meanwhile, will mostly improve upon navigation with things like app commands and new filters for social media networks.

Xbox Music, Bing AppEx updates too?

Mail, Calendar, and People is the focus of the March 26 Windows app update, but Microsoft may also be readying other Windows 8 and Windows RT apps.

Xbox Music and the Bing AppEx applications were also scheduled to be refreshed this month, according to an unnamed source who spoke to ZDNet.

However, with just six days left in the month, these updates may have to wait until April, even though the publication’s tipster said the Xbox Entertainment app team is “almost done.”

Either way, expect to be pinged to update Windows Mail, Calendar, and People via the Microsoft Store within the next 24 hours.

Asus is set to bundle Leap Motion‘s motion control know-how into its high-end all-in-one (AIO) PCs and notebooks this year.

The two companies have partnered to bring 3D motion control to the computing world without the need for a separate gizmo.

Some computers will be bundled with the Leap Motion gadget, but Asus is also planning some AIOs and laptops with the tech built right in – these will come later in the year and will all use the Intel Haswell platform.

Goodbye mice

Leap Motion’s 3D motion control tech can track your hand movements insanely accurately – about 200 times more accurately than the Xbox Kinect.

It can differentiate between your full hand and your 10 fingers and tracks at about 290 frames per second.

The two companies haven’t hinted at what kind of price bump the Leap Motion integration will bring to Asus’ hardware but given that the Leap Motion periphery will only set you back around $70 (£44ish), we’re hoping not too much.

Something amazing happened on Christmas Day 2007, and we don’t mean Santa getting stuck in the chimney or Gran overdoing the sherry: the BBC launched iPlayer, its on-demand internet video service.

As LoveFilm’s Simon Morris recalls, iPlayer changed the game: “They normalised the idea of catch-up TV,” he said. “The service went a long way to explaining to middle England that streaming content was normal.”

iPlayer was a hit from the very start, shifting 3.5 million programme streams and downloads in its first three weeks, and by April 2008 it accounted for one fifth of all UK internet traffic. By early 2012, 40% of online adults were using it.

Remember the launch ad?

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4

iPlayer thrived for several reasons. One, it did something useful. Two, it did it very well. Three, it’s constantly being improved – for example, it got a dramatic, social media-inspired makeover in 2010 and added links to other broadcasters’ programmes in 2011. And four, it’s constantly finding new devices to play programmes on.

The Wii, PS3 and iPhone got iPlayer in 2008, but Microsoft’s boneheaded “no free stuff for free users” policy meant the Xbox didn’t get iPlayer until 2012 – although when it finally arrived, the BBC made sure it worked with Kinect.

iPlayer came to Android in 2011, and in October of this year it completed the roll-out to the UK’s major broadcasting systems when it arrived on Sky+ and YouView.

There were iPlayers for BlackBerries and for Sonys, for smart TVs and smartphones… if it had a screen, chances are you could watch iPlayer on it – although the April 1, 2009 story announcing a special iPlayer-enabled toaster with an integrated OLED display was, of course, a hoax.

As iPlayer embraced new devices, so did we: today, just 50% of iPlayer viewing is happening on computers, down from 65% the year before and 100% on day one. Some of those views are on TVs, of course, but around one-quarter of them are on tablet and phones.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing. Over the years the iPlayer has been plagued by everything from ISP throttling and anti-DRM protests to moaning commercial rivals, although as our Dan Grabham pointed out at the time, rivals really needed to make services that weren’t rubbish instead of whingeing. Rupert Murdoch was particularly unhappy, claiming back in 2008 that iPlayer had “squashed other competition”.

For a while, there was even talk of opening up iPlayer to other broadcasters, although the BBC Trust decided that that was a really terrible idea. Rivals did eventually raise their game, although plans for the BBC and commercial broadcasters to team up as one big happy family under the Project Kangaroo banner were crushed by the Competition Commission. It has, however, gone global:

Rivals might not have liked it, but we all did: in 2010′s TechRadar awards the iPlayer team walked away with two gongs – the most essential online innovation award, and the most innovative home entertainment platform award. Perhaps that was because it enabled everyone to watch World Cup matches when they were at work.

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgO3CLVrn1U&feature=player_profilepage

One of the reasons iPlayer is so well liked is because it keeps improving. In January, BBC policy and strategy director John Tate said that the BBC shouldn’t rest on its iPlayer laurels, and it didn’t: we got the ability to pause and resume live TV in June and mobile downloads in September.

So what’s next? According to iPlayer general manager Matthew Littleford, the aim is to avoid what happened to Kodak: instead of embracing digital photography, Kodak stuck with film and let competitors kill its business.

“We can set the iPlayer up for the future or resign it to obsolescence,” Littleford said. “We are having the ‘Kodak moment’ right now; we don’t want to come up with catch-up TV and then see everyone else overtake us.” With iPlayer, it seems, we ain’t seen nothing yet.