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Microsoft is so eager to make Windows 7 available to people (probably because despite ~300 million copies of Vista in use it has a negative perception) that it’s going to give away the Windows 7 beta for free.

According to Ballmer, Windows 7 will be available to developers immediately, and to the general public on Friday, January 9. It will be a free download from Microsoft’s site. Windows 7 Beta has been out in the wild (i.e., BitTorrent) since December, but if you’ve been waiting fora legit copy before you tried it out, you won’t have to wait much longer (FYI… I’ve tried it and while the task bar is a bit disorienting at first it runs very fast in a virtual machine and looks generally to be solid for a beta release).

What’s new in Windows 7? Under the covers it’s very similar to Windows Vista. However, aside from performancing tweaking the what is at the core of Vista, modifying the task bar and giving us virtual folders there are some new additions: Digital Living Room Network Alliance (DLNA) compliance in Windows Media Player (WMP) for easier media sharing, Bitlocker to Go for encrypting USB storage devices, Direct Access for network access without VPN, and new support for sensors and devices that will enable location-aware laptops.

Bill Gates wasn’t kidding when he said Windows 7 would “be more efficient.” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDNet put together 23 real-world scenarios to see which operating system would be the quickest to complete all of the tasks. He tested the 32-bit versions of Windows 7 build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows XP SP3.

Adrian used two different test systems (listed below) and tested Windows7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP against one another. Windows7 came out the winner… and it’s still beta code.

Test Systems

• An AMD Phenom 9700 2.4GHz system fitted with an ATI Radeon 3850 and 4GB of RAM
• An Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz fitted with an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS and 1GB of RAM

Kingsley gave a 1 to the operating system that finished each test first, a 2 for second place, and a 3 for third. Windows 7 scored 25 points on both systems, placing first in 21 tests, and second in two other ones. On the AMD system, XP scored 61 points and Vista scored 52, while on the Intel system, XP scored 56 points and Vista scored 57.

View the full results of his tests over at ZDNet.

Image via venturebeat.com

Everyone has been predicting a Google OS to compete with Windows for years, yet it never managed to show up. It turns out that a Google OS is ALREADY OUT. It’s called Android. In it’s current form Android is being rolled out as a mobile phone operating system, but it turns out that’s not it’s only intended application. Google intends to expand it to be a sort of universal operating system that will span set-top boxes for televisions, mp3 players and other communication and media devices and services. The image to the right is Android running on an Asus EEEPC 1000H netbook.

So what right? I’m sure that’s not what Microsoft is thinking at this point. The price point for a netbook is pretty low already. Without having to pay for Windows (yes yes I know there are other Linux variants out there… which are ALSO cheaper) they’d be even cheaper. Since Android is designed to run on mobile phones, the footprint must be small… implying that less hardware is required to make it run. Imagine a super cheap, ultra portable computer running the same familiar OS as your phone. Now think of Chrome, Google’s web browser, and the richness it allows developers to build into the browser’s relationship with the desktop — all of this could usher in a new wave of more sophisticated web applications, furthering the distance and reliance on the traditional desktop as we know it. Before we get to ahead of ourselves… don’t expect this puppy to run Photoshop, Windows and the desktop aren’t going to be dead by 2010. But Google is positioning itself to attack Microsoft head on with the combination of it’s already dominant search, applications like GMail, a designed-from-the-ground-up browser for the web 2.0 world called Chrome, and now Android.

You can read how Venturebeat got Android running on the Asus Venturebeat.com.

Mac users love Expose. DExposE2 is a clone of Mac OS X’s Expose feature for Windows XP and Vista. Aside from the basic Expose featuresDExpose2 features a handful of extra features like interactive previews, hot corners, multi-monitor support, and more. You can get DExposE2 as both a portable and installable application. Hit the portable install if you want to check it out without installing anything or if you’re sure you’ll use it hit up the full blown application.

DExposE2 can be downloaded at Devrexster.

You can also check out this video to see it in action:

Windows 7’s user interface overhaul, there’s is a lot of hype about this right now. We know what’s going to change, we know what it looks like, but there’s one important question that has not really been given much stage time: why? At PDC, one session was dedicated to just that question. Speaking was Chaitanya Sareen, part of the windows user interface team. He placed the changes in Windows 7 into context, talked about Windows’ user interface history, and explained why certain changes were made. An interesting insight into the goals of the Windows 7 interface.

Watch the video here.