Free Ferrari Laptops courtesy of Microsoft
Microsoft have reportedly given away free laptops pre-installed with Windows Vista Ultimate, to numerous bloggers whom covered the Vista production.
These laptops were state of the art, including one of AMD’s 64bit range of processors. These “gifts” were supposedly designed to allow these bloggers to test the RTM version of Vista. However, although Microsoft have stated that “you [blogger] are welcome to send the machine back to us” the bloggers whom received these fine gifts have said that they hadn’t seen such a message.
The question here is that, is it truley a kind remark on Microsoft’s part to send out such an expensive gift for somebody to “test”, or instead a gift to bribe the blogger into giving great comments regarding Windows Vista.
Think of it this way, the people who received the laptops didn’t have to do any of these:
- Install Vista
- Worry about drivers (inc. 64-bit)
- Actually purchase the software
- Worry about the system requirements
If you received Vista installed on a state-of-the-art PC/laptop and were asked to test the Vista software, you wouldn’t have any performance issues would you? Simple answer is no. Most customers don’t have $2,000+ to purchase such a laptop.
Now that explains the issues regarding the laptop, but here’s some mysterious information that should keep you busy for a while: Take a look at www.vanishingpointgame.com and you’ll see a countdown leading to the 8th January 2007. Now you’ll also see a text box asking for a “key”. Searching google will show you that each blogger who received the laptop also received a box which contained a USB disk that had 3 files on it. These are clues which are leading to something very misterious! So far, these are the keys that have been found and cyphered out:
- wh0isl0ki
- iw4nttwinyou (If you call the number given, the PIN number is 35813)
- 3scap3grav1ty
- imm0rtaliz3m3
- wh3r3t0g0
- 3akix3ozidd1b
Please let me know if you know of any more keys! Now all we can try and do is wait until the lock finally opens and shows what promotional stunt Microsoft have played on us, if thats what it is; promotional.
December 29th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
While it is a good gesture of microsoft there are 3 underlying points:
1) Test vista and give your review
2) You can keep the latop… maby a bribe to make you give a good one?
3) Vista is expensive and the only ‘good’ thing about it is the aero skin. its just xp with bloated features.
as with 64bit, what ever happened to XP’s one? oh thats right.. even current drivers are unstable! or even hard to find! so when vista 64 comes out.. how will that scale up?
I’ve been using Vista fora while and each bit i look into it makes me want to put it back on the shelf and walk away.
dx9 is the standard now.. dx10 wont be in for a while.
December 31st, 2006 at 3:23 am
TimmyJ , admit it, you haven’t actually used Vista have you?
To me Aero is the least impressive improvement to Vista, it is all the changes to do things that XP was never designed for that makes it seem worthwhile.
Vista 64 has gained more encouragement from MS with driver makers, and it shows in the default install; with more drivers expected (for 32 and 64-bit) by the time of the commercial launch.
I’ve also been using Vista for a while, and I find it hard to have reason to boot back to XP on the same system.
Vista supports both, dx9 may be standard, but there is always room for improvement.
As new graphics hardware comes out, it won’t just be DX10 that tries to take advantage of new features.
December 31st, 2006 at 10:07 am
I’ve used a BETA copy of Vista and whilst it looked very nice and appeared to have much more functionality, my sound card and network card didn’t have drivers that supported the new OS.
We’ll have to see when Vista hits retail!
December 31st, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Timmy,
Since when was it Microsoft’s job to release drivers for hardware that was developed by parties other then themselves? Seriously.
As part of my job I have been testing Vista (Several editions) through Technet and I must say I am impressed on the improvements over XP. Driver, stability and functionality wise.
January 1st, 2007 at 1:31 am
Noticed this in the source code of vanishingpointgame.com: PIN=5813
Is it just something to do with the flash or something more mysterious?
For everything else theres Mastercard
January 1st, 2007 at 1:52 am
I found something out.
Type in the key “wh3r3t0g0″. It come up with some code, put the code into Dreamweaver or another web editing program and the page will show the word “circumambulation”
Interesting
January 1st, 2007 at 10:51 am
Hidden Ability: http://www.vanishingpointgame.com/circumambulation Well Done!
January 5th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Well i could throw a work in that always leads to a heated and pointless debate… Linux… but i wont.
04:05:00:52:687 to go. Oh the excitment.
ROTFL @ Hidden Ability’s post. I enjoyed your last line!
January 5th, 2007 at 8:32 am
ps the site doesnt work in firefox 3!
January 5th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Well its like 3 more days and we will find out whats behind the site, and I’ll write up a blog report when it finally happens!
April 28th, 2007 at 11:47 am
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