The Call of Duty franchise from Infinity Ward has to be one of the most epic games series to come out over the last 6 years. To celebrate the release of the new Modern Warfare 2 game, The Martin Agency on behalf of Walmart has come up with the above hilarious ad spot. Cant wait to dust off my Xbox360 again and get to play this little number. The game is released on the 10th November worldwide. Preview copies my way are welcome. (hat tip: AdFreak)

For the last year I have been using a Dell M1530 XPS laptop as my main computer, meanwhile all around me my other friends have been converting to the dark side (Apple ). Above is a new promo video for windows 7 from Dell (via friend and legend Steve Clayton)

Here are a few reasons why I’m happy to stay a PC guy:

• As a chap that helps run an education company for online marketing, I feel it’s helpful in numerous ways to use the same brand of operating system that over 90% of the people that we teach use themselves.
• Windows 7 has been a pleasure to use for the last 4-5 months even in release candidate version. It’s much faster than Vista and in my experience XP, and even some friends Mac’s, its easy to use, visually nice, and works with all my numerous random bits of software.
• Microsoft have now finally released a fantastic free antivirus software suite called “Microsoft Security Essentials”. Have been using it now for a few months and its the least intrusive (both notification wise and processing power wise)  anti virus software I have used.
• Great software, mostly free such as Windows Live Writer (for blogging), Photosynth, Silverlight, Microsoft Tags, and Live Mesh, inspire me and give me great hope for an even brighter future for the company.

Feel free to disagree but I’m one happy PC.

This is the first in a line of soon to be released ads for Windows 7 by everyone’s favourite ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Windows 7 is due for release on October 22nd and the above spot is due to air in the USA later tonight during CW’s prime-time premiere of "Vampire Diaries”. Windows 7 has already been received very well by established on and off line media outlets. Personally I have been using it for about 4 months on my main laptop. I think they have made giant leaps forward with this new and improved OS. It boots fast, looks great, is very easy to use, and you don’t need a hugely powerful processor and lots of RAM to make it run well (I tried it on a 3 year old laptop and it worked great). For more details on Windows 7 click here. If you’re currently running Vista or XP I highly recommend the upgrade, you will love it, promise. (ad spotted via)

Loving this epic new trailer for the upcoming Halo 3 ODST game. The spot is filmed as though its a movie release, featuring real actors playing out in game action. Microsoft and Bungie partnered with ad agency TAG SF (Follow them on Twitter here) and the short was directed by Rupert Sanders with MJZ productions, the director of the award-winning original  “Halo 3” ad spot “Believe”. By the way ODST stands for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. The game is a prequel to Halo 3 and is being released on the 22nd of September.

Really enjoyed these spots for Windows Live Photo Gallery. In this ad we see a 7 year old vs a 70 year old in a timed contest to see who can perform a photo stitch and print it the fastest. Great work from Crispin Porter + Bogusky. You can also see an 8 year old vs an 80 year old and even a  9 year old vs a 90 year old. They also have some fun “I’m a PC” spots from little peeps aged 4, 5, 7 and 8 (Just click on the links to view the other ads). Click on this link to get Windows Live Photo Gallery for yourself, its free. I’m a PC too by the way.

Good to see more of that reported $100 million ad budget been used by JWT and Traffik Films. This time they are making a short movie online to help publicise the upcoming launch of the new MS Office 2010 software pack (will be avail 1st quarter 2010, beta available now). Nice cheesy work and cant wait to see how the project develops. For more details and to watch all the videos go to the new dedicated Office 2010 website here. (Found Via the legendary Steve Clayton Blog)

Love this spot that was aired on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Fans of the show were surprised when they realized that there would be an extra two minutes of their favourite show. The two minutes was brought to them by the new decision engine Bing. Bing breaks through search overload so you can get more of what you want. Like The Daily Show. Great work by Microsoft’s new agency JWT New York p.s. Microsoft thank you for Windows 7, have been using it for a couple of months and has given me no headaches, works fast, super easy to use and looks fantastic, is even making some of my Mac friends jealous! congrats guys. To read about great Microsoft innovation in plain English check out Steve Claytons blog, and if you pre-order Windows 7 now you can get it half price !

The world famous Rock Band franchise has managed to get exclusive first time ever gaming rights to the Beatles catalogue for the launch of  its new game “The Beatles RockBand” due to be released on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii on the 9th of September 2009. The above ad is one of the launch campaigns done by Passion Pictures, great work. To begin with they will be offering a limited edition game set complete with a replica Höfner bass guitar used by Sir Paul McCartney, a drum kit with black oyster pearl finish and Ludwig branded Beatles drum Kit, mic and mic stand for $249.99 or £179.00 as pictured below. You will also be able to buy replica John Lennon and George Harrison Guitars to ad on for $99, £89.99 each. If anyone from Microsoft is listening I’m keen to give it a go and have an Xbox 360 ready and waiting ! For more all the finer details go to the Beatles RockBand site. For an in game peek click here or just enjoy the pics below. Cant Wait.     

On June 3rd Microsoft’s new Bing search engine was officially fully released online. Microsoft are due to spend around $100 million on advertising this new search engine this year alone. The main difference with Bing compared to other search engines is the intuitive way that information for searches are organised. They have included ratings comparisons (for restaurant/hotel etc searches), also it will compare prices for products/flights etc even directing you to savings or telling you the best time to book flight deals. Basically the search results are generally a bit more organically clever and accurate compared to Google. The service in the USA is at present supported by relevant advertising in the side bar similar to Google, however the rest of the world seems to be ad free. Another interesting point is that Microsoft are keen to call Bing a “Decision engine” rather than a search engine. To read up more go to www.decisionengine.com or for more details on the product go to www.discoverbing.com. The only downside is that most of the great features only work well if you are in the USA (as well as the mobile search version), I’m sure in time though the rest of the world will get the same treatment. One feature I thought was very clever is show in the above picture. Bing changes the search picture background every day and displays relevant information for that picture in pop ups. The above image was displayed on D-Day, they showed location specific info relating to the D-Day landing, with links to read up more detail. All the ads have been done by JWT, not the most incredible work but I know how conservative Microsoft like to be with their adverts so good job ! To watch all the Bing ads, visit Bing’s YouTube page here.

I was watching the live Xbox E3 coverage on the Microsoft site the other night and I must say the above clip for Project Natal just blew my mind. At present its still just a prototype but this is an actual product that will be available for the Xbox360 in the not too distant future ! At E3 they demoed some examples of games and it looks like it actually works already. If they succeed Nintendo’s Wii console will look like a antique. Lets just pray Microsoft get this right as I for one cant wait to give it a go. Looks like Microsoft have been heeding Hugh MacLeod’s advise “Change the world, or go home”. Check out the below Quote from a chap some of you might know: "This is a pivotal moment that will carry with it a wave of change, the ripples of which will reach far beyond video games" STEVEN SPIELBERG For more info and some live demo videos got to http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/ Or check out all the video’s on their YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/xboxprojectnatal Also if you want to stay up to date on all the new and world changing stuff that Microsoft are getting up to go have a look at Steve Clayton’s blog, he is a great chap and its one of my personal must reads: Steve Clayton Link

Great new ad for Microsoft windows phones from Andy Lees team. Nice to see the guys making their ads a bit fun and great soundtrack from The Fratellis (Chelsea Daggers) Cant wait to see more of their upcoming Windows mobile 7 as currently I still find 6.5 a bit slow and fiddly to take full advantage of, here’s hoping that they can release it before the year end ! (Hat Tip to Microsoft’s Steve Clayton for the above find)

I was born in the 80’s and I think one thing that has remained a constant in my life is the huge leaps in tech innovation that seem to happen every month.

I can remember clearly been taught when I was 7 about basic programming on BBC computers (I recall we made a game so probably not surprising I remember it), I then remember learning how to boot up programmes with DOS, then windows, and now my mobile phone can do it all and more!.

Its the same story you hear every day from friends: “But how can my new laptop be out of date? I only bought it 6 months ago!”. Well now Microsoft have shown us the above video on what they are working on for circa 2019 just to show us how out of date we will be soon. I must say my initial thought was “Holly ***t !”.

Everything shown is Microsoft’s inspirational view of what they are working towards, based on research and tech exploration from within Microsoft and their partners. Basically this is stuff we will see in some guise or another in the near future.

All the products shown are designed to improve productivity for businesses and individuals.

I personally cant wait to be able to carry around just one card that can be my everything from a wallet to a phone and in between. I also would love the huge touch video wall in my sitting room for work, video and catching up with friends (imagine the innovative parties you could have!).

The Video was first shown at the Wharton Business Technology Conference by Microsoft’s Stephen Elop a few days ago.

For more info go to Steve Clayton’s Blog from Microsoft. He’s a great chap to follow and has all the links to the full video and presentation as well as all the latest updates from Microsoft in plain English.