XBOX Australia is currently running a promotion where AU Silver members can get 1 month of Xbox LIVE Gold for $1. To get it, login to your Silver account and choose the 1 month membership option.

http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/pm/goldoffer1dollar

Note that after the month it will auto-renew at standard rates, but you can of course cancel or change your renewal before then.

Offer only available to Silver Xbox LIVE members.

(via InsiderX AU)

This Friday (19th June) Microsoft is running a competition where anyone in Australia could win $10,000! The premise is that the first person to find the treasure on a specific webpage (using the provided clues) will win the $10,000, however you will only find it using the new Internet Explorer 8.

To get started, head to the website and read through the instructions. Follow tengrand_IE8 on Twitter for clues, and start searching. Clues will begin appearing on Friday, at random times throughout the day. Find the treasure, and you get $10,000, simple!

For those who develop in XNA, you will want to head to the Creators Club website and download the newest version of XNA Game Studio, XNA GS 3.1.

Please note that if you are making a game for the Community Games service, you will only be able to submit a 3.1 game from July 23rd.

If you are entering Dream Build Play, ensure you convert to 3.1 as the competition requires it.

http://creators.xna.com/en-us/news/xnagamestudio3.1

New Features in 3.1:

• Avatars
• Video Playback
• Changed Audio API (SoundEffect class changes)
• XACT3 support, including xWMA compression
• Xbox LIVE Party support

For those interested, XNA GS will support both 3.0 and 3.1, and will offer the choice to upgrade to 3.1, so you can install this, try out an upgrade or a new project with the new features, and continue working on a 3.0 project until you are ready to upgrade. (Or if you wish to release to XBLCG soon, you may wish to not upgrade, but you can still install 3.1)

Remember that before 23 July, anything you submit to peer review or play testing needs to be 3.0, however after the 23rd you can upgrade.

3.1 XBLCG games will not be available for purchase until a future Xbox LIVE update.

We’ve seen the US laptop hunter ads, and now the Windows team have brought them to Australia, and made them even better. If you listen to Nova 969 (or for our Melbourne readers, Nova 100) in the mornings from 8:30am, you will get clues to find the “Laptop Hunter” in the city. (more clues on the website)

Find the Laptop Hunter, tell them that “I can buy a great laptop for under $1300” and you will be taken on a shopping trip to find that laptop, which you then get to keep, for free!

So there are a couple more chances, this lasts until Friday 12th June, but if you are lucky, you could pick yourself up a laptop for $0.

If you live in Brisbane, then wait until next week when you can take advantage of this same promotion through Nova 1069. (16th-20th June)

The Windows team blog has just announced that Windows 7 will be available in stores beginning October 22nd 2009, and will be on MSDN in the 2nd half of July.

No details on pricing have been announced yet, however they have confirmed that OEMs and retailers will soon be able to offer a Windows 7 upgrade program for those who purchase Windows Vista before the release of Windows 7, so if you need to buy a new PC before Windows 7 is released, you might be able to get a free upgrade to a comparable version of Windows 7 using this program.

For those who are interested, Server 2008 R2 should also become available during that timeframe.

(via Windows Team Blog)

Last Wednesday saw the gathering of press, industry and faculty at the Microsoft HQ in Sydney for the Australian finals of the 2009 Imagine Cup. The Imagine Cup is a worldwide competition open to students where they compete in multiple fields to solve a specified problem. This year students could choose from one of the many UN Millennium Goals, and last Wednesday we saw the delivered solutions for the Software Design category. The winner of this event will go on to Egypt to compete in the worldwide finals and hopefully bring the cup back home for Australia. (Last year the Aussie Team SOAK won)

Wednesday night the top 5 teams, three from the University of Canberra, one from the University of Western Sydney, and one from the University of Technology Sydney.

More images and the results after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Imagine Cup AU Finals’

Right on time, the Visual Studio 2010 beta has been released to the public. You can grab the beta bits (Including the .Net Framework 4.0 beta) from http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx. There you can choose from the Professional or Team Suite beta, and find out more about the new features in 2010.

There is a nice list at the MSDN USA ISV blog that goes through the new features, and you can find some nice articles on the new Office Interop features, the Dynamic keyword, and ASP.Net 4.

Let us know what you like/dislike about the new IDE, and be sure to send feedback to Microsoft if you encounter any issues.

Happy coding!

This time around it is a pretty good deal, the Xbox Live Arcade game, Bionic Commando Rearmed is 50% off, for 400 points instead of the usual 800 points.

I will probably grab this deal myself, seems pretty good, and the demo was fun.

Remember that you have to be a gold member to see and get this deal.

Purchase and Add to download queue

Add Trial version to download queue

“Bionic Commando® Rearmed sees a return of the intense 2-D side-scrolling, shooting, and grappling action from the much-loved 1988 Bionic Commando. Bionic Commando Rearmed brings the amazing gameplay up to date with stunning new visuals, new weapons, online rankings, and a reworked musical score just for starters.”

Microsoft Press Australia is celebrating its first birthday, and are giving 50% off all of their books when you enter the discount code:

MSPRESS1

Happy Birthday Microsoft Press Australia!

If you have been interested in getting a book from MS PRESS, now is the perfect time to do so.

This offer is valid until midnight June 20th 2009.

http://www.mspress.com.au/promotion_mspress1.aspx

During the TechEd USA conference last week, the product roadmaps for Microsoft’s developer tools were announced for the coming year.

You can find the entire list here.

Some notable parts to highlight:

• Beta of VS2010 available soon.
• Office 2010 technical preview begins in July 2009, you can nominate yourself for the preview at Office 2010 the Movie.
• SQL Server R2 will get a preview before the end of 2009.

Most of them you either already have or probably won’t worry about, but check through that list to see if there is anything else that interests you. There are plenty of betas and previews coming up to get your hands on and try out for free.