The Microsoft team tasked with building Windows 8 has published a blog post with various user suggestions they’ve decided to implement in the OS. A big thing they’re focusing on is file management — something that isn’t usually touted as a “feature” but is important in day-to-day computer usage. One useful improvement is having the OS read the EXIF data in JPEG photos to automatically present the correct orientation.
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Fox News is reporting that HP is in talks with potential buyers of its webOS mobile operating system, which it obtained back in April 2010 after acquiring Palm for $1.2 billion. One of the potential buyers is surprising though:

Sources on the WebOS team say that HP is actively meeting with a number of interested buyers including HTC, LG, Nikon, and Amazon.

Just think: [...] a WebOS-powered camera from Nikon? That would be a Halloween treat indeed.

Nikon? Really? Why would they be looking at buying a mobile operating system? Perhaps they’re seeing that cameras are starting to feel more like computers and want to take advantage of the shift — the iPhone’s camera is certainly one that’s backed by a powerful operating system.

(via Fox News via Nikon Rumors)

The latest version of Android, called “Ice Cream Sandwich”, was unveiled by Google and Samsung in Hong Kong this morning, and they’ve focused a great deal on improving the gallery and camera aspects of the mobile OS. There is indeed built-in photo editing now, allowing users to do everything from crop and rotate to adjust levels and remove red eyes. There are also a number of Instagram-style filters that can be applied to photos. Adjustments are non-destructive and stored in a file separate from the photo being edited.

The camera has also been upgraded with zero shutter lag, touch-to-focus with exposure lock, panorama stitching, 1080p recording, and time-lapse video mode. The UI has been improved with a digital zoom slider, and many of the editing options (including red eye removal) can be used in “live view”. The war between smartphones goes on, and photography continues to be one of the main battlegrounds.

Android 4.0 Platform Highlights [Android Developers]

This past week we ran a poll asking our readers what operating system they mainly use. Here are the results:

[poll id="37"]

481 votes were for a Windows OS compared to 606 for a Mac OS. This means roughly 49% of our readers who decided to vote use Macs, while 39% use some form of Windows.

Assuming that most people who took the time to vote in our poll are fairly serious about photography (we’re a photography blog, after all), we can say this poll is a glimpse at operating system choices among photographers.

Now lets take a look at what Google Analytics tell us about the OS breakdown of our visitors:

This takes into account all of our visitors, regardless of whether or not they vote. Since this includes loyal readers as well as people who simply pass by, the average interest in photography is probably much less than those who chose to vote. Windows leads 66% to Mac’s 29%.

However, this still shows that our readers are, on average, quite different from the general population. Here’s the breakdown of OS use among the general Internet population:

Thus, Mac jumps from having a 5.9% market share in the general population to 49% among photographers. If we were a blog read only by professional photographers, I’d expect the percentage to be even higher.

Any thoughts on these statistics?

Image credit: Kick Boxing… by claudiogennari