Last week Microsoft announced that they will be releasing a non-commercial Kinect for Windows SDK, which will become available Spring 2011.

This SDK is being developed and released by Microsoft Research, which will be available for free, and will allow access to key components of the Kinect device — such as audio, system application programming interfaces, along with direct control of the sensor itself.

They finish off by saying “Supporting this community and enabling creativity around natural user interfaces (NUI) is important to us, and our hope is that this SDK will ignite further creativity in an already vibrant ecosystem of enthusiasts.”

Due to this being non-commercial, we won’t be seeing any game developers taking advantage of this SDK for Windows, but one would think it is only a matter of time before Microsoft releases — or allows — a commercial SDK. Though it could be entirely possible that they only want game developers to focus on using the Kinect with the Xbox 360 only, which would be no surprise.

Microsoft, as expected, released their quarterly earnings and unlike many who believed that PC sales slowed and would cause Microsoft to fall below expectations — they were wrong.

Analysts expected Microsoft to post earnings of $19.2 billion, or $0.69  per share. However, Microsoft’s revenue was $19.95 billion or $0.77 per share, with $6.63 billion of net income. The same time last year Microsoft included deferred sales of Windows 7, so without including those sales their revenue grew by 15% and their earnings per share grew 28%.

8 million Kinect’s in 60 days

In just a matter of 60 days, Microsoft sold a massive 8 million Kinect’s (133,333 per day, 5,555 an hour, 92 a minute and one per minute), thanks to these great sales the Entertainment & Devices Division grew by 55% year-over year. “The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Business Division grew by 24%, with Office 2010 being the fastest selling consumer version of Office in history, licenses sales were up 50% compared to Office 2007 sales over an equivalent time span.

300 million Windows 7 licenses sold

Microsoft also announced that they have now sold over 300 million Windows 7 licenses, meaning they are still selling 7 copies every second. So much for a slow down of PC sales, right?

Looks like Robert Scoble has some inside (and unknown) sources that Microsoft is ready to release a second wave of “mind blowing” Kinect games this April. This should be interesting and hopefully they will actually be mind blowing, I bet they will be mainly fitness and dancing games, however. Who knows, maybe there will be a Guitar Hero type game without the guitar. That would be fun, right?

Have you heard of Docs for Facebook (or Docs.com)? It seems as though yesterday they rolled out some backend updates which will improve performance and stability of the platform. Not only were backend improvements introduced, but also more languages are supported (about 30 overall) along with spell checking support in the Word Web App on docs.com. For a list of supported languages, checkout http://docs.com/A2E0.

Microsoft is now investigating Bluetooth issues on Windows Phone 7 according to WinRumors. Apparently this issue has been known by Microsoft since last November but nothing was yet done (or even confirmed by them) to try to solve the issue. “I, too, have a similar problem with a Samsung Focus and Acura MDX. Wildly varying volume levels, plus static and garbled sound. Old Samsung Blackjack II, [i]Phone 3GS, and iPhone 4 all work perfectly in the car,” according to one of the commenters on the Microsoft forums. What a way to treat your customers, Microsoft.

There are some more Internet Explorer 9 RC rumors out and about now, including ActiveX filtering according to WinRumors. This “filter will allow users to control what ActiveX elements are displayed on sites they visit,” says WinRumors. Am I missing something here? Are you not already asked to run an ActiveX control in existing versions of Internet Explorer, or am I thinking of something completely different? Also, IE9 RC is rumored to also have the option to put the tabs back under the address bar.

Surprise, surprise! Those Facebook apps that claim they can tell you who is visiting your profile or viewing photos, etc. are all lies! If you are using these fake things, be sure to stop and tell your friends as well. These apps just take your information for other purposes and, as stated, don’t do what they say they do, so who knows what else they are doing. The reason these don’t and won’t ever work: Facebook doesn’t provide any sort of API for apps to implement such things, same goes for those Dislike apps… Yeah, they don’t work because only Facebook themselves can implement such features.

There have been many people complaining about mysterious Windows Phone data usage, using data in upwards of 35-40MB a day when they have done nothing to use that much. This of course has upset many people because some only have 200MB data plans, and um, 35 x 30 = 1,050MB, I think that is a little more than 200MB, don’t you think? Well it appears Microsoft may have found the culprit, they just didn’t tell anyone, according to Paul Thurrott.

We have determined that a third-party solution commonly accessed from Windows Phones is configured in a manner that potentially cause larger than expected data downloads. We are in contact with the third party to assist them in making the necessary fixes, and are also pursuing potential workarounds to address the configuration issue in case those are needed. At this point in our investigation, we believe this is responsible for most of the reported incidents.

We are investigating additional potential root causes for the remainder of the reports. A small (low single-digit) percentage of Windows Phone customers have reported being affected.

We are continuing to investigate this issue and will update with additional information and guidance as it becomes available.

I am still confused though: third-party solution? Is this an app or what?

Apple posted blockbuster earnings for Q1 (FY2011) with $26.74 billion in revenue. Nice! Here are some sales numbers: 4.13 million Macs (mostly thanks to the new MacBook Air — gain of 23% year-over-year), 16.24 million iPhones (86% increase year-over-year), 7.33 million iPads (beating estimates by 1 million) and finally 19.74 million iPods (7% decline year-over-year, though half were iPod Touches, which cost more). Unsurprising, really.

Lastly, Microsoft will begin rolling out an Xbox LIVE Dashboard update today which re-enables the ability to boot from the disc in the drive, so you can go right to playing the game instead of going to the Dashboard first. This option (once installed) will be available under System Settings. Not only will that feature be added, but “the update is also designed to cause issues for users which altered the console’s firmware in order to circumvent the company’s anti-piracy measures for games,” says Softpedia. Also the gamercards on Xbox.com will get a little bit of an update: “We’ve updated the Gamercard look and feel a bit and removed gamerzone from the card. Other than that, the same amount of information is on the card,” according to Larry Hyrb (Xbox Live Director of Programming).

The Bing Gives campaign has been going for two months, and over that time — thanks to thousands of people — they have donated $353,583 to public schools and such, not bad.

I bet you have heard about that whole Google removing H.264 from Chrome in v10, right? Well, many people are confused as to why Google is doing it, and Ed Bott has beat the AVC/H.264 license to death and found that money cannot be the issue, royalty rates will not go up until after 2015, and even then, the license prevents the rate from going up any more than the maximum of 10%. So how much does it cost to put H.264 in a browser? That depends:

So, how much does those rights cost? Under the terms in place for 2011-2015, the royalty rates are the same regardless of whether a product is part of an OS. There’s no royalty for the first 100,000 units of a licensed product; sublicensees pay 20 cents per unit up to 5 million and 10 cents per unit above 5 million. The current agreement includes an annual limit: “The maximum annual royalty (‘cap’) for an Enterprise [is] $6.5 million per year in 2011-2015.”

– Ed Bott of ZDNet

Yes, you read that right, those licensing H.264 will only have to pay up to $6.5 million. Wow Google, how could you ever afford that? It would bankrupt them!

Steve Jobs took a medical leave starting this last weekend, so far it is unknown as to why he has left for now, but one thing is sure: Wall Street is a bit upset, with Apple shares down 2% (still bouncing around).

No surprises here: the Xbox 360 is topping both hardware and software sales. In December of 2010, Xbox 360 sales grew 42% year-over-year, something no other console accomplished. Microsoft sold 1.9 million Xbox 360′s in December alone (though Nintendo sold 2.3 million Wii’s), this made December of 2010 the biggest month for Xbox in history. As for software: $2.1 billion for the PlayStation 3, $2.6 billion for the Wii and $3 billion for the Xbox 360.

If that isn’t enough, Microsoft is warning of possible Kinect shortages because “In order to keep up with holiday demand in December for Xbox 360 and Kinect, Microsoft pulled units from its January and February production.”

Do you use OneNote? Do you have an iPhone? Well, you’re in luck, as Microsoft just released OneNote Mobile for the iPhone and get this: it is free for a limited time. Microsoft finishes off by saying: “It should be about the ideas and information, not the device, right?” Could it be coming to Android next? I guess we will see.

With the Microsoft Kinect, you no longer need a controller to play video games, as Microsoft says “You are the controller.”

Microsoft announced 10 days after the launch of the Kinect that 1 million were sold, then after another 15 days (25 total) they announced over 2.5 million Kinect’s had been sold.

Don’t worry, the sales of the Kinect have not slowed, and yesterday at CES Steve Ballmer announced that after 2 months a total of 8 million Kinect’s had been sold.

Microsoft originally said they would sell 5 million by the end of the year, but ended up selling 4 million per month.

But that’s not all, Steve Ballmer also announced that a new member joins Xbox LIVE every 2 seconds. That means every minute there are 30 new members, every hour there are 1,800 new members, every day there are 43,200 members.

“In addition, Kinect and Xbox LIVE have helped drive consumer demand for the Xbox itself. Xbox 360 has been the No. 1 selling console every month for the last six months here in the United States,” said Steve Ballmer. With Xbox 360 sales being No. 1 for the last six months, Microsoft has now sold over 50 million units worldwide.