Tech.Ed Australia 2010: Day 3–Closing Party [photos]
Last night the Tech.Ed 2010 closing party was hosted at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. In previous years the closing party has been held at theme parks or night clubs, this year the closing party offered a number of activities for attendees to participate in.
Activities included gaming on the Xbox, cricket, giant chess, table tennis, human fuse ball, sumo wrestling, arcade machines and laser tag. Those wanting a more relaxed evening grabbed a seat in the main arena and was entertained by comedians and ‘musical talent’.
Props to Microsoft for having so many different elements for people to the 2,700 attendees to get involved in. The underground car park was completely transformed and with great lighting, smoke machines, loud music and arcade machines, it felt like you were transported to underground japan.
The biggest criticism of the event is that Kinect wasn’t available. After being teased with Kinect during the keynote, that’s the last we seen of it for the entire conference. Last night would have been a great opportunity for attendees to get first hand experience prior to its launch in November.
Hands-on Domain app for WP7 (video) [updated]
During Tech.Ed 2010 I got hands on with the Domain WP7 application. The application has a very similar feature set to that of the iPhone version. Providing access to search on Rental or Sale properties and not only filter that list, but also to save out your shortlist of properties is a nice inclusion.
There’s the ability to view property photos in portrait or landscape, as well as book an appointment with the property manager right from within the app. Check out the video below for a hands-on demo of one of the first Australian developed applications for Windows Phone 7.
The Domain application for Windows Phone 7 will be free and available at launch.
Update
I sat down with Dave Glover from Microsoft and Matt Faries from Fairfax Digital to discuss the development of the app. Check out the interview below.
IE9 UI leaked ? What do you think ?
While Microsoft have been very quiet about the UI for IE9, it appears it may have been leaked online. While only online for a while, that snappy Microsoft blogger Mary J Foley over at ZDnet, managed to capture a screen shot of what appears to be a new UI for IE9.
The UI itself looks a little strange with the address and Bing search bar not reaching the full width of the window. It’s possible the Bing section is the Bing bar that is installed as an IE add-on as part of Windows Live Essentials and could in fact be disabled or removed. If this is the case the address bar may in fact be Chrome-esk with one location to search and directly input URL’s.. Awesome! Other than that, there’s really not a lot to go on here, smaller, cleaner metro-style icons on the top right, as well as a more prominent Back button shown in blue in the top-left.
Image credit: ZDnet
As a multi-monitor user or Chrome, its killer feature is the ability to drag tabs into their own window and view 2 sites, side-by-side. If this doesn’t make it into IE9, there’ll be a lot of upset developers who’ll likely stick with Chrome even if IE9 wins the speed race. That feature is that important. Even on single screen setups running Windows 7, it works great with aero-snap and with more of our lives being online, this will become an increasingly common use-case.
This week at Tech.Ed 2010 presenters are still using platform preview 4 of IE9 despite the beta release only being a little over 2 weeks away. It seems even Microsoft developers have to wait for September 15th to get the bits.
Performance benchmarks show IE9 performing very well in comparison to other browsers and in some case leaping ahead. The problem is that without a UI wrapped around the shell, the question remains as to wether speed gains will be reduced by the final build.
More @ All about Microsoft
Windows Home Server Vail and Aurora details
Yesterday I sat down with Rosemary Stark & Jeff Alexander from Microsoft to discuss the upcoming releases of Windows Home Server. Vail and Aurora are currently in beta, so be sure to check out the video below for all the details.
Tech.Ed Australia 2010: Day 2 – Women in IT, WP7 [photos]
Another busy day contained a number of interviews and sessions, but also a Women in IT lunch and hands on with Windows Phone 7. Check out today’s gallery below.
Hands-on Telstra One app for WP7 (updated w/interview)
This afternoon I sat down with David Powell from Telstra and Tony Wilkinson from Microsoft to discuss the Telstra One app announced in yesterday’s Tech.Ed 2010 keynote. We covered a number of topics including how the app got developed, what’s included in version 1.0 and what in store for future releases. Check out my full interview with Dave and Tony.
The Telstra One app for Windows Phone 7 includes News, Sport and Weather information. It works pretty much as expected, adhering to WP7’s design guidelines making it feel like a native app. Currently there’s no sharing of content to social networks or the ability to re-arrange tiles inside the app, but both features are on the roadmap for future builds.
All the content that is delivered via the app is unmetered for Telstra customers and when future version add the ability to live stream Bigpond content like the V8 supercars, it will also be unmetered.
Overall the app looks good, does what it says it does – sports, news, weather, Telstra says that WP7 phones sold from Telstra stores will come with the App pre-installed and the App Tile on the front page. This can be removed if the user chooses to do so.
Check out the Telstra One WP7 app in action below.
Tech.Ed Australia 2010 Opening Party [photos]
Microsoft have kicked of Tech.Ed with their annual opening party. There were plenty of Microsoft Partners on show, but one of the stranger events of the night was being told I had to delete photos of WP7. Despite US-reviews of development hardware being online for months now, apparently we couldn’t even take photos tonight. Furthermore I wasn’t able to hold the device, but was able to test multi-touch with pinch to zoom. Fortunately I’ll get a personalised demo of WP7 where there should be a good opportunity for photos / videos and a hands-on.
As for the rest of the opening party, attendees seemed to be having a good time with free beer and wine on offer as well as popcorn, giveaways, slot cars and Halo-style RC cars competition held by Gold Coast meter maids. Check out the gallery below if you couldn’t make it to the event.
