The current state of Windows 7
It’s been around a year since the launch of Windows 7, so in the final interview from Tech.Ed last week, I discuss the current state of Windows 7. In an interview with Moragh Blyth and Michael Niehaus from Microsoft we discuss Win7 Service Pack 1, business adoption and a whole lot more.
Check out the 11 minute video below.
Sydney chicks get to play Kinect tomorrow
Sorry guys, your out of luck, geek chicks its your lucky day. Xbox Australia just posted a deliciously inviting tease, an offer to the ladies of Sydney to get hands on with Kinect.
Sydney area ladies (and only ladies—sorry dudes) if you’re free tomorrow arvo and want to have a go at Kinect, @ me for details! –jinx
This comes only days after Tech.Ed attendees were disappointed they missed out on a chance to have a go at the latest in Xbox tech. Specific details of the event are being kept quiet, if you want in, @reply Jinx at Xbox Australia on twitter for more info.
Update
Looks like the boys aren’t happy with another post from XboxAustralia
Sorry guys, there will be times for you too. this happens to be at a ladies-only event. Send the lady in your life to spy! – jinx
Since I won’t be in Sydney tomorrow and don’t have a vagina, I’m after ladies who do get hands on with Kinect and get photos. Please send them to jason@techAU.tv and I’ll post with credit. Extra points if you can score video.
Tech.Ed 2010 – Microsoft’s Cloud
One of Microsoft’s key strategies for the future is cloud computing not only for some personal use – skydrive, office web apps and My Phone, but also business. Their cloud platform Azure hosts services like Exchange, SharePoint, SQL to name a few. There are few companies that do things at the scale that Microsoft does, which means Azure customers have access to ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Microsoft servers.
In a pay-as-you-go model, Cloud services are particularly cost effective for start-ups that want avoid massive up front investment for server infrastructure. Also those businesses that often experience peak demands at certain times of the year. Valentine’s day for a florist is the example used during my interview with Gianpaolo Carraro & Phil Goldie from Microsoft.
Cloud services are pivotal to another key strategy from Microsoft – three screens and a cloud. This means that content delivered to your phone, desktop / laptop and you tv are all stored up in the cloud. This provides new possibilities like taking your game status from the Xbox and picking it up on your WP7 device. An interesting concept indeed, it’ll be a case of wait and see just how well Microsoft manage to execute on this vision.
Watch the interview below.
More info @ http://microsoft.com/windowsazure
Natural user interface coming to your future
This year’s keynote at Tech.Ed Australia 2010 was done by Microsoft evangelist Michael Kordahi with special guest August de los Reyes who spoke about Natural User Interfaces. To discuss this concept further I sat down with the guys to get some more information on the concept of NUI.
NUI is an evolution is design, moving past how we think about interfaces today. GUI or graphical user interfaces still require the users to learn how to interact with it. NUI is an interesting discussion with concepts that will likely shape future Microsoft products to make technology fit us more naturally. Rather than humans having to learn technology as we do today, NUI focuses on the idea that technology can integrate into our lives to the point where we don’t need to think about it. August references the example of doors with sensors that automatically open as we try and walk through.
Check out the video interview below.
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.
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