Archive for October, 2007
October 19, 2007 at 2:58 pm ·
Filed under Uncategorized, MicroLife, Video, Live Services, Demo
So… On October 10th at the Innovation Day in Utrecht, The Netherlands, I had the opportunity to demo all day long to all the people that stopped by at the Microsoft booth at the fair. Besides demos of SeaDragon, Photosynth, HD View, Home Server or Windows Mobile 6, I got another chance to play with the Roundtable a little. I did a little more than a dozen of short demos that day, but I had the most fun with Windows Live Services for Nokia devices. Yes indeederydoo! Fun on a Nokia, with Windows Live. Here’s how that goes:
There’s 4 services that are integrated in the Nokia OS, after you download the install files in the downloads folder. Watch the demo below to see how that works.
1. Live Contacts
Once you sign in for the first time your Live Contacts is auto-magically synchronized within the address book of the Nokia device. As well as names, addresses, email and the other usual stuff. Pretty unique is that the online presence and status of your contacts show up within the phone list. So now from within the device address book you can find whoever you want to communicate with and leverage the presence/status to determine the best way to reach them.
2. Windows Live Messenger
At sign-in you can change your online picture and your status. Once online you obviously can browse your messenger contacts and take part in multiple conversations as you would expect. The services integrate features from within the phone, so when you are within a conversation you can send a voice clip, file or picture - either from the gallery or snap one with the camera
3. Windows Live Hotmail
Your Hotmail gets loaded into a separate folder within the client. Because the emails are downloaded they are available when you are offline. Right now your email isn’t synchronized auto-magically, but its a simple process to goto options, select sync etc. When you are composing an email, just like messenger the phone features are integrated so that you can insert a picture, voice clip, video or other phone right into the email message.
4. Windows Live Spaces
Not surprisingly there is good Spaces support. On Nokia devices there is an application called ‘online share’ which comes with plugins for Flickr and Vox and now there is Spaces support too. There is a simple process to activate the service by adding your Live ID and once that is done the Gallery is now Live enabled. It’s super easy, select the photo you want, goto options, open online service and it will promote you to add a title and text and the the image is load up to your blog.
For screenshots of these thingies, please visit Phil Holden’s blog [you’ll see I stole borrowed most of the words above from there too. He just said it so well :-) Thanks Phil !]
And as for the demo of how this thing goes, I had the chance to meet up with Kris Hoet, whose device I borrowed to demo in Utrecht last week. I geared up the cam and let Kris have is way to show off the goodies.
Video: Windows Live Services For Nokia
Devices that are supported:
- Nokia N73, N80i, N95, N76 and the N93i (full integration)
- E90, E65 and E61i (without Spaces due to ‘No Nokia Online Share Client’)
Countries to date (more to be announced, so watch Phil’s blog):
- Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands,
Norway, Spain, U.K., Sweden, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates,
Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia
October 19, 2007 at 2:06 pm ·
Filed under PR, MicroLife, Video, Demo
At the Circle Of Media, I did a small demo for Luc Van Braekel about Microsoft’s Roundtable, the video-conferencing device. Just posting it here to keep track of it, because I’ve already needed it a few times. Thanks for taping it Luc.
Microsoft RoundTable is an advanced collaboration and conferencing device that provides meeting participants with an engaging, immersive conferencing experience. Combined with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 or Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, RoundTable provides a 360-degree view of the conference room, wideband audio, and video that tracks the flow of conversation between multiple speakers.
Roundtable info and specs can be found here [pdf, 234 Kb]
Video: Roundtable demo by Miel Van Opstal
The Circle of Media event itself went pretty well, apart from a minor issue at the beginning where there was a small problem with the sound. Luckily [or so it seemed] the live demos pretty much made up for it. I had a lot of fun, and from what I’ve heard the attendees did too. Yey. On to the next one.
October 2, 2007 at 1:26 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, MicroLife
Owkay. Been a wile, again. I’ve been to Seattle for the WWEE summit (World Wide Enthusiast Evangelists) to meet up with the colleagues and prepare for the next quarters of the fiscal year. It’s been very interesting and also very fun. There’s a bunch of pictures on Flickr if you want to check them out.
Then I’ve been travelling back and forth between the Dutch sub in Amsterdam and the Belgian sub to coordinate events and network with the right people in the right departments so I can get the things done I really want to do. And I think I’m getting there. A bit more slow then expected, but still.
So. Upcoming is an event for the Belgian sub, the Belgian blogosphere and the Belgian influencers. It is called Circle of Media, because the audience consists of journalists, bloggers and people who have some sort of channel to broadcast their experience. I’ve done my best to engage as much employees as I could to come talk on the event, hoping the program would be satisfying everyone that will attend. Let’s take a look at what will be presented:
- 2 PM : Welcome
- 2.30 : Keynote Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft Corp. + Demo Microsoft Surface (Live streaming from Switzerland)
- 3.30 : What’s new in Windows Live? by Sylvie Irzi, Country Manager OSB, Microsoft Belux & Jean-Benoit Van Bunnen, Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Belux
- 3.50 : Windows Home Server by Miel Van Opstal, Enthusiast Evangelist, Microsoft Corp.
- 4.10 : Halo 3 + Xbox Madness by David Merzel, Country Manager Xbox, Microsoft BeLux
- 4.30 : Online Gaming & Advertising by Geert Desager, Sales Manager, OSB, Microsoft BeLux
- 5.00 : Windows Mobile 6 - Windows Live Mobile and WL Mobile for Nokia devices by Kris Hoet, Consumer Marketing Manager Microsoft EMEA & Wim Van Winghe, Windows Client Manager, Microsoft BeLux
- 5.20 : Walking dinner / fun with gadgets / deep dive talks with speakers
During and after the dinner, there is time for networking with the other attendees and the speakers. We’re fixing 5 Arcade consoles so everyone who wants to can try out Halo 3. There’s also going to be RoundTable, a pretty cool conferencing device AND we’re getting things ready to setup a HomeServer/MediaCenter/XBox360 demo so you can explore the possibilities of all these things working together.
Mmmk. That’s about it for now. Tomorrow I’ll be in Amsterdam again to get a few things sorted out for some pretty awesome events there. I’ll write about that really soon.
