Archive for May, 2008
May 19, 2008 at 10:17 am ·
Filed under MicroLife, Community, Live Services, Photography
This Saturday (the 24th of May), I’m organizing an event for amateur-photographers in downtown Amsterdam. The day starts around 12 noon with a welcome and introduction at ‘De Rode Hoed‘, a pretty classy venue naar the waterside. Around 40 photographers will be divided into 4 groups of 10, and will then board a ship that will be docked right outside the building. Right then, the challenge starts. Every group will take pictures over the course of 2 kilometers, so that in total we’ll span an 8 kilometer route from the boat. All the pictures will be collected and then stitched together using Windows Live Photo Gallery to form the world’s largest panoramic picture. The end result will be put into a DeepZoom viewer so it’ll become scrollable and zoomable and it will be sent to the Guiness Book of World Records.
The day is sponsored by Zoom.nl, Kodak, Canon and Olympus. They’ll be present to show off their latest cool gadgets and cameras, and at the end of the day some really cool prizes will be handed out in a raffle. Govert De Roos will be present during the day to guide the photographers with some tips and tricks, and he’ll host the closing keynote when everyone is back from the boat, around 5 PM. After that, there’ll be a walking dinner and a moment to network or talk to the sponsors.
If you’re an amateur photographer and would like to participate in this project, surf to the dedicated Live Space for more information (in Dutch) or send an email to photo-event@live.nl to enroll.
The event is co-hosted by the OSG and DPE department of Microsoft -The Netherlands.
May 16, 2008 at 2:28 pm ·
Filed under Releases, Live Services
Microsoft’s consumer and online division in Europe announced the official release of Messenger TV to 21 countries (Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).
With Messenger TV, we are bringing two of the most popular activities online – watching videos and chatting on IM. This new service lets you watch MSN Videos with a friend as you have live text conversations about the videos you are watching together. Similar to watching television with your friends, you can watch videos and chat about them as you both see the same video at the same time. But the best way to understand Messenger TV is to visit http://MessengerTV.msn.com or to start the activity while chatting to a friend in Windows Live Messenger. With Messenger TV, you can select any of the videos that are available from MSN Video, build your playlist, and watch the videos with a friend.
With Messenger TV, you can also:
- Blog about the videos you see and like by clicking the “Blog to Spaces” button. Clicking this opens your browser with your Windows Live Spaces blog already written, complete with a thumbnail of the video and a link to watch it so all you have to do is click “publish” from within Spaces to share the video with your friends and family who visit your Spaces site.
- Send e-mail to offline friends with links to the videos you see and like by clicking the “Email Video” button. Clicking this creates a new e-mail in your default e-mail client, such as Windows Live Mail, with a link to the video so all you have to do is click “send” to share the video with your friends and family.
- Search for other videos to watch online by entering a word or two in the “Search for videos online” box. The search results open in your browser with search results displayed on http://video.msn.com where you can continue watching videos that are found as a result of your search.
Nice little gadget to make your Live Messenger activities a bit more fun!
Check out LiveInEurope to stay on track more releases and features
May 16, 2008 at 12:54 pm ·
Filed under Video, Technology, Live Services
National Geographic Magazine is partnering with Microsoft to bring Stonehenge to life using the super cool PhotoSynth tool. The idea was to take a series of photographs and jigsaw them together in a 3D environment. Photosynth combines hundreds of high quality digital images and lets you browse them in a smooth way, so you can zoom in on details or zoom out to have a situational overview. The National Geographic Magazine team made a video about their collection and they’ve put it online on their site:
Video link
May 16, 2008 at 10:51 am ·
Filed under MicroLife, Community
There’s an initiative here at Microsoft that’s called ‘Give’. I wasn’t really aware of it until recently when disaster struck China and Myanmar. Here’s how it works: Microsoft partners with a variety of international organizations that support relief efforts, including The American Red Cross, CARE, MercyCorps - US, Save the Children, NetHope and World Vision. If you’re based in the US, you can donate to these or any qualifying organization via Give (internal site) and Microsoft will match your donation. If you’re based in China, Microsoft China will match earthquake relief donations made through a specially created site. If you’re based outside the US and China, you can go directly to the organization’s website to make donations.
Microsoft is aiding the various response efforts in China and Myanmar with technical resources, corporate donations and volunteer support. Our disaster response team is working with subsidiary teams in China and Thailand to help where it’s most needed, while Microsoft.com and MSN are highlighting ways the public can help. In addition, employees in many Microsoft subsidiaries have been working non-stop to support relief efforts. The Chinese Microsoft Employees (CHIME) Community has reached out to relief organizations in China and created an internal website with additional information.
A few things then became clear to me. We have our own disaster response team, which is - to say the least - pretty wow. And there’s a lot of social efforts within the company amongst the employees of all countries to contribute in any way they can, which I find really cool too. The Citizenship Program, as it is called, helps a load of organizations take advantage of tools, technology and resources that enable them to respond effectively when disasters occur.
I admit, things like these make me proud to be part of this company.
May 15, 2008 at 12:31 pm ·
Filed under Video, Digital Life
Even though internally we use another version of this clip, this is the clip I show at events whenever I need to show something about ‘digital lifestyle’. I was a bit surprized to find it on MSN Soapbox and YouTube, but since it’s out there, I’ll post it here as well. In the clip, we follow ’some guy’ who’s on his way to a party. What we see is a bunch of services and products working together to help him out. The point is that we do have a load of cool apps and services that make sense, and that we try very hard to make them work together. And if they do, it’s great fun. :)
The song in the catchy soundtrack is called “Girl From Mars”, and it is covered by a band named Magneta Lane. The original song was released in 1995 by a band named Ash from their album named “1977″. Enjoy.
May 15, 2008 at 10:20 am ·
Filed under Technology, Releases
It’s here! All yours to enjoy and totally free. I’ve made a demo about it, but it’s taking aaaages to upload and so after 3 attempts, I’ve decided to use Keith’s wonderful demo instead. It’s even better than mine, so turns out even better for you readers as well :) Keith points out most of the goodies in the little app, and the most coolest part of it is indeed the fact that the planets keep revolving, true to their behavior in real life. Check it out:
Go download WorldWide Telescope
May 9, 2008 at 12:50 pm ·
Filed under Video, Fun
Yes, it’s Friday, it’s sunny outside and it’s time to glance back at a cool Microsoft clip from a few years ago. This one is called “Extreme Makeover: Server Room Edition” and it’s about Phil. It’s ALL about Phil. Quote: “Phil began his IT career with just one NT Server that we, of course, just destroyed.” :)
May 9, 2008 at 8:56 am ·
Filed under Technology, Releases
As announced on November 13th last year, the guys from the Microsoft Office team released a plug to help people with a handicap ‘read’ Word documents. It’s a simple software add-in for MS Office that converts text documents from Word into audio files, so people with a reading disability (or blind people) can still ‘know’ what’s in the document.
The add-in appears in the menu and shows as “Save As DAISY” (image below), just like when you’d save for an older version of MS Office, or in a different format. The plugin has been created together with Sonata Software and DAISY (which is an abbreviation for Digital Accessible Information System). The software allows you to save Open XML-based text documents as DAISY XML, which can then be converted to the DAISY Talking Book format (DTB). However, this last bit does require an extra bit of software called Pipeline, and is not included in the plug. As shown below, the plug is compatible with Microsoft Word 2007, Word 2003 and Word XP. I’ve experienced that during the install, the loader bar does not make progress very fast, and then jumps almost straight to the end. Might be because my demo laptop is pretty full already, but it’s just so you know. :)
The cool part about a DTB book is that the audio file encloses part of, or the entire source text plus a joint file that makes sure the text lights up as it is being read. Nice job!
Links:
Announcement Press Release
Download the plug
DAISY Pipeline (updated on May 7th)
MS Presspass: DAISY Virtual Pressroom
May 9, 2008 at 8:22 am ·
Filed under Fun, WoW
Bert Simons has upped the ante in the field of paper craft. Seriously. I remember when I used to fumble around with my little Origami books, folding swans and other cute animals. It always took so much time. Then yesterday I saw an email fly by on an internal alias about this guy in the Netherlands who makes 3 dimensional pseudo realistic paper portraits and sculptures, and all I could say was WOW! This is waaaay cooler than any paper art I’ve seen so far. Check out his site, and try the DIY thingy. Might take a couple of hours to finish it though. :)
These are papercraft sculptures made in the same way as the familiar papercraft houses and animals. Bert Simons rules.
May 6, 2008 at 3:01 pm ·
Filed under PR, Live Services, Photography
The script writers of CSI:NY used Photosynth in last week’s episode. That’s really cool :) Here’s how the story went and where the product has been used:
“A guidance counselor at a Manhattan prep school is murdered while the prom is taking place in the gymnasium.
Forensic scientists for the New York police attempt to recreate the crime scene by uploading hundreds of camera phone thumbnail photos snapped at the dance onto a computer.
The PC screen fills up in a concentric square pattern, revealing a wide shot of the gym at the center. Investigators can manipulate the images to show close-ups of the scene from every angle.” (Source)
Photosynth is one of my favorite tools at the moment. Pretty soon, when they release the new client, I’ll publish the demos I’ve recorded about this technology. I can’t show them yet though, so you’ll have to sit on your hunger for a couple of months. All I can say is that it’s really really awesome :)
Screenshot of CSI:NY
Link: Photosynth
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