Archive for Buzz
June 12, 2008 at 12:55 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, Technology, Digital Life
Harrah’s Entertainment and Microsoft are unveiling a new interactive entertainment experience with the deployment of six Microsoft Surface units at the iBar in Las Vegas’ Rio Hotel and Casino.
Guests in the iBar will be able to play games, order customized drinks for themselves (or that special someone across the room) and send photos and messages to each other via strategically placed video cameras that can be controlled by the Surface units.
The iBar Microsoft Surface units will feature eight brand new interactive applications:
• Flirt Vegas style by adding a hip ultralounge vibe to the flirting experience. This application allows guests to create an exciting new way to chat and meet people from one Surface to another. Strategically placed video cameras at each Surface add even more energy to the action, allowing guests to interact with old friends, flirt with new acquaintances, and take and send photos across the lounge.
• Mixologists are inspired to create and order their own signature cocktails for themselves or to send to that special someone across the room using Surface and Harrah’s intuitive food and beverage application.
• Hip-notic describes how guests will feel when kicking back to find and view the latest and most popular online videos with their friends on Surface.
• Head Games are taken to a whole new level with Harrah’s creative suite of play-for-fun games. With the unique Surface interface, Harrah’s adds an exciting new take on some old favorites such as High Roller bowling, Dissed multiplayer pickup pinball, and a Last Call musical memory game that encourage the whole group to play together. Leaderboards add excitement as guests compete with one another to see who can climb to the top of the scoreboard. In addition to Harrah’s unique applications and play-for-fun games, the Surface units also feature a photos application and a virtual concierge application developed by Microsoft that Harrah’s customized for its environment.
• See and Be Scene is what guests can do as they tour all of Harrah’s Vegas properties and explore attractions in Vegas without leaving their seat at the iBar.
• Virtual Vegas aptly describes how guests will take a virtual walk down the Las Vegas strip on Surface, letting their fingers be the guide. Guests will be able to get information on the latest events and attractions at all Harrah’s properties throughout Vegas.
Thanks for the heads up, Nic.
February 29, 2008 at 2:14 am ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Music, Mix Event
We already knew that Ice Cube is one hell of a cool guy. I’ve been listening to his rhymes from way back when I was still skating around and ‘chillin wit teh homies’. Ice Cube was starting a very cool Silverlight based website back in November. And apparently that worked out super fine for him. He liked it that much that he’s actually going to give a live concert, which will be streamed in Silverlight on his very own TV Network: UVNTV.
From the announcement:
On March 15th, 6 PM PST, 9PM EST, Ice Cube will do a free live concert at South by Southwest (SxSW) and that concert will be streamed live to the UVNTV.com site (Ice Cube and DJ Pooh’s new site for TV-on-the-Web) and presented via Silverlight.
Here’s the old interview with Ice Cube where he had his team working on the creation of the website:
Video: Ice Cube's UVNTV.com goes live with Microsoft Silverlight
February 26, 2008 at 9:40 am ·
Filed under Buzz, Community, Releases, Live Services
There’s a bit of a talk about that ‘wonderful Google feature’ and ‘the cool chatback tool’ which they just released. I can’t see why it’s so revolutionary and why everyone is so enthusiastic about it. It’s just a chat interface. Then the main arguement of ‘yeah but people don’t have to sign in’ doesn’t really make sense either. Windows Live Messenger offers this feature too, and anonymous chatters can use the web application as well. Before I joined Microsoft, I did use GoogleTalk too, but I got turned off about it because it jammed regularly and felt buggy (at that time). The thing I dislike the most about it is the fact that you have an automatic sign in every time you log on to the GMail site. Sometimes I want to check the mailbox without everybody knowing I’m online. And to my knowledge GMail doesn’t offer the “don’t show me online” feature. Last time I checked you couldn’t even set any of the options, you never have been able to. Imagine that would be same with Live Mail! The internet would be too small to cope with all the complaints and rants! I don’t like it when things are decided for me. I’d rather have options. That brings me to the following announcement:
“The Windows Live Messenger IM Control does NOT require the anonymous (web site visitor) to have a WLID (Windows Live ID) to chat with the semi-anonymous user (from web into their client)” said Angus. It’s an option to sign in, if they want to make themselves known, but not needed to start a chat.
As Angus Logan leaked yesterday, the cool thing about the Windows Live Messenger IM Control is that we’ll have dev tools for it available shortly. That opens up a huge range of possibilities in the very very very near future.
Stay tuned for some very exciting news about this one :)
February 7, 2008 at 3:26 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Technology, Releases
I’m happy to announce that Microsoft Research has a great new release of the InkSeine application ready for Tablet PC and UMPC devices. InkSeine is a prototype ink application designed from the ground up to have a user interface uniquely tailored to pen input. InkSeine is recommended for Windows Vista for the best experience, but will not work on Vista Home Basic, since there is no tablet pc support in that version of the OS. The public release is scheduled for February 15th, so if you’re a happy tabletter, be ready for a superb new experience :)
“InkSeine is a Tablet PC note-taking application designed and built from ground up around the pen, with the ability to easily search the web or your local computer directly from your ink. The search interface is unlike anything I’ve ever worked with in the past, with the ability to narrow or expand the results based on file type or date with a simple flick of the pen. It is such a joy to use an application where the box was built around the pen rather than making the pen fit the box. As such, InkSeine is quickly becoming my go-to application for ink note-taking.” - Dixit Rob Bushway, and I cannot put it in better words.
The team has put a demo online, which I’ll embed here below so you can have an idea of what InkSeine really does, and how easy it is to use.
Video: InkSeine from Microsoft Research - The Official Video
What’s new in this release?
- Improved Handwriting Recognition & Correction
- Titles for files & hyperlinks
- Tool Ring & Snapshot capture improvements
- Automatic hyperlinks
- Page enhancements
- Ink Cut & Paste
- Radial menus enhancements
- Customize the InkSeine user interface to your device
- Support for UMPC device resolutions (800×480 or 480×800)
- New File Type Filters
- System clipboard support
- Improved scrolling response
- Reorganized menus and simplified selection model
- InkSeine (.iks) files are now automatically indexed under Vista
- Printing & Send to OneNote smoothened
- Drag the Arc tool
- Auto Recovery updated
- Auto Update
Here’s an example of what you can do with InkSeine if you play around with it for a little while. It kinda shows a bunch of the new features already:
If you want to stay on track with the development, follow the blog of Ken Hinckley.
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.
September 13, 2007 at 2:15 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Technology, Live Services
“Windows Live Betas are services that we’re still tinkering with before we officially release them to the world (that’s what the “beta” part means). Give them a try and tell us what you love, what you hate, and what we should do differently.” It’s the batch of products that need the most feedback, so that they are adjusted to as many users as possible before their launch. There’s a dedicated site for all of the betas, and you can find it on http://get.live.com/betas/
There’s really a large group of products, begging to be tested. One of the most interesting ones I think is the Windows Live for TV (beta). Windows Live for TV Beta is a rich, graphically-driven interface designed for people who use Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Messenger, and Live Call on large-screen monitors and TVs.
Connect with friends
Browse millions of Spaces in rich 3D graphics, then contact your friends for real-time text and voice conversations.* You can even call your friends’ mobile or landline telephones by signing up with Verizon Web Calling,** all from your TV.
Notes:
- * Both parties must have compatible webcams, microphones, and speakers.
-**Requires voice calling in Windows Live Messenger Client.
The team behind WLforTV has a blog too. I snatched these images from it:
Check out the promo video:
I like this service, not because it offers new things, because it doesn’t really, but because the way the applications are bundled and displayed is more futuristic and modern. If this would turn into a touch-screen application then I think we’re pretty well on our way to the ‘interface of tomorrow’. If this would be integrated in the Surface… then boy oh boy, I really want to have this.
If you’re lucky, maybe you can still join the beta tester team :-)
September 13, 2007 at 12:18 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, Releases, Live Services
In case you haven’t noticed yet, the Windows Live team came up with yet another super cool gadget: the Windows Live Translator (beta). I’ve been using this little toy for a couple of days and I must say I’m pretty satisfied with the translations I got for the languages I needed. There’s 26 languages supported! Larry Larsen blogged about this too, and has some interesting details about the tool that I didn’t knew yet.
You’ll see an interesting side-by-side comparision between the original and the translated page and some controls to change views at the top. One of these controls will translate only the text you mouse over, or show the original text on mouse hover, which is very convenient for those who aren’t completely fluent and just need a helping hand in the translation.
In his post, Larry compares what the Google Translator came up with to the Live Translator. The difference is quite impressive. For a few more helpful tips, read his post on On10.net!
Check out the Windows Live Translator!
July 22, 2007 at 5:47 am ·
Filed under Buzz
There’s some fuzz about the fact somebody leaked from an MGX session that Microsoft is working on Windows 7. Some people think it’s a big deal, but in fact the story behind is quite easy. Internally Microsoft has always been using codenames for projects that were under development. Windows 7 is actually the following version after Vista and was previously called Vienna. For the Windows products, they’ve never used numbers until now - as opposed to Office, of which version 12 (2007) has been released.
The guy that previously ran the Office projects (Steve Synofsky) is now on the Windows project, and decided that it would be better to have product numbers instead of codenames, to avoid confusion since the codenames tend to be changed in the course of the dev track. So, Vista would’ve been version 6, and Vienna then became Windows v.7.
That’s it. Can’t really think of a reason why this would cause such a buzz.
One thing is that we will skip version 13 of Office, because 13 is an unlucky number. So the next release of Office will be Office 14 instead of Office 13.
July 6, 2007 at 3:45 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, Projects, Community, Technology
So, two days ago I gave a Popfly demo in Brussels, in the house of the future - aka ‘Living Tomorrow’. The event itself was called ‘Circle of Media’ and it’s in fact an initiative to interact with reps from interactive marketing agencies, key influencers, bloggers and journalists. The idea is to do this in an informal context to present our latest products and technologies. The event is closed by a networking moment where everyone can ask employees anything about the topics (or related products/services). As long as it’s not under NDA, we can talk about it :-)
Objectives :
- Perception change : Microsoft is an open, innovative company
- Increase our circle of influence
- NO top story nor Revenue target.
The Circle of Media intends to prepare Tomorrow
Agenda :
- Visit of the House of the Future
(Living Tomorrow sponsored by Microsoft)
- Internet Zeitgeist, Sylvie Irzi, Country manager OSB & Philippe Deltenre, Business Development Manager, OSB, Microsoft Belux
- Silverlight, Florent Pajani, Designer Marketing Manager, Microsoft EMEA & Luc Van de Velde, DPE Director, Microsoft Belux
- Popfly, Miel Van Opstal, Enthusiast evangelist, Microsoft Corp.
- Surface, Niels Famaey, Consumer Marketing Manager, Microsoft BeLux
- Drink and Barbecue
Maarten Schenk from SixApart was there too and captured my little demo. The demo is in Dutch, so I’m sorry if you can’t understand it. Should you have any questions related to PopFly, just drop ‘m in the comments and I’ll get you an answer!
Pictures are online as well - click here to check them out.
May 25, 2007 at 10:27 am ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
Today Microsoft announced its partnership with Facebook. With this new partnership, both companies will work together to empower the Facebook users to develop upon the Facebook social graph. Microsoft will distribute the Facebook Developer Toolkit. The FDT was developed by Microsoft to wrap the Facebook API into a managed component. Through this component, developers now will be able to drag ‘n drop a Facebook component onto the component tray in Visual C# Express , Visual Basic Express and Visual Web Developer (for both Whidbey and Orcas). Users will be provided all the source code, sample applications including a WPF app and detail documentation. Along with all this, developers will also have all the source code to everything.
There’s also going to be a co-branded landing page on the Facebook developer website. At this site, visitors will be able to see Microsoft Visual Studio Express and Microsoft Popfly links. Additionally, a series of new pages were developed called Showcase on the Visual Studio Express site.
Microsoft Popfly Support has been developed as well. Facebook users who have little to no development experience can create simple quick mash-ups with the Facebook block.
Facebook has 40 billion page hits a month and has an open registration (which is growing 100,000 new users a day or 3% a week). It has 24+ million active users.
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