Archive for Development
November 28, 2008 at 4:37 am ·
Filed under MicroLife, Games, XBox 360, Community, Technology, Vista, Live Services, Digital Life, Cloud Services, Windows7, Development, IE8, Office
I’ve spent quite some time doing research and listing all the teams, services and products I try to monitor just because they’re related to the job I do at Microsoft. Being a Technology Evangelist, I think it’s really important to stay very closely on track with the things that happen in the product teams, the things they’re working on and the updates and releases they push out. Very closely related to that, I also try to monitor what lives in the communities around certain products, and what my personal Tech Gurus are thinking. That’s why I created a static page (instead of a blog post) with a collection of links to all the product pages and team blogs of all the apps and online services that really make a difference in the consumer and small business market segment. As soon as I get my OPML ready, I’ll post it on that page too, but in the mean while, feel free to explore all the technologies I’ve linked to, so you can stay in touch too with whatever you feel is worth tracking or reading.
Head over to the Products & Teams page of this blog, bookmark it and revisit it to enjoy all the goodness Microsoft’s brains make public. This is your front row ticket to the latest of the latest, the coolest of the coolest and the best of the best that’s being produced today. Enjoy!
November 21, 2008 at 3:35 pm ·
Filed under Live Services, Cloud Services, Development
Okay, this post is just for a quick reference for myself, instead of bookmarking the entire bunch of sites, I’ll just line then up here so I can access them whenever I need to. Apart from the official download page for the specific product or service, I’ll add the announcement channel of the team as well. In case you really want to monitor a certain product for a feature update, that link is always good to have.
General Channels:
Windows Live Wire
Windows Live ID
Windows Team Blog
Live Framework Blog
Products and Announcements:
November 21, 2008 at 2:05 pm ·
Filed under Technology, Live Services, Digital Life, Mobile, Cloud Services, Development
Like I said in my previous post where I lined up all the consumer focused Live Services, there is also a range of apps that target developers and partners, and provides them with a huge set of tools to enable the building of rich Web applications for the Windows Live Platform by using the library of available tools for Live Services that will allow access to one of the world’s largest Web audiences.
The Live Platform provides APIs for core Live Services, such as Windows Live Contacts, Windows Live Messenger, Live ID, Search, and Virtual Earth, so that developers can access and use these services in the applications they create.
In addition to the services mentioned in the previous part of the Live Offerings drill-down, other services that might be of special interest to partners and developers are:
Read the rest of this entry »
November 21, 2008 at 9:28 am ·
Filed under Games, Video, Technology, Fun, WoW, Development
Friends and adepts of the sci-fi movie / gutsy thriller The Cube (not the sequel because it sucked). Here is a keen futuristic looking concept game that seems to be based on the idea behind the cult movie. Although it’s not as big as the installation in the movie itself and it doesn’t count as many rooms, it’s still worth checking out. The idea is really nicely worked out, and the experience is deliverd in a pretty polished way.
levelHead is a spatial memory game by Julian Oliver, a New Zealand born artist, developer, teacher and occasional writer based in Madrid, Spain who has presented his papers and projects at many international electronic-art events and conferences since 1996.
levelHead uses a hand-held solid-plastic cube as its only interface. On-screen it appears as if each face of the cube contains a little room, each of which are logically connected by doors. In one of these rooms is a character. By tilting the cube the player controls and guides this character from room to room in an effort to find the exit.
Some doors lead nowhere and will send the character back to the room they started in, a trick designed to challenge the player’s spatial memory. Which doors belong to which rooms?
There are three cubes (levels) in total, each of which are connected by a single door. Players have the goal of moving the character from room to room, cube to cube in an attempt to find the final exit door of all three cubes. If this door is found the character will appear to leave the cube, walk across the table surface and vanish.. The game then begins again.
The game is currently considered stable, having been played by thousands of humans with vastly different brains and ways of handling the cubes. There is a source-code release intended for those willing to try to compile it and/or submit patches. As yet there is no binary executable available. In the meantime, levelHead is playable as an installation, appearing in several electronic arts events in 2008. Once levelHead is more easily installable, it is intended to be released with all levels as paper cut-outs so people can print the levels onto stiff paper, cut and fold them up to play. (some sort of DIY art)
Check out LevelHead
November 21, 2008 at 7:00 am ·
Filed under Games, Video, XBox 360, Technology, Motion, Development
Apparently, The Mill Podcast has a behind-the-scenes video online that lets you take a look in the 3D infrastructure the creators of the new XBox clip used to come up with their rather weird work of art. Like I said in the post about that commercial I don’t think this is the best work that has been put forward by the creatives that develop XBox360’s reputation and brand image, but I have to admit that this peek into the creation process is very cool. It’s nice to see how they ended up with the heavily rendered result you see online everywhere, and on TV in the US.
About The Mill: These podcasts offer an insight in to the making of some of the most challenging visual effects ads produced at the Mill. Visit www.the-mill.com to search through their archive of TV commercials to learn more.
Check out the clip
October 29, 2008 at 5:42 pm ·
Filed under Live Services, Development, IE8
Following the first and the second part of this drill-down, inevitably part three follows suit. I’ll take you on a tour through the IE8 features, with some tips and tricks on the side. This series should give you a complete overview of what’s new and why it’s cool and better. Some of the things will not be new to you if you’re already a happy user of Beta 2, other things might change the way you use IE8 and all together, if you’re a consumer still stuck on IE7, these posts should deliver enough arguments to make you consider upgrading. Whichever your interest is, enjoy the posts and if you have any questions, just post them in the comments or ping me in some other digital way.
PART 3: ENHANCING THE EXPERIENCE - Read the rest of this entry »
October 29, 2008 at 2:23 pm ·
Filed under Live Services, Development, IE8
After the first part logically comes a second, so I’ll take you on a tour through the IE8 features, with some tips and tricks on the side. This series should give you a complete overview of what’s new and why it’s cool and better. Some of the things will not be new to you if you’re already a happy user of Beta 2, other things might change the way you use IE8 and all together, if you’re a consumer still stuck on IE7, these posts should deliver enough arguments to make you consider upgrading. Whichever your interest is, enjoy the posts and if you have any questions, just post them in the comments or ping me in some other digital way.
PART 2: CUSTOMIZING - Read the rest of this entry »
October 29, 2008 at 10:59 am ·
Filed under Live Services, Development, IE8
In this post and the few next ones, I’ll take you on a tour through the IE8 features, with some tips and tricks on the side. This series should give you a complete overview of what’s new and why it’s cool and better. Some of the things will not be new to you if you’re already a happy user of Beta 2, other things might change the way you use IE8 and all together, if you’re a consumer still stuck on IE7, these posts should deliver enough arguments to make you consider upgrading. Whichever your interest is, enjoy the posts and if you have any questions, just post them in the comments or ping me in some other digital way.
PART 1: BREAKING OUT OF THE PAGE - Read the rest of this entry »
October 29, 2008 at 1:00 am ·
Filed under Games, Video, Technology, Development
Microsoft ESP is a developer-ready platform that enables the creation of powerful, affordable solutions to augment real-world training, support decisionmaking, and enable economical R&D modeling. The ESP platform engine, tools, and content are already used today in Microsoft Flight Simulator X, a popular entertainment platform for immersive simulation and visualization. ESP runs on Microsoft Windows-based PCs and supports rapid simulation development, rich extensibility, and built-in integration with industry-standard hardware devices, including joysticks, game controllers, and more. ESP models the entire world, while also allowing developers to easily add their own content, objects, scenery, simulation functionality, and scenarios to create custom training solutions.
<![CDATA[<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=2fe3fd3e-4b32-4f7b-a285-ebde846b7020" target="_new" title="Microsoft ESP">Video: Microsoft ESP</a>]]>
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