TED Video Of WorldWide Telescope
The TED conference website has already uploaded videos of the presentations, and here’s their video of Microsoft’s presentation of the WorldWide Telescope:
(via Long Zheng)
Microsoft Announcing APIs, Silverlight Streaming and Windows Live Improvements
Microsoft is making a ton of announcements pre Mix ‘08. Let’s go through them:
The Windows Live Messenger API - releasing in beta, this lets developers build Messenger right into websites, offering most of the core Messenger features right on the page.
Silverlight Streaming has been updated, going from alpha to beta, up to 10 gigabytes of storage space and 100 megabyte file sizes. Files stream now at 1,400 kbps, with tit free as long as you use under 500,000 minutes per month. File manipulation is also improved, with the ability to use Windows Explorer, plus support for Visual Studio 2008 with Windows Live Tools for Visual Studio.
The Windows Live Contacts API allows users to use their Windows Live contact info with any site while retaining control of their information. Also, Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication allows web apps to request permission from users to access their information.
The Windows Live Photo API allows full control of photos on Live Spaces, without the need to go to the Spaces site. Third party sites can show Spaces photos, thumbnails and download links.
There are two new example Windows Live QuickApps, plus updates to Tafiti.
Microsoft Looking To Bring Surface Home
Responding to great consumer demand, Microsoft has announced it will create a version of its Surface computer for consumers. CEO Steve Ballmer says there has been “more pushback” and enough consumer interest to force Microsoft to start looking at ways to get the Surface system into people’s homes. While there isn’t a time frame, a mass-market version is now in development. Until then, you’ll have to check out surface at the various businesses that start using it when it becomes available this spring.
Harrah’s Entertainment is contemplating using Surface at its Las Vegas casinos, including Caesars Palace, to create a “virtual concierge” through which guests can reserve concert tickets, view menus at restaurants, or book spa treatments.
Other companies that have shown interest in Surface include Starwood Hotels and Restaurants and T-Mobile USA, according to Microsoft.
While consumers could use Surface as an interactive home appliance, price could scare off many potential customers from buying the device. Microsoft hasn’t disclosed pricing, but large touch-screen displays are typically expensive.
WorldWide Telescope Unveiled
Microsoft officially unveiled the WorldWide Telescope, its software that allows anyone to see, for free, the entire universe and navigate the cosmos in an exciting interface. WWT works a lot like Google Earth, just with a 3D universe spanning thousands (or many more) of light years, letting users zoom all the way into incredibly distant galaxies and view the universe in multiple wavelengths.
There isn’t much information on the official WWT site, but there are videos of some people talking about it and a short FAQ.
Here’s a video from a talk yesterday at the Computer History Museum where the speaker discusses the computing infrastructure required for WWT. Fast forward to about 1 hour 19 minutes. Be warned, the sound is awful:
This year old CNet video has two seconds of WWT footage, about 2 minutes 30 seconds in:
European Commission Fines Microsoft $1.35 Billion
The European Commission, Microsoft’s biggest thorn in its side lately, fined the company 899 million Euros, or $1.35 billion, for still not meeting their expectations in complying with 2004 penalties, the umpteenth time they’ve fined them for that reason. This brings Microsoft’s toatl fines over the last four years to 1.68 billion Euros, or just shy of $2.5 billion.
The EC keeps claiming Microsoft is ignoring sanctions, but Microsoft continues opening up more and more in an attempt to comply and stave off future fines. If they don’t think Microsoft is doing enough, fine, that’s their prerogative, but to say Microsoft is ignoring them requires, well, ignoring Microsoft’s actions the last few years. The company is really trying, and as long as it is making good faith attempts to fix these issues, it should at least merit a slightly smaller fine, say, $100 million?
After fining Microsoft 407 million euros in 2004, the Commission fined it another 280.5 million euros in July 2006 for failing to comply with the sanctions through June 21, 2006. (Reporting by David Lawsky; Editing by Dale Hudson)
Where the hell is all this money going, anyway? Shouldn’t they give the money to the companies Microsoft has supposedly wronged, instead of using it to balance their budget or something?
Windows Mobile Phones Sell 14 Million in Six Months
Microsoft announced at the Mobile World Congress that it sold 14.3 million Windows Mobile phones in the last six months, thanks to breakout hit devices from Samsung and HTC. By contrast, Apple sold 4 million iPhones in its first 6 1/2 months, and is expected to sell 8.5 million the first year, 4.5 million in the same next six months Windows Mobile expects to sell 20 million.
While this fight is far from decided, it’s curious how, on the one hand, Apple is getting outsold by Windows Mobile at least 3 to 1, and on the other hand, you’ve got Canalys claiming Apple has 28% market share to Microsoft’s 21%. Remind me to never believe a word Canalys says again (who are they, anyway?).
(via Engadget)
Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive Discontinued, Now $50
The HD format wars are over, and Sony’s Blu Ray won (if you haven’t heard from underneath that rock you apparently live under). As a result, Microsoft has announced it is ending support for the HD DVD player you could buy as an add-on for the Xbox 360, and the previously $200 player has been dropped to a close-out price of $50. Yep, $50 for a pretty good upscaling DVD player and six free movies.
If you like the movies, you’re basically paying a little over eight bucks for the disks and getting the proprietary player to watch them on for free. Which explains why there’s been a run on the little drive, leaving stock hard to come by on some online sites. Amazon’s out of the player at the moment, though a number of Amazon Marketplace merchants are selling it from $59.40, all the way up to $72.
MP3 Alarm Software For Windows Mobile
“shiv” posted a neat little piece of software for Windows Mobile devices. MP3 Alarm.NET does one thing, and does it well; it plays any MP3 or WMA file, or a Media Player playlist, at a time of your choosing, acting as an alarm clock with your favorite songs or podcasts. Download the free program from SkyDrive.
Possible Windows 7 Feature: Start Menu Programs with Extended Menus
A private Windows feedback survey sent by Microsoft included a mockup of what might be a planned feature for Windows 7, the next version of Windows, currently in development. As far as I can tell from the screenshot, programs would be able to feature their own extended menus coming out of their programs automatic placement on the Start Menu.
My best guess is that the extended menu features recent documents in the case of software like Microsoft Word, and favorite websites when dealing with Internet Explorer. If this becomes a feature, expect all software to get the option to include their recent documents in the Start Menu, or possibly other options. Looks like a cool feature, one that will hopefully make its way out in Windows 7.
Google Recommends ISO Reject Open XML
Zaheda Bhorat, Google’s manager of open source programs, is urging international delegates to vote to reject Microsoft Office 2007’s Open XML as an international standard when the ISO votes this week. Google is firmly behind ODF, the document format backed by Microsoft’s enemies at Sun and IBM, who hope to use it as a wedge against Microsoft Office’s market domination.
Google’s open-source programs manager, Zaheda Bhorat, posted a blog on Monday urging those delegates to vote against Open XML because Google believes that it is an “insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.”
Bhorat said Open XML should be subsumed into the existing standard–OpenDocument Format, or ODF–which is backed by Microsoft rivals, including Google.
…
In a document more thoroughly laying out its position on Open XML, Google says the core problem with the specification is that it’s redundant with ODF. The company also says it’s too specific to Microsoft Office and that it’s of insufficient quality.
“Submitting such a proposal makes a mockery of the standards process,” according to the Google assessment.
Microsoft Makes Big Deal With Library Of Congress
Microsoft has made a deal with the Library Of Congress, powering the Library’s new interactive materials site with its Silverlight technology, and donating a lot of technology to be used by Library visitors. Microsoft donated $3 million worth of technology, including new library and search tools, as well as Vista-powered kiosks.
Microsoft Silverlight, a graphical browser plug-in, will help power the library’s new Web site, www.myloc.gov, where users will be able to access and personalize interactive materials.
The open source community is up in arms about the proprietary nature of Silverlight, but given Microsoft’s efforts at cross-platform compatibility of Silverlight, as well as the fact that it’s only on one, highly interactive website that would have needed Flash or Silverlight anyways, it’s not that big a deal.
Microsoft May Keep Yahoo’s Sunnyvale Campus
Microsoft is saying that, assuming it wins in its bid to buy Yahoo, it will not completely uproot Yahoo from its large Sunnyvale campus. Rather, Microsoft recognizes the value Yahoo has (albeit diminished recently) as a large force in the Valley, plus Microsoft doesn’t want many valuable Yahoo employees to leave rather than relocate. Expect Sunnyvale to become Microsoft’s second most important campus in short order, and don’t be surprised if a few Windows Live teams are asked to relocate there.
Outlook Connector Adding Free Calendar Sync
LiveSide is reporting that a new version of the Outlook Connector, which allows Hotmail accounts to be used in Microsoft Outlook, will add the ability to sync with Windows Live Calendar, for free (this was previously a Premium feature). Users will be able to access and presumably edit their Live Calendars in Outlook, which is a great convenience.
I’m really excited with the work Microsoft’s put into Live Calendar, but as an Outlook user, I can’t messily go back and forth. When this new version comes out, I will finally get the best of both worlds, great desktop calendaring and great web-based calendaring. If I can sync my regular Outlook calendar to Live Calendar, I’ll be a really happy boy.
Top XNA Games Named
Microsoft has released a list of the top five XNA platform games for the PC and Xbox 360 (and, eventually, the Zune). These are the five finalists in the Dream-Build-Play competition, awarding developers who create great games for XNA.
The top five are Conquerator, a frantic real time war board game, like Risk except where your opponent is always making moves while you are trying to attack him; iSheep, where you play a dog herding sheep into a pen; Specimen, where you play a scientist armed with only some tweezers, attempting to ascertain the nature of various blob organisms; Hive, a real-time strategy game with bug coloniesyou have to coax into working for you; and Orblast, where you guide a marble through a maze and fight an enemy AI.
The Next Crackdown Revealed
Realtime Worlds, makers of 2007’s surprise hit Crackdown, have revealed the next evolution coming from the developer. APB, short for All Points Bulletin, the call police put out when tracking a criminal, is the spiritual successor to Crackdown, but rather than being a real sequel or even sharing the same world, APB is an open-world Massive Multiplayer Online game, a sort of Grand Theft Auto meets World Of Warcraft meets Counter-Strike.
The game looks exciting, with incredible character customization, great criminals versus cops/player versus player missions, dynamic matchmaking, versatile moviemaking and a fun style. I’m looking forward to seeing this when it hits store shelves, whenever that is.
Microsoft Prepping For Internet Explorer 8
The IEblog is talking about how websites can prepare for Internet Explorer 8, early betas of which should be becoming more common as this year goes by. They laid out the User-Agent string for the new browser, which will be a simple:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)
Unlike the IE7 beta, the IE8 beta versions will not have a special beta tag (the letter “b”) in the User-Agent, so that beta versions will work with websites the same as the final release. Also, the beta will ship with a new ability to “pretend” they are IE7, returning the IE7 User-Agent string just by clicking an option in the menu.
Yahoo Shareholders Sue Company For Running From Microsoft
A lot of Yahoo shareholders are angry at the company for trying to weasel out of Microsoft’s offer to buy them out for tens of billions of dollars, and have filed a lawsuit against the board of directors. The suit claims the board is breaching its duties to get the most value for investors, and that the company is pursuing “value-destructive” deals with other companies, like Google, AOL, and News Corp., that are being described by many as “poison pills”.
The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Chancery Court on Thursday by lawyers representing Detroit’s police and fire retirement system and general retirement system, as well as “all other similarly situated public shareholders.”
Live Search Adds 100 Million Searches In One Month
Windows Live Search had a good January, according to ComScore, gaining 97 million new searches from the previous month, a gain of 10.5% to 1.024 billion queries. The overall industry grew 7.9%, giving Microsoft a negligible market share gain, though it didn’t suffer a shift of nearly a point lost to Google, like Yahoo did. Ask.com and AOL enjoyed double-digit search query gains.
The full, extended search query volume chart:
(via Search Engine Watch)
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