Tuesday, May 20, 2008
#
I just read the story "Can Alex Bogusky help Microsoft Beat Apple?" in Fast Company and I can’t wait to see the fruits of the collaboration with Crispin! Over the years I have seen countless ad campaigns from Microsoft and I just did not get it… The interesting thing is Microsoft now has products in the consumer space (Zune, XBOX & Smartphones) and needs to be able to reach a totally different type of customer. BTW I recently stumbled upon this video on YouTube, it is an unofficial Zune ad, but I like the ideas behind it and I am inspired that the Zune is slowly making it into pop culture...
Friday, February 29, 2008
#
Zumobi is windows mobile application that lets you enjoy content you care about to your phone in an innovative and fun way using a 16 tile user interface that is referred to as your “zoom space”. This project first started as Xnav at Microsoft Research, by colleague of mine, John SanGiovanni who was working on Zooming User Interfaces on mobile devices. In spring of 2007 John worked with Microsoft IP Ventures and launched ZenZui, an independent company with the mission to transform the way you consume and interact web content on mobile devices.
One of the interesting things about John is his love for everything digital and his standing $100 cash reward for finding any piece of paper with John’s handwriting in his office, or on his person. To my knowledge this has only been paid out once in the 5+ years I have known John.
I am really excited to see Zumobi be available to the general public, it is a great application. Download Zumobi now and enjoy.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
#
Microsoft Research in partnership with Dr. Roy Gould, from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics demonstrated a technology preview of Worldwide Telescope (WWT). It is a program which allows you to view outer space from your computer screen. You are able to pan around the outer space and zoom in as far as the data will allow. Many of the images are from the Hubble telescope and other earth bound telescopes.
It is very cool, check out the WWT web Page at: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
#
Today the XNA Community Games Platform team announced the first feature of the coming XNA Game Studio 3.0, the ability to build games for the Zune platform. XNA Game Studio 3.0 allows all game developers to create unique and imaginative games for the entire family of Zune media devices. This feature gives game developers access to the majority of the XNA framework APIs while retaining a seamless sense of integration with the Zune media experience. Using these tools, developers will have the capability to develop once for all three platforms: the Xbox 360, Windows, and Zune. While developers can write one game and target any platform, cross-platform networking between all three platforms is not supported.
Keeping with Zune media experience, the XNA Game Studio 3.0 integration includes discoverability/access to user’s music – allowing the user to customize background soundtracks or create real-time visualizations. In addition, the XNA Community Games Platform team has announced the ability to have up multiple Zunes wirelessly engage in an ad-hoc gaming experience.
A preview release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 will be available in the Spring 2008 timeframe, with a final release scheduled for the holiday 2008 season.
Xbox LIVE Community Games is a new offering which pioneers upon the industry leading Xbox LIVE service to provide gamers an opportunity to share, peer review, download and play games created by the community, for the community. Starting with the beta launch of the service later this spring, members with an XNA Creators Club subscription will be able to submit their own game creations for self-publishing through to Xbox LIVE Marketplace via the http://creators.xna.com website. A community of subscriber peers will be given a chance to download, play and review the game and its content for appropriateness and conformance to the service’s TOS. Should it pass, the game will then get added to the global games catalog on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and available to gamers worldwide connected to Xbox LIVE.
All it takes for anyone to develop games for Xbox LIVE Community Games is to obtain the XNA Game Studio 2.0 toolset for free from http://creators.xna.com and join the XNA Creators Club for $49 USD for 4 months or $99 USD for 12 months so that users can create their dream game on Xbox 360 and submit it to Xbox LIVE Community Games. Individuals of all skill levels can participate in the making of a game for Xbox LIVE Community Games, as many games are created by teams where different members bring different skills and strengths such as game design, production, 2D or 3D art creation, sound effects, and of course, game programming. A special preview of a subset of Xbox LIVE Community Games will be made available on February 20th, 2008 after the GDC keynote announcements. These community games will be available for download from 11am PST on Feb 20th until 12:00 am PST on Feb 24th. The initial seven preview games are:
• The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai
• JelloCar
• Little Gamers
• Proximity HD
• Rocketball
• TriLinea
• Culture
Monday, January 07, 2008
#
Bill Gates did his final keynote of CES as the Chief Architect at Microsoft. This is his 11th keynote at CES and has been a leader in the industry during the first “digital decade”. During that time Microsoft has launch products like Windows 95, TabletPC, xBox, Vista, Zune & MSN Live. In typical Microsoft fashion, Bill did a spoof video on his last day at Microsoft which was hilarious (it is 5:00 minutes into the video)! Even though he is shifting his focus to his foundation, he is still believes in the magic of software and will look to software to make a difference in education and healthcare in the future. Bill talked about the “Next digital decade” and how it is all about a connected experience and how service running in the cloud will connect individual both in personal and business spaces. The areas that are going to drive the most change in the coming digital decade are:
1. High Definition experiences will be everywhere, from TV, Music, Movies, wall displays, desktops and table tops.
2. Location Based services that can customize the user experience based on where you are.
3. Natural User Interface advances is touch and speech recognition, examples are Microsoft Surface and Microsoft Sync
Bill demo’d Microsoft surface as a retail kiosk for building custom snowboards. It was an interesting demo, but not clear to me compelling enough to justify the floor space in a retail store. The other interesting announcement was the partnerships with Disney and ABC and Microsoft Xbox Live services. You will now be able to download Disney-ABC television shows from Xbox Live Marketplace where you will have access to hits like LOST, Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
#
Maybe... after going 16-0 in the regular season, they still need to win Super Bowl XLII on Sunday 2/03/08 to claim that title. But if they do, which I think will happen, the Dynasty talk will start up again too.
What a ride it has been with the Patriots for the last 6 years, Go Pats!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
#
Here we go again, this Sunday the New York Jets (3-10) are coming to New England to take on the 13-0 Patriots at Gillette Stadium. Instead of talking about football the leading story is about video cameras! The current story is about how a Jets cameraman was told to stop filming from a spot above the north end zone of Gillette Stadium during a playoff game last January. Coach, Mangini described the actions as “standard operation procedure”. Now this is a little ironic that the same Mangini started the so-called Spygate scandal.
Well, none of this is going to matter on Sunday, the Patriots are going to win their 14th game, Tom Brady is going break the single season touchdown record and New England sports fans story book year continues!
ü Red Sox World Series Champion
ü Patriots AFC East Champion
ü Celtics ???
ü Bruins ???
ü Revolution ???
Monday, October 22, 2007
#
The Red Sox won their 12th American League pennant by beating the Indians in Game 7 at Fenway Park! What a day in New England sports, the Patriots continue their dominance in the NFL and the Red Sox move on to the World Series.
The worst part about the Red Sox win is that I will miss the entire world series because I am traveling out of the country on the first day of the series and returning after it’s over L I will be following the world series from 10’s of thousands of miles away when it is happening live in my own backyard. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the world views the world series, but it won’t be anything like being in Boston.
Friday, October 19, 2007
#
I could not resist putting this up, I saw this Larry Johnson Cartoon on the WEEI website and it hit home for me! Josh Beckett continues his domination this year with 11 strikeouts in 8 innings and Manny continues to be Manny with the longest single in history but, it scored what was the winning run.
Now the table is set for Curt Schilling to add to his post season resume and keep the BoSox alive for a game 7. So as Kevin Millar said last night, it is time to “COWBOY UP Boston!”