First videos of the Zune HD posted

Gizmodo and CNET posted short videos showing Microsoft's Zune HD in action. It basically looks like a faster iPod Touch with a great OLED screen. The screen looks pretty fantastic.

Zune HD Video Hands On from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Microsoft previews Windows 7 Taskbar with Peak

One of the biggest UI improvements coming in Windows 7 is the taskbar with its new Peak feature.

[Gizmodo via Lifehacker via NeoWin]

Source: Microsoft wins Facebook bid battle

After weeks of speculation, Microsoft appears to have won a battle with Google over who would get a stake in Facebook, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Read more at webware.com

Halo 3 themed Tafiti search

Check out the Halo 3 skinned version of ‘Tafiti’, which is an experimental interface built with Silverlight on top of Live Search.
[Source: Major Nelson]

From the Tafiti FAQ:

What is Tafiti?
Tafiti, which means "do research" in Swahili, is an experimental search front-end from Microsoft, designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results. Tafiti uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search to explore the intersection of richer experiences on the Web and the increasing specialization of search.

Here's a quick video demo that I found on Youtube.

[video source: http://technomarketer.typepad.com/]

Windows Live SkyDrive (Beta)

The Windows Live SkyDrive (Beta) opened last week. Microsoft's new service gives you 500 MB of storage that you can access anytime from any PC or Mac connected to "the cloud". The service could come in handy if you travel a lot or want to share files with others. Visit their team blog for more details.

[Via Major Nelson]

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Chat it up at D5

Gizmodo has a seven-part video of Gates vs Jobs going at it in the All Things D conference. The first of seven parts is embedded below.

Watch all seven parts at gizmodo.com.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Apple, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs

Microsoft Introduces Surface Computing

After years of research and numerous tech demos, Microsoft is finally introducing their multi-touch, multi-user, object-recognition, and gestural-interaction interface technology, Surface. Surface uses digital cameras behind a DLP projection screen to recognize touch and objects. I was a bit skeptical at first, but the video at on10.net shows some interesting uses for the technology in retail environments.

Watch the video demonstration at on10.net.

EDIT: Embedded a CNET video below.

Microsoft shows its Hand Gestures

webware.com captured a video demonstration of hand-gesture recognition technology from Microsoft Research.

One of the coolest uses for this was maneuvering around Microsoft Virtual Earth using your hands. Microsoft showed off two methods, the first using a projector that gleams down on a table top. Using your hands, you can pull the map around, and zoom in and out by pinching in a similar fashion to what Apple has done with the iPhone.

Click here

Knowledge@Wharton's interview with Ray Ozzie, the Man Who Would Change Microsoft

Knowledge@Wharton posted an interview with Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's new Chief Software Architect.

At Microsoft, Ozzie has led the company's "Live" initiative, focused on supplementing Microsoft's traditional desktop applications with web-based software and services. But his mission is much broader: to make sure the company's various product groups coordinate their efforts to take advantage of what he termed -- in a now famous memo sent to Microsoft's executive staff on October 28, 2005 -- the "Internet services disruption."

Accomplishing this feat won't be easy, in part because Microsoft is facing challenges on multiple fronts -- technical, business and cultural. New cross-platform technologies threaten to establish a new layer of abstraction that could reduce the importance of the operating system as a software development platform. Emerging business models -- such as open-source software and "free" advertising-supported applications -- threaten to undermine the economic basis for Microsoft's longstanding success. And while Microsoft's size provides it with enormous resources, some wonder whether this may make it difficult for the company to remain agile enough to break from its past successes and address these new challenges.

Click here to read or listen to the interview.

Photosynth Tech Preview

Have you tried the Photosyth Tech Preview from Microsoft Live Labs yet? It's an interesting technology that I'm sure many web marketing teams will be able to put to good use in a big way.


Video: Take the Photosynth Tour

Can't Run Home Editions Of Windows Vista On Virtual Machines

Paul McDougall at Information Week is reporting that Microsoft's Vista Home Premium or Basic editions' license agreement prohibits "booting the software 'within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system'".

That means Linux aficionados or users of Apple Macs will not legally be able to use software from vendors such as Parallels or EMC's VMWare to create so-called virtual machines on their desktops to run Vista alongside their favorite OS. Windows users wanting to run Vista in a virtual machine environment for security or productivity purposes also will need either the Business or Ultimate Edition.

Read the full article at Information Week.