Colinizer - tech geek inside your mind

In this series I’ve been talking about the possible strategy that Microsoft could be unleashing with Live Mesh and associated Microsoft technologies.  I’ve framed it as a trojan strategy because it is not the offering being talked about, but just like Silverlight (the trojan RIA platform onto other platforms), Live Mesh could quickly spring into something dramatic - the Microsoft ‘Live PC’ concept that I predict in the last post.

Live Mesh provides a Web-based Live Desktop which is currently just a 5GB file store with a Windows-Explorer styled web interface.  Add Windows Server 2008 Server RemoteApp into the mix, or should I say mesh, and you get the ability to run Windows anywhere you can run Remote Desktop.

Remote Desktop uses the Remote Desktop Protocol.  So for a client device to provide a virtual Windows experience it more or less just needs to support a graphic blitting display, keyboard & mouse (or similar), TCP/IP and some cryptography for security.

So how basic could such a device be?  Well that doesn’t matter because that xbox 360 is more than powerful enough and guess who sells that.  That’s right, you may already have a device in one or more rooms in your house that could be the PC of your future.  Remember that the RD protocol isn’t great for remoting intense A/V or graphics.  That’s OK, because you would play games locally using the full local power of the xbox, and Microsoft has already mastered the Xbox Live multi-player service.

So you could have a Microsoft ‘Live PC’ which you access from any Xbox without any software installation.  Xbox already does this kind of trick and even with HD video when it acts as an extender for a local Windows Media Center (running on XP Media Center or various Vista versions).

WPF makes it easier.  The RD protocol does things to optimise the transfer of the virtual desktop image on the remote physical machine.  When Xbox 360 is used as an extender it talks to the Media Center service on a local PC with a higher-than-pixel-level protocol to optimise the data.  WPF provides a high level of retained descriptive UI too.  I can see the RD protocol optimised (if it hasn’t been already) for remotely WPF applications.  Microsoft would then encourage ISV to create more WPF-based apps that would be inherently optimised for a ‘Live PC’ experience.

Let’s not forget that Windows Home Server that was quietly (relatively) released last year.  That server could start providing a LAN-based RemoteApp service for those things that can’t be run well over an Internet connection.  A virtual ‘Home Office 201x Service’ perhaps?

Arthur C Clarke has died at age 90.  He co-authored 2001: A Space Odyssey (based on one of his short stories) and envisaged the idea of the communications satellite 20 years before one was launched.

Some people may not know that there are sequel books to 2001 (along with one sequel movie) including 3001: The Final Odyssey.

I’m just getting started on the 2nd of his Time Odyssey series that he co-authored with Stephen Baxter.  The 3rd book of the series was published just last December.

Warning: the article referred to, deals with with war-crimes.

In reading this CNN article about a war crimes trial (only for the non-squeamish!) I came across what seems like one of the worst questions of all time - you’ll know which one it is if you read it.

I thought twice about posting this.  Not much surprises me and I generally post about technology surprises or disappointments.  While I was aware that the subject matter dealt with has been known to happen in human history, I was surprised that the defense attorney would ask such a question.

Watch this video:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/03/05/goodman.uk.texting.injuries.itn

That’s right - let’s enable rude behaviour.  So other people should walk around in padded suits too perhaps?

*Roll eyes*

It’s starting at 13:00 PT.  I wonder what will be announced.

So far we’ve not really heard anything new.  Sure, the Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 runtime, tools and sdk have been released (along with a disappointing roadmap for Silverlight on Mobile, save for the Nokia involvement as some unspecified point) along with a developer/standards ie8 beta 1.

If there’s any kind of announcement, I’d expect it would be in relation to a cloud-based service.

I’d like to hear about something both cool and surprising and preferably fully-baked to download today.

Microsoft platform technologies are so community-previewed these days - using the conversation to fine tune the product - that there’s nothing that surprising any more.

I’d like to hear about something both cool and surprising and preferably fully-baked to download today.  Please?

Let’s see…

WPF Apps

Casting line of business application for Cirque Du Soleil

1000 artists nightly in 15 shows (6 resident and 9 touring).

22000 artists in database.

Field-based WPF-based casting system on tablet with camera strapped on.  Scott juggles for an in-the-field-based casting session.  Offline cached database.  Visual form entry and comparisons.

Upcoming WPF improvements in the summer

• More controls
• Streamlined Setup
• Startup
• Graphics layer

Demo of image or HD video with effects:

• Hardware acceleration by default
• Super low CPU usage because efforts on GPU
• Custom effects API for hardware shading

Silverlight continuum

Silverlight extensions for SharePoint

Can re-use full Silverlight XAML in full WPF application on desktop

Big Silverlight demo

Beijing 2008 Olympics on NBC - goes live in 150 days

2200 hours of 34 sports live and on-demand afterwards.

Lots of supporting surrounding and in-frame contextual information and commentary.

User-driven rewind of live play!

Olympic event notifications and sharing.

Picture-in-picture from 4 streams for an event.

Done with Silverlight 1.0 apparently.

Gary Gygax, the co-creator (with Dave Ameson) of Dungeons & Dragons died today, having suffered from health problems.

I played AD&D as a teenager and I bet many of you did too, that is if you aren’t still playing it like Gary was recently.

I remember having the Dungeon Master’s guide with his name on it.

What a legacy, when you think about all the board games, video games and MMORPGs.

It now has (amongst other things):

• Inline spell checking
• Direct link to blog management web page
• Direct link to blog stats web page
• Easier to link to previous posts
• Can add categories

Those last three work with WordPress at least.

So I’m happy that the features release match many of the ones I was looking for.  Now if it could have an MDI interface…

Check it out.  Note that http://writer.live.com/ is not pointing to the new stuff for some reason.