Bye bye Bill Gates

As everybody probably has known, Bill Gates' last full day at Microsoft was yesterday and there's been so much video, audio, posts, you name it, about Billy G leaving. Some of the CEOs and visionaries from other companies have made comments about Bill, his competitors and fiercest enemies. Gates gave his final speech to Microsoft employees.

Love him or late him, you must admire his drive, his passion, his motivation in forming Microsoft as the underdog and how he has been able to fight so many challenges by many companies like Netscape, WordPerfect, Lotus, IBM, Apple, Borland, Palm, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo just to name a few. Translating this same drive over to the Gates foundation will certainly make him probably one of the greatest philanthropic leaders of all time. It's good to see that he will be using his wealth and money for finding cures for diseases and for making the world a better place.

I've never met Bill Gates in person but I have heard his keynotes before at computer conferences (specifically Comdex in Toronto). I've read his books like Business@The Speed of Thought and many other books about Microsoft like Hard Drive, All I Really Need to Learn in Business I Learned at Microsoft, and The Microsoft Way.

Bill is an inspiring individual, he was definitely one of my role models and made me first get into the computer industry. Gates is now wanting to spend more time with his 3 daughters.

Best wishes for you Bill and for the Gates foundation.

On Technorati: Microsoft, Bill Gates

Mesh conference 2008 schedule is up

I just got an e-mail saying that the Mesh conference 2008 schedule is up as well as the MeshU schedule. I'm pretty excited as I'm attending both events and I got both for only $30 each through student ticket pricing! For the past 2 years, I've wanted to go to Mesh but I was always late in getting the student tickets and they are limited and go by so fast! So, I wasn't going to be disappointed this time. Looks like there will be a great roundup of speakers, I'm impressed as to how the organizers were able to get these speakers, but kudos go out to them, as it's not easy to get the right set of speakers. I know since I've organized many workshops and getting speakers is not easy.

With that being said, Mesh is about less than a month from now! And speaking about Mesh, do you know that Microsoft has Live Mesh? It's their answer to Web 2.0, many people were saying how Microsoft is not onto the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Again, Microsoft may be late to the game, but they have a pretty neat platform called Live Mesh that is designed to synchronize not just people you know, but devices and content. It was the brainchild of Chief Software Architect and CTO, Ray Ozzie and has been 2 years in the making. It just got released last week. More info on Live Mesh on here. To me it sounds like service-oriented architecture like Jini or web services but has a Web 2.0ish flavour to it, plus a open extended programmable framework that allows programmers to write and get data from the mesh using any programming language. What do people think about Live Mesh?

On Technorati: Mesh2008, LiveMesh

Rick Rashid from Microsoft Research talk @ U of T

I’m in the talk with Microsoft Research’s senior VP Rick Rashid and he’s talking about how he started his research career as a graduate student, then professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and then his stint at Microsoft Research. MSR’s mission statement is to expand the state of the art in each of the areas in which they do research, rapidly transfer innovative technologies into Microsoft products, and ensure that Microsoft products have a future. MSR is adapting the academic model, they are an open research environment and have strong ties to University Research. 25% of all PhD graduates will have worked at MSR at some time during their PhD. MSR has just announced a 6th lab in Cambridge, MA to be close to MIT which will open in July 2008. MSR has almost 1000 interns a year and many postdocs. The key mission is to move the state-of-the-art forward and measure themselves with publications, MSR has over 3700 peer-reviewed publications, 13% at 2001 CHI. MSR has prestigious senior researchers like Gordon Bell, creator of the VAX and Rick Rashid with work on the NUMA architecture.

The second part of the mission statement is to drive technologies into Microsoft products and Rick showed that with the Tablet PC which was invented in Cambridge, UK and the codecs for Microsoft Windows Media Player. What’s the value of MSR to Microsoft? MSR is a source of IP and new technologies and to act as an early warning system to Microsoft as to what technologies and areas to focus on. A basic research group allows a company to respond more rapidly to change and to solve hard technical problems which advances the company and makes it one step above the competitors. If you want to survive, you have to invest in the future. MSR is also delving into research areas that you wouldn’t think Microsoft would be in, like for example, computational biology.

Rick is now talking about what the future will look like in 10 years. Rick gave a slide about the "Wallet PC" vision in 1993 where now this has developed in Windows Mobile. So, what will the future to 2018 will look like? Microsoft Surface is a tabletop system where you can manipulate digital objects as physical objects, kind of similar to tabletop work from DGP at University of Toronto. A new large research project at MSR is the singularity research project for proving very large systems and doing a better job of specification for software. Now, the specifications are actionable and can be verified through proofs that will change the software development process. Another project which became an actual product is TerraServer which was one of the earliest terabyte servers on the web, and was the basis for Microsoft Virtual Earth, and was started by Jim Gray (who is missing since last year from on a sailing trip). This delves into data mining and web services area.

One cool thing that Rick is showing is the WorldWide Telescope, which is like a space-version of Microsoft Virtual Earth but applied to space and the sky where you can navigate and also search. This is an example of galactic space storage. We are now entering into the age of human scale storage, where you could theoretically store all data, images, and video of your entire life. This is the premise of a MSR project with Gordon Bell called MyLifeBits. Another MSR project is the SenseCam which takes video of wherever you are while walking. A practical application of SenseCam to aid in memory loss where it would record images and video, and then the patient could review it to help remember. In an experiment comparing with a diary and no aid, the SenseCam device performed significantly better than the other methods where the ability to remember after 1 month was higher than with the other methods. Another research project is to manipulate images and improve on them (very relevant especially with wedding photos!), MSR have created technologies that allow you to remove certain objects and manipulate images using curves. One product that stitches a whole bunch of photos together to reconstruct a 3D virtual environment, called Microsoft PhotoSynth.

Another research area is streaming intelligence where we now are beginning to have sensors being deployed in the environment. Eric Horvitz is doing statistical analysis and modeling to do traffic prediction and modeling the user in order to predict better ways of driving through traffic.

On Technorati: Microsoft Research, Rick Rashi

Bill Gates' last keynote speech at CES 2008

Bill Gates gave his last keynote speech at CES 2008, the Consumer Electronics Show, the venue for the newest consumer technology and gadgets (which I've never had the chance to go!). Anyways, here's a video which he showed to the CES audience about what his last day at Microsoft would be like. Of course, this is an exaggeration, nevertheless it's funny!



On Technorati: Bill Gates, Bill Gates last day, CES

Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPhone: Ofone

Whenever one company has a product, Microsoft has to come back with their own. The new gadget that's the craze out there is the Apple iPhone which is coming out June 28, but only in the US. Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPod is the Zune, so what is Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPhone? It is the Ofone, check it out:


Video: Microsoft's oPhone

Let's compare the iPhone with the OFone shall we?




So, which phone would you like to carry in your hand?

Oh, and if you haven't heard by now or can tell from the video, yes it is fake and a prank. But it's funny! I love these kind of videos.

Actually, on this web site, it seems that the OFone was actually shown as a concept mobile device that was previewed at Microsoft Techmela 2007 in Mumbai, India and was presented by Derek Snyder who is the Product Manager, Mobile and Embedded Devices Group at Microsoft. So, then the question really is OFone for real?

On Technorati: Microsoft,
Ofone, Apple, iPhone

Windows Mobile 6 released

Microsoft's Windows OS for mobile devices called Windows Mobile, has been upgraded to Windows Mobile 6. It was just announced at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. Palm's Treo 750 will be upgraded with the new OS as is shown in these pictures below. The pictures come from the Engadget blog:







According to Treo Central,

The new OS also brings with it new naming conventions, gone are "PocketPC Edition" and "Smartphone Edition." Instead we have the more simplified:

* Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition - for non-touchscreen smartphones
* Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition - for touchscreen smartphones like the Treo
* Windows Mobile 6 Classic Edition - for non-smartphone, touchscreen Pocket PC devices.


Many people feel that this is an evolutionary upgrade rather a revolutionary upgrade, that it should be called Windows Mobile 5.5 because it fixes some stuff from Windows Mobile 5. But apparently it does add some new features listed below (also coming from TreoCentral):

* Built-in Windows Update(!) - Will the carriers stand for this? I know that Palm spends months testing the most minor of bugfixes so the carriers won't have a bird.
* Built-in memory card encryption and the ability to do remote-wipes.
* HTML-formatted email (I don't want this, but others do).
* A neater feature is "SmartFilter," which automatically filters your emails as you type just like most contacts applications filter your contacts. SmartFilter also works on your music collection.
* Better Live Mail (nee Hotmail) integration, including contact integration.
* 320x320 Screen Resolution support - Palm, I expect a new WM Treo yesterday with this screen resolution.
* Windows Live goes out of Beta and will be built-in
* Direct Push now standard (has been for awhile on WM5, but I know some of you are still stuck without it)
* 3rd party software should still work fine - just in case you were wondering.
* Microsoft Office Mobile updated - now full edits documents on all editions of WM6!
* Pocket Internet Explorer to be faster, they're saying 30% faster - let's hope! Also new, "Mobile AJAX standards"
* Better Vista integration
* Enhanced Calendar, including a "ribbon."
* Improved Security
* Built-in VOIP(!) - no, not really, but they added support for it "under the hood", according to cnet.
* A ton of smaller tweaks, changes, fixes, improvements, etc.

Vista integration and Microsoft Office integration, along with Windows Live Mail (now to be renamed Windows Live Hotmail to not lose the current Hotmail branding), and of course Windows Mobile media player, it's part of the Microsoft ecosystem of the Windows family. First, Microsoft conquering the desktop, now they want a chunk of the web. And why not, right now Google is beating the pants out of them!

On Technorati: Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft, Treo 750

Windows Vista is here!

Microsoft's next Windows operating system, called Windows Vista, has finally arrived. The launch in Toronto was at Yonge Dundas Square where apparently there was an ice house made, with all the rooms in the house made of ice. And there were Windows Vista PCs to illustrate the ease and powerfulness of Windows Vista. How could those machines be running in such cold weather which we've been having in Toronto? Anyways, here's an article from a reporter at the National Post.

According to Microsoft, the "WOW" starts now. Microsoft touts Windows Vista the most significant product launch in history. Don't they say that with each new Windows launch? And it seems that the computer requirements are even more steeper than with Windows XP. In fact, your existing Windows XP system may not be able to run Windows Vista. You can check with the Windows Vista readiness tool which you can run from CNET on the web. I did this with my PC and it said I failed in the video card, processor and memory compartment, and it will then you what are the recommended requirements. You'll need at least 1 GB of memory, a real decent video card (since Windows Vista has something called a 3D desktop feature, which I'm not sure if much people will use, except for the aw factor).

Won't this turn people off? That means people will have to upgrade their systems, and spend more money just to do something which Windows XP and Windows 2000 already do ok in. I don't see many people upgrading to Windows Vista, I for one am ok with Windows XP. And Vista comes in 5 different flavours, 5, can you believe it! There's the Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise. They are all based on the same kernel, just different customizations of the same OS. I don't know how they can make 5 different versions.

I'd be curious to know how many of you are planning to load Windows Vista on your PC?
I really don't see any compelling reason to switch to Vista.

On Technorati: Windows Vista, Microsoft

Is MSN Soapbox Microsoft's answer to YouTube?

Today I just discovered a new video social networking site from Microsoft, called MSN Soapbox, which looks like Microsoft's answer to YouTube. It sports a much cleaner interface than YouTube (especially without all those annoying Google ads everywhere). I really like how MSN has included an IM link to instant message the video link to your friends on Windows Live Messenger and also to share the video on Windows Live Spaces.

I'm going to have to try this out and see how if Microsoft has a chance at grabbing some bit of market share for user-generated video content from YouTube. It seems like video social networking is the next thing (first it was blogs, then podcasting, now it's video) in the Web 2.0 arena. Yahoo as you might guess, also has a video service as well called Yahoo Video. So, the big three names in search are also into social networking as well.

It's interesting that a fellow U of T grad student's work from DGP is on Soapbox in the Technology category section, it has to deal with a bumptop 3D desktop where the desktop mimics a real table space where you can put documents into piles and put them in different parts of the desktop like you can do with papers.


Video: BumpTop 3D Desktop

January 31, 2007

Note: I just finished uploading my Masters grad research video onto Soapbox to test the service out. You can see it here and give me comments on what you think.


Video: My Masters graduate research presentation

On Technorati: SoapBox, YouTube, Yahoo Video

Microsoft and free pizza and free T-shirt

I was walking down to listen to the George Cham talk, when I realized that the room that the talk was scheduled was actually about Microsoft and Windows Live and free pizza. Actually, I just found out that the George Cham talk (the creator of Piled Higher and Deeper which by the way is really funny and actually I can relate to as a PhD student!) is next Wednesday. But I didn't miss out because free pizza always piques my interest, so I naturally went in and got the free pizza. The talk is by the lead software tester at Microsoft for Windows Live. I'm interested in Windows Live, I use the Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces, and Windows Live is the unifying platform across all Microsoft communication products, and in my opinion, is what Microsoft is doing to compete with Google and Yahoo. This is pretty much what he has said too.

Apparently, the speaker is talking about what software testers do and what are the traits of a tester. He is doing an exercise of testing in which you insert an image into Windows LiveWriter. What is LiveWriter? Think of it as a desktop client application for writing blog posts that you can then upload to Windows Live Spaces. The writing facilities within Live Spaces are abysmal, some of the writing tools work in Internet Explorer, but not with Mozilla Firefox (although at last check, it seems that Firefox can view the writer tools now). Basically, what types of things do you need to look at when testing, and how would you go about testing them? The Microsoft guy gave away free T-shirts for students that made suggestions of what to test for inserting an image in LiveWriter, and I got one! Here is the Microsoft blog for LiveWriter.

On Technorati: microsoft, testing, LiveWriter.