Whilst I was climbing with Beat Schwegler in Switzerland last weekend, he told me about the most recent book he’d read: Microsoft 2.0, How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era by Mary Jo Foley. I read the first two chapters whilst we were waiting for the rain to clear and enjoyed it sufficiently to order it from Amazon. This is unusual for me as I find business books mind-numbingly boring most of the time.
Having read some more, I’m still enjoying her observations and perspectives. I don’t agree with some of what she says, but most of her insight seems rational to me (so far). Whilst the book obviously focuses on Microsoft, I’d recommend anyone pick this up if they’re interested in the future of IT.
Nicholas Carr has written an interesting article on how Google is disrupting many traditional businesses, from newspapers to movie studios and internet firms, and in so doing he explains their motivations (in his opinion) and draws a comparison with other businesses, including Microsoft.
Whilst I don’t agree with Nicks opinion that Microsoft is in business only for the money, the article makes for a good read, as do the comments from his readers.
A group of organisations including xRez, Microsoft and The US National Parks Service have produced a web site that allows you to zoom into images of certain parts of Yosemite valley in amazing detail.
They’ve taken 1000s of high resolution digital photos then using some clever Microsoft software to combine them all so you can seamlessley zoom in from the widest angle shot showing several miles of the valley edge to a close-up of climbers. You can go close enough to see the color of their socks!
For more about how they did it and to see the results here. Just zoom in until you see an image, then keep going and going and going… I’ve stood in Yosemite valley and been blown away by its size, this technology helps you appreciate just how impressive the valley is.
Photosynth is an application and website developed by Microsoft Live Labs (think of Live Labs as a bunch of mad scientists who get to try out interesting ideas in a lab, and share them with the public) which lets you create a 3 dimensional feeling scene using just normal photos. For example, say you visit the Opera House in Vienna and take a dozen or so photos inside the auditorium – uploading these to Photosynth would result in a photosynth view which you can zoom in out, pan left/right, up/down giving you a real feel for being there. Best of all, its free and you can share your “synths” with the world.
There are some impressive synths already posted to the site – the Taj Mahal is the best I’ve seen. You’ll need to install the viewer to see this (don’t worry, you’ll be prompted when you visit the site). Just think what you could do if you combined this with the photos on Flickr which had be geo-tagged. I bet we see something like this soon.
I just saw an article and video showing off Microsoft Sphere – something a reseach team came up with. There has been a lot of investment in how humans interact with computers over the year, the most recent leap forward has been Apple successfully integrating touch into their iPhone. Microsoft and other have been working on similar ideas for quite some time (in fact I had a tablet PC which has the same concept as the iPhone) back in 2005, but in honesty the iPhone is more refined.
Anyway, check out the article here, or just watch the video I’ve embedded below;
Microsoft just opened Live Mesh to the publc. I’ve been using this for a little while to keep my work laptop and home desktop synchronised. The idea is simple: create a folder in Live Mesh and anything you put into it is available on any computer you add to Mesh.
You can find out more about it here. Go to www.mesh.com to sign up with your hotmail ID (now known as a Live ID) – its free.
Whilst I was climbing with Beat Schwegler in Switzerland last weekend, he told me about the most recent book he’d read: Microsoft 2.0, How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era by Mary Jo Foley. I read the first two chapters whilst we were waiting for the rain to clear and enjoyed it sufficiently to order it from Amazon. This is unusual for me as I find business books mind-numbingly boring most of the time.
A group of organisations including xRez, Microsoft and The US National Parks Service have produced a web site that allows you to zoom into images of certain parts of Yosemite valley in amazing detail.