MIX08 Keynote Liveblogging

March 5th, 2008 | Published in Microsoft | 1 Comment

The MIX08 is live on the web now. Right now, Ray Ozzie is giving air time to data portability, cloud computing, seamless meshes of data using the web as the hub. These are being introduced as general concepts for the future of Microsoft.

Ozzie mentions Office Live Workspace
Utility computing in the Enterprise - options to run servers, web-based services, SQL server data services
Silverlight mentioned
Scott Guthrie is up now
Dean is demoning IE8 now!!
IE8 being compared to Firefox and Safari - in standards mode
IE8 standards mode and how IE7 web sites will have to deal with that (via meta tag)
Scripting performance - developers asked for better performance in IE - IE8 is better than IE7 (not as good as Firefox though, based on the chart displayed)
IE "Back" button didn’t work with AJAX sites - now it does - ex: zooming in on AJAX site - Back button doesn’t go back a page, it zooms back out
Web pages will warn users if network cable unplugged? Wow.
Developer tools - browser differences - need integrated tools - dev tools let dev’s debug scripts - this dev tool is new…I’m not a dev, so this stuff is over my head - see style info a script is working from? tracing styles - group by property - don’t have to hunt and peck thru CSS
Select some text with an address and you can see Live Maps appear in a window right on the web site
Wait? What??? This is pretty cool - these integrated services let you right-click on stuff on a web page to access other services without leaving the web page - these are called Search Activities I think (nope, "web slices")
eBay auction example: keeping tabs on your auction - you can subscribe to parts of web pages - an indicator on the page - click on that - do you want to subscribe to this? yes - then you can click on this little button (?) at top of IE8 and see a little window with update about your auction
FACEBOOK WEB SLICES!!!! subscribe to facebook status updates same as eBay - right in IE8 - get updates w/o having to visit the web site itself
"Web slices lets devs easily build innovative experiences that reach beyond their web site"
I think I saw StumbleUpon too
Web Slices look like favorites on your Links toolbar but they have a little arrow next to them - this shows you a small window of live web content
IE8 demo over (too fast!) - onto Silverlight stuff
Silverlilght = 1.5 million installs per day
Silverlight 2 going to be rolled out soon
Nope, it’s available now - Silverlight 2.0, beta 1
3 dimensions of 2.0: improving TCO, monetization opportunities, user experience
Silverlight 2.0 won’t ask your mom what bitrate to stream at, what bandwidth you have - it’s just gonna know via new feature "Adaptive Streaming" - looks at client stuff like CPU and bandwidth between web/client PC and will adjust bitrate on the fly
Move Networks - powers Disney, Televista, etc - Move Networks and Microsoft will partner up to offer Adaptive Streaming technology to users
They are talking more about Silverlight than they did about IE8…that is a major bummer for me…I wanted more IE8 news
Progressive Downloads - burst of download at first, then throttle it to only stay 10 sec ahead of user watching it - saves hosting costs/bandwidth costs
Ways you can integrate ads into your site via Silverlight - oops - I got bored - something about how you do this - Expression Blend lets you use same formats/file formats as Visual Studio - now they’re building an ad as an example
Silverlight advertising templates
Tracking ads, engagement etc using Ad Mgr
Can’t skip ads at front of videos - using IIS7 web playlists - this is an optional setting - you can allow ad skips or not
Now we’re going onto Overlay ads - OK, seriously, yawn…couldn’t they have just said "Silverlight offers ad integration" and then moved on?
Doubleclick guy announcing support for Silverlight - will be available in Q2
Olympics - Perkins Miller - SVP of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics is explaining about NBC’s web site for Olympics - yep, with Silverlight
2200 LIVE hours of Olympics coverage will be online - VOD
OK, now demo of Olympics web site - watching a high-quality clip on the site - connect with the data with extra info like expert commentary - silverlight will let you rewind LIVE video online (that would be great for this keynote, btw - where’s the silverlight here, huh MIX?)
Alerts overlaying the video to let you know about other sports events starting, etc - not intrusive - just at top of video
Sharing clips of video with others; discovering other sports
Silverlight supporting picture-in-picture (PIP) and this will be used on Olympics site
More overview of Silverlight 2.0 - bullet points, wrap-up
Silverlight 2.0 will be available on Linux via partnering with Novell
Silverlight controls - templating capability, custom animation, state changes, without having to write code - easy to skin apps
Shipping Vis. Studio support for Silverlight; Can also use Expression Blend - can use Exp. Blend to re-skin apps without code - preview releases of Vis Studio & Exp. Blend will be available today
AOL execs announcing next AOL mail client will be built with Silverlight
btw Silverlight 2 at http://silverlight.net/getstarted/
New AOL mail client being demo’d - we can built it faster, better, stronger…
tomorrow at MIX08 -see how AOL mail client was built
Seadragon - did he just say Seadragon?!!
Hard Rock memorabilia going online, this is still Silverlight stuff - where’s Seadragon?
OMG - there it is! built on Seadragon technology - the memorabilia is using the technology to allow you to zoom waaaaaay in and waaaaay out on the online collection - he just zoomed in on a letter written by Paul (Beatles) and letter by Elvis - you can get reaaaallly close to this stuff - looking at a pair of boots, you can see stitching - pic of Bo Diddley’s guitar - you can see the wire-wrapping on E-String and scuff marks
Hard Rock site will be live this week at www.hardrock.com
Using Silverlight to design Aston Martin car online -demo
You can make your car pink - the same pink of the shirt you are wearing - wow, those rich guys have it all
.Net, Silverlight, and WPF were all used in that demo
Cirque du Soleil casting director is onstage now - she’s showing off her database, but I don’t think she’s really the one that uses it - she’s meeting Scott for an interview to be a C. du S. employee/performer (Scott: "i’m currently looking for a career change" LOL)
The database is available offline, cached version; she is taking a video of Scott juggling (nice job!) now she’s entering him in database, rating his abilities, etc. in her database - all this done offline; shows silverlight, WPF capabilities
Now demo of WPF capabilities
Silverlight on Mobile Devices - same code, assets, skills, and tools for running Silverlight on Mobile Device
Demo - Silverlight Mobile app - Mixer - fully data-drive touchscreen app built for Windows Mobile 6
Nokia partnered with Silverlight - we knew this already - enough with the Silverlight
Demo - Weatherbug on Nokia Mobile Devices - we tried to do this with Flash - it didn’t work - Silverlight did