Tag: microsoft

Soon I'll Create My Own Xbox Games!

Post ImageAh, I have been waiting for news like this ever since I got my Xbox 360 back in November. Microsoft will be releasing a set of tools that let “college students, hobbyists and others create their own games” for both Windows and the Xbox 360 console. The tools will be demonstrated for the first time at Microsoft Gamefest. A lighter weight version of the company’s XNA tools for professional developers, the hobbyist suite is dubbed XNA Game Studio Express:

“The tools we are talking about make it way easier to make games than it is today,” said Scott Henson, director for platform strategy for Microsoft’s game developer group.

In the first incarnation, games developed using the free tools will be available only to like-minded hobbyists, not the Xbox community as a whole. Those who want to develop games will have to pay a $99 fee to be part of a “Creators’ Club,” a name that is likely to change. Games developed using XNA Game Studio Express will be playable only by others who are part of the club.

The current plan is to have a completely open system three to five years down the road, where anyone can make a game, and the community decides what sucks and what rocks. This will drastically change the gaming landscape if Microsoft can pull it off. Finally regular people will be able to build things for a console!

I always figured Microsoft would eventually release developer tools like this for the Xbox 360. They are, after all, a platform company.

Read: CNET News.com

Microsoft totally sucks at product names

Post ImageI’ve said it here before, and I’m sure you’ve read it elsewhere, but it needs to be said again: Microsoft completely and totally sucks at naming their products. Possibly the only names from the last year that are really good (IMHO) are Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. Let’s take a look at what I mean.

On Friday, Microsoft announced the official names for IE7:

For Windows XP: “Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP”
For Windows Vista: “Windows Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista”

Now let’s compare that to a product (technically a feature I guess) that Apple announced yesterday:

You back up your system regularly, right? Well, you would. If you had a better way to do it. With Mac OS X Leopard and Time Machine, not only can you back up and preserve everything on your Mac — including priceless digital photos, music, movies, and documents — without lifting a finger, you can go back in time to recover anything you’ve ever backed up.

A backup product named “Time Machine”. You can bet if Microsoft had named the product, it would have been something like “Windows Data Backup Manager” and there would have been a “Premium Edition” and a “Home Edition”, at least. “Time Machine” is simple, inviting, and yet still makes sense as the name of a backup product!

This makes two things on my list of people Microsoft should hire: a professional demo person (like Steve Jobs) and a professional product namer.

Does Windows Vista need Beta 3?

Post ImageVia Scoble I came across a post by Robert McLaws, in which he states that Windows Vista simply isn’t ready to be released. He suggests that the team add a third beta and push the launch back another four to six weeks:

I’ve been defending Microsoft’s ship schedule for Windows Vista for quite some time. Up to this point, I’ve been confident that Vista would be at the quality level it needs to be by RC1 to make the launch fantastic. Having tested several builds between Beta 2 and today, I hate to say that I no longer feel that way.

Beta 2 was a disappointment on many levels. It was nowhere near as stable as it should have been, and was a huge memory hog. Later builds have improved stability and performance, and have introduced visual tweaks and enhancements that make Vista feel more like a finished product. But several events are conspiring to make life a lot more difficult for beta testers, and I forsee problems if they are not addressed.

He then goes on to detail each of the problems.

I’ve always been in the “don’t ship until it’s ready” camp, so I agree with Robert. I haven’t been testing Windows Vista (though I did install Beta 2 onto a virtual machine) so I can’t chime in with my own experiences, but Robert is an expert, he knows what he’s talking about. Additionally, he isn’t the only one sounding the warning bell – remember Chris Pirillo’s crazy interface posts?

When I get the final version of Windows Vista, I want it to blow me away. I want it to be the best version of Windows I have ever laid eyes on. I want it to be quick, responsive, and pleasantly surprising when I least expect it. I want it to be a solid, finished, and polished release. If adding another beta and delaying the launch is what it takes to get there, so be it.

Read: Robert McLaws

Wake up Microsoft – get BitTorrent!

Post ImageEven though Microsoft has lots of money, sometimes there are better ways to solve problems than just throwing cash at them. It seems Microsoft is bent on only delivering software from their own servers, when really, they could be using BitTorrent. It would keep them from making stupid decisions like this:

Microsoft plans next week to charge a nominal fee for Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads, in a move that runs counter to the practice held by most software companies.

Consumers who download the 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 will be charged $1.50 per download, beginning next Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

Wake up and smell the coffee! BitTorrent, or even services like RedSwoosh (if Microsoft felt better about paying something for the service) would eliminate these problems. And as a downloader, I’d prefer them anyway, because I can download faster in most cases.

Please don’t pay the $1.50 to download the beta – it’ll only encourage this ridiculous behaviour!

Read: CNET News.com

Coming Zune from Microsoft

Post ImageTurns out the rumor is true! Microsoft is working on a new project to take on Apple and the iPod called Zune. Information is flying fast and furious around the web, but Engadget has come to the rescue with a pretty good status check of what is known thus far. They also posted a quote from Microsoft’s GM of Marketing, Chris Stephenson:

“Today we confirmed a new music and entertainment project called Zune. Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year. We see a great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together.”

From the CNET News.com article on Zune, I found the teaser website which is pretty unimpressive, though it does give you the ability to sign up for news and updates.

As has been noted elsewhere, this marks a significant change in Microsoft’s media and entertainment strategy, which thus far has relied upon partners to build and sell devices. I don’t think it will be quite the problem that many believe though – Microsoft competes with partners all the time, in a wide range of different industries. In fact I hope Zune turns out to be great, so Microsoft’s partners can follow their lead and improve their own players.

With keyboards, mice, webcams, the Xbox 360, and probably other stuff I don’t know about, Microsoft’s hardware business is already somewhat substantial. Add media players to the mix, the rumored portable gaming device, and maybe Microsoft sees a future in hardware? I wonder how long it will be until they manufacture their own Media Center PC.

In any case, bring on the Zune!

Read: Engadget

Frogger on Xbox 360

Post ImageOne of the things I like best about my Xbox 360 is the Xbox Live Arcade, and it’s about to get even better. Microsoft recently announced they will be releasing at least one new arcade-style game for the service every Wednesday:

At a trendy bar filled with gamers and video game press, Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled its lineup of retro hits like “Pac-Man,” “Galaga” and “Frogger” as part of its new Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays program.

Players will need to connect their Xboxes to an Internet connection in order to download the games, though they don’t need to stay connected to play them.

The first game is Frogger, and it was released yesterday. I downloaded the trial last night to see what it was like – it’s kinda neat! They have “enhanced” and “classic” graphics for the game, which is pretty funny. While the arcade style games don’t utilize any of the real power the 360 has, they are fun for a change every now and then. The games will cost between $5 and $10.

I can’t wait for Pac-man!

Read: CNET News.com

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 Released

Post ImageMicrosoft today released Beta 3 of Internet Explorer 7. The main changes are around the user interface, though there are also improvements to tabs, RSS feeds, and security. You’ll have to uninstall any previous versions of IE7 before installing the new beta. According to IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch, this is the last beta version, meaning we’ll see only release candidates until IE7 goes gold.

There’s a great overview of the interface changes up at the IE Blog. The stop, refresh, and search buttons have all been lightened, which is good as they don’t clash as much now. There’s horizontal lines separating the links toolbar from the rest now too! I don’t remember if Beta 2 had it, but when you type a URL in the address bar, the refresh button changes to become a “Go” button with an arrow. They have finally made the awkward image zooming from IE6 much easier to use as well.

And my favorite change? You can now drag and drop tabs to reorder them! I wish Firefox had this feature too, it’s so useful when you’ve got a lot of tabs open at once. IE7 isn’t the first to have this feature though, Opera 9 has tab reordering as well.

Read: Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3

WinFS is no more

Post ImageWell this news sucks. The WinFS team at Microsoft has posted a new blog entry that sounds so positive, but really can’t hide the fact that WinFS is basically dead. Too bad they felt the need to spin this. For those of you that don’t know, WinFS was technology meant to bring the advantages of a database to your desktop.

Today I have an update about how we are delivering some of the WinFS technologies. It represents a change to our original delivery strategy, but it’s a change that we think that you’ll like based on the feedback that we’ve received.

With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into SQL and ADO.NET, we do not need to deliver a separate WinFS offering.

As one commenter noted:

It sounds so positive. But it’s like giving a speech in front of the coffin. You just keep remembering the guy inside, and the more you do, the more you remember he’s dead.

What does this mean? Well, SQL Server will get some cool new technology built into it. Which is fine, except that the original promise of WinFS was to bring a database layer between your file system and you (basically a relational file system), meaning you could do cool things when looking for pictures or contacts or any file for that matter. It looks as though that kind of functionality will now remain a dream.

So WinFS is dead – for now. Similar technology was originally planned for the version of Windows code-named “Cairo”, which eventually became Windows NT 4.0. That operating system was released about ten years ago. It was in 2003 that plans for WinFS really started to heat up. Maybe they’ll try again in another seven years?

I am also wondering how much Windows Live factored into this decision. If Microsoft has decided that people are going to use services on the web to organize and store their data instead of their desktops, then it would make sense to focus on SQL Server and not bringing a database to Windows. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would so completely abandon the idea of the computer being the central hub for you data, however. I guess time will tell.

Read: WinFS Team Blog

Microsoft Robotics Studio

Post ImageIf you’ve been reading my blog for the last year or so, you probably know that I quite like robotics. Actually, it was almost exactly a year ago (June 24th) that the Podbot was launched. Basically the Podbot was a podcasting robot – we could control it wirelessly with a laptop, and it had an onboard microphone and webcam. Very cool stuff, but unfortuntely, now out of commission. Andrew, Ashish, Dickson and I all had a blast with the project, though it was quite a bit of work.

Looks like the next robot we build might be a little easier! Earlier today at the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition 2006, Microsoft introduced a community technology preview of Robotics Studio:

“Microsoft sees great potential in robotics, and we are excited to deliver our first CTP of Robotics Studio, making it easier to create robotic applications across a wide variety of hardware, users and scenarios”, said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group at Microsoft. “We’ve reached out to a broad range of leading robotics companies and academics early on in the development process and are thrilled with the positive response from the community.”

Microsoft also featured a bunch of third party demos at the event. This is pretty exciting stuff for a hobbyist like myself! I’m going to install the CTP and check it out. You find out more on the project at MSDN, and at the official team blog.

Read: Microsoft PressPass

The Media Delayed Windows Vista

Post ImageI’ve been reading a lot lately about why people think Windows Vista has been delayed so many times. There tends to be a set of consistent theories that always appear in a discussion, which I’ll summarize here:

  • The software is too complex, with too many interdependencies that are confusing or not understood very well.
  • There is too much bureaucracy and too many levels of management which slows down the development process.
  • Microsoft started sharing information about Vista far too early which led to unreasonable expectations for the end product.

I think there is definitely some truth to all of these different theories, but I have another one. I think another significant reason Windows Vista has been “delayed” is the media. With all of the media coverage everytime there’s a change in the Vista release schedule, one can’t help but think that something must be horribly wrong for the operating system to have been delayed. I mean it makes CNN for crying out loud! Consider the following two things:

  • The average user still doesn’t really have a clue what Windows Vista is. They are pretty happy using whatever operating system they are currently using. I see this all the time when I help people with their computers and start talking up a feature of Vista. (And no, this doesn’t mean that we don’t need a new version, for the same reason that Ford still manufactures a new version of the F-150 every year.)
  • Despite all of the fanboys, the other operating systems haven’t done anything particularly special since Windows XP was released. The various Linux distros are still emulating Windows. Mac OS X has some excellent eye candy, but doesn’t stand out in any other way. Of course those last two statements are just my personal opinion, but proof is in the numbers – neither Linux nor Mac OS X have taken market share away from Windows (at least in the consumer space). People are not breaking down the doors of Best Buy to purchase a Mac.

Which means what? Basically, I would argue that if the media didn’t report on every single schedule change, most people could care less if Windows Vista was released in 2006 or 2008. With no pressure from rival operating systems, and the only loud customer request being security (which was the reason XP SP2 was such a big deal) there really isn’t a huge reason for Vista to be delivered right away, and thus no reason for anyone to be up in arms about it being delayed.

Keep in mind that this theory about the media being a reason that Vista has been delayed is largely focused on the consumer/business side of things. Developers, hardware manufacturers, and of course Microsoft’s shareholders all have good reasons for wanting the OS to come faster. I think I have a valid point though.