istartedsomething

Stop Digital Amnesia

Another day, another Microsoft viral campaign. This time, The fake Center for Digital Amnesia Awareness has launched an online campaign called “Stop Digital Amnesia” (via Furrygoat) – a medical-like project discussing the problems and solution for a made-up disorder called “digital amnesia”.

According to this very fake professor, “digital amnesia” refers not only to lack of storage capacities, but “isolated devices compounded by digital protection deficiencies.” The solution? Sharing. “Access throughout the home and increased connectively with loved one, combined with daily backups, these steps can prevent or even reverse digital memory loss.”

This of course brings to mind, the ‘Quattro’ Home Server, a concept that has been known since 2005. The most obvious connection between “Stop Digital Amnesia” and ‘Quattro’ is the mention of home connectivity. One would assume ‘Quattro’ will either enable or enhance home connectivity from computers to computers and even devices. By bringing together NAS storage with media control capabilities, it would also solve the problem of isolated devices such as TVs which would have previous had no right to access DRMed or otherwise copyrighted content available on Media Centers and desktops, to have managed access to media content on a centralized server store. Automatic daily backups is also another possibility, where ‘Quattro’ fetches predefined files and directories from computers on the network, and makes an image backup for safekeeping.

If you think hard about ‘Quattro’, which might be hard at this time of year, then a server opens up possibilities in many areas beyond media and file sharing. Microsoft has demonstrated with a server, you can enable unified management and control of services such as security (ex. Forefront) and communications (ex. Exchange Server). This could leverage many powerful enterprise tools such as web & voice-access emails, network-wide security protection and even internal patch redistribution to the home. It could make home IT management as simple as plug’n'go.

However, if it isn’t ‘Quattro’, than it could also be Windows Live Drive. However with specific mentions of home connectivity, I highly doubt it.

Stop Digital Amnesia
“A cure in Vegas, baby!” CES Central Hall, Sunday January 7th. I’ll be there!


2 Comments

  1. S. Keshav

    Here is home web server that I have used

    http://www.purplenova.com

  2. Joel

    Just in time to get in the 2007 worst web site / marketing contest Microsoft has launched this bomb. stayathomeserver.com is so badly conceived and executed it’s hard to even watch. Does anyone know which junior creative agency Microsoft used to produce this drooled site? I thought that the Windows Home Server idea had merit but this web site really looks kind of 1990 Wal-Mart. America’s talking?? Yeah and they’re saying this is crap. Oh the kids book is really the low point. How stupid is that?? Clearly the writers for this site are still in middle school. What an insult to anyone to unfortunately going to this waste of energy. This has my vote for worst of Microsoft 2007.

Leave a Reply

  1. Tom Servo's Blog

    Stop Digital Amnesia! What?

    Stop Digital Amnesia! What?

  2. Microsoft to unveil Windows Home Server at CES at Windows X’s Shrine

    [...] As Long Zheng noted on his blog, Microsoft’s “Digital Amnesia” viral-marketing campaign also seems to be part of this protect-and-store message.  [...]

  3. Eset Internal Blog

    New OS coming from Microsoft named Windows Home Server?

    According to this blog entry by Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft may be announcing a new server OS targeted at homes with multiple computers.

    Also see this blog entry discussing Microsoft’s Stop Digital Amnesia “viral” marketing web site and this entry…

  4. Josh's Windows Weblog

    Windows Home Server Kicks Off New Ad Campaign…

    Microsoft has started a new round of Windows Home Server advertising called "Stay-At-Home Server"…



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