Last week at Microsoft TechEd Australia I got my hands on thirty giant playing cards. And yes, it’s as fun as it looks. The cards of course are redeemable XBOX Live Game Downloads for the much-raved XBOX 360 game Shadow Complex, a 2.5D side-scroller that combines the eye-candy of the Unreal 3 engine and the nostalgia of Contra. What a sweet combination it is.
Although as much as I’d like to own thirty XBOX 360s, I don’t, which means I’m giving all these copies of Shadow Complex away to thirty (30) lucky gamers. To keep things simple, just submit your name and email address here within the next 48 hours (ends 17 Sept Australian Eastern Standards Time).
The competition is open to anyone around the world (still looking at you Zune) who has an internet-connected XBOX 360 (game is a 850MB download).
Now that’s not too complex, is it? 
Update: Entries closed with over 600 submissions. Winners should be receiving a code in their email in the next couple of days – its a painful process tearing the tabs off each card. (I’ll also be trying to score more download codes to make the odds a little better)
At an overwhelmingly popular session during Microsoft TechEd Australia 2009 this week, Reed Shaffner from the Office team provided among other things a brief but satisfying peek at the latest Office Web Apps experience that has yet to be opened up for public beta testing. Here’s a couple photos and notes on what he showed off.
Bear in mind this demo was catered towards IT professionals so the Office Web Apps experience is sitting inside a Sharepoint portal, the actual Office Web Apps user interface should be very similar for the consumer version that sits within Windows Live too.
By default, clicking open a document from the archive opens the document for viewing. In this demo, Silverlight is installed and the enhanced viewer loads almost instantly. From what can be seen from the toolbar, simple functionality like “find” and “zoom” is provided. Conveniently the viewer can also be full-screened using a button on the top-right.
From this viewer, the user is provided two simple choices to edit the document – either to edit it online or download it do the desktop client. Although it was not demoed, one can only hope the “file” menu will include some printing or export functionality directly from the viewer.
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Today at TechEd Australia I took the opportunity to chat with Loke Uei Tan – technical program manager on the Windows Mobile team – to talk about the future of Windows phones and the Windows Mobile OS.
As a Windows Mobile user who’s doubted the future of the platform at least once, it’s been very reassuring to hear that not only do the at least one person at Windows Mobile genuinely acknowledge and understand some of the shortcomings of the Windows Mobile experience and platform today but in response to this they are committed to updating the platform more frequently than it has been.
Recognizing the current barriers with the process of upgrading Windows phones today, it can be confirmed that the Windows Mobile team are indeed working towards modifying the system architecture to potentially enable delivery of OS updates without affecting and/or requiring the phone ROM – effectively cutting out the OEMs, telcos that currently and unnecessary slow down the update cycle.
In the meantime however updates to Windows Mobile will continue to trickle out as new devices are launched into market just as they have with Windows 6.0 and 6.1 devices.
Speaking of which, I was surprised to learn that Microsoft doesn’t actually push new builds of WM out to OEMs, but instead, OEMs pull builds from the Microsoft repository. Of course this would explain the consistent leaks of leaked post-6.5 builds recently which feature various UI experimentation reflective of a current effort to further improve the existing WM6 user experience for touch under the constraint of not breaking compatibility with existing applications.
Heading into future releases of Windows Mobile, Microsoft does intend to fully support the breadth and depth of form factors, screen resolutions, input mechanisms and hardware specifications we’re seeing with Windows phones today. Specifically this includes non-touch phones too which appears to be still quite popular in the marketplace and surprisingly Loke is personally a fan of.
Whilst the diversity of Windows phones will continue to be a hallmark of the platform, there will however be stricter and higher hardware testing standards for future phones to be validated as “Windows phones”. This is aimed to improve the baseline experience for all Windows phones.
At the end of the day, despite all the criticism about Windows Mobile, Windows phones like the powerful yet sleekishly-thin (roughly twice as thin as the iPhone) Toshiba TG01 running Windows Mobile 6.5 pictured above can still leave quite an impression. Hopefully all that Microsoft has planned for the future of WM will come to fruition as soon as possible.
From top to bottom: Verdana Light, Verdana Semibold, Verdana Black and Georgia Small Caps
In a timely announcement, Microsoft and its typography partner Ascender Corporation has announced updates to the infamous Verdana and Georgia font families coming early 2010. Of course this comes just after IKEA made the surprising switch to Verdana for its corporate typeface that has upset many font-conscious designers.
The project started a year ago is said to address at least one major criticisms of IKEA’s use of Verdana that it is not optimized for large print since it was originally designed almost exclusively for web use. Other improvements for both Georgia and Verdana will include “new weights and widths beyond the original four fonts in each family, extensions to the character sets, extensions to the kerning and OpenType typographic features for enhanced typography”.
Hopefully both the updates to Verdana and Georgia (already at version 5 in Windows 7) will be available to Windows users for free download when they’re available. Anything that could expand the default arsenal of fonts in the PC is good news for web designers. Even Comic Sans.
Update: Ascender’s current plan is to sell/licence the new fonts to Office users and creative professionals, however the project is in its early stages and licensing plans has yet to be finalized.
Although I’m sure a sequel to the inspiring documentary about human flight keyed to Madonna’s “Ray of Light” otherwise known as the Windows XP commercial “Soar” have crossed their minds at least once, Microsoft seems to be taking a much more product-oriented approach comes time to promote Windows 7.
A number of conceptual TV commercial spots by director Marty Martin (awesome name) produced for Microsoft with a tight budget, short 3 days deadline and a Canon 5D Mark II SLR gives some clues to what the up and coming mainstream worldwide launch campaign for Windows 7 might focus on and look like.
Bearing in mind these are just three out of the five videos produced in total, here they are for your viewing pleasure.
Even though two of the spots are quite strange to say the least, from watching these spots one could assume for the mainstream Windows 7 campaign there will be a heavy focus on communicating the actual features of the product. For example, all three videos uploaded from the series of five produced utilize the final scene of the spot to illustrate Windows 7 in use, putting into context what the rest of the ad is about.
If the above assumption is correct, then the Windows 7 campaign would address at least one criticism of Windows Vista’s “Wow starts now” campaign where the product was almost completely ignored except for the iconic but non-sequitor Flip 3D reference.
The (first) college spot is definitely my favorite. Might be the soundtrack.
(Left) Windows Mobile 6.5 (Right) Also Windows Mobile 6.5
Add this to the ever-growing list of Microsoft design decisions that doesn’t make sense.
Thanks to a thriving community of custom ROM developers at xda-developers.com, I’m been fortunate enough to be able to upgrade my year-old Samsung i780 Windows phone to the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS.
From the past couple of days my overall experiences with Windows Mobile 6.5 has been positive, but, I do find myself puzzled why Microsoft declared what appears to be a half-finished product “done”. It’s as if a builder was half way through renovating a kitchen and walked off. To illustrate this, take a look at the disconcerting side-by-side picture above.
Both pictures are from Windows Mobile 6.5 and both are native in-call status screens. The difference is that if you make a call or receive a call whilst your screen is unlocked, you get the interface on the left. However, if your screen is locked, you get the far more modern, intuitive and touch-friendly experience interface on the right.
Whilst I understand why there is a difference from a technical low-level code perspective, it baffles me why the better experience is “hidden” in such a way that most people would probably not be aware of it or be able to use it very often since WM6.5 doesn’t automatically lock the screen by default anyway. It’s not just inconsistent, it doesn’t even make sense.
Having said that however it’s obvious Microsoft is heading into the right direction but the question is whether they can get there before the iPhone or Android lapses them.
I would like to point out though the new WM6.5 multi-function lock screen is very innovative is much more functional than the iPhone or Android’s single-purpose lock screens.
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