Category: Windows Vista

Longhorn news tomorrow?

I just got an e-mail from Microsoft’s PR agency alerting me to big news about Longhorn that will be released tomorrow at 6 AM PDT.

I have no idea what it is, but here’s a clue: The URL contains the acronym LHMA. I suppose that could stand for Longhorn Media Announcement, but maybe it’s Longhorn Media Access or Longhorn Might Arrive.

Fortunately, I’m an early riser, so I’ll pass along the news as soon as I have it.

(Oh, and I got my beta invite.)

Update: ActiveWin, via Chris Lanier, says the new is that Longhorn has a name: Windows Vista.

I’ll sleep better tonight.

More details about RSS in Longhorn

Microsoft has a new home page for RSS in Longhorn. Here’s a reasonably simplified explanation of RSS Support in Longhorn. The specification itself is here.

This license information appears at the bottom of the specification page:

Microsoft’s copyrights in this specification are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 2.5).  To view a copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/.   As to software implementations, Microsoft is not aware of any patent claims it owns or controls that would be necessarily infringed by a software implementation that conforms to the specification’s extensions. If Microsoft later becomes aware of any such necessary patent claims, Microsoft also agrees to offer a royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to any such patent claims for the purpose of publishing and consuming the extensions set out in the specification.

Dean Hachamovich has some comments here.

Oh, and those who were wondering whether XML support in Office 12 will be a big deal can now put their skepticism to rest. Yes, this will have huge implications for Office 12, and I think you can safely assume that the ability to create and consume RSS will be a big part of the next version of Office.

More on Microsoft and RSS

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor has a series of three posts on Microsoft’s RSS Platform. (Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.) They’re well worth reading, with some interesting insights and a nice historical overview. It’s too bad the first post in the series starts with a big mistake:

Microsoft will introduce proprietary tags to RSS, which it will make available under a Creative Commons license.

Proprietary means the format is owned by one company, and if anyone wants to use it they have to pay a royalty, or reverse-engineer it, or reinvent the wheel. These extensions are being released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, whose terms read:

You are free:

  • to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
  • to make derivative works
  • to make commercial use of the work

The extensions Microsoft announced today are not “proprietary.” Exactly the opposite, in fact.

New Xbox = Media Center hub or extender?

Bill Gates spilled the beans on some upcoming Xbox features in a meeting of business journalists on Monday. The AP has the story:

The console, code-named Xenon, is due to be previewed in an MTV half-hour special later this month.

Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and co-founder, was vague on specific features of Xenon but said the company’s consoles would be evolving to include improved communications tools for making multiplayer online gaming more convivial.

He told the annual meeting of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers that Xenon’s software menu would be similar to that of the company’s Media Center edition of Windows, which is designed for computers meant to be located in the living room.

“If you’re used to that menu, when you use this Xenon you’ll see a menu a lot like that that lets you get photos, TV, music and all those different things.”

Interesting…

Service Pack 3 for Windows XP?

Well, this is interesting. F-Secure is covering the launch of National Data Security Day in Sweden, with keynote speaker Steve Ballmer:

Mr. Ballmer made some interesting remarks: Microsoft might indeed ship SP3 for Windows XP before longhorn comes out. Also, upcoming version 7 of Internet Explorer should have anti-phishing technology built-in.

Microsoft’s PR people are going to have to interrupt whatever they’re working on this weekend as their pagers and SmartPhones begin buzzing. And buzzing. And buzzing.

A Longhorn smackfest!

Chris Pirillo thinks Longhorn is lame:

Even as I’m watching the 2005 WinHEC keynote right now (which I downloaded from a fan site, FWIW), I’m screaming at my screen! The demonstration was faaaaaar from impressive, and left me NOT wanting more – but wanting to walk away altogether. Instead of watching with awe and wonder, I’m watching with a very confused look on my face. My brow is furrowed, and my fingers are slamming against the keys of my keyboard at this very moment… I’m growing increasingly impatient.

Andre Da Costa thinks Pirillo is lame:

Chris should be using his time more wisely and start dedicating it to Mac OS X and Linux, Lord knows the Windows community would not miss him one bit. His babble about Power Users does not make an iota of sense, its just garbage, garbage and more garbage. Probably Chris was expecting Longhorn Build 5048 to make him break fast in bed or get his old job back at Tech-TV, but surprisingly it didn’t happen with Shannen or Arvinds preview presentation.

Popcorn, anyone?

Update: Chris says he is not lame! More popcorn!

What do you get when you cross a hard disk with a flash drive?

I spent 90 minutes in the Windows Hardware pavilion at WinHEC last night and saw some cool stuff. Most noteworthy was a hybrid disk drive that incorporates non-volatile flash memory into a conventional hard disk drive. The impact on performance is pretty huge, as you can imagine. This technology is still pretty early, but it should be commercially available when Longhorn ships.

I also got a chance to look more closely at the “Metro” technology. It looks like there will still be room in the world for PDF files. The real impact is to replace the old Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format with a new, smarter native format for printed output. There’s a big overlap with PDF files, but it’s not as direct a competitor as early reports, including mine, might suggest.

Is Longhorn a “train wreck”? Uh, no…

Paul Thurrott got Slashdotted for his offhand comment about Longhorn: “This has the makings of a train wreck.”

Well, I noticed that the post was time-stamped 6:24 AM, and started out “I hate mornings.” So read the rest of the commentary accordingly.

On a more substantive note, let’s put things in perspective. The Longhorn build handed out here at WinHEC is for people who write device drivers for a living. It wasn’t put together to dazzle Windows fans or, for that matter, to be used on production systems. It’s got lots and lots of rough edges. The bits and pieces I’ve seen here look interesting and unfinished. But I’m going to reserve more substantive opinions until Beta 1 comes out this summer. And even then I’m setting my expectations appropriately, because Microsoft has already made it clear that most of the whizzy consumer-friendly features won’t appear until Beta 2.

This is awfully early to be making any definitive judgments.