Marc Valk dot Net » News

Intel’s Single Chip Cloud Computer

mvalk — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:36:57 +0000

Intel demonstrated a new Futuristic Chip with 48 cores (!!), a “single-chip cloud computer” as Intel call’s it. This chip should rethinks many of the approaches used in today’s designs for laptops, PC’s and servers. Take a look at the animation below

Microsoft demonstrates future Computing

mvalk — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:18:02 +0000

Craig Mundie shows off some nice futuristic computing. The latter one keeps getting closer to a movie with Tom Cruise, and I guess that kind of arm stretching mr. Mundie does also prevents RSI and back injuries

In this tour he demonstrates Microsoft Computational Science Studio (MSCSS), “a tool for enabling non-programmer scientists and researchers to harness vast amounts of storage and compute power for running the multi-scale models that are needed to truly understand and predict complex natural systems.”

MSN site changes it’s looks

mvalk — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:58:34 +0000

Wow, MSN is changing it’s website. You can see a preview of it here. It really looks slick. It even has facebook and twitter integration.

I like the change Microsoft

Microsoft’s MultiTouch Mice’s

mvalk — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:53:44 +0000

Some Microsoft Engineers are presenting a few Microsoft mice. The fun thing is that these are MultiTouch Mice.
Are we seeing the prototype’s of the next generation mice (which off course come with there own type of RSI)?

Office 2010: some video’s

mvalk — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:09:06 +0000

Here are some video’s presenting features in office 2010.
The first one is about productivity improvements of outlook.
I really like the thread view, the clean up function, but most of all the calendar preview in your mail (no more switching from mail to calendar).

Copy and paste features:
wow.. that live preview of app’s open on your desktop, and the screen clipping. Indeed cameraman bring this to live writer.

Office to the cloud:
and to close up… am I hearing some ooooh’s and aaaaaah’s

Microsoft Office to the cloud

mvalk — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:20:35 +0000

Office 2010 brings office to the cloud (btw: nice silverlight player):

Two new BPOS Tools

mvalk — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:17:56 +0000

Two new tools for BPOS (or to say it correctly, 1 new and 1 updated tool).

The Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging (MOSDAL) support toolkit

The MOSDAL support toolkit performs network diagnostics and collects system configuration, network configuration, and logging information for service-based products. The logs that the tool generates provide data that helps technical support professionals troubleshoot configuration, network, installation, and other service-related issues. MOSDAL collects log files, registry keys, and configuration settings that would otherwise require time-consuming and labor-intensive collection by using separate tools.

Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools (32|64 bit)
Use the Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools to forward copies of your Exchange Server mail to your Exchange Online mailboxes. You can also use the Migration Tools to copy content from your Exchange Server, POP3, or IMAP4 e-mail server mailboxes to your Exchange Online mailboxes. This product intended for use with Microsoft Online Services only.

Both came to my attention through the blog of Peter de Haas, so kudos to him.

Project Natal

mvalk — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:55:59 +0000

Something completely different: Project Natal. This is the code name for the Microsoft’s Motion Sensing Bar.

”What”, I hear you think.
Well, you know the popular gaming console “Nintendo Wii”. Project Natal is the XBOX360 variant of the Wii, but without the controllers. It’s is kind a like the Eye from Sony Playstation, but more advanced.
See for yourself:

Source

Bing is (almost) here

mvalk — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:51:55 +0000

Simple, organized and consistent… that’s Bing.

Bing will be the new name of the Microsoft Search Engine (launch Wednesday, June 3rd). Not Kumo, not Sift and not Hook. Bing was introduced on May, 28th on the D7 conference, here is the video of the interview with Steve Balmer (damn that commercial, in the first few seconds). @ 4:30 you can even here him say Google

Bing is introduced as not a search engine but a decision maker (navigate through excess information and find the shortest distance to an informed decision). There will be 4 “decision making” category’s: shopping, health, travel and local. They will also be adding Virtual Earth Maps.

As i said in my previous article the budget for marketing is large. Add the fact that Microsoft only has one way to go as it comes to search and that is up (lower isn’t possible), then Bing could work. But if they can defeat Google? We will see. My intention are to test Bing for a minimum of 2 weeks with every search I have to make.

to Bing or not to Bing

mvalk — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:06:54 +0000

It is rumored that Microsoft (MSFT) will be launching a makeover of Live Search very soon. Some new techniques should be added to Live Search like:

Opinion Search
collecting, storing, and organizing opinion data such as user reviews of computers, electronics, software, video games, restaurants, and hotels.
Renlifang
Currently, information about a single entity (such as a person or a product) might appear on thousands of Web pages. Renlifang is a web-mining summarization system that extracts information about particular entities from billions of Web pages, reducing the number of pages a user has to comb through to find the information they are looking for.
Color Structured Image Search
Color-Structure Image Search is a new image search interface that uses rough color layouts to indicate users’ intent (instead of using keywords only). This approach helps users find images that can be roughly described by color spatial distribution.
Powerset ???
MSFT is also the owner of the search engine Powerset, which searches Wikipedia articles.

The name of the “new” Live Search is also subject to a lot of speculation. Internally @MSFT they are testing this new search engine and are calling it Kumo (which is Japanese for cloud and spider).

Apparently MSFT is also thinking of the name Bing, cause they asked for a patent for the definition “Bing is providing a web site and web-site links to geographic information, map images and trip routing”, but the adjudication of this patent was rejected (link).
I can’t imagine what Bing means (I’m only thinking of Chandler) , but in a few years it could be possible that we are using phrases like: “just Bing it” and “did you try to Bing it”. Will Bing be the new verb in the dictionary?
According to Adage.com, MSFT will be launching a $80 – $100 million campaign for Bing. Reading through the Adage article, i found one thing really true:

Quote:

That’s why Mr. Seth likens the Bing marketing challenge to that of the Apple iPhone before it was introduced. Most people, pre-iPhone, didn’t know they were missing a multi-touch screen, or an application that would enable them to detect what song was playing wherever they were. But Apple, through its ads, showed how markedly different the experience was and created a new de facto standard for phones.

The question is, will that be the same for the “new” Live Search?
I really can’t say, but I’m going to try it.