PDC 2008: Live blog of the Windows 7 keynote
Day two of PDC 2008 begins this morning with a keynote address featuring Ray Ozzie, Steven Sinofsky, Scott Guthrie and David Treadwell. The focus of today will be Windows 7 and the introduction of new user experiences in Windows. The next release of Windows Server 2008 will also be discussed.
We will be live-blogging the keynote as it takes place. Refresh this page for updates.
Bejeweled Twist a gameplay gem for PopCap
After nearly four years, you'd think the PopCap crew would feel good about kicking up their heels at the release of Bejeweled Twist, the third version of their iconic casual game.
But CEO Dave Roberts seemed a bit abashed Monday night, even as a flock of spangled trapeze artists prepared to loft themselves high above a launch-party crowd.
Microsoft rolls out SDK for Surface interface
Love that giant touch-sensitive electoral map on MSNBC? Want one of your very own (or have a better idea)? Developers at PDC are readying their multitouch mojo as Microsoft today released the software development kit for the Surface interface.
It's a long way from a hacked Ikea table to parody on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update, but here we are. The project presented to Bill Gates in prototype form back in 2003 is already in use on a few early deployments, but distribution of the SDK to up to 1,000 developers signals that the Vista-based platform is ready to expand considerably, with consumer-app availability likely within 3-5 years.
PDC 2008: Ray Ozzie and company present the cloud
Monday morning in Los Angeles, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie took his time unveiling his company's gamble to dominate a field of computing where it has actually fared third-place, or worse.
For over two years, a team of senior Microsoft executives stayed mostly out of the public view, working on something that was sometimes strangely called the "Windows Core." Some rightly guessed it was the company's services platform for cloud computing, though it was still a matter of speculation how that would work, or what it would consist of.
PDC 2008: More details on Windows Azure, the Internet operating system
PDC 2008: First in-depth look at ASP.NET MVC
At Day 1 of PDC 2008 in Los Angeles, attendees got their first look at a technology Microsoft introduced earlier this month into beta: a new way for building reformed Web applications.
The Web site StackOverflow.com is the latest example of a fully operational Web site, running today out of beta, using a technology from Microsoft that is still in beta: ASP.NET MVC, the new compartmentalization model for content-driven Web site programming.
OpenID adds Microsoft's Live ID to its list of providers
Microsoft announced on Monday that the company's Windows Live ID will support the OpenID digital identity framework, releasing a Community Technology Preview (CTP) at this week's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
The CTP allows relying-party sites and the developers of relying-party libraries to test their setups against the Windows Live ID OpenID provider endpoint. Testing now will help them to knock out bugs before the system goes live, most likely sometime next year.
Ubuntu 8.10 officially launches Thursday
Canonical today announced that the 8.10 version of its popular Linux distribution Ubuntu will be available for free download on Thursday, October 30.
Both the desktop and server editions of Ubuntu 8.10 will be available for download on the official Web Site, and on FileForum.
US Armed Services: Twitter may also have some positive uses
Twitter may make Army Intelligence nervous, but examples of two current online efforts by the Air Force and Coast Guard show that tech remains value-neutral, and vital to American military interests.
The news over the weekend that the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion worries that Twitter has become "a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences" induced a certain amount of eye-rolling around the Web. The Federation of American Scientists, which posted a PDF of the report on its site (PDF available here), snarked that Twitter was thus comparable to credit cards and can openers.
Microsoft issues security update for Windows 7 pre-beta
Although PDC 2008 attendees won't receive Windows 7 Milestone 3 build 6801 until Tuesday, Microsoft has already issued a security patch for the pre-beta version of Vista's successor. This early version of Windows 7 is quite similar to Vista, and will likely require the same security fixes.
"A security issue has been identified that could allow an authenticated remote attacker to compromise your Microsoft Windows-based system and gain control over it," Microsoft says on the download page. x86, x64 and Itanium versions of the patch are available.
PDC 2008: First look at 'Dublin,' .NET for the cloud
Interest in how Microsoft would deploy an extension of the .NET Framework called Dublin in the cloud exceeded anyone's expectations today, as thousands of attendees literally spilled over into a spare room to watch the first Dublin demos on video.
Dublin is, as was already known prior to today, Microsoft's platform for extending .NET services as distributed architecture; but now we know that Dublin will be used for deploying custom .NET applications on Windows Azure. This afternoon, the company's Jacob Avital and Mauricio Ordonez performed live demonstrations of how a cloud-based .NET would asynchronously capture customer-generated events over the Web, respond to those events with code, and report on the results.
Cox to launch 3G cellular network in 2009
Utilizing the 700MHz spectrum block it acquired in March and the Sprint network, Cox Communications today announced plans to launch its own wireless service.
The company plans to enter the market in 2009 on Sprint's network, and then roll out its own 3G network, which it is currently building. Cox's plans also involve testing LTE for 4G connectivity.
PDC 2008 FAQ: What is Windows Azure and why should you care?
The big news for day 1 at PDC 2008 was the introduction Windows Azure, Microsoft's "operating system for the cloud," and its associated Azure Services Platform. Microsoft also outlined future plans for its own online services. We've put together a quick FAQ to help you digest the news and what it means.
What is Windows Azure and the Azure Services Platform? Windows Azure serves as the foundation for developing applications that run in the cloud. What this means is that it essentially turns servers across the Internet into a massive distributed operating system, running applications that both interact with PC-based software and run within a Web browser.
PDC 2008: Azure is, and isn't, Microsoft's answer to everyone else's challenge
Anyone who thinks Microsoft isn't capable of responding to a serious challenge doesn't know Microsoft. It's the familiar puzzle, put together the same way: Let others blaze the trail, then wait for an opening and leverage resources.
Windows Azure, depending not upon whom you ask but instead upon when you ask the question, either is or is not an operating system. It is not a kernel designed to operate on a single processor and provide access to resources on the local machine, so in that regard, it is not Windows.
Microsoft's Gates argue in favor of white spaces access to FCC
Still very much the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates is expected to try to convince an FCC commissioner to help quell an NAB proposal that would push back a vote on "freeing the white spaces" of the wireless spectrum.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and another high-ranking Microsoft official plan to call FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell later today to help sway the commission away from an demand by TV industry to delay its decision on the controversial "white spaces," BetaNews has learned.
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