This Might Interest A Few Developers...

... and although most of you've already seen it, or had a link to it emailed to you... for those who haven't, here's Bill's keynote opener at CES 2005...

http://metahost.savvislive.com/microsoft/20060104/ces_billgates_keynote_20060104_300.asx

once you fast forward past the opening hype and homage, there's some itneresting stuff about Vista...

things i found interesting were...

1- the panoramic display... i gotta have one...
2- the mobile phone drop onto a display table connectivity...
3-the Vista interface (although i keep seeing the old Aniga interface paradigm in the back of my mind, and keep wondering why this stuff needs to be windowed)...
4-the Ali Frazier boxing game... :)

... anyways, there it is for those interested.

--Mike

Any submarines?

1. for the panoramic display - I need a new and bigger house (and more...more...more money...)
2. my mobile phone is used only a mobile phone: all the other 'utilities' are not so necessary (by the way it is a UMTS phone...)
3. VISTA interface seems to be better or at least equivalent to MacOS (graphically speacking...) but my real problem is: why I must buy a new OS...only for some nice fx graphics? I'm quite happy with winXP (with Windows98 interface gfx...)

Not for flaming - interesting overall - thank for the links for the NON developers people like me.

I believe that I looked at clips of this on G4 TV this morning (formerly Tech TV), and the report seems fairly decent. I saw the demo of an interactive mobile phone tabletop, of sorts, and then Windows Vista (Bill DOES look like he's trying to be another Apple with that OS). All in all, it doesn't look too shabby. That's gonna be something to look forward to, but would those be worth it yet?

I have confidence in my PC!
I expect! He expects! We expect! We all expect! I expect controls!

Windows Vista delivers. It delivers. Vista delivers.
I have mail!!!!!

I am in control of my PC.
I am in control.
I am in control............................

That interface guy is hypnotic.

Stop drinking koffee.
Seriously.

imo i dont think it would be a good idea to display the contents of your phone on a table for every one to see. Even more so in an airport!

Doesn't MS OWN a large portion of Apple anyway (if I remember right about 30%)

Yes they do. And they have for a long time.

I often bring that point up when people whine about MS being an evil competitor with precious Apple.

I don't see what is so magical about this new "SEARCH" thing that they're yammering about. How is Keyword going to be remotely useful unless I go through keywording all my files? (Unless Office does it automatically, which it probably will, but that accounts for less than 1% of my files). Search by image average colour would be great


- and I'm glad that they're not doing it. Good money maker there, actually.

Wasn't it non-voting stock?

Microsoft has been the largest software developer for the Mac platform for a long time though. (Mostly thanks to Microsoft Office for the Mac)

Wow, this video is amazing - I downloaded it to watch it. The "Bill Gates" bit is really exciting.

I think that that will be perfectly possible, very soon, as well. Probably the moment that everyone is convinced that computers can aid their workflow and start posting information on networks all the time, it will start going.

Of course, we'll also need either Microsoft to take over the entire software industry or for some more solid standards to be set that people actually use. (*COUGH* Internet Explorer *cough*)

It was hilarious how excited that guy was with IE's tabbed browsing. So far, I have had no losses of confidence in my PC when Firefox or Opera does not have the amazing tab with thumbnails of every open page.

It's also funny how they justified their use of alpha in the GUI. I don't see how a transparent window with writing all over it makes it easier to see what's behind it, and I especially don't see why I would want to. "Because it looks cool" would be a much better excuse.
The scrolling application switching is neat, though.

There does seem to be a lot of gimmicky stuff in Vista. Most of the so-called new features are already do-able.

Did they mention what kind of hardware specs Vista demands?

[sarcasm]
Bill,
Should I set aside £5000 so I can buy a suitable PC to run your new O/S on? It'll be awesome to have transparent 3D windows. I don't know *how* I have mananged without them.
With all the bloat-o-matic features in there should I also purchase a coffee machine while Vista boots up?
[/sarcasm]

Jim,

Reminds me of the old "Not The 9 O'Clock News" sketch...

£400 for a television license - it's outrageous, it's far too cheap...

I'd glady re-mortgage my house if I had to, to pay the licence fee...


LOL.

IPete2.

I thought most of the stuff shown was a bit gimmicky. I suppose its kind of cool but most of it isn't going to be very useful in my daily schedule.

I did like the wrap around monitor, appart from the fact that it was a bit on the large side. To me it looked about 7' long lol. I'd prefer something made from the equivalent of regular 3x24" monitors.

I think Vista will be cool when finished, but not because of all the silly little gadgets.

I've seen some applications that were capable of using it, like Exodus (a jabber chat client). You can make the entire window transparent.
Nice theory, but in reality it just becomes a confusing mess -- in general you DON'T want to blend multiple windows with each other. Instead of 'only seeing the contents of one while the other is being blocked', you end up with 'no I can't read either one, because it all blends together'

blending windows sounds dumb.

Of course, a window in Windows isn't just a window. It's also a tab, a scroll bar, a button, a text field... or any other gadget.
So as long as the alpha is not used for an actual window, it will be a good feature.

I like that they actually made Windows Media Player look nice again. I despise how the current version doesn't have a proper titlebar half the time... and there's a strange button that looks awful and does nothing that pops up on it from time to time.

Things like scroll bars and buttons need to be clearly visible too, so it seems the alpha feature will only be useful when used on objects that are not useful. :)