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The Zune gets a makeover (no more of that ugly squircle on plastic) for the Zune HD.
Specs:
- Bright OLED touchscreen display (16:9 widescreen, 480×272 res)
- NVIDIA Tegra graphics card
- HD radio receiver
- HD video output
- Wi-Fi enabled
The Apple iPod Touch that will release alongside the Zune HD in the fall will probably be cheaper. And I already have more iPods than I know what to do with (paperweights & externalHDs galore), but dude — that OLED screen is gorgeous!
It may be enough for me to go over to the dark side and purchase a Microsoft media player. Maybe. The Zune may have Social, but it doesn’t have a store with 30,000+ applications.
The lack of FM radio on my iPod Video is finally getting to me. I shouldn’t have to use an iPod accessory or have to buy a cheapo radio to get my dose of NPR.
Random fact: From April 2008 to April 2009, Twitter has seen a 1,298% increase in visitors, whereas Facebook has only seen a 217% increase by comparison (Source: Nielsen).
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Ever since all the major newspapers and The White House jumped on board, I’ve been wanting to open a Twitter account or two. I love new sources of information. Unfortunately, I am still lacking in the infrastructure department (AKA I don’t have a smartphone) so it would be no different than blogging and sharing links through Facebook from my home computer. If I am to tweet, I need to be mobile!
Speaking of smartphones, the Palm Pre was released on June 6th to modest fanfare. It’s not much of a serious contender against the iPhone, because it has so few apps and games available. However, the Pre does has some perks. The WebOS user interface allows multiple applications to run simultaneously using a virtual “deck of cards” metaphor. Also, the Pre is able to gather data streams from all your online accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, etc.) and compile a comprehensive contacts list, without duplicates [Synergy].
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Thought I’d share these paragraphs from a TIME article I just read:
“How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live“.
Skeptics might wonder just how much subversion and wit is conveyable via 140-character updates. But in recent months Twitter users have begun to find a route around that limitation by employing Twitter as a pointing device instead of a communications channel: sharing links to longer articles, discussions, posts, videos — anything that lives behind a URL. Websites that once saw their traffic dominated by Google search queries are seeing a growing number of new visitors coming from “passed links” at social networks like Twitter and Facebook. This is what the naysayers fail to understand: it’s just as easy to use Twitter to spread the word about a brilliant 10,000-word New Yorker article as it is to spread the word about your Lucky Charms habit.
Put those three elements together — social networks, live searching and link-sharing — and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google’s near monopoly in searching. At its heart, Google’s system is built around the slow, anonymous accumulation of authority: pages rise to the top of Google’s search results according to, in part, how many links point to them, which tends to favor older pages that have had time to build an audience. That’s a fantastic solution for finding high-quality needles in the immense, spam-plagued haystack that is the contemporary Web. But it’s not a particularly useful solution for finding out what people are saying right now, the in-the-moment conversation that industry pioneer John Battelle calls the “super fresh” Web. Even in its toddlerhood, Twitter is a more efficient supplier of the super-fresh Web than Google. If you’re looking for interesting articles or sites devoted to Kobe Bryant, you search Google. If you’re looking for interesting comments from your extended social network about the three-pointer Kobe just made 30 seconds ago, you go to Twitter.
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P.S. Microsoft released their new decision-search engine called Bing, which organizes search results into relevant categories (like a guidebook) rather than displaying long series of individual links.
At the Electronic Entertainment Expo, AKA E3 2009, Microsoft introduced Project Natal, a new interface for the XBox 360 console that eliminates the need for a physical controller. Instead, players game via an accessory capable of voice & image recognition and full-body 3D motion tracking (microphone + video camera + infrared camera + nifty software).
Way to one-up the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft…conceptually, anyway. We will have to see about the implementation. How awesome would it be if Project Natal was backwards compatible?
Product concept video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oACt9R9z37U
We were shown an example of the raw output of the system, which melds the two sources and then breaks them down into a wireframe of objects, a heatmap (for depth), and a point-map (which is akin to one of those hand imprint needle toys). The software merges all of this together to create a picture of movement in the room, allowing for some pretty crazy detail of what is going on…The accuracy is far better than you would imagine it could be; it’s very impressive stuff. [via Engadget]
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Back at IDC 2009, I heard that Microsoft acquired a company manufacturing 3D range-sensing cameras. So the rumors were true–it was for the XBox. Human face/body tracking is wicked cool, because of its precision & accuracy.
I grew up in a family where video games were outlawed in favor of actual physical activity. Then Nintendo came along and changed everything. And now we own a Wii.
I wonder if gesture-based control systems will ever replace traditional controllers?
At IDC2009, I had the privilege of meeting Steven Batiche (Director of Research, Applied Sciences Group, Entertainment & Devices Division – Microsoft Corp.) and listening to his presentation on advances in surface computers. When he pulled up a slew of videos demonstrating conceptual and working prototypes from the Microsoft design labs–I was utterly awestruck.
Up until then, I had been steeped in Apple’s powerful marketing campaigns and lost sight of the obvious: that Microsoft is an immense international entity with resources that, if leveraged appropriately, could surpass Apple a hundred times over. Microsoft’s research & development rocks, as far as I’m concerned. They are doing some unbelievable experimentation with surface computers (think Microsoft Surface but 100X more awesome).
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How do I begin to describe what has the feel of pure fiction? It’s better if I show you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvtxupQmRSA&fmt=18
This is the Productivity Future Vision montage from Microsoft Office Labs . Though a concept video by all rights, it is very much grounded on research and is a plausible articulation of what to expect by the year 2019. There is more artistic license on the software side, but the actual hardware is all too real. Many of the “concepts” have been prototyped or are somewhere along in development.
From the video, we see:
- Speech, text, and cultural translation.
- Low cost, multi-touch, edge-to-edge displays; flexible, transparent displays.
- Software clusters brought together in a natural user interface.
- Active workspaces with rich graphics, achieved with ambient projectors and thin OLED displays.
- Large displays allowing for different user inputs (touch, mouse, stylus).
- Mobile devices with modular form factors that can access sensor networks and information resources. Image analysis and projection abilities.
- Seamless secure data sharing and integrated workflow tools between devices and across networks.
Check out the coffee mug at 4:12 – it’s to die for. Nothing is impossible! The music makes me feel very optimistic.
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You’ll see technology becoming more invisible, but working harder for you in both your work and personal life. Imagine a future where creating a document with a colleague will be as easy as having a conversation. Making connections with people and your content will be secure and seamless. Relevant insight and information will be delivered proactively and in context to the task at hand.
Mobile devices will be more powerful than desktop computers of today. Technology will connect you with the information you need, when and where you need it, whether it be your local coffee shop, an airport, or a roof top in Hong Kong. Software will be there to make getting things done as efficiently as possible in new ways that are more natural.
["Productivity Re-Imagined" via Microsoft Office Labs]
