Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista, Windows Presentation Foundation

Today's MIX07 Announcements Round-Up

Nick White — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:33:00 GMT

Today MIX07 kicks off at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas with the keynote by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and General Manager Scott Guthrie. You can continue to catch live, on-going coverage at the Visit MIX website.

Let me take a moment to quickly outline the many announcements that occurred today.

An updated Windows Live Dev website (dev.live.com) has launched and includes brand new controls for developers to tap into Windows Live Services when building mash-ups. Those new controls include a Spaces Photo Control and updated Windows Live Contacts control. The Windows Live Spaces control released allows third-party developers to integrate Windows Live Spaces functionality into their websites. CNET has covered the Windows Live platform news coming out of MIX this week.

The Silverlight Team has several major and exciting announcements that have occurred this morning:

An updated www.microsoft.com/silverlight website
Silverlight 1.0 Beta plug-in for browsers is now available here
A CTP (Community Technology Preview) for Silverlight 1.1 was released, adding the .NET runtime
The Silverlight community website, Silverlight.net, has launched. This website showcases a number of places where you can have the full Silverlight experience, such as at 20th Century Fox's Trailer Library (you'll need the plug-in, of course).

Silverlight Streaming with Windows Live has launched in as an Alpha (i.e., pre-Beta) service. You can upload your Silverlight projects to this hosted service to take advantage of 4GB of project storage "in the cloud." The idea is to give developers and web designers a convenient place for them to host and stream their content, which they can then integrate into their browser services using Silverlight Streaming.

The Microsoft Expression Studio has been released as a suite consisting of Expression Design, Expression Web, Expression Blend and Expression Media. Attendees of MIX07 were given a special commemorative edition of the Expression Studio suite. You can dip your toes into incorporating Silverlight into your web creations using the preview version of Expression Blend 2.0 and the trial version of Expression Media Encoder.

This is just a brief overview of the announcements made today at MIX07, with more to come.

New Silverlight DreamScenes for download

Nick White — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 06:12:00 GMT

The Sliverlight crew has put together a Silverlight DreamScene that they call "Dusk" and are releasing at MIX07 this week, in both standard 4:3 and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios. The downloads are part of an updated Silverlight-enabled site that the team will be unveiling on Monday 30 April.

But, as Brandon points out in his post, you can get them ahead of everyone else. He has a video of the download as well in case you want to preview it.

Keep your eyes right here on the blog for more MIX07 news ...

Microsoft Announces Silverlight

Nick White — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:29:00 GMT

Yesterday we officially unveiled the name for what was previously known as the extremely catchy "WPF/e" (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere) at the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters Conference. WPF/e is now Microsoft Silverlight.

OK, so what? Just what is Microsoft Silverlight? It's a new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in that allows users a new and richer multimedia experience when using a Web browser (for example, it supports 720p HD media playback). Web developers targeting IE, Firefox and even Apple's Safari browser can all make use of Silverlight for a consistently amazing experience. It's also a client- and server-agnostic platform; this means that the runtimes are the same on any platform, allowing you to deliver the Silverlight experience from an Apache web server, if you like -- without requiring any MS software on the server. How's that for interoperability?

Plus, existing Windows Media-encoded content can be streamed or downloaded without the need for re-encoding.

You'll notice that the MS Silverlight Website includes demo videos and FAQ and evaluation downloads. On 30 April, just in time for MIX07, the site re-launches with a full-on Silverlight experience.

Check out Sean Alexander's demo of Silverlight over on Channel 10.

Tim Sneath has a top 10 list of reasons why you want to use Silverlight.

And saving the best for last, my former colleague from the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, Loke Uei, shares some excellent information on Silverlight, including a comparison chart between Silverlight and .NET 3.0.

This is just the beginning -- like I said, expect to hear more at MIX07 in just a few weeks.

See you at MIX07

Nick White — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:44:00 GMT

This year's MIX07 promises to be an exciting 72-hour conversation amongst Web devs, designers, advertisers, decision-makers and MS (I'll be there), with Ray Ozzie and General Manager Scott Gunthrie slated to start it all off with their keynote. Just like last year at MIX06, MS is continuing to "mix" it up (the audience, that is) to get various perspectives on bringing next-generation experiences to the Web.

MIX07 at Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel offers a variety of sessions, such as "Blending Up User Experiences" (focusing on WPF integration and implementation) to "IE7 Past, Present, and Future" (browser features and futures). And of course Windows Vista is right in the middle of it all, being the OS underpinning many of the advances in the Web experience.

Even better? All MIX07 attendees receive a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate.

Last year's MIX saw the Beta 2 Refresh of IE7, giving developers and web designers a peek at Microsoft’s brand new Web browser now shipping with Windows Vista.

This year’s MIX should be quite interesting. If you're not already signed up, do so before 15 March so as to take advantage of the early-bird discount of 15% off the full conference registration price.

And if you want to share your excitement for the event, you can even put some MIX bling on your website or blog.

See you there ...

Small Software Developers: Get Flying with Windows Vista

James Senior — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:02:00 GMT

Project codename "Glidepath" is an Evangelism initiative targeted at helping MicroISVs get started and be successful with a focus on Windows Vista.

Project Glidepath includes a free software factory add-in for Visual Studio 2005 that delivers, via RSS, guidance, content, code samples, step-by-step instructions and even custom tools that help MicroISVs take full advantage of Windows Vista including .NET 3.0 (WPF, WCF, WF, and CardSpace) as well as many non-technical aspects of being a MicroISV.

Project Glidepath also features the Windows Vista Spotlight highlighting MicroISV applications available worldwide that are compatible with Windows Vista.

Full information plus community forums and a blog are available via www.projectglidepath.net

James’ Go Do: Create some of your own WOW!

Check out the New York Times Reader for Windows Vista

Nick White — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:47:00 GMT

You may have read about the Times Reader back in April when it was previewed at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention. It’s now available for download to Windows Vista beta users! The Times Reader enhances the onscreen reading experience through Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft’s advanced display technology in Windows Vista. As readers change font or window size, the text dynamically redraws to optimize both readability and on-screen layout. With WPF, the Times Reader can completely replicate the "look" of the print version of the NY Times, including fonts, typeface and layout, much more closely than its Web site now does.

It’s very cool; here are some hi-res screen shots.