PDC 2008 Roundup
Microsoft's PDC conference finished late last week. In case you didn't manage to follow us daily or wanted an overview of the weeks news, I have put together a list of the best things to check out from our PDC.
Firstly is Windows 7 itself, Microsoft unveiled the new client OS on PDC Day 2 to great excitement from the crowds at PDC. Neowin was one of the first to post a full UI overview of Windows 7 and you can get the low down by visiting our "Introducing the Windows 7 UI" news post.
Next up we checked out a session that demonstrated how Microsoft tests their ideas in usability labs. A design concept for jump lists was shown which is the current jump lists in Windows 7 PDC build 6801.
Each day we liveblogged the various keynotes with the "all star bloggers", day 1 can be found here which features Windows Azure, day 2 can be found here which focussed on Windows 7 and the final day focussed on Microsoft research can be found here. The Microsoft research keynote was also streamed live on Qik, this can be found in the day 3 live blog.
During the week we also visited various Microsoft booths and sessions to get some great Windows 7 demos which can be found here and here. We also visited every single Microsoft Surface unit at the PDC and recorded all the various applications installed, you can view the footage here.
PDC 2009 was announced for November 17-20, we will be there live just like this year so stay tuned for further details this time next year. See you then!... Read on »
Winner of PDC HDD
I'm proud to announce the lucky winner of our PDC 2008 HDD packed with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and various SDKs is Tsumana.
For those interested in how we picked the winner, I asked a friend to pick a number between 1 and 513 and he came up with 383 which was Tsumana's comment.
Congratulations Tsumana! I will be contacting you shortly to arrange shipping to your country.
If you missed our PDC coverage please check out our PDC section.... Read on »
Windows 7 Touch development
So it's the last day of PDC today and yesterday I got the chance to speak to Andrew Whiddett, Vice President of Interactive Technology, regarding his companies development for the Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 Touch platforms.
Whiddett kindly demonstrated his application for us and explained how it responds to the users touch. The application displays a library of pictures and can be linked to the Surface computer to pull images onto the big screen.
... Read on »
Use the Windows Ribbon
Microsoft wants you to use the Ribbon in your applications. In a session today at PDC, Microsoft outlined Ribbon development and urged developers to include it in their applications.
Use la ribbon!
Windows Ribbon for Vista will be available next year for use within
... Read on »
Microsoft Surfaces at PDC
Microsoft has tons of surface units across PDC, at partner booths, lounges and even their own little surface spot on the main floor.
Microsoft has also been handing out the beta Surface SDK to those who participate in the hands on labs.
At PDC we were set a challenge to visit all of them with a special card and pick up photo images from each surface unit. The prize was a surface t-shirt. We thought that whilst we were visiting each of them why not record the different applications on the surface units as they varied per unit. Rafael helped out with the recordings.
... Read on »
Direct 2D and DirectWrite Demos
Kam Vedbrat, formerely a Windows UX guy, just demonstrated some great new features in Direct 2D and DirectWrite for smoothing fonts. Kam also demonstrated the new Gabriola font included in Windows 7.
DirectWrite:
Direct2D:
Look how good txt is when it's moving rapidly:
... Read on »
Windows 7 design concepts & usability tests
We're just in a session on design practices in Windows 7. Microsoft just demonstrated a usability test where a user hovered over the new taskbar and was impressed so much they just continued playing around with it.
Check it out below:
Next up a design concept for jump lists was shown, an old version that is not going to be shipping was shown from old Win 7 builds:
I am posting this as live as possible so I will add more concepts as they demonstrate them.... Read on »
PDC 2008 Live Blog Day 3 Microsoft Research keynote
Today is the third day of PDC 2008. Rick Rashid, Vice President of Microsoft Research, will be starring in the keynote which begins at 8:30am PST.
We are told to expect some exciting demos and insight into the future of Microsoft technologies.
We will be live blogging the keynote just like yesterday with the all star bloggers. The liveblogging will include Ed Bott, Kip Kniskern, Long Zheng, Mary Jo Foley, Paul Thurrott, Rafael Rivera and myself Tom Warren.
Keep tuned to this page and the liveblogging will begin shortly.
... Read on »
Neowin asks: Windows 7 Touch
By now you should have seen the news about the new Windows 7 UI and touch based advances. If not then please checkout our introducing the Windows 7 UI article.
As we want to involve our readers as much as possible, we wanted to give you the opportunity to field questions to the Windows team regarding touch and how the new UI enhancements are assisting us move to touch computing on the desktop.
We held a Q&A session yesterday on the PDC build which was highly successful, with over 400 people asking questions, but we wanted to go speak to Microsoft today and field your questions.
If you have a question regarding the new touch UI then please leave a comment in this article and we'll try our best to get them all answered. The answers will be recorded next to a HP TouchSmart system to fully demo them. A member of the Windows team will give expert answers and I will post the footage later today.
If you would like to know more about Windows 7 and PDC then please visit our PDC section.
Don't forget we are also offering you a unique opportunity to win the PDC hard drive that has been handed out to attendees. Click here to find out how to enter.... Read on »
Windows Media Player in Windows 7
Microsoft has built a neat little control into Windows 7 to reduce the many launch surfaces for Windows applications.
According to Chaitanya Sareen from the Windows team at Microsoft, only 3% of users enable the taskbar control for Windows Media Player. Microsoft saw this as an area for improvement and built a control for when media player is minimised.
... Read on »
Windows 7 Demos
Picked up on some nice demos of Windows 7 this morning at PDC.
Firstly there is a touch screen application demonstrating the touch features and ability for multi touch during air hockey. It was a little buggy as you can see but the whole PC seemed slow so I think it was a driver issue rather than Windows 7.
We re-visited the identity mine booth later and got a much better demonstration on non-buggy hardware:
Afterwards I attended a Windows 7 session and we got a nice demonstration of the different colours hovering over applications in the new Windows 7 taskbar.
We also got a full 5 minute demonstration of "Aero Peek" which allows you to peek through various parts of Windows 7 to clearly see windows that are hidden behind and their content.
Also, the Windows 7 boot that everyone keeps asking after:
... Read on »
Introducing the Windows 7 UI
Update: For more video demos please check out the Windows 7 Demos post.
During the Windows 7 reviewers workshop on Sunday Linda Averett demonstrated the user interface enhancements introduced with Windows 7. Keeping with the trend, Averett described herself as a PC, wearing a red top matching her fall colored desktop with orange and red aero glass tones.
The session was an overview of some new features demonstrated on Windows 7 build 6933.winmain.081020-1842. Unfortunately the build that will be handed out to PDC attendees will not feature most of the enhancements I am about to detail.
First up was the new Windows 7 desktop. The new desktop includes a thicker taskbar, improved system tray and no sidebar. The orb on the start menu also glistens after hover over.
... Read on »
Windows 7 Install process
Long and I installed Windows 7 to his test Dell laptop today, after the bits were given out.
It took approximately 30 mins total install and there are some good configuration options afterward. It feels like Micosoft no longer asks you a bunch of questions for the install and post install which is a good thing. We took a video of both the pre-copying files install part and post install configuration.
... Read on »
Windows Touch with live maps
Now how cool is this...
... Read on »
"The goods" Windows 7 HDD Giveaway
Microsoft has started to dish out the bits to attendees today. The HDD is western digital and pictured below.
On the HDD is the SDKs and Windows 7.
We are going to be giving away our HDD to one lucky Neowin user. Just leave a comment here and by the end of the week we will pick a random winner and ship it out.... Read on »
New Windows Live Messenger Wave 3 UI
Microsoft just demonstrated the latest UI for Windows Live Messenger in a Windows 7 session here at PDC.
Check out the video here:
Also, the new messenger icon:
... Read on »