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Microsoft is back to innovating?

Friday morning I woke up to a delightful scene: I had learned that Microsoft seems to be back to innovating. They have just rolled out their beta release of Microsoft HealthVault. For those who haven’t heard, this is a database platform that stores all of your health information. It is a platform because it is being built up as a way for patients, doctors, and all of their specialists can all use the same database to store this data. In addition, they will even have devices, such as glucose monitors that can interface with HealthVault to upload data. Pretty cool if you ask me!

Oh and about privacy…the user has complete control of what gets shared with outsiders.

Enough about the service (which I think I may sign up for soon), but I think that the more important issue here is that Microsoft seems to be in the creative stages again and just not enslaved to the Windows operating system. I feel like Microsoft has fallen behind the curve recently. For example, up until they had released Windows ME, it just seemed like they had one mission: to get people computers that were (relatively) easy to use and could be useful. Windows 9x became a huge standard and still is for some. But if one was to look at that era, they would see Microsoft’s bold new designs in mice, keyboards, joysticks, and gamepads. Maybe certain products didn’t sell too well, but they were important to the era. Or perhaps my favorite: the Microsoft Home line of software. First let me say that I still occasionally use my copy of Explorapedia: The World of Animals because it is a perfect example of this. Oh, and the glorious Magic School Bus games!!! There are just too many other examples to list, but Microsoft had committed itself to this, and it spawned ripoffs and overall, the industry grew exponentially.

Then Windows ME was ready to be released and the developers realized that the 9x kernel must die. I remember hearing years ago that the original slogan for ME was supposed to be “it just works” but 2000 Professional became a priority, and the 9x kernel was, well, old. So then Neptune was in progress…but it was then made into Whistler, and we ended up with XP…a corporate OS with very little consumer effects. Sure hindsight is 20/20, but the huge issue here was that XP should have been a platform for the future, in my opinion. It was, but there was too much legacy code. They became chained to the OS (although the Xbox turned out to be an amazing device…BECAUSE it was not chained down to Windows).

Let’s fast forward to 2004. Microsoft has huge goals for Longhorn (I am working on finding all of the original concept videos to post them online) including three main pillars of: WinFS, Avalon, and Indigo. (More about these in a later post) It was then that it was realized that these goals were huge, especially for having to deal with such a large volume of legacy code (for backward compatibility). Longhorn had to be reset and then the pillars were knocked away. WinFS, a dream since 1994, is still sitting around somewhere in Redmond.

Now on to July 27, 2005. Time for Microsoft to release Beta 1. It was three hours late (who was counting?) and immediately, one could see that this wasn’t really a complete beta. And it wasn’t feature complete for quite some time…

Back to the present: now we have Vista out the door, and the highly-anticipated Vista SP1 is already in beta. Now Windows is under the direction of Steven Sinofsky. Let’s see what happens. Of course the ideal situation would be a new platform with emulation for older programs…after all, why did Microsoft buy Connectix? I doubt it was for the rights to Virtual!

Anyway, with the Windows guys toiling away in the labs, it seems that Microsoft seems to be getting ready for a bunch of new concepts. IPTV on the 360 and Media Center finally seem to be taking off, Microsoft Surface (a supposed long-time vision of BillG’s) is very close to being ready, the Zune (thanks to J Allard) is looking to be a more serious contender…and at the same time is actually going to bring most new features to the original Zune (Apple take note!), web services are looking better than ever, and HealthVault is public.

It seems that while Microsoft pioneered, or at least finally delivered, a home PC in the mid-90s, they were caught off-guard by Apple and it’s digital media revolution. But now Microsoft seems to have some insight into this web-based future…and this could pay off.

Comments???

Warning: iTunes 7.4.1

Just a heads up to anyone with an iPhone…if you download the iTunes 7.4.1 update that was just posted to Apple’s website, you will no longer be able to make your own ringtones by renaming files to ones with an .m4r extension! Beware in updating!

Another suite of web software…

Now that Google Desktop has been out for ages, Microsoft finally feels confident enough in its ability to release a non-beta version of all of its Windows Live services. While I do think it’s nice to see that Microsoft has had to create some new services, I do have some mixed feelings about this Windows Live Suite. For example, while the new Hotmail looks pretty nice, the Windows Live Mail (Desktop) client is nothing more than an enhanced version of Outlook Express Windows Mail.

Also, it would be nice if Microsoft realized that it’s time to become even more innovative. Microsoft Surface was a great idea, and I hope it pans out. But copying Google with all of their web services doesn’t have too much of an advantage.

I have used all of the apps at one point, and must say that they are pretty good…I still don’t like the idea of them copying Google so much. We all know that BillG has the ideas, I just wonder why they aren’t panning out. Windows 3.1 and subsequently Windows 95 were revolutionary and brought people to buy computers.

Hopefully their new IPTV initiative will work out. I just love that idea. But that, my friends, will be left for another day.

Check out the Windows Live Suite here:

http://get.live.com/wl/all

The future of digital media…

You know, the business models of the MPAA and RIAA are just too antiquated for today’s world. Considering that Apple will be updating its iPod line in just hours, I thought I would take some time to comment on what should be, and tie it to my current situation at Stony Brook University.

Microsoft did a good thing with the Zune…they decided that it would be a good idea to go and add Wi-Fi to the device. This way people could share music. Of course there was one caveat: the limitations on the songs. They would only let you listen to a song three times after downloading. Afterward, you would have to buy it. Period.

What if, however, one company could stream all of this music…for free, or maybe a small fee. Just take a look at what projects such as Pandora radio are all about…they give you choice of music (even if the choice is not great). there have been some rumors about the iPod having Wi-Fi capabilities. What if these new iPods could stream music from whatever iTunes computer it is in range of. Imagine that…now you allow people access to so much content, they would not have to worry about pirating.

Since I’ve moved in at Stony Brook University, I have seen that many students have their copy of iTunes configured to share their libraries. What a wonderful idea! I can go into a library of like 8000 songs and listen to the music I want. I don’t possess a copy of it, I can just listening, just as I would be on the radio. Now what if my iPod could pick up on those shared libraries?

I know that iTunes gives warnings that the sharing is for personal use only, but that is because of pressure from record labels. There is no doubt. If it was up to Steve Jobs, there would be no DRM anyway. Just imagine a connected campus in which I have access to hundreds of thousands of songs…all from my iPod. If that isn’t innovation, I don’t know what is.

Comments from anyone? My library is currently password protected, but if you do happen to find it (under Stephen Stakey’s Library), let me know. I wonder how many others at SBU have discovered this cool thing.

And more importantly, why not open up your library? Keep iTunes in the background and share your music…but of course it couldn’t be illegal, as you don’t actually retain the music. Really I don’t see how it is different than lending a friend a CD many years ago…just for a listen. Or what, was that illegal, too?

So here’s to Apple in hoping that the new iPod will be the most revolutionary personal media player out there. The creative genius is there…along with the innovative drive. And of course, I will be back tomorrow to share my thoughts about the new announcements.

What do you guys think?

Two Cool Websites!

You know, it’s amazing what types of services are on the Internet these days. I’ve come across two really cool ones for music: Pandora Radio and Lala. More below:

Pandora Radio (http://www.pandora.com/) is a website that is based off of the Music Genome Project. What it allows you to do is create playlists full of music that it selects. All you have to do is enter in some if your favorite songs or bands, and it will stream over music that is similar in character to your specifications. It’s scary how detailed some of the song descriptions are. There are a few problems though, and they have to do with licensing…for when you are listening to music, you can only forward ahead five songs every hour, cannot rewind, and cannot play a specific song. I didn’t find it to be a problem though…the website makes a perfect way to get nice background music.

Lala.com is a cool service that will actually upload your entire iTunes library to its servers so that you can log in at any time and play your music library anywhere. It’s an amazing website and a nice way to play your music from multiple computers. You can also go and view your friends’ playlists and if you like it, you can buy songs from their playlists (not from your friends, but from LaLa).

Hopefully you find these websites useful. Enjoy!