Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Windows 8, Metro and RIP .NET

I attended a Microsoft event today in downtown LA about Windows 8 and the future according to Microsoft.


In a nutshell, Microsoft is turning the Windows desktop into a web browser and is going the way of Palm Web OS. HTML5 + Javascript/unmanaged C++ for Windows Apps and they are pretty much signaling the end of the CLR (Common Language Runtime) -- (the .NET framework and all that it entails seems to not fit anywhere in the Microsoft roadmap anymore and unmanaged C is coming back...). The move also points to the time of the big mainframes (now called the cloud) and pretty much Microsoft is noting that the Cloud becomes the computer and the OS you run on your device has pretty much no relevance... (The new Metro look)

When users boot up their new laptops or desktops using Windows 8 will always see the Metro look, and if they want to use the good ol' Windows Desktop, they would have to find the tile to launch it.
Windows 8 preview
Of course there is a Registry Hack that would allow you to change this behavior so that you can end up in the good ol' desktop all the time... but no comment on Microsoft shutting that down yet... hopefully not.

I really don't want to talk about the Metro look, and its App Store, but is being advertised heavily by Microsoft, Basically the ugly 3 year old design of the squares will be running on the Microsoft WinRT which basically replaces Win32\Internet Explorer\.NET CLR. Metro and Windows 8 Desktop will both coexist on your laptop/computer like enemies.  You cannot access a File that resides on your Desktop from Metro and viceversa. You could in theory write a web service and host it on your Desktop machine and have your Metro application consume it to access data from your desktop, but that goes against the MS licensing agreement...
Metro applications can only be distributed thru the App Store, and MS would have to approve your application prior to releasing it to the App Store (they are imitating Apple, just not in a very smart way)
Metro applications will be developed in C/unmanaged C++or Javascript, but Javascript would pretty much be able to access / interact with WinRT the way C does... weird huh?
Even though Metro looks and feels like Windows mobile, it doesn't support Silverlight marking the end of that technology.

WinRT basically represents the taking back of the .NET Framework into the core Windows team and offers first-class support for C and C++ (as you would expect) and Javascript... 
HTML 5 is pretty much taking over Silverlight... why? most likely because they are trying to attract today's application developers. Most of client-side developers are building HTML apps, another big number are writing iOS and Android apps. Learning XAML/Silverlight technologies is very difficult and Microsoft has done a poor job at teaching\promoting WPF. Since they are losing the battle against iOS/Android, going HTML5 might be their only option to regain some of the market, but I think they are going about it the wrong way...

The blogs are flodded with more questions and doubts than excitement... here is a link to Channel 9 where you can read more about it...

We can just wait and see what happens, but this may very well be what Apple needed to expand even more into the enterprise.  the cards seem to have been spread.  Will Windows market share decrease even more? I doubt they can afford another Vista like deployment (seriously, a lot of folks still use WinXP) Will Apple up their game? We can only wait and see.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Comikaze @ LA Convention Center

Drove to Downtown this morning to attend the Comikaze convention. It was pretty packed and people with costumes did show up! so I have some pics! I didn't bring my Nikon camera... just my little point and shoot Lumix, but I got some ok captures ;-)
I was kind of disappointed that Stan Lee wasn't there today... If you wanted his autograph, you had to pay $50 for a reprint of the first spiderman or the 1st Avengers comic and pay $14 for shipping so that they can mail you back the comic...
Something interesting was this iPad app used at almost all the kiosks... Square! which allows vendors to take a credit card payment from anyone and they get charged 2.5% per transaction...
Joker and Harley Quinn

<--- I thought this couple's costume was pretty awesome! and they were willing to pose for everyone so that people could get a good shot of them.

a group of girls dressed up as anime :-)
I spent about 4 hours at the Convention Center.  The worst feature at this convention was the food.  It looked pale and not very attracting... they had hamburgers and tacos, but I skipped them and left the Convention Center seeking good eats ;-)
I was actually surprised to see the Wonder Twins!



LA 1st Street Food Festival and Today's Comikaze


Last year I attended the very first Street Food Festival in L.A. and I made q little quick video of it. Today I'll be attending the very first Comic Expo in L.A. organized by Stan Lee's new company Pow Entertainment! If I get lucky I'll make up a video about it too! if not, then I'll just write a follow up article packed with pictures!

Here is that good old Food Festival video I did last year...

Friday, November 4, 2011

Microsoft's Vision on the Future of Healthcare

At this year's Mix in Las Vegas (I really hope I can attend the next Mix!) Daniel Makowski had a presentation about what the future for Healthcare could look like... Most of the things displayed in this video can be achieved using current technologies, but I don't know of any vendors that produce these yet. I do know that in Spain, they've developed a Kinect enabled image / record library used by surgeons while in surgery so that they can view/flp thru images on the screen using kinect which allows them to keep their hands sanitized while viewing records and there is no need to re-sanitize their hands... but let's watch the video now! Enjoy and dare to dream !


Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Approach Earth on November 8, 2011

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. The upcoming close approach by this relatively large 400 meter-sized, C-type asteroid presents an excellent opportunity (if indeed it doesn't hit the earth) for synergistic ground-based observations including optical, near infrared and radar data. The attached animated illustration (from the NASA website) shows the Earth and moon flyby geometry for November 8th and 9th when the object will reach a visual brightness of 11th magnitude and should be easily visible to observers in the northern and southern hemispheres. The closest approach to Earth and the Moon will be respectively 0.00217 AU and 0.00160 AU on 2011 November 8 at 23:28 and November 9 at 07:13 UT.




You can read more about this here: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news171.html

Thursday, November 3, 2011

GMAIL's new look

I've been using it and it's great! Hurray for UX Professionals! :-)

Kina Grannis "In Your Arms"

A few posts ago, I made note of another song she had: Valentine, which was simply packed with feelings and great vocal tones... Now this new song jumps at me.  it is called "in your Arms" and i can't say enough good things about this single.  Please listen to it and let me know what you think!
She just released a new, very creative video for this song using Jelly Beans as background drops... really transports me to my childhood :-)  Here is the link: www.kinagrannis.com/