Thursday, May 31, 2007

Tech Visions: Jobs and Gates at D5

Well, here's a quickie post with a bunch of useful links.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are reunited and interviewed at D5. YouTube has the videos (in small pieces) so here are the links. Both of these guys have tons of things coming down the pipe ("things we can't talk about"), but they've also both been around for as long as there has been a PC. This stuff is heartfelt, funny with glimpses of the future, seems like a must-watch for any techie. (NB, it says 9 parts, but I can only find 4).

  1. Part 1
  2. Part 2
  3. Part 3
  4. Part 4
Speaking of the future of computing. New tech is rampant on the horizon.

Google introduces Google Gears, which is effectively wires in to the browser to allow web apps to functions off-line. Hanselman talks about data synchronization being pretty nutty, and the slashdotters had the usual spectrum of reviews. But this stuff is not just out, it's working! Google is already offering version of the apps (i.e.: Calendar) that are functional with GoogleGears.

This biggest web app pit-fall is always disconnected mode. MS, has developed a smart-client framework, the composite application block for running forms apps disconnected. But this breaks open the tech in a totally different way. Move the files and the serving capacity to the client instead. Truth is, I really like this option, but the Google method seems pretty coding intense. If MS could incorporate this into the .NET framework, then all web apps could just "work this way" by plugging in a couple of pieces. (give or take data synchronization, which is always a pain).

And on the future, future radar, Microsoft introduced it's Surface gear. It's basically a table top computer, where the table top is a giant touch screen. Everything on the screen is highly interactive, so you can just move stuff with your fingers. Everything's visual and movable, as the fiancé described it, it's kind of eerie.

Of course, here are the vids:
  1. Surface vid with Bill Gates (from MSN videos)
  2. Surface ads
Peace out for this day, my love of tech is renewed :

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