Competing with Google Earth, MSN's new Virtual Earth was demo'd earlier today by BillG according to reports.  Features include:

• Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods 
• Satellite images with street map overlay.
• Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants

Screenshots and more here. theunofficialMicrosoftweblog has more here.

www.startsomethingpc.com is now open for online submission of competition entries to win up to $125,000. Downloads of the entry kit are 3x what we expected.  Apparently some folks have an idea about next-generation PC hardware design. What are your ideas?  What would you like to see?  Share you thoughts here.

Do you have Tiger "Widget" envy?  Konfabulator is available for both Mac and Windows PCs, delivering a solid level of polish and productivity (if you can call it that) to your desktop, even if you don't have Mac OS X "Tiger".

What's more, the new Konfabulator 2.0 is out with redesigned plug-ins and enhanced APIs.  While I cannot vouch for system resource usage or security- they may have have issues like Apple is having now with its own Dashboard Widgets.  At $19.95 to buy and free trial.  Be sure to check out the Widget Gallery. 

Unfortunately I am very tardy in writing up my thoughts on the Geek Dinner in the UK.  We had a great time and in typical fashion, not only was it Cinco de Mayo (which apparently is not celebrated in the UK- go figure <g>) and Election Day which may have helped to reduce the attendance. Either way, we had about 20 attendees and had a great time. More thoughts here and from Ian Forrester.  Next time I'm in the UK, we'll definitely do this again. 

I finally broke down and joined LinkedIn at the suggestion of some friends and co-workers.  You can find me there- just use my email address here.  Let's get the digiital media network growing- link in.

From Vincent Flanders' Web Pages that Suck:

I just got through reading that Bill Gates wants to start a blog. Why would anyone in their right mind want to read it? Do you think it will contain Heroin Content? As Seth Godin points out, blogs only work when they meet four of the following five conditions:

1. Candor
2. Urgency
3. Timeliness
4. Pithiness
5. Controversy

Check out Bill's speeches. Unless he's chatting with a comedian, there's no Heroin Content. If his blog were like this one from a Microsoft employee who worked with Bill at the CES trade show, it might be interesting.

Thanks Vincent.  I think... :) He may pull me for my page not being up (it's uploading now).

Gamespot says, "We're offering our HD-quality movies exclusively to our GameSpot Complete members, though we're offering several free samples to give the rest of you a taste of what you're missing." Excellent! or so I thought.  I don't have much time for playing games these days but I love to watch trailers and see what the current  state of quality is.

I took a look and it appears I'm still missing something.  I don't understand how they can call these "HD".  Sure, they're WMV files, but they sure aren't my understanding of HD quality. The first warning sign I saw was the video resolution - 640x360 for the Forza Motorsport sample and 640x480 for the Doom 3 sample.

When we talk about HD- as defined by the ATSC standard, the resolution has to meet a minimum bar of 720p - that's 720 progressive horizontal lines of video resolution. So why am I downloading a sample that purports to be HD as a part of a sales pitch, but delivers half the resolution of HDTV? Ok, it's 16:9 aspect content - on a 4:3 display it could be considered 640x480 resolution but that's still 480p- not HD. Am I missing something?

WMV-HD can handle this no problem and in J Allard's talk at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year, he made it clear that the next Xbox will "usher in the era of HD gaming and entertainment". He gave away 1000 Samsung HDTVs. If this was the definition of HD, he could have just given away standard TVs or perhaps EDTVs.

I hope others are calling this to the attention of Gamespot. The technology is there- WMV-HD can do what they're asking.  I hope others are calling their attention to this fact.

Check out this amazing Media Center case with a touchscreen LCD display.  The unit also has full MCE-compliant IR (Philips RC-6 spec) support and much more.  Personally I'd love to take one of these for a spin as Joshua Schipman at HTPCnews.com just did last week.  Be sure to check out the last page for a very interesting use of Konfabulator Widgets.

Update: Venue has been arranged, free WiFi: Nakhon Thai City 10 Copthall Avenue, London EC2R 7DE (link to map to the right). Kick-off @ 7pm. More details here. See you there :).

A few of you have inquired regarding more details on the London Geek Dinner. We've connected with Lee Wilkins who runs www.geekdinner.co.uk and he's posted a few details on the site. I'll be in the air tomorrow so if I don't get a chance to post an update here, please check Lee's site for latest details.

Final location is TBD, time is 19:00 until late. Hope to see you there- feel free to post a comment here so we get a general idea of the # of attendees.

From London, I'm off to Athens, Greece where I'm presenting at the Microsoft OEM Global Executive Summit and then a few days off in Mykonos and Santorini.  Any suggestions on what to do/where to eat are appreciated. Perhaps a Geek Dinner in Greece is in order ;). 

I've spent the better part of the weekend looking at competitive products and reviewing coverage on WinHEC.  While my team is focused on the consumer segment and we haven't started the roll-out there yet, there are a few things I would like to clarify:

• Slashdot coverage- there is no Beta of Longhorn. What was shown was not a Beta.  That's why Beta 1 hasn't shipped yet.
  
• Some, even folks I call friends were publicly harsh about the UI. I've been around for many OS launches, was a Beta tester for Win95 and by now, most people know that the UI is one of the final things to be disclosed. To use an example from the automotive industry, just look at Motor Trend or Autoblog- you'll find pictures of final production cars test driven all the time with "bras", weird paint jobs and more used to mask the actual look of the car.  This has been the case for quite a while for Windows.  You haven't seen anything yet.
  
• The objective of WinHEC's LH call to action was to build hardware - ensure video drivers, audio drivers, and much more all work great with 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.  Based on feedback- we've done that and delivered early code to help them in their endeavors.

Speaking on my own time.

Feedback and hits on the design competition have blown me away.  Mentions in WSJ, NYTimes, PCWorld, CNET, and a host of enthusiast and online news sites.  We hit 200% of our monthly target for unique users to the website... in the first day. I got email from a Microsoft employee today in New Zealand looking to promote it at local Universities.  A few upset Microsofties that they can't compete but hey, that happens.

First up are comments that Microsoft will own the entries- please be sure to read the entry rules carefully as this is not the case. Foremost in my mind, this competition needs to have legitimacy and respect the rights of the designer and developer.

John Dowdell's News for Macromedia MX Developers says, "Microsoft exec Jim Allchin has a good reply here to a question about "What will the Longhorn release next year do for Microsoft's business?" "It's probably more important to think about what impact it will have on the industry. I think the industry has been needing a phenomenon, an event, a big change that will let it grow in terms of the hardware devices, new types of form factors, new types of applications. Just the whole thing." Microsoft has tried those radio-updated Spot watches, tablet computers, television computers... this week they're even running a design contest for non-PC devices. Having a new operating system which considers such issues from the start could very well trigger rapid evolution in content and usage habits."

Actually, John, this is for PC devices, hence the "PC Design Competition" name, though wearable computers could be conceived as well so all is good. :)

Kew notes, "Chee Aun, and all Malaysian designers.. Give it a shot.. Who knows, you may win and get a “grandfather” title along with it… "

Half Man[Half Amazing] notes, "Microsoft has teamed up with IDSA, an Industrial Design Org, to put together a an interesting design competition to dream up how people will utilize pc's in the near future."

Nafie i(Culture Shock) s entering and says, "This Looks Like Fun although the future of this blog, my sleep, food, TV, and all other basic human functions are in jeopardy of going on hold for the next 5 or 6 months."

Sorry about that Nafie, you might consider an IV drip? :) Seriously though, it's great to see so much enthusiasm for the idea and I hope we see some really cool PC designs come out of this.  Entries can be submitted starting May 18th.

Scoble posted his new video interview with Jim Allchin, Group VP of Platforms (tip: he runs Windows and reports to Steve Ballmer). Jim has been running Longhorn on his primary work machine for three months now and I can attest to it- I was in a review w/him as it was installing in his office next-door.

Jim talks about Longhorn, about his days as a professional musician (he's an accomplished guitar player), scenarios that will be enabled with Longhorn, what's worked and what hasn't in the past.

The video is conversational and raw- two guys and a handheld-camera. He's also very frank about where we are in the development process. The goal at WinHEC wasn't to thrill- it was about hardware fundamentals- drivers and connectivity models to enable the "thrilling" features that are being being built on-top.

At WinHEC this year, Senior VP of Windows Client Will Poole showed a new video for the Next-Generation Windows PC Design Competition.  It's a departure from the original but hints at the direction we expect to see software and hardware go in the Longhorn timeframe. It's a departure from your regular stuff coming out of MSFT.I hope you enjoy. ;)

Run time 1:12 min
Watch it now (300 Kbps, streaming)

Download it in WMV HD
360 (750 KB)
720 (8 MB)
1080 (10 MB)