February 16, 2010 – doug

It was a pretty cool day to be connected yesterday. With the Olympics in full speed, there are so many resources that are available and I typically make my start at the CTV Olympics page. It’s a great launch pad to take you to the latest and greatest stories from the Olympics games and you can actually get stories with a Canadian slant.

I have my laptop open and look over the lid to the television where the actual game coverage is happening and then I notice it. The website is “powered by MSN” which you see quite a bit but right next to it is an offer to download a Custom Browser. Sure enough, there’s a customized version of Internet Explorer to support the games. It comes as no surprise that the multimedia from the site is delivered by Silverlight. After all, this is “powered by MSN”. if you’ve never played with Silverlight, it really is interesting and Bing maps are incredible when you take a look at them using the 3D Aerial feature. So, with all of the Silverlight enhancements, it’s worth the download to get them.

But, there’s much more. Into the browser, go ahead and inject what Microsoft is calling slices and have immediate access to video, headlines, and pictures right from the favourites bar. On top of this, a whack of additional favourites are added to get the whole browsing experience. This adds a whole new perspective on participating in the games. if you’re a Windows user, you need to check this out…

Later in the day, the world was all buzzing about the Windows Phone 7 Series. Now, I’d heard rumblings from our favourite Microsoft ambassador over the weekend and over Mexican food. He was secretive but told us to stay tuned. So, we found out about it yesterday. You can actually take a test run at this website. Click on the Windows icon to get an idea of what the future of mobile phones might look like. You’re going to say “Xbox?” You can run “Xbox on a telephone?” While the product isn’t ready for sale, it looks especially inviting.