Update: Microsoft Mac BU marketing manager Sheridan Jones has replied with a much more detailed and accurate description of the packaging than my image analysis. Please check the updated description.

It’s hard to believe the same people who released Office for Mac 2004 in an innovative and stylish round plastic case that the rest of Microsoft has only just adopted, is packaging the upcoming Office for Mac 2008 release in a brown box carbon-dated to some time during the stone-age.

The Microsoft Mac BU have known to be much more innovative and risk-taking than the rest of Microsoft. So either this is has to be Pandora’s box in disguise or they got drunk with the Windows 3.1 guys one night.

Seriously, only if this box was designed by an intern I’d give them some credit for trying. On closer inspection of the high-resolution image, you can see the stunning special three-dimensional visual effects on the logos and icons otherwise more widely known as bevel and emboss, a layer effect that only advanced Photoshop users can master. And what’s with those curves? It looks like someone needed to fill some blank (brown) spaces but it was 4:59pm on a Friday, so created one textbook curve and copied it a bunch of times.

I had high hopes for how cool and innovative it could have been, I really did. Let’s hope the product features can withstand the competition from iWork ’08, because the box sure isn’t. At least Apple’s box isn’t depressing.

Thankfully the rest of the product lineup have marginally better color schemes.

Update: Microsoft Mac BU marketing manager Sheridan Jones has replied with a much more detailed and accurate description of the packaging than my image analysis. Please check the updated description.

[flv:sony_playdoh.flv 670 380]

Awwwwwwwe. Quick, someone buy some Bravia TVs so Sony can keep making these awesome ads. Learn more about the process and backstory at Duncan’s TV Ad Land or visit the official site.

Here was a the teaser released a few days ago.

It’s hard to top off a week when the world’s biggest software company moves into the health-care industry – just when you thought Windows Automotive was a far stretch, although I’m beginning to think it’s all part of grand strategy for discounted life insurance if you buy a Windows Automotive car. Windows, car, crash. Get it? On a different note here’s two interesting videos for your weekend enjoyment.

The first is a PBS-produced television show called Wired Science. In this week’s premier, they featured Photosynth, a project you should all be familiar with from Microsoft’s Live Labs. Whilst much of this video is a repeat from what you’ve all seen from all the demonstrations and TED talk, Blaise – the mastermind behind the technology with an equally complex last name, explains in a bit more (than usual) detail about exactly how they can visualize the abundance of visual data they do. They claim their visual system is not limited by anything except the screen resolution. The fact it actually works is just mindblowing.

The second video is from the TED conference, the best conference in the world? Although I’ve never heard of this presenter before, John Maeda, but boy is he fascinating to watch. He’s been involved with the MIT Media Lab for some time where he’s been able to experiment with art and technology in interesting new ways. For this presentation, he tries to explain what is simplicity. You might think the first 14 minutes out of the 16 minute presentation is a confusing mess, but trust me, it’s a worth the ride.

I think it’s fair to say no one has any strong affections towards medical centers or hospitals, so pretty much any alternative to sitting in a waiting room up to hours at a time soaked in the scent of chlorine is bound to have some success. Of course, health matters is not to be taken lightly so any alternative would also have to be helpful and accurate. A BSOD joke would be in bad taste, but you see can where I’m going with this.

Today, Microsoft launched HealthVault, a health-information platform and service online. If you can get your head around the fact this is provided by the same company who makes a computer operating system and game console, read on.

Currently in beta, just like your GP, HealthVault offers three online services as part of the health-information management strategy: HealthVault Search, HealthVault Account and HealthVault Connection Center. HealthVault Search is an overhaul of the recently available Live Search Health tool. The latter two work together, unified by a Windows Live ID to form a platform to upload and store and interpret personal health data.

HealthVault Search is a search engine specifically tuned to return only health-related web results through a variety of trusted and credible sources, including notably Wikipedia articles where available.

LiveSide has already uncovered Live Search Health a few days ago and HealthVault Search is pretty much identical to that, except a minor cosmetic change – to a vibrant and reassuring green theme. The search interface and search results are presented in a neat three-column layout with articles in the left, websites in the middle and sponsored results on the right. Relevant topics are also suggested at the top of the results leading to deeper or broader understanding of the medical conditions.

HealthVault Account is an extension of your Windows Live ID account (required) to store and share personal health information. A HealthVault account will then allow you to store search results in a scrapbook, store personal information, upload or fax in health records, manage family records, collect data from devices on your PC, share health data with websites, applications and doctors, record prescriptions history, and store imaging or lab results.

With any health information comes the issue of privacy, and Microsoft isn’t taking any chances. In fact when you first sign into HealthVault Account, it will likely ask you to change your Live ID password to a much stronger password before you can use the account.

The third part is a desktop client called HealthVault Connection Center, used to upload health data and view medical analysis from those data. Its interface has a strong resemblance to Live OneCare, the desktop security software, which I thought was an interesting connection.

You can download device drivers for your medical devices such as heart-rate monitors and blood analyzers so they can upload data directly into HealthVault, which then can be uploaded to your account from the same interface.

You can also download applications made by a variety of partners who can then (with your authorization) analyze your health data and present useful medical analysis back to you with all the pretty bar graphs and charts that either show you how healthy, or unhealthy you are.

Putting it all together, I never expected anything like this out of Microsoft, especially not for the average home user. Something as generic as health requires so many procedures and referrals I could never imagine such an integration could be possible, but it looks like Microsoft is trying. I don’t visit medical center or hospitals that often but even still I find my medical records mind boggling, documents fly everywhere like paper aeroplanes.

Microsoft’s official announcement is scheduled in a few hours so I’d be interested to see what is the strategy for the long-term. I’m not sure what’s in it to gain to be in the business of managing people’s health. On the other hand, this could very well impact on the income of doctors, but I’m sure they’ll survive with just one BMW. 😉

Whilst Service Pack 1 is still expected to be the major update to Windows Vista fixing the widespread bugs and issues, at the same time Microsoft is not holding back on these reliability updates I’d like to call ‘wonder patches’ which seems to be screwing all the right bolts to make Vista flow like the wind, if you fancy analogies.

Today Microsoft released four sets of patches for Windows Vista which claims to improve Vista features across-the-board, Windows Media Player 11 and Media Center.

The first update for Windows Vista (KB941649) (download x86) (download x64) is a compatibility and reliability update targeted towards but not limited to hardware scenarios. Some of the most promising improvements that caught my interest include:

• It extends the battery life for mobile devices.
• It improves the stability of wireless network services.
• It shortens the startup time of Windows Vista by using a better timing structure.
• It shortens the recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity.
• A compatibility issue that affects some third-party antivirus software applications.
• A reliability issue that occurs when a Windows Vista-based computer uses certain network driver configurations.

The next update for Windows Vista (KB941600) (download x86) (download x64) is a cumulative patch entirely dedicated to USB problems, which might sound silly, but considering how prevalent USB devices has become, I expect everyone has experienced at least one of the symptoms described. Again, some of the most interesting ones.

• Stop errors occur on a Windows-based computer that has 2GB or more of RAM and is using an NVIDIA nForce USB controller
• You may experience problems after you resume a Windows Vista-based computer from sleep or from hibernation
• Error message when you try to put a Windows Vista-based computer to sleep or into hibernation: “STOP 0x000000FE BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER”
• Error message in the Usbhub.sys process when you wake a Windows Vista-based computer from sleep or from hibernation: “STOP 0x00000044”
• A USB device may no longer work correctly after Windows Vista resumes from sleep or from hibernation
• The Safely Remove Hardware feature and the Windows Explorer “Eject” command do not work correctly with an Apple iPod that is connected to a Windows Vista-based computer
• The computer takes a long time to resume from a suspend state or from a hibernation state.

The third patch for Vista (KB941651) (download x86) (download x64) updates Windows Media Player 11. Since the knowledge base article is not currently available, it’s not certain exactly what was fixed except what the description describes as reliability improvements.

The last but not least patch for Vista (KB941229) (download x86) (download x64) is a regular cumulative Windows Media Center rollup for the month of October. It fixes four issues described in the knowledge base article and includes all of the previous months’ updates for Media Center.

(via ActiveWin)

Update: This feature has since been removed from the final release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. It was only available during the beta period and you will not be able to utilize the feature today. If however you’re feeling a little adventurous, you can use a little hack to add in this feature.

One of the new administrative tools Windows Vista Service Pack 1 provides is the ability to create a recovery disc. At first, the name might fool you into thinking the type of discs system manufacturers provide to you when you purchase a new computer to restore your computer to a factory state, but this is not that. A more appropriate name would be “Windows repair disc”.

To be blunt, this tool creates merely a slimmed-down Windows installation disc. It takes a normal Windows installation disc image and strips out all the “installation” functionality leaving only the repair tools and common system files.

What a lot of people don’t know (or need to know) is that their Windows Vista DVDs are in fact running Windows PE, an extremely lightweight version of Windows that can be booted from removable media for the purpose of system maintenance. Up until now, creating a Windows PE image was not an easy task. This tool basically simplifies it down to just two clicks.

You can find the tool in the “Start menu” > “All programs” > “Maintenance” > “Create a Recovery Disc”. You will need either a blank CD or DVD along with your original Windows installation disc. It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete.

If you boot this CD/DVD, it will look identical to your Windows installation disc. You will be asked to choose a language and even present you the “Install now” button. If you do decide to go on, you won’t get very far before an error stops you.

To enter the Windows Recovery Environment, click the “Repair your computer” link at the bottom of the welcome screen and select the Windows partition you wish to repair. After this, it will present you with a list of options including startup repair, system restore and command prompt. This is identical to the repair screen you would see in your installation disk. From here, you can even do a literally last-minute backup by sticking in a USB flash drive and copy documents across. Because it runs Windows, most USB drivers are available and it’ll work out of the box.

Because this is not an actual Windows install disk, it only takes up a few hundred MBs to fit on a CD, and you are free to make as many copies as you like and even share it with others. It’ll be even better if you can create a bootable USB version.