Special shout outs (very quietly) to Steve Sinchak for reminding me numerous times to continuing write this post after I keep getting distracted by Ryan Hoffman eating. Steven Bink wants a link otherwise he was going to drag me out of BlogHaus.

There were five of us and one of them. We are still wimps.

Vanishing Point is (tower) powered, at least.

Loki’s camera crew, or Loki herself with a gender change? Possibilities. I hope that’s not the ‘ultimate vista’.

Vanishing Point was also hinted at through the CES keynote by Bill Gates. Some people like Mauricio Freitas picked it up, but most attendees would not have. Natural selection at its finest.

Here is a (painful-to-type) transcript for those who don’t have microscopes.

Fountain Show Planning
Summary
As audience of general spectators and key players arrive at the Bellagio Hotel on Monday night around 6pm and wait alongside the street in anticipation of something unspecified. The general public will not be aware of anything unusual is about to take place, but the community will have deciphered the countdown and the precise time and viewing location for this spectacular event. The famous Bellagio foundatins Cafe Bellagio, world-renowned as the visual icon of Las Vegas are about to reveal the global challenge and deliver the first set of visual clues, in a way no one has ever seen before. Of course, there is still one big surprise they won’t see coming. Countdown hits zero at exactly 6:30pm. I look left to right scanning the audience.

Lights and music turn off (fountains stay on). All we hear is the beating of a clock. Two more water curtains turn on to the left and right side of the original curtain. As these curtains rise, they fill with multiple clocks, and the sound of the original clock multiplies by hundreds revealing…(See full production notes).

I don’t think this is the end of Vanishing Point. Stay tuned, for at least 20 more hours.

The wraps are off on Windows DreamScene, the Windows Vista Ultimate Extra also known as codename Motion Desktop as reported by AeroXP. The effect is similar if not exactly what we imagined, but not everything is as reported. It is animated. It is not rendered. It is static. It uses (nearly) high-definition MPEG2 video files to render looped movies onto the desktop surface.

Some of these content comes from Stardock, whilst Microsoft is also working with the Discovery Channel to deliver more content for Dream Scenes. These additional content might be free, or might come at a cost from the provider. This opens an interesting market for high-quality nature videos.

The unveiling.

Desktop background control panel

Aurora.

Don’t really remember/know what this is.

Waterfall.

Continue reading →

We had a nice early morning tour of the Microsoft Partners Pavilion at CES 2007 today. We were free to roam around the small but precious space inside a tent full of Microsoft hardware and software showcases. There were a lot of NDA stuff, as well as a silly ban on photography, but an enjoyable experience at least.

Bill Gates also arrived to deliver a video-webcast about Microsoft and CES. He arrived to greet a warm welcome by bloggers, who jumped and surrounded him within seconds. No photos, no records. Shame.

The pavilions outside of the CES halls.

The dark room of surprises.

Computers have become…mobile phones?

Wow. Its so true.

Yahooooooooo!

Other tents around the pavilion area.

Mauricio Freitas also has a post about the Partners Pavilion. Neowin has coverage too. PROnetworks too. Josh from WindowsConnected met Gates too.

Today was the first day of Microsoft events at CES 2007, the Windows Vista RTM Labs – an insight into the Windows Vista development backstory from program managers, directors and other people who might have signed off on one thing or another. There were a total of 5 sessions presented on a variety of topics including hardware, software, design, testing and SKUs presented by a range of leads including Dave Block, Paul Donnelly, Karsten Januszewski, Tjeerd Hoek and Beckett Dillard.

There’s an extremely extensive summary from Jason Dunn’s Digital Media Thought, a hot 64-bit discussion from Ryan Hoffman’s Extended 64, a brief overview from Mauricio Freitas, an overview of the UX session from Larry Richman’s PROnetworks and a summary from Mary Jo Foley. Here’s some photos from the Labs from me.

Welcome to Nick’s World of Fun. Please keep your legs under the table and enjoy the ride.

Continue reading →

So the big secret Vanishing Point is being revealed on Monday at 6:30pm, but I visited the Bellagio Fountains today with Betsy Weber and here’s what we found.

Infront of the famous Bellagio.

The platforms as seen on the map.

Something in the water? Windows Aqua?

At the marked platform, obviously it’s been sealed off.

There seems to be some sort of control server, but it might just be controlling the speakers around the fountains. Could it be a Velocity Micro Media Center? Microsoft bribes Bellagio?

The tent is going to to fit Loki and probably her camera crew. Anyone have a boat?

I’ll be there 🙂

Update: 8th January. The tent now has a cover with power lines going inside of it. More information were subtly revealed in Bill Gates’ keynote with the Office presentation.

I would have posted this yesterday, but the hotel WiFi access wasn’t enabled at the time. So without WiFi, without a mobile phone, without a credit card for about a day and a half, I was stuck with a 2 hour Friends marathon on television. Thankfully, I’m still alive.

The highlight of my flight was when the plane fell a times approaching Vegas. When you have people screaming and kids crying, you know something might be wrong. The pilot didn’t mention it before or after the turbulence, so everyone’s imagining it never happened. Holding hands with strangers? Never happened.

At the airport….

Continue reading →