Posted on

Web Video War is Facebook’s to Lose

There’s no shortage of options when it comes to uploading video, but lately a few sites have upped their game and have changed how I’ve been considering even where to upload.

It has been a while since I captured HD video, but I recently received the Flip MinoHD as a gift and have been shooting a lot of clips again.  In my latest tests, I’ve tried Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, blip, Viddler and Ovi.  Facebook and Vimeo are the clear leaders for streaming quality and the edge there goes to Vimeo.  What’s more interesting though is how differently the services are used and why I think Facebook will win in the end.

If you have never worked with video, it’s important to understand that sharing is a bit more complex than photos as anything you upload needs to be converted for flash which is how just about all web video is presented.  Shooting with the Flip is great as the files come off the camera already digitized as .mp4 files which means they can be uploaded straight away if you like.  You can also use a video editor like iMovie or Final Cut to add some polish though that really depends on your need.  In previous video work I’ve done, I’ve had to first import my footage from the camera (shot on tape) which is a real-time process.  If you shoot 30 minutes, you need 30 minutes to copy it over.  Once on your computer even if you choose to dump it right back out, you need at least the same amount of time (if you have a fast computer) to create a digital file which can then be uploaded for sharing.  The flip (and other digital storage based cameras) let you just copy the files over and get going right away.

So as I had started to say initially, I’ve been shooting a some new stuff since getting the camera last week and I was looking to share easily with family and friends.  Since Facebook offers some excellent control over who sees what, I went there first and uploaded a few clips.  Facebook recently updated their video offering and my HD (720p) video uploaded and encoded quickly.  I was actually pretty impressed with how quickly the encoding process took as that’s generally another real waiting point for most video sites.  The posted video showed up on my profile and in my feed and I was instantly sharing my vacation experiences.

I’ve been seeing a lot of video on Vimeo lately and wanted to test out their HD offer to compare and so I uploaded the same HD video again.  I also posted the video on Viddler, Blip (different video) YouTube and Ovi.  The differences became apparent immediately.  Every other site needed some serious time to encode the posted content and this time took anywhere from over 2 hours (vimeo) to overnight (youtube).  When my content appeared on Vimeo it looked awesome, but I was frustrated with the time it took to actually see it.  I’m not in a race to share content, but having to wait in line to even get the encoding going is quite frustrating.  Only Blip offers the original MP4 (believe at my preference) while the flash is being encoded which is very cool.  The negative is that MP4 files do not buffer or stream with the same ease across clients as flash – regardless of what Apple says.  Ovi, by the way refused to playback my video …

Vimeo is the only site that offers a premium option and I debated it for a day before going for the upgrade.  For about $60/year you get the skip the encoding queue and are offered better quality video playback, HD embeds (with 1000 plays), and a few other bits.  Right after I paid, I uploaded another video and I have to say it looks damn good.  Compared to the Facebook version there is noticeably less digital artifacting and the playback seems a bit smoother.  All is good right?  Well …

While Vimeo offers the best playback and a community, the community aspect is minor compared to what Facebook delivers given the real connections and notifications within the FB system.  The quality is very good, totally free and if you make your video public able to be embedded on your blog or website which is a very interesting move by Facebook in itself.  Facebook’s only real flaw is that there are no statistics available for content you share.  There’s no way to see how many people have seen your video or photos which tends to be a currency on most media sharing sites.  Facebook is probably going to be the place you also first think to share video content much like people have been doing with Photos.  As I see it there’s no reason why not to use it.  TOS BS aside of course though that does seem to be behind us for the moment. I will likely continue to use a variety of sites and have signed up for Tubemogul which will let me upload a single (<100MB) file and have it shared across the sites I choose as a bonus I can see an aggregated dashboard for my views as well.  Except for Facebook …

Posted on

iPhoto ’09 Face Fail

In general the new iPhoto is really an excellent upgrade. There are a slew of interface changes and I am actually giving a lot of consideration to moving back to iPhoto from Aperture. That said, the new Faces feature definitely needs some work. It seems to require a lot of training to start recognizing things and does not like different angled shots of the same person. And then of course there are things like this:

iPhoto - Face Fail

iPhoto - Face Fail

Posted on

The entertainment business just doesn’t get it

Let’s face it. It’s easy to acquire video content these days regardless of whether you subscribe to a particular tier from your cable company or even whether you live in the country. Regardless of this the content companies still do not offer a legit path to offer content direct to consumer on a broad enough scale and so piracy continues. The same basic practices occur across media whether it’s movies, music or even books. For some reason the media business still feels the need to limit who gets to see, hear or read something rather than simply enable access to content given that it’s all bits and has been for a very long time.

It’s this type of mentality that has clearly driven Hulu’s content partners to demand that Hulu prevent Boxee from distributing shows across the Boxee platform.  This is an ignornat decision based on old media thinking end of story.  When you consider that Boxee offers Hulu as is – with commercials as they were originally sold, it’s clear this is simply based on believing that the content can be controlled through the old methods.

Boxee is a free software product available to download and install on your (Mac, Windows or Linux) PC or AppleTV and has yet to charge anything more than your time to install it.  Content passes directly to you on the platform and screen of your choice and though instead of using your web browser to surf across a bunch of web sites, you get a clean 10′ UI which keeps things really simple.  Boxee also adds a social layer which lets you share what you’ve viewed or heard and even make recommendations directly to your friends.

Given that network television content remains “free” and culturally we still tend to gather among friends online or at work and socialize about the shows we watch, it’s ludicrous for the media companies to want to stop something that actually enables shared enjoyment of the very content they are trying to promote.  Hulu and Boxee together are just another outlet / channel / option for people to consume the content they want.  An important detail which I’m sure will be lost on the TV creation and distribution world is that while Hulu is working to make it from niche to mass, Boxee is still early in the technology adopter territory which makes it ripe for influential discussion and most importantly spreading the word – whether good or bad.  Ironically, when tech savvy consumers get burned or blocked on one route there always seems to be another which was there all along … still free, without commerical interruption and easily viewable on any platform.

Posted on

Nokia Messaging Gets an Update

I’ve been using Nokia Messaging since the summer across my devices and it’s definitely worth an install if you are looking for a push-like email experience.  The latest update to the service offers a tweak to your settings giving you more control on the handset as well as supporting the just announced Eseries devices.

The Nokia Messaging team has released a patch for Nokia Messaging that is available now at email.nokia.com. This patch does a few nice things, including returning APN selection in the client, the addition of the E75 and E55 to the Nokia Messaging family, and upgrading our notification system for Yahoo! Mail users. [via S60 Blogs]

If you use an Eseries device like the E71 I carry, you can get an additional mailbox on your homescreen for a dashboard into your messaging which is excellent.  All handsets benefit from the web based configuration though which lets you define your mailboxes and then have Nokia Messaging send you a configuration message which activates mail on your device.

Posted on

Where are the updates to the S60 Browser?

Every day I read about new services and ways to use the Android and iPhone webkit browsers, yet there’s been no change to make some of these tools work well with the s60 software.  I can’t even open a new tab without a silly bookmark hack, and it seems there’s been little to no change in the S60 browser for a very long time.

By now, I would expect (and I don’t even think it’s that big a deal really) to be able to launch a new tab from within the browser yet there is NO way to do this.  It should be a menu item!  Once you have a few tabs open there is also NO tab management system – they can only be displayed in the order in which they’ve been opened.

I originally blogged about this in the fall of 2007.  Since that time, we’ve seen a number of new devices, a revised OS and yet the browser is still the exact same thing.  I’m sure someone will correct me that the actual version number (undetectable to users) has changed, but there is nothing new here.  I asked about this feature at Nokia World and did not see it in the N97 prototype shared with us over dinner either unfortunately.

My initial hack involves using a start page that forces new windows to spawn (like m.twitter.com) though today I use a homescreen shortcut to a bookmark of about:blank.  If you drop to either your multimedia menu or the homescreen and use that, it will force a new windows to open.

If you are going to talk about the full internet in a pocketable mobile computer, we should also recognize that it’s quite likely you’ll be multitasking across several web sites at once and need a simple (and standard!) way to open a new tab.  Why is the Nokia Internet Tablet the only device that does this?

Posted on

Google’s Latitude kick starts social location

I woke up this morning to a few invites to join Google Latitude, which as is turns out is packaged into Google Maps Mobile 3.0. Once in the system I immediately saw how powerful this new service is going to be … While it is still very early Google and the Latitude / Maps team have done an excellent job bridging the service layers into the application which makes it very easy for existing Maps users to use. And that’s the real key here – there’s a massive installed base for Google Mobile Maps! This is less a new social network and more about adding a feature to an existing product millions of people already use. If Google decides to allow other location services to feed data into their system (and they probably will) it will only get stronger. This is big because the potential network effect  is instantly massive!

So what is Latitude – essentially it’s the ability to see your friends and search around the map once you find them. You can get a list view and then click through to see exactly (to the degree that info is shared) that person is and even what they are up to through a status line.  For the moment, the contact system is integrated into your GMail contacts and you can sort through the list by most contacted and even those you may have starred if you use an Android device. I could definitely see an option here for my Friend Connect contacts which would bring my social network friends and my contacts all onto the map.

On the desktop side, you can add an iGoogle Gadget which I’ve yet to do and will take a look at later. (have added it now and it’s quite nice if you want access from your desktop) The real power of this system is the mobile accessibility and that is definitely how I see myself getting the most from it. I’ve snapped a bunch of screenshots from the N79 so you can get a feel for how it works …

Screenshot0001 Screenshot0002

Screenshot0003 Screenshot0004

Screenshot0005 Screenshot0006

Screenshot0007 Screenshot0008

Screenshot0009 Screenshot0010

Screenshot0011 Screenshot0012

All in all a very strong start for Google Latitude. I’ve verified my mobile number now and will have to see how that gets used. Perhaps for contacting people on go via the Map for in the moment planning which would be very cool.

Posted on

Windows 7 Starter Edition – What can’t you do today?

Microsoft truly can’t get out of their own way … Windows 7 looks so good, yet we’ll have to suffer through a ridiculous number of SKUs when one would suffice. And the worst thing I’ve read yet on the topic is that Netbooks will get something called Starter Edition which limits you to 3 concurrent applications – who the hell wants that??

In a typical session I run Firefox (min 10 tabs), Pidgin, Twhirl or Tweetdeck, Ovi Suite and sometimes Evernote.  I also usually add in iTunes or Last.fm for music. There are few processes like two-finger scroll, Jing and Dropbox running at all times and while  I’m not sure if the smaller stuff would be blocked but it seems I would have to make a choice on the applications running.  I would certainly NOT be able to fire up anything else like Skype for a video chat (which also works quite fine) without first closing down a bunch of stuff.

I run more than 3 applications at a time on my phones … come on Microsoft!

Update – Just ran across another source and it looks like Home Premium will be the standard netbook install for the higher end systems while Starter is really designed for emerging market low end systems.

Posted on

Facebook Connects with iPhoto ’09

I don’t currently use iPhoto but this news from the Facebook developer blog makes a compelling case …

We are excited that sharing your photos with the people you care about has become even easier with iLife ’09, Apple’s new suite of applications that includes iPhoto ’09. Users of iPhoto ’09 can easily share and tag photos from iPhoto directly to Facebook. With help from Facebook Connect, photo tags from iPhoto ’09 can be added to Facebook and generate Facebook notifications. Additionally, Mac users can update Facebook News Feed and alert friends anytime they update their websites using Apple’s iWeb ’09 application. [Facebook Developers News]

Amazingly Apple has yet to roll out any real social features and Facebook seems quite content to come in and enable integration and conversation.  Connecting the desktop to Facebook is a very strong idea.  As I consider how our social sharing has evolved as more friends signed onto Facebook over the past year my Flickr usage has become more private family sharing and for my geeky screenshots and photos.  Facebook is where most of our social sharing of media happens and connecting through iPhoto is a very simple way to make that happen.

update – just noticed that Apple has a nice demo online.

Posted on

Offline Gmail is smooth

I’ve been using Gmail for years like many people and have also had it working on my mobile devices using both the J2ME app initially and more recently the IMAP option via Nokia Email. IMAP via mobile gives me access to a few days worth of mail based on how I’ve set the prefs which is nice, but if I need to search something while either in a low connectivity zone or on a plane, I’m out of luck. Well not anymore!

I activated the GMail Offline option via the Labs button last night and now have YEARS of access ready to search and access in Firefox. On my commute I’m accustomed to seeing messages like Unable to Connect to Gmail, Will try again in … which pops up and makes Gmail pretty useless until the connection resumes. WIth Offline mode activated, Gmail and Google Gears maintain a very smooth transition. Instead of the annoying (and bright yellow message) I see a simple message at the top of my inbox that reads (paraphrasing) that I’ll have access to my offline store until the connection can sync with the server. It’s about time!

Posted on

Do you Understand the Mozilla video investment?

I thought I was missing something when I read that Mozilla was investing money in a new open streaming video format.  Yeah I get the proprietary thing, but do we really need another way to get video into a browser?  I’ve installed Flash, Silverlight and Quicktime (try to avoid Real) and can play it all.

Apparently I was not alone in trying to grok this one … and while this awesome post is clearly biased, it’s well worth a read – if not just for the humor.

Regardless, I don’t get this … I’m not seeing an issue as either a viewing consumer or a content producer.

Posted on

Gmail’s fakefolder

Gmail - fakefolder

While checking to see if my Gmail account’s offline mode had been activated I noticed that I had a new folder over the side … What the heck is the fakefolder?? Not surprisingly, it’s empty.

Posted on

Windows 7 “Plays to” DLNA Standards while Apple keeps it closed – as usual

While this feature is not currently in the open beta, Play To highlights Windows 7 ability to be both a control point and server in a DLNA network.  What’s so awesome about this is that a ton of devices already have this baked in and Windows 7 can auto-discover them as well as present itself to them.  It’s great to see how easily this system works with existing media devices and formats.

Seeing this feature though also raises the obvious opposite perspective from Apple’s model.  The iTunes system ONLY works with itself.  Sure it works on both Macs and PC’s but there is no way without some hacking to get your AppleTV to play with other sources.  Even then it does not function as a DLNA UPnP device like what was shown in the video.  There’s no way to share media from my Nokia Handset to my television without first syncing to my desktop and then copying – through iTunes – over to the AppleTV.

Apple’s closed system certainly simplifies the consumer experience though that’s only due to the substantially limited perspective on how we are allowed to share media in the home.  I have many more things captures media than just those made by Apple … and I know I’m not alone.

Thanks to eHomeUpgrade for the tip.

Posted on

What’s not working for you in Windows 7?

I’ve got a short list of bugs in my Windows 7 install and while I know some of these issues are “standard” on my hardware, I have not seen anyone else talk about a few so figured it was worth a share …

  • Sound & Brightness controls don’t always work when resuming from standby.  This is frustrating but at least the NC10 boots back quickly …
  • Bluetooth seems like a mess.
  • I’ve found if I try to open My Bluetooth Places, I can actually cause the Explorer to crash.  It usually freezes up and stalls, but the full Explorer restart seems pretty major.
  • I can pair devices, but they don’t always work.  My mouse needs to be repaired frequently in order to continue working.  I’m using the Apple Mighty Mouse …
  • Dial-Up Networking is a non-starter.  I have my N85 Paired, but find I can only get a data connection over USB.  This is far from awful, but certainly an inconvenience.  The upside is that the N85 charges like this …
  • Desktop Gadgets are flaky.  I only use the Weather but find that sometimes they like to stay on top of active applications or simply disappear.  I have two of them running and right now one (the first one if that makes any difference) seems to have gone away.  This is usually resolved with a reboot.
  • Full Screen mode in Firefox is hit or miss.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it fights with the taskbar to see which one gets to stay on top.
  • Time – I keep finding the clock is off by quite a few hours.  This morning the time was reading tonight and the time server preference seems to fail on most of the server options.  I usually try manually when this happens and eventually it updates.  I’ll have to try setting it manually and leaving it.

    • Think that’s about it – at least in what I’ve noticed and tried.

    Posted on

    Nokia Chat becomes Contacts on Ovi

    Nokia Beta Labs has updated / rebranded the Nokia Chat client into Contacts on Ovi and released versions for all devices except the S60 5th Edition platform which is really only the 5800 for today.  Nokia Chat and now Contacts on Ovi really is a great way to do IM on the go.  Aside from the simple IM handling you can also broadcast your location, send locations to friends and even send a voice message (gone in Contacts on Ovi).  In the latest version, you can also share your current music track much like on a desktop IM client.

    What’s new, apart from the brand? I’ll have to first say that the
    clients are in a better shape, we’ve resolved lots of bugs that have
    been bothering you and us too. Secondly, we’re supporting lots of more
    devices now. The new platform we have a client for is S60 3rd Edition
    Feature Pack 2. It’s about time, right? We wanted it to look better,
    and have more features in it. With the new client available for the
    latest models you’ll be able to broadcast the music you listen as a
    part of your personal message (for those of you that are in to XMPP,
    I’ll just give out that it’s using the PEP extension, which you’ll find
    supported in some PC clients too).  [Nokia Beta Labs]

    Posted on

    What we can learn from Android – looking at YOU Nokia!

    I’ve been playing with the Android G1 phone for about 24 hours and while I’ll have some thoughts to share on it in general soon, there’s one striking thing I thought was worth mentioning right away. The Android G1 has without a doubt the most straight forward and simple initial user experience of any device I’ve used.

    When the G1 powers up you are prompted to either create or login to your Google Account. Signing in with my creds then began the sync process which brought my Contacts and Calendar down, and also configured my email and IM accounts for use. WOW! One account with so many benefits. I’ve been told it should have also signed me in through the web services so the mobile google services I use would also be connected though that did not happen for me. Perhaps due to my trying to use things before the sync had completed…

    Apple still has a very desktop centric view of the iPhone and the reliance of iTunes is a core strength. The sync works very well though configuration requires a bit of effort /tweaking through iTunes. This bit of effort is actually a lot more than the G1 requires as you’ve been long since configured your Google stuff … assuming of course you use Google services and that’s really who the device is targeted.

    On the Nokia side, you don’t actually benefit from any PC side configuration though some things can sync through the PC or Ovi Suites. No accounts are configured unless you choose to sync to an exchange account through PC Suite. Without getting into the complexities there, I would not advise fully syncing to your exchange server in PC Suite. I only sync the Notes there as that apparently was not important enough to be considered a part of Mail For Exchange. I digress …

    Nokia handsets are largely PC independent, meaning you can and in most cases need to do it all on the handset. As Nokia looks to rely on services for growth and revenue, enhancing the consumer experience needs to become a core strength. Take a look at what’s currently connected to my Nokia Account:

    Nokia Account Configuration

    There are 9 things listed including applications, web services, and communication preferences. Instead of enabling the experience however, I have to actually log in to each bit separately when I use them. My browser does not even necessarily remember me even though it’s configured to save login details. This sucks. I know the Nokia Account system is new, but there’s such a massive opportunity for change here. Looking at the experience on the G1, there is so much to borrow from. I hope we see changes like this in the N97 and other devices this year, but the S60 system does not feel as smooth as some of the newer systems like Android.

    Why can’t I just upload to Ovi out of the box without having to change anything after logging in on first power up? My email could be configured automatically as well if Nokia Email connected to the Nokia Account system and I can’t see why it won’t either. IM, Maps, Ovi.mobi etc etc. All this stuff could just work because you’ve already logged in!

    I saw no mention of how things work on the Palm Pre, but given their desire to link external accounts to the core applications it would make a lot of sense to enable people to quickly authorize on the web and pass that through something like a Palm account.

    Google has really pushed things forward with their account configuration and it’s something everyone developing mobile devices and services can learn from. Using anything else after having this experience will just highlight the old way of thinking — when consumers were made to work for it instead of encouraged by having pre-enabled services. Just consider how the iPhone’s unlimited data package contributed to usage and think about what pre-connected services would do to the usage figures. Retention of course will still be up to the service provider to put forth something of considerable value.

    Posted on

    More N85 and Device Stage

    I got a question on how I had tried the N85 connection to my Windows 7 system and did some more exploration in order to better understand how it works. My usual habit is to select PC Suite when prompted on my phones as they connect to my machines. I’ve done that but also gone through the other modes of the phone to compare the differences Windows 7 presents.

    If you are not familiar with the Nokia set up, when you connect to a computer, you are prompted to choose a mode which gives your computer a better sense about what you might want to do and then the appropriate apps know how to communicate. The options are PC Suite, Mass Transfer Mode, Image Transfer Mode and Media Transfer Mode. What follows are the on-screen prompts from Windows for each mode.

    PC Suite:

    2009-01-22_1923 - N85 in PC Suite in Windows 7

    Mass Transfer Mode:

    2009-01-22_1922 - N85 Mass Storage in Win 7

    Image Transfer Mode:

    2009-01-22_1925 - N85 in Image Transfer in Windows 7

    Media Transfer Mode:

    2009-01-22_1927 N85 Media Transfer in Windows 7 - zoomed

    The Device Stage clearly kicks in when you connect in Media Transfer mode which I supposed I should have realized last time I tried this since as noted earlier Device Stage really picks up where the MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) left off in XP and Vista.

    The other bonus about Media Transfer mode is that the devices stay pinned while connected in the Task Bar which is a very powerful option given the options within the right-click menu.

    Right clicked on the N85:

    2009-01-22_1949 - N85 right click in taskbar in windows 7

    To give you an even richer sense about how this works, I’ve captured a screencast though admittedly it’s a bit jerky. The actual experience was smooth … unlike this video.

    Posted on

    No serial for Apple’s iWork seems like a marketing move

    I was reading about the lack of a serial key for iWork via Obsessable this morning and it occurred to me that while that is actually a pretty standard Mac thing, it could also be a way to encourage distribution and trial.  Sure you lose a bit, but more Mac users using iWork (which looks sweet) is a good thing and Apple can certainly afford the full “trial.”

    Posted on

    Nokia N85 on the Windows 7 Device Stage

    As a follow-up to my previous post on the Windows 7 Device Stage, I spent a bit of time today exploring further and discovered that the Nokia N85 is in fact supported by the Windows 7 Device Stage.

    2009-01-16_2305_-_N85_on_Device_Stage

    In order to see the Device Stage today you need to navigate to the Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers> and then click on the Nokia N85.   The options are focused on support with links to the manual, additional S60 applications, product info on Nokia.com as well as a link to Ovi, Nokia Services.

    When you connect the N85 over USB you get the standard AutoPlay option.  I’m not sure if there’s a way around that, though for now given the limited As you can see from the offering inside the Device Stage for this device, I’m not really missing anything.  In fact looking at the AutoPlay options there’s quite a bit more function there. While the Device Stage seems to be centered around support for the N85, Autoplay enables some real actions you might want to take.

    2009-01-16_2313_N85_AutoPlay

    Posted on

    Windows 7 Opens New Ways of Interacting with Devices

    A friendly tipster shared a particularly cool feature in Windows 7, the Device Stage …

    “Windows 7 introduces a new way to interact with your phone, camera, printer, or portable media player from the Windows desktop. Device Stage is new visual interface that makes it easy to find the things you want to do with your devices on your Windows 7 PC. You could think of Device Stage as a multi-function version of Autoplay where it displays all the applications, services, and information related to your device. Device Stage not only works for devices connected to a Windows 7 PC via USB, but also Bluetooth and Wi-Fi as well. In many cases, software installation isn’t required for Device Stage – with any additional drivers that might be needed automatically retrieved from Windows Update. [Windows Experience Blog]

    As a Mac user, I’ve always been either puzzled or frustrated by the amount of driver installation required by Windows. Windows 7 seeks to change that to make it easier but also adds a new level of customization for either the manufacturers or even a wireless carrier.

    The example shown on the Windows Experience Blog is for the Nikon D90 and as you can see it really is an enhanced way to handle the old Autoplay function.

    D90 on the Windows 7 Device Stage

    In this case it’s pretty straightforward, but Nikon is offering access to Picturetown (their online picture service and Nikon Transfer in addition to standard Windows functions for importing or browsing. They’ve also included links to the support site and to the device’s manual.

    What I really like about this though is the opportunity provided to tailor what you are shown based on what you have… or even who it’s from. This next view is for the Nokia 5800 Express Music.

    5800_2

    Here Nokia promotes both Ovi and S60, and provides an easy link to the manual. The view is an S60 branded view though could very easily be from a carrier with links to their services or support content.

    I’ve already seen how well Windows 7 handles new hardware installation by adding a printer, changing my wireless card and connecting a few phones. In each case, Windows 7 was able to easily connect and inform me of the various drivers (if more than one) it was simply taking care of … it’s your call whether you want to see the details or not. I’ve yet to see the Device Stage in action even though the N85 which I’ve connected over both bluetooth and usb is allegedly a supported device. I”ll chalk it up to beta for now …

    At WinHEC in November Microsoft shared how the Device Stage will evolve to enable common tasks to happen within the OS rather than requiring proprietary applications from each company. As you can see in the screenshots, the Device Stage can bridge both standard “in house” functions with those the manufacturer would like to handle themselves. Apparently we’ll be able to be notified and perform advanced tasks like firmware updates in addition to simply syncing or browsing which is the main purpose at the moment.

    I’m very pleased with what I’ve seen so far in Windows 7. When I added an Epson Artisan 800 printer (supported by Device Stage), it was seen on the network and Windows just did what it needed to activate the device within a few moments. On my Mac I needed to actually find, download and install software in order to get it working. Quite the change for Windows to offer the simpler process!