web 2.0 expo

For years, Microsoft has maintained that the PC is the center of the digital home and office.

But Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said Tuesday that it's time for the company to acknowledge a new reality.

"Over the past 10 years, the PC era has given way to an era in which the Web is at the center of our experiences--experiences delivered not just through the browser but also through many different devices including PCs, phones, media players, game consoles, set-top boxes and televisions, cars, and more," Ozzie said in a memo to be sent to employees on Wednesday (PDF). … Read more

On Tuesday, Microsoft officially spilled the beans on its Live Mesh service for synchronizing data and connecting multiple devices. If your eyes are glossing over from all the mentions of seamlessness, synchronization, and software plus services, here's our best attempt at making sense of things.

What is Live Mesh? At its most basic level it combines downloadable software and a cloud-based service to synchronize and share data and applications among different devices.

How does it work? In large part, it uses the notion of feeds to go beyond a Web site and also to describe both data and devices. … Read more

The Live Mesh service that Microsoft unveiled Tuesday night is a peek of what Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has been working on all these months.

In its initial incarnation, Live Mesh is mostly a file-sharing and folder-synchronization service, as well as a nice, easy way to access a PC remotely. Down the road though, it's Microsoft's latest attempt to find preeminence in a world in which Microsoft-based devices are just part of the mix.

As previously noted, the version that launches Tuesday is limited considerably from the broad service Microsoft envisions. (See Ozzie's recent memo to Microsoft employees for the big vision.) … Read more

Microsoft is announcing Live Mesh today in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Expo. It's an ambitious technology platform for sharing data among people, apps, and devices. Consumers will first be exposed to the technology in a personal data synchronization and device-sharing product of the same name, competing directly with products like LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, SugarSync (review), Syncplicity (review), and Microsoft's own FolderShare, and SyncToy.

We tried the technology preview version of the app. As a sync tool for PCs, it's got good potential. It is easy to perform the basic operations of adding PCs to your sync … Read more

While I try to get Web 2.0 Expo darling du jour Fireball working (still no luck), I thought it'd be worth covering another location service for Twitter: Trackthis. You tell it a package tracking number from FedEx, UPS, USPS, or DHL, and it will Twitter you back whenever there's an update from the shipper.

Yes, there are other ways to get this data, but there are advantages to using Trackthis: First, you can attach a descriptor to your query (like "lamp shade"). Second, you can use Twitter to easily change your message delivery options: you … Read more

Intel wants to make the whole Web editable, just like a single Wikipedia page.

The chip giant on Tuesday will make a beta available of Intel Mash Maker, a free browser extension that allows users to modify Web pages and combine information from different sources. Its first beta works with Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7, though at this point the features are far more mature in Firefox, Intel said.

The product, which originated in Intel's research labs, is similar to existing mash-up tools like Yahoo Pipes and Microsoft Popfly in that it has a graphical design tool.

What's different is that the actual mashing up of information on Intel Mash Maker happens on the client, rather than the server. So instead of making a different Web application to, say, plot real estate listings on Google Maps, Intel Mash Maker lets people add a widget that adds visualization to the real estate listing site.

… Read more

Photobucket, is making a significant change aimed to weave the widely used photo-sharing site more tightly into the Web 2.0 fabric.

The company is releasing an application programming interface (API) for its site, said Chief Executive Alex Welch. That means that ordinary developers will be able to build more sophisticated services around the Photobucket services and content.

Photobucket already made its API available to commercial partners, but now ordinary coders will be able to get access by signing up on the Web site, Welch said. The company is announcing the news in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. … Read more

This morning Vysr is launching its browser plug-in and Web widget platform RoamAbout at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The app has been designed to give you access to a slew of Web services as small, widgetized Web apps that can be called up in an instant without requiring additional software.

It was pitched to me as "a new way to browse the Web," which usually makes my stomach lurch, but it's actually pretty darn useful for giving you contextual searching and reference without mucking up the pleasingly simple experience of navigating Web pages.… Read more

Google on Monday invited programmers into a new sandbox that will let them test out significantly expanded possibilities for Web gadgets, small applications that can be hosted on the company's iGoogle personalized home page.

The sandbox, available at Google's iGoogle developer page, lets developers get started with a number of new features that eventually will make their way to the regular iGoogle home page, said lead product manager Jessica Ewing.

Among those new features are a left-hand region of the Web browser that lets users navigate quickly through a list of gadgets, a "canvas view" that … Read more