The Moment… in Photosynth

With the Obama inauguration taking up so much news time last week I thought one of the more interesting takes on the event was CNN’s ‘The Moment’.

They encouraged people to send in their photographs of the inauguration which they are plugging into Microsoft’s Photosynth technology.  The result is the a set of three scenes, two are the usual 3D compositions of the actual event in Washington, but the third – to my mind at least – is far more interesting.

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As well as photos from people that were there, there are also photos from people who were watching at home on television.   It looks like Photosynth has picked up on the common image on the screen and used this as the basis for building the scene.  The result is a fascinating look at how people watched that moment, whether in their local bar or on big screens in a school gym.  I wonder whether this is something Blaise Aguera y Arcas  and the guys thought about when they thought up Photosynth or whether it’s just a happy accident?   Either way, check it out here.

Breakfast Club!

Those fantastic chaps over at Goodwood have just announced the calendar for this years Breakfast Club.  If you’ve not heard of the Breakfast Club (not the film with Molly Ringwald), on the first Sunday of the month the Goodwood Motor Circuit hosts a free event where you can turn up, grab a tasty bacon sandwich and have a good look around some interesting cars, bikes and planes.  It’s a bit of a show-and-tell session so if you happen to drive something that matches the days theme your car can be one of the exhibits.

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This years calendar is shaping up like this:

1 March ‘Mini Mayhem – for all Small Sporting Runabouts’
Celebrating everything from the original Mini to the archetypal hot hatch and modern Supermini, plus RV sporting light aircraft.
5 April ‘Fabulous Family Favourites – from Fords to Flaminias’
Any practical collector’s car with room for all the family, plus four-seater and fixed gear aircraft.
3 May ‘Everything But The Car – from Bikes and Buses to Tractors and Trucks’
All forms of motorised transport except conventional passenger cars. Motorcycles, scooters, three-wheelers, campers, light and heavy commercial vehicles, off-road workhorses, other utility vehicles and even aircraft are all welcome – nothing is too bizarre!
7 June ‘Supercar Sunday – the Ultimate Performance Machines’
Mouth-watering (and mostly mid-engined!) ultimate performance cars and exotic superbikes, plus aerobatic aircraft.
28 June ‘Performance Car Legends – post-1970 Driver’s Cars’ Sports and GT cars from the 1970s to the present day, from Jensen Interceptor to Ariel Atom, as well as Lotus, Caterham, TVR, Porsche and many more, plus retractable aircraft.
5 July Not held due to Goodwood Festival of Speed
2 August ‘Soft Top Sunday ­– a Taste of the British Summer’
Roofless cars of all ages, shapes and sizes, plus all open cockpit aircraft.
30 August ‘Thoroughbred Sunday – the Quintessential Classic Car and Motorcycle’
Any pre-1966 road vehicle or aircraft in the spirit of Goodwood circuit’s golden days.
6 September Not held due to Goodwood Revival preparations
4 October ‘Maserati Magnifica­– a Tribute to the Trident and other Italian Icons’
For all Maseratis and any other Italian collector’s vehicles, from a Lambretta to a Lamborghini, plus Continental aircraft.
1 November ‘Souped-up Sunday – Modified and Custom Vehicles of all Ages’
Everything from hot rods and custom cars to contemporary urban cruisers, plus home-built aircraft.
6 December ‘Breakfast Club Christmas Cracker’
Any cherished car or aircraft, preferably with a heater and plenty of boot space for your Christmas shopping. Yule be glad you came!

I live up the road from Goodwood so I’ve been to quite a few Breakfast Clubs over the past couple of years, they’re a pretty good way to spend a Sunday morning – especially if you follow it up with lunch at the Fox Goes Free!

Exchange 14

Last week the next version of Exchange broke cover with a blog entry over on the Exchange team blog and video on Technet Edge.  The video has been posted quite a lot over the last few days, but it’s pretty interesting so I thought it was worth speaking about.

Exchange 14 is shaping up to be a huge change from the application we know and (most of the time) love.  Architecturally the biggest difference is that 14 is designed to run in the Cloud on MS’s Software + Services platform.   Of course you’ll still be able to buy it and run it locally, but the option is there to take the infrastructure components out of your buildings.  What’s more you’ll be able to run both scenarios and split your users between them.

This could be a huge advantage for some companies.  For example if you’re running a global company but with segregated IT organisations each region would be able to deliver mail services in the way that best suit that region. 

There are a heap of other changes in functionality too, both from the techie side and the end user experience.  From what I understand there are things like live mail box moves and federation between Exchange organisations for shared free/busy info.

From a user perspective webmail is much improved (again!) and includes things like Presence, and Out-of-office notifications are see proactively before an email is sent.  There’s also some interesting stuff around translation between languages.

Windows 7 + Macbook Air

After a ridiculously busy day at work I was just catching up on emails and tweets and spotted this one from Steve Lamb:

Surprisingly Win7 Beta1 includes native drivers for the MacBookAir – no need for silly BootCamp DVD’s drivers – makes fo r v. Easy install:-£

I had been thinking about trying 7 on my work Mac to see what would happen, but thought I’d better wait until I had to rebuild the thing if it all went wrong.   Oh and actually learn HOW to rebuild it… I’m a PC at heart.  Having seen Steve’s post I’m now even more curious…

It would be quite a clever move for MS to ship 7 with all the drivers needed to run on the intel Macs.  After all, how many people buy Mac’s for OSX and how many buy them because they’re so pretty?

(Hope Steve doesn’t mind my including his tweet – check out his blog, there’s good stuff on there!)