by Don Burnett
Well it's only been a little while since the doors to Mix 08 closed, but let's look back at some of the cool things that were announced at Mix..
- Silverlight 2.0 beta 1 released - aimed at developers mostly includes .NET framework and DRM for Video, more custom controls built in, adaptive streaming support. Server distribution of Silverlight content, DRM for video, DeepZoom, Advertising models and tools to create ads quickly and easily. Controls (UI and Layout) and more. Nokia will be including Silverlight Mobile on their phones (note that Silverlight will *not* be restricted to run only on Windows Mobiles devices). This is very exciting for Silverlight's cross-platform future.
- NBC Olympics Silverlight Experience - For the first time ever in history when you’ll be able to watch over 2000 hours of live coverage, or after the event replays. The cool new interface was demonstrated at the keynote. The experience is built totally in Silverlight. This should drive adoption of Silverlight, with millions of installs of Silverlight.
- At the keynote the Hard Rock Cafe shown a new feature of their site that lets you peruse their memorabilia collection, using a new Silverlight Feature called Deep Zoom. Microsoft also released a new application for creating Deep Zoom collages. It doesn't seem to use HD photo support as first anticipated, but the Zoom/multi image feature really rocks and it's something not done by other web "plug-ins". There is a great example of the control out at vertigo.com.
- Silverlight 1.0 has achieved great momentum, with 1.5 million installs a day..
- WPF is going to see a service pack this summer with improved performance including new "Shader" FX capabilities.
- Aston-Martin has a cool customization site for buying your own vehicle from them using Silverlight and later WPF at the dealership..
- A Beta of Expression 2 was released. Each product has seen some major functionality upgrades, from Design's new Slicing, to Web's new PHP support and Layered .PSD import, to Blend supporting Silverlight, and Media's incredible cataloging features. Even Encoder saw a huge update with support for Overlays of video and XAML animations. It's more poised for work with live sources and creating track-able video ads for websites.
- Expression Blend 2.5 for Silverlight 2.0
- Internet Explorer 8, with Super Standards Mode, as a default. Also new features like activities and web slices all based on CSS standards and Acid 2 test passes.. The performance is way above IE 7 for rendering.. It's definitely something to look at. I am using the beta with no real gotchas or problems. If have an issue with a site I just re-open it with IE 7 emulation turned on and it works great..
- aQuantive's Atlas Ad Manager- for digital publishers, delivering a new-to-industry automated ad network control panel to publishers to increase revenue from under-utilized impressions. This is expected to be the first in a series of innovations resulting from integrating the best-in-breed resources of Atlas and Accipiter. AdManager, delivers billions of ads monthly across all rich media types to hundreds of leading publishers around the world.
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