When Microsoft kicked off another round of press and announcements on Silverlight and the Silverlight Streaming service this Monday at MIX 07, Roxio was proud to be selected as a program partner and showcased at the event.

Roxio Labs has been working with Microsoft behind the scenes to add support for Silverlight in time for the show. In their demos, they show Roxio Buzz creating Silverlight media and uploading to the Silverlight Streaming service, then playback of the Silverlight video in a browser. Way cool!

Watch a promotional video here featuring (amongst others) Sonic's Mark Ely, Executive VP and GM of the Roxio Division. Watch a demo of Roxio Buzz with Silverlight support here.

Roxio Buzz is also featured on the Silverlight Streaming showcase here!

For those of you not familiar with Silverlight: "Microsoft® SilverlightTM is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web." What does that mean? It means there will be an alternative to flash, and a very interesting one at that. Silverlight media looks great, and since the platform supports a subset of the features in the Vista Windows Presentation Foundation (the user interface platform), it makes parallel development of PC applications and web applications easier.

We all know that there are no secrets on the Internet. Which is why its proving so difficult for licensing authorities like AACS to keep the recent cracks from leaking out into the wider world. Popular sites like Digg (and...er...this one!) found themselves innundated with posts of the recently uncovered encryption key for HD DVD discs. As soon as the posts could be removed by (in particular) Digg staff, new ones were uploaded - to the point of driving Digg into submission.

For the full article, click here.

A new version of Roxio Buzz is available, now beta! Get it here.

Tons of fixes, UI improvements, general cleanup, slideshows working, and Vista support.

Here's an interesting article that highlights how important it is to pay attention to the basics of good web design, especially as new technologies make it easier to implement powerful interactive components.

Commenting on the dotcom boom days when many websites looked great but were hard to use, Mr. Nielson said:

"The idea of community, user generated content and more dynamic web pages are not inherently bad in the same way, they should be secondary to the primary things sites should get right."

Visit useit.com for more information and insight from Nielson.

Well, we updated Buzz again. The version posted yesterday adds output to Microsoft Silverlight Streaming. How does that work? Well, get an account on silverlight.live.com to store your files, then select Silverlight Streaming in Buzz when you go to share your video.

After upload, you will get back the code that you can use to embed the video into any web site, blog, social network space, etc, that supports javascript. Be the first on your block to say "Check out my Silverlight video!"

Get the new version of Buzz here.

We also held a recent press event in San Franciso to talk about Roxio Labs, MediaTicker, and Roxio Buzz. Watch the video here to see a demo of MediaTicker and Buzz.

You know those pesky phone trees that keep you from talking to a real human when you call large companies? Well, there's a new service at nophonetrees.com, which will navigate the phone tree for you. If they support the company you want to call, all you have to do is enter in your phone number and the service will call you back when it's done navigating the phone tree. If it actually waits to call you back after a wait queue then I'd be very impressed. I tested it and, sure enough, after about 30 seconds, I got a call back with a human on the other end. "Oops. Sorry, wrong number."

Microsoft released details about a new type of computer today. It's actually a small coffee table with special software that allows for rich touch-interactivity and object recognition. Initially only available for corporate installations, Microsoft expects it will be at the consumer price range in 3-5 years. Truly this could redefine how people interact with their media in the home, not replacing the desktop PC or living room center, but providing an alternative that people gravitate to on a daily basis.


More information here:
http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/networking/news/article.php/3680461
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18936536/