Looks like some really cool new stuff with Outlook. Turns a schedule from an RSS feed into downloadable iCalendar standard(ics). When you subscribe to this feed via their new OS and IE, it automatically adds these to your Outlook calendar. You can then look at this new calendar using the Outlook side by side feature.
This is a further example and extension of what I call ‘synaptivity’, which is something i have been meaning to explain for a while. Hopefully you will keep an eye out for this, but in brief synaptivity is the automatic process of making smart connections for people between their devices, their data and their daily life.
They also showed a really cool way to deal with photoblogs and photo feeds where it downloads the images and the envelope to show the images in a full screen slide show. Yet another area where current efforts by the community to create new companies will be more difficult.
One of the great things MS does is how they leverage their developer and beta community to provide them with up to what some estimate to be be an extra $3-4 billion of research and development. They are smartly doing this again, but this time they are presenting it in a more inclusive tone. Judge as ye will, but the spirit of their requests for community involvement seems to be coming from the heart – or at the very least, coming from the hearts of the individual’s representing the corporation.
– From Gnomedex
