Microsoft Connected Home Videos

If you believe companies like Microsoft or Apple, the so called connected home will be the next big thing when it comes to teching-up your living space. Microsoft’s vision puts several Microsoft and Microsoft-partner products on center stage, including the company’s Xbox system with Kinect, Windows Phone and Windows Server.

The first video is a quick walk through Microsoft’s Connected Home in Munich, Germany. This presentation room uses technology that is available today, including Windows 7, Windows Phone or the Xbox 360 with Kinect.

You will see how phone apps control different elements of the room, like the room’s lighting for instance or temperature. There is also a lot of interconnectivity going on, like controlling the Xbox interface with a Windows Phone, or using a Windows 7 Tablet PC to send videos to multiple screens in the home.

Microsoft put a lot of technology into that room to make life easier and more comfortable at the same time. With these technologies becoming more mainstream, prices will go down as well, which will make those solutions more affordable for a larger audience.

The second video looks at the Microsoft Home. This is the vision that Microsoft has of the home of the future. The Home is located on the Redmond campus and only accessible by invitation.

It demonstrates how a home could look like in five, ten or even fifteen years from today on. This for instance includes a watch that is acting has a health reading device that you can place on a specially prepared tablet to transfer the readings to an app that is displaying charts and other information about your health then.

One of the impressive technologies in the house is a program that can detect items and elements on screen when watching videos for instance. This includes shop signs, but also items that people carry around with them like a backpack for instance.

How would you envision the connected home of the future?

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Viddy For iPhone: An App That’s Like Instagram For Videos – Download Now!

When Apple first launched the iPhone, it was a device which immediately raised the bar in the mobile device world. The industry had seen scores of smartphones released well before the iPhone ever made it to market, but the original Apple iPhone brought a perfect fusion of form and function to the marketplace and was launched at the right time when consumers were crying out for a little bit of individuality. That was obviously coming up to five years ago, and although the overall standard of device released by manufacturers have increased thanks to that launch, the iPhone is still considered to be setting the standard.

One of the major success stories of the iPhone has the been the dedicated App Store which Apple launched in 2008, and which has recently hit a major milestone by serving more than twenty five billion applications to the iOS using world. That is a staggering amount of mobile software to be handled through one central hub and we are willing to bet that a large portion of iPhone and iPod touch users have tried, or regularly use the Instagram photograph sharing app which has been such a massive hit. Considering the successes that the Instagram team have enjoyed with their iOS app, it seems rather strange that we haven’t seen a whole host of spin off apps being launched.

In the last few weeks people have been talking about the GifBoom application which functions in relatively the same way as Instagram, allowing animated GIFs to be created from frames taken using the iPhone camera. The files can then be uploaded to a network for users to comment on and like, in similar fashion to Instagram. We also now have another app, going by the name of ‘Viddy’, which allows users to connect via Facebook or Twitter and capture, beautify and share videos with the world. The App Store information elaborates on the Viddy function:

Turn everyday moments into perfect little movies with Viddy on iPhone. So next time you catch that pristine sunset over the Pacific, make it more than a memory. Then share it with your Viddy community and upload them to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Viddy has been around for a while, but hasn’t managed to gain as much traction as similar applications even though it was named as the Apple selected app week of the week in May of 2011. Once logged in, users can enjoy the following benefits:

• Advanced camera includes focus / exposure / white balance settings, audio metering, timer and more.


• Add visual effects, music, transitions, and even movie stars to your videos


• 100% free packs such as Vintage, Crystal, Solarize, Red, Exposed, Retro, Glam, BW, Hued, Junkd and 3D


• 100% free brand packs such as Snoop, Incubus, and more.


• Share your creation privately, to your friends, or to the world


• One-click sharing to the social web, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr.


• Interact with your friends with tags, likes and comments


• Realtime video discovery and exploration from a vibrant community.


• An endless source of creativity, inspiration and personal expression.

The Viddy app for iPhone offers some great functionality and in my opinion has a truly stunning user interface which offers simple navigation fused within a dark, elegant background. The user of contrasting, vivid colors makes individual UI elements stand out and look breath taking, especially on a Retina display. Viddy is available as a free of charge download from the App Store with some additional in-app purchases being available should users require.

Download Viddy for iPhone [iTunes Link]

Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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