20
Nov 2009
13 Comments
Microsoft Live Labs Pivot available to handful, code giveaway

While the read on the site may be a bit verbose, the video does a great job at summarizing what Pivot is: “A brand new technology [...] that enables you to see massive amounts of visual information at one time.” I haven’t had a chance to dig deep into Pivot, but the visualization capabilities look awesome. Video follows.

If you’re interested in playing with/testing Pivot, ensure you follow me (@WithinRafael) on Twitter. I’ll be giving away codes this weekend and throughout the following week.

  • Panda X
  • Daniel

    Well the Idea is pretty awesome. But I see some problems with that:
    first: the information that is displayed need to come from somewhere. Usually it needs to be imported. Either they ship Pivot with tools to import from websites (for example for Wikipedia or social networks) or you as user have to enter it manually.
    second: to sort the information in categories they need to be tagged. While nearly any stuff has it’s “natural” tags (date created, size, or maybe ID of the creator) other tags have to be added manually.

    Generally it is a great idea, but it could also en up like the game explorer:
    The idea here was to have an overview over installed games, their requirements and information about the creator. But there is still a vast amount of games not recognized (not even all Microsoft Games. Do they think Dungeon Siege is out of the world?) and you can’t add your own information to a game (well not in Vista).

    Of course that’s only my point of view.

  • Dan

    Oh my god, this is amazing!

    Gonna keep TweetDeck open so I can quickly use a code. I see the last one you sent out was 10 hours ago, and all used up.

  • http://www.mzzt.net/ Dan

    Downloaded it before I realized it was Vista/7 only. :(

  • Alex

    We need to consider the timing of this prototype. Part of Windows 8?

  • http://www.mzzt.net/ Dan

    I don’t think so. We’ve seen tons of experiments Microsoft have done that haven’t been added to the core Windows product. It does seem like it would be an interesting candidate, but it could as easily be bundled with Office or something. Or a “Live” product, or just a separate thing like Microsoft Security Essentials.

    Anyways the only thing I can think of that is similar that has been bundled with Windows is PowerShell, and IIRC it still took a few years before MS started bundling it with Vista SP-whatever/7.

  • http://mmmak.es/blog Pak-Kei

    Pivot can be integrated to Microsoft products in a few ways.

    One way is to make it an XML standard for web authors, so that when they build a web site, they can also consider building a “Collection”. However, since it’s a Microsoft product, there will be lots of hesitations in embracing such technology. It will probably take a lot of enthusiast efforts to translate current materials into Collections, but it is not impossible, though I would expect the same level of lukewarm enthusiasm in Zune or Windows Media Center extension communities.

    The second way is to integrate the display technology with Windows. The file system is already a Collection. Every file has thumbnails and their distinctive properties. Imagine this being integrated to Windows Media Player or Photo Gallery. It will be a great user experience.

  • Ian

    I just applied on the http://www.getpivot.com/download/ site and was sent a code within a day.
    Here are some codes I was sent – each should be valid for 9 installs:
    CD83 B193 D775 6087
    FE95 9A79 C189 8D98
    5E0A 5E6A 82BB 9869

    There is also an excel file here to create your own pivot collections- I found it very easy to use.
    http://www.getpivot.com/developer-info/tools.aspx

    Have fun,

    Ian

  • Marc

    Is it possible to install TWO instances of Windows XP under Windows 7 64-bit? That’s one way I might try to get around “full RAM” from a couple of apps.

    If so, what might be the possibilities/pitfalls relative to doing so?

    Marc

  • http://www.mzzt.net/ Dan

    Marc: It would be easier and more flexible to increase the amount of memory allocated to the single XP virtual machine. I am not familiar with the Windows Virtual PC UI but I bet right clicking the VM’s launch icon in the My Virtual Machines folder should offer a menu option to change VM settings.

    You should also watch the memory usage of the apps you run to ensure you are not surpassing the capabilities of your system.

  • http://anythingtheycando.com/blog/ Matt Van Horn

    Example of Facebook Friend Pivot Collection.

  • YM2149

    blah blah blah
    this looks like Time Quilt Demo from Longhorn days, only as version that includes other things than just pictures

    and lets not forget that we NEVER saw Time Quilt leave the demo presentation

    i don’t see reason for excitement

  • CP Cheah

    im waiting untill now, 1 week ago, microsoft still never send me the installation code. what else i can do to try this web broswer????