So we are about 2 weeks away from the launch of the 2nd generation Zune player, and I was thinking about the day when the 1st generation of the Zune player was launched. I was in Redmond doing training, on launch day and it was just an amazing time. People were alive with passion over the fact that we were launching this new entertainment device. Finally after the hype had died down, I can across this article, that talked about how Microsoft was changing and how the new Zune player was launched, and how it came about.

The article talks about how J Allard, on launch day sent an email, to the 230 employees it took to create, develop and market the Zune player, and it contained a link to a video of an old interview with Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple).

The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products. ~ Steve Jobs, CEO - 1996

Of course, this video is from a really long time ago, that things have changed dramatically, however it still makes you think and wonder about what it means, to be said that you have no taste. J Allard, went on and responded to this video and mentioned,

"I for one...want to see this guy eat his words," Allard wrote. "Those are fighting words. He is speaking to every one of us and saying that we don't get it."

Well coming November 13th, get ready for the launch of the 2nd generation of the Zune player. All I can say is that it is a lot better, a lot more new features and best of all if you have one of the 1st generation players, you won't be left out of the social. With the launch of the 2nd generation, and us just being 2 weeks away, I believe the social has only just begun...

So, as part of the recent Live Update, Microsoft's Live Search Maps recently got an update as mentioned in the press release. Essentially the interface and usability of the maps service has been improved, with better navigation results as well as a few new key features.

One Click Directions - No need to give a starting location, and just mention the destination and it will give you directions to that location from different directions such as North, South, East or West (useful when wanting to tell someone who already knows how to get to the highway, how to then navigate to the location).

3D View now integrated with the Birds Eye View: Bird's eye view is what can be seen on the left side, where by planes were flows with cameras on them and they photographed a number of cities with high resolution pictures and can be viewed from North, South, East and West. Hence you can actually see the actual pictures of the location. 3D View (which  needs to be installed, the first time) will allow you to explore the map in 3D. Now with the recent update you can choose to explore in 3D as well as as have Birds Eye View on. Hence you get to fly from location to location looking at actual pictures of the city (note: all cities do not have 3D buildings as well as Birds eye views, as of yet, but the list keeps expanding).

Now that both views have been combined, you can fly around in the 3D view, while looking at the Birds Eye View pictures (check out Boston, MA if you want as an example, and shown below). So far it looks pretty neat and there are a lot of other features such as collections (you can save a bunch of location / pushpins and then share them with others), as well as 3D Tours. This is one awesome update.

So I thought I would let people know about another service where Live Search is being used for. I know a lot of friends who use 411, and call them up and get charged on their phone when looking for information on many different locations. Well Microsoft, has unveiled its own Live Search 411, which allows people to call 1-800 CALL 411 (1-800-225-5411) and look up information for businesses, restaurants and get all that information and much more from any phone for free. Check out the site, as they have more information about this service, as well as some audio demos.

So there are a lot of updates going on with Live at the moment. Search just got a major update, maps will be getting one soon, and a some other features will be popping up really soon, but until then, lets say hello to Windows Live SkyDrive.

Essentially this is an online hard drive, and now that it is a public beta, you have 1 GB of space available to you to store files, pictures, videos on the internet, and access them wherever you go.

You can do a lot of cool things such as mark certain files and private, so for you only, or share them out among a group of friends, but all in all, it allows you to store files that you always need and take everywhere with you on the internet so that you can access them on the go. Head over to the site and get ready to try it out yourself. Looking forward to more integration with SkyDrive and the other live services in the future.

Recently back in September, Microsoft announced that Live Search was making an update to their search engine and layout to the site and, slowly but surely it has been rolling out and over the next couple of weeks it will be going live in a few remaining countries.

So far things are looking good and the new search is doing well as this is a huge change to the engine since it debuted in January 2005. Looking at some of the things that have changed:

• More Results - We have effectively increased the indexing of websites by 4 times, which in layman's terms means that you now get more results than before.
• Relevance - The team has listened to feedback over the past 2 years and now Live is more relevant than ever before. For a search engine this is the most important part.
• More news - Since searches such as Entertainment, shopping, Health and Local news dominate around 40% of all searches, this has been expanded out and now presented on the page in a number of ways.
• New and Improved User Interface - The site has been redesigned and is now faster than before as well as shows searches differently than before.
• As well as a number of other features that make this an improvement on the old Live Search engine.

One of the other benefits of Live is the ability to add user pages to it so that you can have a one stop portal when you logon. This way you can have information relevant to you, and what you are interested in, all on one page (I have news articles from CNN, Entertainment articles, Technology news, game news) using RSS Feeds.

Try out an example search such as Will Smith. As you can see it has pictures of will smith as well as links to website information about him. What makes it even more cooler is the fact that now at the top you see the rank status as well as information with links to Images, Videos, Movies and even Albums. Check out the videos section to see videos directly on the same page.

All that is left to say is that the new Live Search engine is a lot better than before and hopefully will just get better. With more and more integration with our other Live services, lets see what happens next .

Look what was announced by Travelex (they are one of the internationally known currency exchangers) today. We haven't really started space travel as of just yet, but first things first is to make sure we have a Space Currency in place.

Reading the press release, one can learn that there is a lot of thinking behind this. A new currency had to be created to make sure that it was ideal for use in space tourism. This has led to the release of the Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination (QUID), which has to be redesigned completely as credit cards won't work in space due to the cosmic radiation damaging the magnetic strips and paper may be hard to handle and some coins may be to sharp and hence a risk. That is why the QUID is completely redesigned and and chemical free so that it does not contaminate anything, as well as completely round, so that if ever lost in space, it won't damage anything.

Its funny how it is going to probably start trading soon, and currently it is priced at 1 QUID being $12.50. Looks like we should get ready for space travel and convert some money over.

So Drew, as usual always has some good ideas about things to do. During the week he was talking about the Renaissance Festival that was opening this week and I thought that it would be a lot of fun.

Anyway's we finally got there and it was awesome. Good times, and great food, and yes they had turkey legs, which is all I was thinking about the whole time. The highlight was the Jousting matches that were going on. There were also some cool characters and things to buy, and I thought it would be bad ass if I got a staff and walked around with it (think Gandalf from Lord of the Rings). I also got some videos from the fair, and first we have a good song which sounds like it might be a song about the Spanish Ladies. With the second video being part of the Joust between two of the Knights.

Good times, good food and a lot of laughs with some good friends. Definitely might consider going back another weekend to go over it again.

When the last Zune was released, it was a huge thing for Microsoft, as they were entering a market dominated by the iPod. A year later, and looking back at the Zune, it has definitely showed itself off as an MP3 player, however hasn't made that huge of a dent. Over the last year 1.2 million Zunes were sold, while iPods had sold over 40 million within that same amount of time.

Well yesterday, we released news about Zune version 2's which will be launched sometime mid November. We are releasing two new sets of players, one which is an 80 GB Hard Drive player and another which is flash based and smaller with a 4 GB and 8 GB storage space. Both versions play video and both versions support a number of new features.

• Zunes can now wirelessly sync up with your Zune collection on a PC when you are at home. Hence no more need to connect your Zune to your PC to sync your music and videos.
• Take your recorded TV Shows with you on the go, if you record them with Vista's Media Center (that's me) and then you can sync them up to your Zune player and take them wherever you go, such as the gym.
• Updated user interface on the Zune, which has been asked for ever since the Zune launced last year.

Other features that the new Zune comes with is an update to the Zune Marketplace, which will now have over 3 million tracks to download and since it is subscription based, it means you can subscribe on a monthly basis and sync up all those songs with your Zune (while your subscription is active).

Another big piece of news is the announcement of the Social website. This will be a place where everyone who has a Zune can create a social website for themselves so that they can socialize (get it ) with other people who have similar tastes in music. It also leads to people having their very own Zune Card which will show what bands and albums are their favorites.

While pictures are still scarce, I will be putting up more information as it gets released, but be aware that this is definitely something that a lot of people have been looking forward too. What is also in the news is that all the people who bought the 1st version of the Zune will get an update so that those Zune's all have the same features and functionality as the new Zune's do. This is a great thing, because the entire community is in support of this as the Zune team did not shut down those fans who bought the first version of the player. This is simply amazing and thank you team.

Anyways lets see how people react to the second player that is being released, but it will be interesting. Lets see what the holiday season says in terms of sales. I know I can't wait for the launch .