I thought I would take a moment to highlight Windows Live Favorites which is something I could have definitely used when I was back in college. Friends always used to send me links to games and pictures and all sorts of stuff that I would have to bookmark them, otherwise I would never find them again.

Enter Windows Live Favorites. One of the neat things about Live Favorites, is that it allows you to store your favorites in the cloud, or in other words, allow you to access them whenever you have access to the Internet. This means if you went to your live page, or went directly to your favorites site, and just logged in with your Live ID, you could access all your favorites.

Another neat thing is that if you install the Windows Live Toolbar, you can choose to sync your favorites with your PC, so that all your favorites on your computer automatically become available wherever you go as long as you can log on to the site.

A little while back, my demo partner (Eric Kamont) and myself took part in a World Cup Demo Competition where by we wanted to showcase how we could use multiple technologies efficiently and effectively to solve a problem that we saw in the real world.

In our Scenario, Eric has sponsored a little boy named Italo (this is actually true in real life) and is pondering, as to what is the best way to interact with him as working through the traditional mail system is too slow and would allow maybe only 4 interactions a year. As can be seen in the video below, we utilize a number of technologies that are available to us and we use everyday to tackle this problem.

As you can see, there are quite a few technologies we showcased, but as mentioned in the video, we wanted to make sure people understood that it doesn’t matter if you are at home or at work, or even on the go, you can still make an impact as the technologies are designed to be available from anywhere. Here are a few links so that you can go directly to the site:

• Windows Live Spaces – A blogging platform that allows people to share and connect with others. We used this as the basis so that Italo had a one stop location to go and get updates from our side as well as a place we could visit to see updates from him. This also allowed us to take advantage of Web Gadgets and added things like the Web Messenger gadget onto the site, so that Italo could essentially IM with us without installing any client side messenger tool.
• Windows Live Photo Gallery – This application allows you to edit and manage your photos and then upload them to Windows Live Spaces with a couple clicks. Also with different themes when viewing pictures as slideshows, and allowing you to tag and organize pictures, it is definitely a one stop show for organizing your digital memories on your computer.
• Windows Live Writer – A bloggers dream as it allows you to manage multiple blogs as well as make and manage posts like this one.
• Windows Live Mail – An application that allows you to store and manage all your email accounts from one easy to use program.
• Windows Live Translator – Windows Live Translator has two unique features, where by it allows you to translate text, such as emails or small pieces of text, as well as it allows you to enter website links or pages and translate those for you to read.
• Windows Live Family Safety Settings – With Family Safety Settings you can define child accounts and manage their accounts and keep them safe on the internet.

Other Technologies, that were used included Windows Mobile Phone, Vista, Microsoft Word, Popfly as well as the Xbox 360. Hopefully we have been able to demonstrate how we can use these technologies, that we already use in our daily lives to make an impact in someone else’s life, as well as communicate with others and not have to worry about geographical or language barriers.

Well it is finally here. The WorldWide Telescope by Microsoft Research is available for download. It is absolutely amazing. Using a couple of technologies it allows your computer to act as a Virtual Telescope, bringing together images from many different locations (including the Hubble Telescope) to give you an experience like none other. I think its pretty awesome and definitely if you have sometime, check it out and play with it. It could be a big hit especially if you have a class you can show and share this with.

So a couple days ago the Zune Team made an update as outlined in this Press Release. There have been updates to both the client software and the actual Zune, but part of the updates has been the push for the Zune Pass.

It is all about the fact that for the Price of 1 CD a month, you can have access to a full music collection. Technically you don't even need a Zune and can use the application for everything and have access to the large library.

One of the updates also recently made allows you to access TV shows for the Zune through the application. All in all a good release and took care of a few technical things and added some new features. Essentially it's right here and it ain't going nowhere .