Last Monday, HP invited me to visit the Innoventions Dream Home in Disneyland down in Anaheim, California - which opened this summer.

The Innoventions Dream Home sits inside Disneyland's Tomorrowland and uses Windows Media Center in Windows Vista - along with hardware from HP and others - to combine technology available today with technology we might see in our future.  Other partners such as Life|ware (more about Life|ware below), Honda, Siemens, St. Joseph Hospital, and Taylor Morrison also showcase technology at the Innoventions Dream Home providing a very rich experience to Disneyland visitors. 

When I arrived to the Innoventions Dream Home, I discovered that the building was actually rotating. Yes - rotating. Ok so not the entire building. The building actually has an outer "ring" that rotates while the inner area of the building remains stationary - like a carousel. The walkway near the entrance is actually called "360 Tomorrowland Way" referencing the building's unique feature. I thought it was a very interesting "introduction" to the Innoventions Dream Home in preparation for what's inside...

Once inside the Innoventions Dream Home, I discovered that the Innoventions Dream Home consisted of different rooms of a "fictional family" (called "The Elias Family") such as the living room, kitchen, a brother's room, a sister's room, and a home office (or den). Disney has "fictional" family members wearing yellow soccer jerseys in which visitors can follow through the Innoventions Dream Home and will remain in character as a specific member of the family talking about their home.  The idea here is that visitors are exposed to how families can use this technology within their homes to improve their lives - or become more efficient with specific tasks.

I shot some video of those "fictional" family members doing some of the demos (to get the full experience - you'll have to visit the Innoventions Dream Home yourself  J ) in each of the rooms and the technology within them. See how Windows Vista and Microsoft Surface along with hardware from HP and others can be combined to create some awesome experiences:

Video: Innoventions Dream Home

Sorry about the lighting. It was kind of dark inside the home and I didn't want to blind folks with my Canon HV20's light. Did you catch the Sidebar Gadgets running on the "Magic Mirror"? The Magic Mirror has a camera that points at you creating the affect of being a mirror. And in the den, did you see the 100" glass projection screen? This is perfect for watching HD content in Windows Media Center.

As I mentioned above - the technology I saw was a mix of technology available today such as Windows Vista and HP's TouchSmart PC along with technology not yet on the market. Part of the excitement is that visitors can actually see some of this cool stuff on the market today and in stores.

Much of what I saw (and what you saw in the video) was connected together using Windows Media Center. Each room had a special panel that was running Life|ware software on Windows Media Center. These panels were used to adjust settings within the room per user. Each "pretend" family member had a profile of settings that can be set from these panels. When a family member enters the room, they use these panels to adjust the settings such as lighting and images in digital picture frames.

Home automation using Windows Media Center? Absolutely! As you can see in the above shot - the ability of home automation is given to Windows Media Center by Life|ware. This level of home automation is actually quite doable today!  Read Life|ware's whitepaper of home automation and Windows Media Center for more information here.

To make all the cool stuff work in the Innoventions Dream Home - you need some pretty cool hardware. That's where HP steps in.

To extend the Windows Media Center experience throughout the Innoventions Dream Home - Xbox 360's were used of course but HP also deployed its Extender for Windows Media Center device the HP MediaSmart Connect. You can read my comprehensive look at the HP MediaSmart Connect from a few weeks ago here. I also found HP MediaSmart TVs around the Innoventions Dream Home with Extender for Windows Media Center capabilities built in!

Visitors were also treated to HP TouchSmart PCs placed all over the Innoventions Dream Home. The HP TouchSmart PC boasts some impressive touch capabilities.

There is actually quite a bit to talk about in regards to my experience with the HP TouchSmart PCs from the Innoventions Dream Home. Because of that - I've decided to publish a separate follow-up post later this week discussing my experience with the HP TouchSmart PCs. But to summarize - HP has done a fantastic job bringing touch features to the consumer via the HP TouchSmart PC and they just released the 2nd generation HP TouchSmart PC which is available at retail today. HP plans to completely exchange the remaining 1st generation HP TouchSmart PCs at the Innoventions Dream Home today with the new 2nd generation HP TouchSmart PCs.

For a more comprehensive look at the HP technology at the Innoventions Dream Home - click here.

I was joined by fellow bloggers and community members Mike Garcen from Missing Remote and Michael Reyes from HardwareGeeks.com. You can read Mike's 9 page post on his experience at the Innoventions Dream Home here at Missing Remote (with lots of pictures!). And you can read Michael's post on his experience here at HardwareGeeks.com. Both are definitely worth the read so check them out.

If you're heading down to Disneyland, definitely check out the Innoventions Dream Home. It is a perfect place to see what technology today can do and what technology of tomorrow might do. Oh and ask for the "fictional" family member named Neil - he was awesome (not sure if that's his real name though).

Well, what an interesting turn of events, Microsoft has confirmed that Windows Server 7 will be a minor release, which is rather confusing to me. The NOS will beer a similar name to the now on the market Windows Server 2008 only with a slight addition 'R2'. What was so hard in going with Windows Server 2009 or Windows Server 2010? The out of date naming scheme would to me reflect badly on the products marketing and significance to those interested in upgrading.

Quote:

"Microsoft said on Monday that the server version of Windows 7 will not be a major release and will bear the name Windows Server 2008 R2.

The move is surprising, given that in the past, Microsoft has used R2 monikers to signify a product with a few new features, as opposed to major changes to a product. Microsoft declined to discuss what will be in Windows Server 2008 R2, but a spokesman confirmed that it is the server version of Windows 7. The release is due sometime in 2010, Microsoft said."

Read more here

I am confused to be honest with you, but as Microsoft continues to build this thing, it seems that there will be more confusing turns along the way.  My understanding and I hope this is it, but it seems the features in Windows 7, client and server will reflect version 7. I want the next release of Windows to clearly reflect meaning to the end user, I just don't want it to be some release that is edging on almost sounding like a glorified Service Pack.

Mary Jo's recent realization of the miscommunication about the future of Windows Server releases unearth some new information about the versioning. An anonymous tipster informed MJ that Windows 7 (server and client) are actually version 6.1 and both products will RTM at the same time (ETA January 2010). What could this mean for Windows 7 both client and server? Don't be confused though, Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 will share the same code base, meaning an NT 7 the kernel is still somewhere out in the future.

Here is what that person had to say:
“Furthermore, Windows 7, despite it’s rather pretentious sounding code name (a result of Sinofsky’s like of big round numbers) is NOT Windows NT 7, but rather 6.1(current builds are numbered 67xx as a direct continuation of the longhorn codebase). Put simply, it is not a big jump as a codebase revision and the new changes, on both the client and server, will be focused on user features, not core OS components. The big core OS changes are WDDM 2 and a kernel scheduler update to remove the simple bitmask enumeration of processors so that the OS can schedule more than 64 concurrent threads."

Thoughts? I don't believe it for one sec! Remember the Eric Traut video, the guy working on MinWin? Well he asked why Windows 7 is called Windows '7'. Then he began to list all the versions of Windows "NT" based operating systems. This would conclude that Windows 7 is indeed NT version 7, regardless it is considered evolutionary.

If you look back at even the release of Windows NT 4.0, it was a minor update that just added the Windows 95 shell, yet it was still given a whole version number, both kernel version and release wise. We won't know whats going on, and all of this from my perspective is really just discussion for now. Lets stay tuned to the Engineering 7 blog and hope we get more concrete info as the months lead up to PDC 2008 and WinHEC 2008. 

Are U.S. based systems vulnerable to Cyberattacks?

Have you ever seen any of the Hollywood movies where a large scale cyberattack against the U.S. was conducted or where a war was almost started because of a hacker? Do you ever think that this could actually happen in real life? Experts say that this could happen as it has on a smaller scale where there was a cyberattack that overwhelmed the former Soviet republic of Georgia government websites recently.

What many people do not understand about cyber attacks is that no one is coming up with a sure way to prevent them from happening. Ever since 9/11 security has been a major concern and priority in the U.S. but what is being done about the security of the U.S. computer systems and online infrastructure?

Hackers have targeted computer networks and websites for several years but large scale cyberattacks that are well coordinated is something new that we have not seen much of. One of the challenges that the U.S. faces is that this type of large-scaled attack can be initiated from anonymous sources and performed very cheaply from anywhere in the world. In the recent Georgia cyberattack, it was the implementation of botnets used to infiltrate computer systems. Botnets are automated programs or group of computers with installed software programmed to perform malicious activities online while staying undetected. In such a scenario where botnets are spread throughout a large group of computers and networks it could result in a large scaled attack against any group or country of systems.

Are U.S. based networks or government security agencies safe from cyberattacks?

Security experts will tell you that agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon are very difficult to attack or disrupt. Experts will also say that a large scale cyberattack on U.S. computer systems could do damage to transportation, industrial and electric power grid networks. Ultimately this kind of cyberattack would be handled as to avoid major conflict within the U.S. as a whole but it would be very disruptive to those directly affected. The U.S. still has a long way to go to secure certain systems. Even still, the Government Accountability Office found where the Tennessee Valley Authority has not implemented adequate cybersecurity measures especially when this company supplies power to over 8 million people in the U.S.

Do you feel safe? Are you alarmed with the fact that a cyberattack against the U.S. could directly affect you?

General Manager Amit Mital, who runs Live Mesh & Developer Platform, has posted today that the Live Mesh Technical Preview (www.mesh.com) has expanded to 3 new countries: Canada, India, and Ireland. In signing up for the Live Mesh Technical Preview, folks from these countries will still need to run with an English locale for now.

 Currently, sign-ups for the Live Mesh Technical Preview are available in the following countries without a waitlist:

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Canada
• India
• Ireland

Amit says that the Live Mesh Team still does have a maximum limit of users who will be allowed in to the Live Mesh Technical Preview. As long as sign-ups remain below that limit, anyone in the above listed countries is free to sign-up. However, once that limit is met - sign-ups for the Live Mesh Technical Preview will be closed until the team is ready to open it up again for more users. So sign-up now!

Angus Logan also blogged about today's Live Mesh announcement. Angus is a Product Manager for the Live Platform. He blogs a lot about cool developer-related Live Platform technologies. Because Live Mesh is a platform and falls under Live Platform - Angus is a Live Mesh expert and often showcases Live Mesh on this blog. Matter a fact, I'd like to point out a post of his from a few months ago consisting of several tips and tricks on how Live Mesh can boost productivity in Windows Vista. Angus - more tips and tricks please!

Remember, Live Mesh is in the Technical Preview stage. This is essentially pre-Beta. While the Live Mesh Technical Preview has been incredibly reliable and awesome for me - because Live Mesh is still in the pre-Beta stage there are still risks just as there would be for any pre-Beta software release.