Saturday was the first full day of Windows Vista Lab's which continue today. As Mary Jo points out there are total of about 60 people attending the labs this year between the blogger's, MVP's, and communities in attendance. Some of the content we heard on the first day was under NDA, but I will share with you some interesting information that I gathered that was not NDA.
First session of the day was the Windows Vista Hardware Logo team that gave a little more detail on the Windows Vista Logo Program. The logo program for Windows Vista is designed to help users identify the best hardware products for Windows Vista. Coupled with branding you will quickly be able to identify what hardware is going to offer you the best overall experience.
In the 12 weeks since final testing has begun Microsoft has had over 270 partners submit more than 4,250 devices drivers for certification. Of these over 4,000 have passed certification with 2000+ being "Certified for Windows Vista" and another 250 are still in the pipeline for testing.
These submissions break down into one of 17 categories of testing that include everything from Monitors, Cell Phones, Digital Picture Frames, Camcorders, Remote Controls, and Wireless Routers. I didn't even know they testing some of these things.... Anyway, Each of these categories gets its own unique set of tests that is provided in the form of a Device Manager test kit to hardware vendors so that they can perform testing on their end and expedite the submission process. Microsoft obviously independently tests the results after submission.
The hardware team also provided us with three very cool demo's of certified windows vista products including a D-Link router, that had some minor hiccups on setup that were due to it having been on the machine already. A reboot cleared it up. Setup for this device was very slick and I hope to obtain a demo of a device like this for review while I am here. So Look out D-Link.
Next up was a Nikon camera that is certified for Windows Vista. In order to get this certification the camera must support the Media Transfer Protocol. A number of vendors have cameras with this support on the horizon including Canon, Nikon, and others.
The final demo was a Digital picture frame called Momento from a company that was recently bought. Part of the this certification has to do with picture quality that they display. The brightness of the display and a number of other things to guarantee you get the best quality possible.
They are really adding some teeth to the logo program to ensure people end up with better experience that is more secure and easy to use.
More Info on a lot of the Day1 topics later today.
Additional Reading:
Digital Media Thoughts
Long Zheng
some photos from the day
Posted
Jan 07 2007, 06:33 AM
by
Josh Phillips
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