Live Mesh

[Jonty]

Hi guys

I just thought I'd post a quick note about Live Mesh, a new beta technology from Microsoft that should be very big in the future.

Basically, Live Mesh allows you to create and manage an interlinked 'mesh' of devices, documents, and people that are important to you. It's a 'software+services' platform that includes file synchronization between all your devices; 'anywhere access' to your documents, devices, and installed programs; plus sharing and collaboration between specified groups of people all with varying privileges.

For example, I can create a presentation on my home PC, and my colleague at work can help me, with the file being automatically synchronized between devices in real-time. I can transfer my holiday photos from my camera to my laptop at home, and then later show my friends when I'm out using my mobile phone. I can create a document in Taiwan using software on my home PC, and then remotely access that software and my document in a web cafe in the UK.

Right now this technology preview is fairly limited in scope, and we've already seen similar things before (e.g. Shared Folders on Messenger, Remote Desktop applications, Google's online applications etc.). However, Microsoft's goal is to tie all these things together into a single, extensible platform, that works online and offline with all your devices. Of course Microsoft's own software, data centres, Live services, and technologies like Silverlight are primary beneficiaries. However, Live Mesh is partly based on XML like RSS and ATOM news feeds; it will support Macs and rival or open standards like Cocoa and Javascript; and developers can choose to use their own servers instead of Microsoft's data centres.

Although it's in its infancy right now, it should be interesting in the future when you can easily and safely access anything you need, wherever you are, using whatever devices you have.

Kind regards

Jonty

P.S. I'm not getting paid to pimp this (sadly!), I just think it's an ambitious service, and it will be good to see how other companies respond.

 

[dysfunction]

Only problem is large files will take ages to sync...if everything is synchronizing all at the same time I would reckon your bandwidth is going to get clogged up pretty quickly...esp here in the UK!

 

[Kryten]

I've been keeping an eye on this for a while, it opens up (well, re-invents) a few possibilities that previously you'd need expensive 3rd party software to do well enough to deploy within a large company or corporation; something the likes of Google apps struggle with or are not entirely secure.
I'd imagine when it hits the ground (running?) it'll probably have even larger scope than just home/work/mobile remote interconnectivity - such as other home devices, mobile media etc.
Or in more simple terms, just a step closer to the "all in one" situation.

 

[old.user4556]

It all looks promising, I will be watching more of this.

 

[Chilly]

just dont read the EULA, it'll be fine.

 

[Jonty]

Only problem is large files will take ages to sync...if everything is synchronizing all at the same time I would reckon your bandwidth is going to get clogged up pretty quickly...esp here in the UK!

That's true, dysfunction! In terms of modifying files, it's possible to analyze some file types and only transfer the modified sections, which is a big help when dealing with large file sizes. However, you're right that bandwidth is still an issue, especially the first time a file is sync'ed (hopefully it's intelligent and either throttles when the connection is idle, or allows prioritisation of what to sync).

It seems it will still be a while before this technology comes out of beta, so by then we should have more advanced broadband. I recently went to Japan and they had 100Mbps free internet in the room, and they're testing 150Mbps+ satellite broadband, as well as rolling out 4G Wimax wireless broadband. If they can do it, there's hope the rest of us will one day catch up

Kind regards

 

[Kryten]

Chilly: same applies for just about every major peice of software available. The EULA's on most of them are shocking to say the least :|

 

[Jonty]

Chilly: same applies for just about every major peice of software available. The EULA's on most of them are shocking to say the least :|

This is so true When I was at university, even my law professors said they didn't read the EULAs because they're usually so depressing, and this is irrespective of whether it's Microsoft, Apple, Google etc.

Kind regards

Jonty

Edit ~ Of course Freddy's 'EULA' is a shining beacon of hope

 

[Milkshake]

This is basically my job in the corporate world, maintaining a worldwide network for developers to work as described.

Interested to see how it'll get on in the public domain...they've got a ton of hurdles and pitfalls to watch out for.