Amazing Silverlight

I am a voracious web surfer. Not a day will go by that I will not visit my favorite sites, check out my email or search something on the Internet. I surf the web mainly to gobble up information and that’s basically it. My main beef about the internet is that it’s so….basic. I’m a human being for crying out loud. Give me a more exciting interface. I’m beginning to be hopeless. Until I saw the light. Actually, I saw Silverlight.

Silverlight from Microsoft is a cross-browser, cross platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based multimedia experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web and mobile devices. Definition for mortals like us: Silverlight is a technology that makes websites rock!

I saw this Silverlight thing when I attended the Microsoft event the other day and I was blown away when they demoed the product. I mean I was not expecting this, especially from Microsoft. I don’t know how best to describe this technology but if I will attempt to explain it in simplistic terms; I would say iPhone meets Internet Explorer. The great user experience and cool factor makes this technology a really promising one. Here’s a sampler:

This is a letter from Paul McCartney (Beatles) as can be seen from Hardrock memorabilia. Notice the crisp image.

This is the zoomed-out version of the same image. The image is the one encircled in red.

This is taken from Hardrock.com website. You can zoom-in, zoom out. Pan left, pan right. Click on any item and a description automatically appears. Click on some categories and all items automatically rearranges. Cool! Try it for yourself and you’ll see what I mean. Silverlight is a plug-in though so you need to download it to be able to “view” this Silverlight enabled website. You can download it here. Don’t worry it’s free.

I hope Microsoft will keep on churning some more cutting-edge stuff like this. How about integrating touch screen capability and 3D imaging ala iMax? That would be a lot cooler huh? Steve (Ballmer) I hope you’re listening, otherwise, I might whisper this idea to the other Steve (Jobs).

A great user experience will be the key driver of technology in the future. And it starts NOW. If you want to learn more about Microsoft Silverlight. Click here.