SideShow (with the Bob)

If you read my recent post on the wonderous potential of RSS, and my prediction that it will continue to be developed further to a system that “pushes” information to you, rather than people wondering down the ‘search’ route. The primary delivery of that ‘data push’ referred to in my article was the “Windows Sidebar” (although there are many applications that are capable of RSS operations).

Today though, I want to talk about an extension of the “Sidebar” out from your primary desktop device and onto another device – using “Windows SideShow”. Prior to Windows Vista being unleashed on the general public, I remember watching a Microsoft demonstration on how the OS was capable of communicating seamlessly with other devices in a connected world and one of the main things that stood out to me was that connected to the PC the lady was using to demo with, had a digital photo frame connected to the machine (presumably via USB), that displayed a number of ‘pop-up’ system messages much like your desktop – for example when new email was received or when a new person signed onto the Live Messenger application.

I now understand that technology to be the “SideShow”. Of course, it’s only available within Windows Vista, but I think it’s a bit of a cool technology and anything that connects devices together in an intelligent way can only be a good thing. But SideShow isn’t only available on your digital photo frame, a couple of laptop manufacturers have build smaller screens directly into the lid of their laptops, to provide a “quick view” of your email data or an indication of who’s logged in, etc. Microsoft have taken it one step further, and recently released a ‘beta’ of “SideShow for Windows Mobile Devices” (punchy name!).

You install the .Net Framework 2 for mobile onto your phone and then copy the “SideShow for mobile” cab file and run. Switch on your Bluetooth connect and pair up with your Vista PC. As simple as that, you can then open up the SideShow on your mobile and using the ‘gadgets’ perform a number of functions between your devices. At the moment, with the product only in ‘beta’ release, and with not many gadgets available it can only perform limited functions, but those it can do right now are pretty exciting – you can use your phone to control PowerPoint presentations (no more separate remote control devices), remote control for Windows Media Player (not sure if this works with Media Centre just yet), read your RSS feeds received by your PC on your phone (which is a good feature if you haven’t already got a mobile RSS application installed on your phone), and the email and Live Messenger functions I mentioned earlier.

I don’t know why only Bluetooth connectivity has been selected for SideShow and obviously limits how far you can roam between your Vista PC and your connected device. It would have been better if you could connect via IP over your private wireless network, but this feature may be implemented either in the final or in a future release. The other bit that concerns me is that as an unloved OS, the potential gadgets that could be written to expand these services further won’t be picked up by some developers and therefore this technology may take longer to reach its potential than Microsoft might first have imagined.

However, extending the functionality of devices and with the elements of integrated communication between those devices excites me and it’s a good thing to see as the “Digital Lifestyle” connectivity expands further and marches on.