A Windows SideShow gadget is a piece of code running on the Windows Vista platfom and sends informtion to a hardware display device. If you running Windows Vista, in the Windows SideShow Control Panel applet, you will see the list of SideShow gadgets and SideShow hardware devices installed on the system. By default, Windows vista ships with two sideshow gadgets and one with Microsoft® Office Outlook 2007:...[Read more »]

It was officially announced at CES 2007 in Las Vegas and was the first laptop in the world that makes use of Windows Vista SideShow to support a secondary screen in the lid. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of information regarding the hardware at that time, except browsing the picture and a short report posted here earlier . The concept of a sideshow secondary display on your laptop is simple: checking email and your calendar, calendar information, media files, and stock tickers without turning your system on. PC Magazine is the first to get a chance to play with the Asus W5fe notebook featuring Windows Vista’s SideShow Technology....[Read more »]

After few weeks of waiting we finally maganged to get the ASUS screenDUO Sideshow auxiliary display... By the way, we had to buy the entire ASUS motherboard + Remote Control + SideShow Display combo just to get to the ScreenDuo display... Our test results are less than stellar and I hope that people won't get dissapointed by the wonderful Microsoft SideShow technology just because ASUS came up with a less than desirable hardware device....[Read more »]

In case you wonder if the Microsoft Office product comes with any SideShow gadget the answer is Yes!. As soon as the Office Product is Installed you will get a SideShow notification that the "Office Outlook 2007 Calendar "gadget was installed. (If you don't have any SideShow devices installed this notification will not be present). In the future, Microsoft will provide SideShow support for Contacts and Calendar for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, E-mail and Contacts for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint. It is nice to know that Microsoft is writing high quality gadgets that integrate very well with compatible SideShow devices of all forms and shapes. Here is a snapshot of the Vista SideShow Control Panel with teh Calendar Sideshow gadget installed....[Read more »]

The Smartphone developer I-mate has introduced the Momento wireless digital picture frame enhanced and certified for Windows Vista featuring support for Microsoft Windows SideShow, the technology that allows external devices to display information from your pc. You can stream your digital picture from PCs, play directly from a digital camera's memory card or transfer photos via USB, and send pics to it via Wi-Fi (TCP/IP). ...[Read more »]

We've seen a lot of vista sideshow-compatible boards in development, but how realistic and how hard is it to make your own custom sideshow application. The Microsoft .NET Micro Framework v2.0 is now publicly available and brings a full-featured managed code environment to a new set of applications such as home automation systems, retail displays health care monitors and maybe the most interesting and perhaps the most obvious are vista sideshow applications. ...[Read more »]

Microsoft's Vista SideShow technology is getting more advanced devices every day. I-Mate unveiled no more then 5 “Ultimate” phones running Windows Mobile 6 with Windows Vista Sideshow capabilities. As you know already this means i-Mate Ultimate line can work as a remote control or secondary display for Windows Vista PCs. Furthermore PcMagazine reported that these phones comes with Windows Media Center Extenders support that will let you watch recorded Tv programs over Wi-Fi or 3G cellular connection. The specs are really impressive, in my opinion, in order to satisfy the most exigent demands. ...[Read more »]

In case you forgot, The Optimus mini three keyboard was one of the coolest concepts of 2005 designed by the Artemiy Lebedev studio. If you missed, this is a little 3 Button Keyboard that uses programmable mini OLED display as buttons. Here are the basics functionalities presented by [ThinkGeek/]. The Optimus Mini connects to your PC via USB and features three keys, each with their own backlit OLED screen. Each key can display a static image or full animation. Press the key and a different action occurs depending on what is assigned to it. The bundled Optimus Mini Configurator software allows you to assign various actions to each of the three keys. ...[Read more »]

Ever wondered what’s running under the hood of a Sideshow hardware device such as a Sideshow-enabled remote control or a Sideshow Auxiliary display? To this date, there are few silicon manufactures that provide MCU + firmware solutions, namely 3 companies: Winbond, Freescale and Nvidia. While Nvidia’s platform is currently focusing on the MP3 player market (inheritance from Portal Player’s Preface technology) Winbond and Freescale are concentrating on more generic SideShow hardware platforms and SDKs. Winbond’s platform seems to be the right choice for remote controls and Auxiliary displays. While Freescale decided to provide a Sideshow development platform based on a ARM9 processor (I.MX family), Winbond is running its “ShowMe” SideShow offering on an ARM7 processor (WPCE521L). This will probably imply lower cost per MCU, therefore lower device costs. ...[Read more »]

One of the best designed Microsoft Vista Sideshow enabled devices so far seems to be the MSI MegaPlayer 529 MP3 player. Apparently, the design was so good, Dell wanted to brand it under their name, but apparently backed out. The hardware device might be manufactured by MSI, but it runs NVIDIA's preface platform (formerly known as www.portalplayer.com). These wonderful devices can act as a MP3 player as well as an fully compliant Vista SideShow device. ...[Read more »]

Windows Vista, consumer edition is finally shipping. In the months to come, expect a flurry of SideShow devices to pop out from all over the place. We will be bringing you Vista SideShow related news such as Sideshow-compatible hardware devices, hardware development platforms and many more. This year will definitevely be a very interesting year for Vista Sideshow hardware manufacturers and consumers interested in this wonderful technology. Stay tuned! -A

Dan Polivy, senior SideShow designer, along with Darryl Brown and Teague Mapes were kind enough to sit down with me for about 45 minutes and chat about SideShow technology. Below is an interesting Q&A about the upcoming Microsoft Vista SideShow technology, from the SideShow designers. ...[Read more »]

As first reported by Anh Huynh from DailyTech.com, the ASUS ScreenDuo will come packaged only with the M2N32-SLI Premium and P5B Premium Vista Editions. ASUS doesn’t appear to offer the ScreenDuo as a separate accessory disappointingly. Nevertheless, the ScreenDuo can display RSS feeds, pull up your schedule and other simple tasks that doesn’t need full computing power to complete. The ScreenDuo is a color QVGA TFT Auxiliary Display compatible with Microsoft's SideShow[tm] technology. Read the full story here.

It's a Phone. It is a Skype Phone! It comes from ASUS, a PC motherboard manufacturer. But most interesting is the fact that the ASUS AiGuru S2 has native SideShow support. This is a yet another unexpected use for SideShow technology. While the voice transmission protocols are still pure VOIP over WIFI, this phone can access a wealth information via standard SideShow gadgets. While this phone is mainly advertising Skype functionality, this phone can access virtually any information that can be rendered by Sideshow (email, calendar, stocks, etc). Despite the fact that the phone is WIFI enabled, the SidewShow communication is not done over TCP/IP over WIFI, you will rather need a USB dongle in order to exchange SideShow information with our PC....[Read more »]

Despite the fact that Vista is not out yet (at least for the consumer release) laptop manufacturers are already working hard at releasing SideShow enabled laptops. The SideShow technology was initially designed to conserve laptop battery (get information from a laptop when lid is closed or latop is "OFF"). We expect to see more and more laptops with SideShow support in the months to come. So far, at CES, I was able to spot 4 notebooks with Sideshow ranging from color QVGA (320x240) to single line monochrome displays. One of the most popular units, as first seen in early 2006, was the ASUS W5FE latop, world's first SideShow enabled laptop. I was expecting to see a bulkier notebook, but I was quite surprised by its small/slim appearance....[Read more »]