Archive for the ‘Midori’ Category

Alright, so Midori is really starting to pique my interest now (I’m a sucker for the visuals, so, “UI” always grabs my attention). Ever since Mary Jo Foley first broke the story on Midori (that sentence reads like an Eminem rhyme, doesn’t it?), everyone has been captivated and the rumor mill has been as active as ever. Though a much greater percentage is unknown than is currently known about Midori, what it is NOT is Windows 8 or Windows 9, so bear that in mind when you read stories about Midori and Windows concurrently. Anyway, taking a look on Microsoft’s job site to see if Midori would show its thus-far elusive face, it appears as though Microsoft is finally going external with its efforts to seek out candidates to work on this once clandestine project (thanks again, MJ).

From the job listing, we’re also able to glean some rather interesting details which I will expand upon below the job listing:

The Technical Strategy Incubation team is seeking to hire an Architect to lead the design and implementation of the end to end UI stack for its Midori Operating System. The Midori incubation is chartered with pursuing strategic opportunities which are difficult to address incrementally with existing systems, such as UI responsiveness, UI security, UI in distributed environments that cross devices, new models for asynchronous UI, and effective use of GPUs and manycore.

The successful candidate is a principal or partner level Architect who is passionate about building next generation UI/Graphics technologies, enjoys startup environments and loves to code. We are seeking an individual with expertise in several of the following areas: graphics device driver models, scalable rendering engines, glitch-free animation and media pipelines, 2D vector graphics and typography, modern desktop compositor architectures, data-driven UI frameworks, and human computer interaction. This is a high visibility position with impact in the incubation, in the company, and in the overall market.

Midori is a small hand-picked team of senior, hands-on architects and developers passionate about building real systems that extend the current thinking in Operating Systems and Platform technology. This group has the unique aspect of being outside of existing product groups, allowing us to pursue experimental ideas and solutions that may be impractical or too expensive for existing products due to legacy customer demands and business commitments.

Because this is an incubation group, a candidate must have a high tolerance for uncertainty and changes in direction. Comfort with low-level systems development and expert proficiency in a C-like language are required. Additional desirable, but not mandatory, skills include familiarity with GPU programming and rendering techniques, data parallelism and concurrency, data synchronization, and real-time collaboration technologies.

I love how descriptive Microsoft is with their job descriptions. Alright, the first thing that sticks out to me when reading from top-to-bottom is, “…pursuing strategic opportunities which are difficult to address incrementally with existing systems, such as UI responsiveness, UI security, UI in distributed environments that cross devices, new models for asynchronous UI, and effective use of GPUs and manycore.”

In other words, they’re aiming beyond the scope of what can be developed into Windows from one revision to the next. Likewise, that almost reads like a who’s who list of items the Midori team considers to be UI flaws (perhaps, “limitations” would be more fitting) within Windows. In a previous LinkedIn voyage of mine, I ran across a Microsoft employee who said they were working on a next-generation UI framework for Windows 8. I get the impression that the aim for Midori’s UI capabilities are well beyond the scope of what they’re planning for Windows 8, but it’s completely possible the Midori OS team could pull from ideas developed by the Windows team. Especially since Midori is noted in that job listing to be prone to, “uncertainty and changes in direction.” I’ll touch again on that point in a minute.

Next up, the entirety of the 3rd paragraph: “Midori is a small hand-picked team of senior, hands-on architects and developers passionate about building real systems that extend the current thinking in Operating Systems and Platform technology. This group has the unique aspect of being outside of existing product groups, allowing us to pursue experimental ideas and solutions that may be impractical or too expensive for existing products due to legacy customer demands and business commitments.”

Translation: Unlimited funds. The sky is the limit where money and ideas are concerned. This is no surprise, though, considering how much Microsoft spends a year in R&D (billions). Without the need to cater to customers or even meet an overall deadline (remember that whole, “uncertainty and changes in direction” thing?), it sounds like the Midori team gets to have much more fun and freedom than the standard team within Microsoft. I could be wrong about that, though.

Lastly, I think it would be great to get an expert in here (are you out there, Ron G.?) to clarify what most of that UI terminology refers to. More specifically, I get the overall scope of this, but I’m interested in what some of these specifics mean, and where the Midori team sees the flaws/limitations of this stuff within Windows, i.e., UI Security. I’m sure many of you out there have your own ideas and suggestions, but it’s the in-house considerations I’m really curious about.

To wrap things up here are two mentions of Midori on LinkedIn that still remain from the last time I went searching for the term:

Since 2007 I have been working on a technology incubation project code named Midori. Midori is an overarching incubation effort that covers many related and yet different areas and my focuses are primarily OS kernel and process runtime. The areas I work on include memory management, scheduling, synchronization primitives, IPC, event tracing and performance monitoring infrastructure, error handling mechanism, and memory safety.
Link: Jinsong Yu

I work on a technology incubation project named Midori. Midori is an effort that covers many areas of OS kernel and process runtime design.
Link: Dmitry Meshchaninov

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)

Carrie Dugan, User Experience Designer and Researcher, has a brief-but-interesting mention of, “Midori” on her website. She lists having worked with Microsoft’s, “Security Technology Unit” from May 2006 – 2007 on a, “special project virtual team for the next security OS, “Midori”.” Midori, the next, “security OS?” I’m curious as to exactly what that means. It makes me think in terms of ISA Server or Forefront. I would’ve emailed her to inquire, but I’m sure that would’ve been an exercise in futility. Mary Jo Foley first broke the ice with Midori, so maybe she could shed a little bit of light on this. Regardless, she also mentions having worked on a, “special project virtual team,” the, “Zeno “Conceptual Modeling Team” for post-Vista release,” which (you guessed it), means Windows 7.

Correlating her mention of, “Zeno” in her resume with what she has on her website, “Zeno” is apparently a, “Cloud Computing Model.” She lists the research method being used as, “conceptual modeling derived from empirical research.” Included with that vague and somewhat confusing description, is a graphical representation of the, “Zeno” model. For those of you into cloud computing, perhaps this will be much more meaningful to you than it is to me (click the image for a humongously large version):

How does this, “Cloud Computing Model” named, “Zeno” fit into Windows 7? I’m guessing that it may have something to do with Windows Azure, if not having become part of Windows Azure all together, but I’m not, AZURE about that as I am about other things… (I know, I know… horrible pun…) Anyone else feel like jumping on this bandwagon to clarify some things or make some guestimates?

-Stephen

(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)

Mary Jo Foley is really getting a great scoop from people within Microsoft who are slowly but surely letting the cat out of the bag in regards to their new experimental OS, “Midori”. In her latest write-up, she gives us a couple of new codenames regarding technology to ultimately be found within Midori:

RedHawk: The codename for new managed code work being done by the Developer division.

MinSafe: The codename for the complementary managed code initiative on the Windows division.

I could be completely wrong here but it sounds to me as though Microsoft is gearing up for a wave potentially as grand as the Longhorn wave was once planned to be. Not only are we talking about an experimental OS being created in managed code, but now we’re getting into elements of the .NET Framework in relation to developers in general. What does that imply? Hello, Visual Studio!

Is Microsoft looking to phase-in completely new elements piece by piece until the base of their future technologies eventually turns into one whole completely new can of worms? (i.e. A new kernel, completely new codebase for all OS/Development technology, etc.) At that, are we going to be able to set our sights on these efforts a little closer than initially perceived?

Getting back to her article, Mary Jo goes on to mention a good number of specifics which I recommend you check out (a link to the story is at the bottom of this post) but something I find particularly interesting is that she’s heard some of the eventualities of the RedHawk/MinSafe teams could be incorporated into Windows 8. Yes, Windows 8 – the same Windows 8 Microsoft has already started posting job links for on their site. Of course an OS is to come after Windows 7 (which will be Windows 8, as we now know) but Midori already feels to be building a huge realm of mysticism around it much like the once-fabled “Blackcomb” (now Windows 7) did back when Longhorn was first being developed.

And so the cycle goes on. What are your thoughts?

Reference: On the road to Midori: RedHawk, MinSafe and Sapphire

-Stephen

(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)

Today, Mary Jo Foley posted a follow-up to her initial exclusive of Microsoft’s Midori OS. In addition to her follow-up, I would like to contribute to the confirmation of Midori by linking to yet another presentation I found on Microsoft’s Research site. It is a presentation given by Shaz Qadeer of the Microsoft Research “Software Reliability Research” group at Princeton University in December of 2007. (How on earth had Midori not been mentioned by someone a part of that lecture???) In a section of the presentation, Shaz discusses CHESS, which not-so-coincidentally happens to be exactly the same thing discussed for the previously noted mention of Midori by Shaz in this presentation, first noted in an article by softpedia.com. There’s nothing special in this latest presentation unless you understand its contents from the technical perspectives in which it was written (I don’t… I’m not even gonna lie. lol). For the purpose of this post, slide 38 says “Midori OS”. There’s nothing like multiple confirmations on something of such apparent importance to Microsoft.

Windows 8 planning confirmation and more Midori OS confirmation. Not a bad day! =)

Presentation Link: Taming concurrency: A program verification perspective

Reference: Shaz Qadeer, Microsoft Research

-Stephen

(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)

So, the latest buzz I’ve picked up on lately is this craze going around about an OS secretly being developed within Microsoft with the codename “Midori.” Unfortunately, there are people getting the facts (of which there only exists a couple of at the moment) confused with fiction and such a reaction has prompted me to go ahead and straighten out the myths/rumors/facts about this new OS before this perpetuates into something ridiculous and just plain wrong.

The Great Misconception: Codename “Midori” is Windows 8 and ultimately the new code base for each subsequent Windows release thereafter.

The Facts:

- Codename Midori has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Windows at this time. Yes, that means Windows 8 (which has actually been *rumored* to have the codenames “Orient” or “Mystic,” which I first mentioned here) and 9.

- Codename Midori IS tied heavily to Singularity, in that it is an OS written in managed code.

Q: So, where has Microsoft mentioned this supposed OS that you’re obtaining your facts from, Stephen?

A: At the time of this writing, you can download the following document straight from Microsoft’s servers: Download Search for the word “Midori” to see where it is located in the document.

Now, what started this whole “Midori” fiasco is Mary Jo Foley originally writing that “Midori” will supposedly supersede Windows and is in some sort of “incubation state,” meaning it’s supposedly closer to being marketed than other Microsoft Research projects typically are. Now, regardless of what the plans are internally for “Midori” NOW, history should denote the fact that plans change… and sometimes drastically. Basically, to assume Midori to be ANY version of Windows at this time is to jump the gun in a MAJOR way. Now, don’t confuse assumption for theorizing.

“Midori” may very well end up superseding Windows but lets not get all up in arms about it yet! I’ve seen everything from people blaming Microsoft and assuming that “Midori’s” existence means that Windows 7 efforts are going to be lazy to the aforementioned assumption that “Midori” is indeed the codename for Windows 8; nevermind the ridiculous and completely unmerited mention of Windows 9! (Someone trying to generate website traffic much, hmm?) lol.

Codename “Midori”: Windows 8? Not at this time. The future Windows? Perhaps.

-Stephen