Today was the 4th day of PDC, the place to be to hear the latest about what"s coming up in the next version of Windows. Lots of sessions on how to start writing software for Longhorn. Attendees were given an early build of Microsoft"s next generation version of Windows.
Today"s JoeUser.com round-up features talk about Avalon mostly with a little bit on XAML.
According to the article Avalon isn"t just super cool visually, it"s vital.
Today"s displays top out (for the most part) at 1600x1200. Which doesn"t yet strain the rigid 96 dots per inch interface design of Windows. But by 2006, you"re going to see native resolutions at twice that and unless Windows can start handling higher dot per inches (without causing all sorts of pain like going to large fonts does today) we"ll be in trouble.
That"s where Avalon comes in. By making the entire desktop a 3D surface (for lack of a better term) excellent rescaling becomes possible and we"ll be able to really take advantage of next-gen 16x9 displays.
Read the full article on Avalon here.