“Tafiti, which means “do research” in Swahili, is an experimental search front-end from Microsoft, designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results. Tafiti uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search to explore the intersection of richer experiences on the Web and the increasing specialization of search.”

My first words when I saw Tafiti was “WOW”. I was not really sure the purpose of this experiment but with playing with it a little more it makes a ton of sense. I can now find so many results then I can real time bookmark my findings via the Tafiti side bar, which is very cool. Its really pleasing on the eyes. But I ask the same question TechCruch asks, “Will many people use it?“. I’m not going to say yes or no, only time will tell. But I don’t think they are expecting a lot of people to switch over to it from the quick content oriented search sites. Its an experiment, and very cool one at that. If you want to learn a little more about Tafiti jump over to the Live Side blog. If you have some time to burn download the Silverlight plugin and have some fun with Tafiti!

The first release candidate (RC) of Microsoft’s Silverlight 1.0 has hit the web and this weekend I decided to take a closer look. I fiddled with it a few months ago but got too busy to pick it up again until now. Tim Sneath has the low-down on Silverlight 1.0 RC1. From a heads up by Somasegar, I installed the latest Expression bits (Expression Media Encoder and Expression Blend 2.0) and started playing with my first Silverlight project that works.

I took the teaser video for The Dark Knight I posted about yesterday and decided I wanted to “present” the teaser to readers using Microsoft Silverlight.

Check out The Dark Knight Teaser Trailer presented with Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 RC1.

I used a combination of Microsoft Expression tools to do some basic stuff. I used the Expression Media Encoder to encode and create the Silverlight project and webpage, I used Expression Web to edit the HTML webpage by adding my own text and title, and I used Expression Blend 2.0 to add text to the actual player itself. You can use Expression Blend to do far more advanced things like creating your own player with  Expression Design. I then uploaded the bits to the site and there we go! Was pretty easy.

My next move is to experiment with my own recorded video content with my HD camcorder and possibly creating my own player.

I was incredibly surprised on how easy it was to create and upload video presented using Silverlight. I could never figure out Flash and how to use Flash and with Silverlight I was able to figure it all out in a matter of minutes.

When viewing the video, you will be prompted to download and install Silverlight 1.0 RC1 which allows you to view the video in Internet Explorer and Firefox. If you are on a Mac and using Safari, you should also be prompted to download and install Silverlight 1.0 RC1 as well.