This weekend we rolled out the final pieces of the first public beta of Silver Spoon, a set of powerful new technologies that allow you to extend your entire desktop experience to the cloud.  We'll be releasing a lot more information about Silver Spoon soon, but here are some of the highlights:

Sandbox Synchronization

Application settings and other state now synchronize into the cloud in your personal Spoon.net account.  For example, if you start playing a game on one machine, reach level 5, and then move to another machine, you can now pick up right from where you left off.  Other application state like your personal settings and bookmarks also migrate with you from desktop to desktop.

All Spoon accounts include 100MB of free cloud state storage.  We expect this is adequate to handle most low- to moderate-volume use cases.  More state storage is available by upgrading to Silver Spoon.

All new and updated applications and games have sandbox synchronization enabled.  We are also working through our existing catalog and updating those apps to work with Sandbox Sync.  The entire catalog should be enhanced with this powerful new feature very soon.

Folder Synchronization

Running your apps from the cloud is great, but what about the documents and other files you want to access from those applications?  Silver Spoon offers the ability to synchronize your documents, music, photos, videos, desktop files, and other content between all of your desktops.  And all of this data is backed up in the cloud, offering you the ability to easily recover your data should disaster strike.

Folder synchronization is disabled by default.  To enable folder synchronization, click Manage Folders from the Spoon system tray console and then check the data that you would like to share between desktops.  To access synchronized folders located on another desktop, select the checkboxes next to the desktops that you would like to access in the From other desktops section of the folder management dialog.

Shared folders will appear on your desktop, including a reference to the machine name where the shared content originated:

Silver Spoon includes a generous 50GB of cloud storage, so you can safely store and share your entire digital life in the cloud.

App Synchronization

The Spoon library contains thousands of popular desktop applications, and the library grows every day.  However, there are still some applications that may not be available either because we don't yet have a licensing agreement with the publisher, or it is a commercial application that was purchased elsewhere and installed on your local desktop.

Silver Spoon includes a revolutionary new technology called App Sync that allows applications installed on the local desktop to be migrated into the cloud and shared between your desktops – like folder sharing but for apps! Sync-enabled apps are indicated by the icon shown below.

To synchronize an app, click the Sync icon.  This will scan the local desktop for the application and automatically virtualize and migrate it into your Spoon account.  You can then access that application from Spoon.net just like any other Spoon app.

Application storage counts towards the 50GB Silver Spoon quota.  To view the storage space used by an app or remove the app from your account, click Manage Apps from the Spoon system tray console.

Desktop Integration

Spoon now offers the ability to access apps directly from your Start bar.  To enable desktop integration for an app, click Manage Apps from the Spoon system tray console and then select the checkbox next to the app(s) you want to register on your desktop.  Press Close and you're done!

You will notice the app is now visible on the Start bar, just like a native application.  The suffix @spoon.net is added to indicate the app is connected to the cloud (and therefore enhanced with capabilities like Sandbox Sync).  Desktop registration also applies file associations, desktop shortcuts, and other shell integration so that the Spoon app behaves completely identically to a natively installed application.  Removing an app from your desktop is just as easy – just uncheck the checkbox!

The Silver Spoon 50GB plan is just $12/month.

We have even more goodies coming your way soon. However, so many people have been beating down our door for capabilities like Sandbox Sync (cloud-based settings), Folder Sync (cloud-based data), App Sync (custom applications), and Desktop Integration that we decided to go ahead and make these capabilities available publicly now.  And at just $12/month for a 50GB account, Silver Spoon is an incredible value.

We hope you enjoy Silver Spoon and stay tuned for even more coming soon!

- The Spoon Team

 

Who says sequels can't be as good as the original? In this installment of our video tutorial series, we continue to explore Spoon Feeds. This week our hero (you) learns how to change the appearance of a Spoon Feed. Watch the video below and refer to the bottom of this post for detailed instructions.

1. To change the width add Spoon_FeedWidth = 100;
2. To change the height add Spoon_FeedHeight = 40;
3. To change the background color add Spoon_BackgroundColor = '02dff1';

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
Spoon_DisplayMode = 'button';
Spoon_AppName = 'Farm-Frenzy-3';
Spoon_OpenNewWindowForRedirects = false;
Spoon_HideIfUnsupported = false;
Spoon_FeedWidth = 100;
Spoon_FeedHeight = 40;
Spoon_BackgroundColor = '02dff1';
</script>

Spoon has gone Hollywood!

Yes, we're getting into the movie-making business, but before we tackle the next Rocky sequel, we thought we'd offer up some informative tutorials for using Spoon.

Our debut tutorial shows you how to embed a Spoon Feed onto a blog or Web page. With Spoon Feeds, users can launch apps and games with one click. No install required. Watch our video below and refer to the bottom of this post for more detailed instructions.

How To Embed a Spoon Feed (like this one for the game Tanks Evolution):

1. Go to Spoon.net/apps and select an app you would like to add.
2. Click on the app icon to open the app page
3. Once on the app page, copy the embed code from the “Share” box.
4. Paste this code into any Web page or blog.

Happy Spoon Feeding! Stay tuned for more posts and tutorials.

It’s been a busy week here at the Spoonplex. We have been gearing up for the holidays, hanging mistletoe, and making sure all the nice boys and girls receive their cloud apps and games. This week Spoon welcomed two new studios to our cloud-gaming family, MoonPod Games and Corbomite Games.

MoonPod features two new games on Spoon: Mr. Robot – the tale of a lowly service droid turned hero (R2D2 nods approvingly) and Starscape – a fast and furious space-shooter. You can read a nice write-up of the Spoon service on MoonPod’s forum, complete with Spoon Feeds for easy game play. Thanks, guys.

From Corbomite Games comes Star Shipping – an intergalactic strategy game, and Pizza Morgana: Episode 1  – a quirky tale about a girl stuck in an alternate universe where vampires, faeries, and demons are all pizza delivery guys.

Spoon’s doors are still open to all you game developers out there. If you’re looking for a new way to showcase your work, shoot us an email about putting your game on Spoon.net. The indie gaming revolution will not be televised; it will be virtualized and streamed from the Web.

Check back next week for our end-of-the-year thoughts and thanks. Have a safe and Happy Holidays!

On Friday, the Spoon crew celebrated the holidays with some good old-fashioned karaoke. We rented out the basement of the Rendezvous in Seattle, opened up the bar, and let loose. If you have never experienced the joys of combining a karaoke machine, computer nerds, a private room, and alcohol, you are missing out. There is something magical about watching a lead developer on his knees, belting out “I Need You Tonight.” Thank you, Salt.

It turns out there is a surprising amount of musical talent at Spoon. Kenji made the ladies swoon with a number by Ms. Alicia Keys, while Gef tore up the dance floor with his own unique brand of interpretive movement, including something that resembled the Worm. The star of the evening though was Prience – a quiet, laid-back app lab worker by day, and a karaoke legend by night. He warmed up the crowd early with Sugar Hill’s “Rapper’s Delight”, then finished strong by teaming up with Dave for a rousing rendition of “Ebony and Ivory”. Barriers were broken.

All in all it was a great evening. We ate too much, drank too much, and celebrated what has been a wonderful year at Spoon.

I have been conducting a lot of interviews this week and am frequently asked what the best part of working for Spoon is. This is my new answer: