Microsoft on the ones and twos!

Hacker hired

Xbox 360: Not just for games

Panoramic street views

Randy explains how developers can enable a simple touch-screen interface by simply designing for the device. He demonstrates how his designers take advantage of larger buttons to enable users in the field.

The application provides an innovative interface that supports ‘thumb-driven workflow’, enabling a field worker to quickly and easily navigate through the application using a natural two handed grip of a touch-screen device.  As with all Advanced Mobile LOB applications, Work Management & Inspections Slate Edition supports both on-line and off-line functionality and wired or wireless network connectivity, and interaction with Advanced Mobile’s on-premise or cloud-based communications and integration services.

About Blue Dot Solutions

Blue Dot Solutions is a leading provider of Packaged Mobile Line of Business Applications for ISVs specializing in enterprise solutions for asset intensive industries.  Blue Dot mobile LOB solutions are developed using the Advanced Mobile Platform, a Microsoft .NET-based enterprise mobility platform that provides on-premise or cloud-based data communications services and data transformation and integration services for a variety of industry leading EAM, ERP, and T&L systems.

For another video about Blue Dot Solutions, see the award winning Blue Dot’s Advanced Mobile 311 solution    Crowd-Sourcing Public Sector App for Windows Phone, Azure.

Free Assistance 

Join Microsoft Platform Ready for free assistance in developing and marketing your Windows Phone 7 applications.

Other ISV Videos

For videos on developing for Windows Phone 7, see:

• Talking  with Karmak.com about business applications on Windows Phone 7
• BinaryDads talk about building applications for Windows Phone 7
• Game Design and Development in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7
• Credit Card Processing for Windows Phone 7 on Windows Azure

For videos on Windows Azure Platform, see:

• Accumulus Makes Subscription Billing Easy for Windows Azure
• Azure Email-Enables Lists, Low-Cost Storage for SharePoint

For other videos about independent software vendors (ISVs):

• Quark Extends SharePoint for Dynamic Publishing
• ProModel Adds Simulation, Visualization to Microsoft Project
• Slingbox Maker Sling Media Describes Cross-Platform Commitment to Silverlight

Up to Date News for ISVs and Software Developers

See US ISV Community blog.

This is what people learn on Bing

Will Kinect put an end to gym memberships?

The future of touchscreen

Photosynth & Photoshop!

A Microsoft Surface machine has been installed in Vegas’s Hard Rock Cafe where a combination of Microsoft technologies that also includes Silverlight, SharePoint, and Windows are used in combination to present the company’s online collection of rock memorabilia to diners. Even cooler, the Cafe features something called the “Rock Wall,” an 18-foot-wide, 4-foot-tall touchscreen showcase of the Hard Rock’s treasures just like those found on Memorabilia website here.

This unique, customized experience lets Cafe diners interact with the rock history showcase on the giant glass screen while waiting for a table. They can also interact with the collection using a Microsoft Surface computer to zoom in and out of the memorabilia. The collection, which includes things like handwritten lyrics by John Lennon and Michael Jackson’s sequined glove, consistently draws a crowd eager to play with the Microsoft technology.

In addition to the Rock Wall and Surface computer, the Cafe’s customers can also interact with the memorabilia collection using 19” touchscreens installed in the restaurant’s booths.

He described the TouchWall as an "intelligent whiteboard." The screen that had been behind him showing a static image was actually the TouchWall itself, ready to be used. After discussing natural computer interfaces like touchscreen tablet PCs, Surface, and Microsoft RoundTable, he then walked up the TouchWall and touched it to begin the demo. Like Surface, the TouchWall uses scanning cameras, but here they are located at the bottom of the device.

Using finger gestures, like swooshes across the screen and other now common movements to expand and shrink items, he began zooming in and out on what was a big, multimedia laden document, of which the static image that had been there before was only a small part.

Gates then showed how you could zoom in on a Word document and flip through the pages, zoom out then back in on a Powerpoint presentation, then out again and back in to watch a video. It was a very similar looking experience as to what Silverlight's Deep Zoom functionality provides.

In addition to just moving the document on the screen and zooming in and out, you could also use a pen-like feature that lets you draw on the TouchWall with only your finger, something you could use to circle items for emphasis, for example.

Gates also said that the whiteboard was a "natural extension for Office," and that the hardware "wouldn't be that expensive." He hinted that not only was the Office group working on it.

This definitely has potential. I know at one of my previous jobs, we had a semi-intelligent whiteboard that would let you take pictures of what you had put up there, but thanks to a crappy driver and confusing software, no one ever really used it for anything but a traditional whiteboard. Instead, everyone just plugged in laptops to a projector and launched a PowerPoint. The TouchWall was so much more interactive and visually stimulating, but even better, it looked darn easy. You just touch it.

You can watch the video for yourself here. The TouchWall is at about 34:50.