Larry Larsen

Surface + Dungeons and Dragons = Surfacescapes

Larry Larsen — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:27:00 GMT

I met with the folks from Carnegie Mellon who created the Dungeons and Dragons game on Microsoft Surface called Surfacescapes, which is a double helping of geek. I asked them about some of the challenges they faced, some of the decisions they made (like virtual dice), and where they hope to go with it in the future. If you're a D&D or Surface fan, don't miss it at Penny Arcade on March 26th.

In this game, the DM sits off to the side with a laptop or touch slate while the application tracks combat states and statistics. Best of all you can still use your favorite miniatures on the table!

Techfest 2010: Mobile Surface

Larry Larsen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:17:00 GMT

Every year at TechFest, Microsoft employees (and a few invited guests) get to take a look at some of the projects out of Microsoft Research. These aren't finished products--you'll see a lot of exposed wires and tape--and in fact, they may never become completed products at all, but each project shows what we're thinking--and maybe where we're going.

This year I met with a team from MSR Asia who have constructed what they hope will eventually be a pico-projector portable computer, and in this project you can see inspiration from Microsoft Surface and Second Light. The possibility I like best about this is the ability to touch your games while still seeing what is there. Additionally, if you use physical controls on apps, such as knobs, you can actually paint labels on the controls themselves.

NASA Pathfinder Innovation Challenge

Larry Larsen — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:22:00 GMT

At the PDC last year, you may have seen that NASA and Microsoft made a number of announcements. New data APIs in Codename Dallas, a Silverlight+ASP.NET MVC 2 site on Azure...but did you realize they also launched a programming competition?

NASA has hundreds of thousands of images from their missions to Mars, and with the Pathfinder Innovation Challenge, they want to enlist your coding skills to help classify them. This is a unique opportunity where you can help NASA and win some great prizes by utilizing your existing .NET skills.

The Pathfinder Innovation Challenge consists of four different “leagues." In the Global Cooperation League, you’ll build casual games, which will allow every day citizens to help classify images in a game environment (similar to the counting craters application that can be found online here: http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/maproom), and you'll do so using Silverlight and NASA's Azure-hosted APIs in codename Dallas. In the Intelligence League, you’ll use the power of the Azure cloud to attempt to solve the same problem by programmatically examining and classifying the images.

Full details for the competition can be found on their website at http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/pic. Details specific to the Global Cooperation League are available at http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/pic/coop-league and details for the Intelligence League can be found at http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/pic/intelligence-league. Also, be sure to check out the intelligence league site for a series of “How Do I?” videos, which demonstrate how to sign up for and use the Codename Dallas API.

In addition to helping mankind and being able to brag that your code was helping NASA, PIC winners will also win amazing prizes, including NASA swag, ZuneHDs, and trips to see the launch of the next Mars Rover.

Making a 3D Model From a Photosynth

Larry Larsen — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:07:00 GMT

There's an interesting video on YouTube from Binary Millenium showing how to make a 3D model out of real objects using Microsoft's Photosynth. It's an interesting idea that while unofficial, may be a big time saver and a lot of fun for many of you.

This will work best if you use a Photosynth that not only has a high rate of 'synthiness' but also tons of points in the point cloud. A point in the point cloud means that a specific feature in two more photos has been identified allowing for Photosynth to some degree determine where in space that point exists. While a good Photosynth might have 100% synthiness, meaning all the pictures were connected, it doesn't necissarily mean there will be lots of points in the point cloud.

Outlook Social Connector Announcement

Larry Larsen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:21:00 GMT

Back in October I told you about the launch of our Outlook Social Connector product, which gives Outlook the ability to aggregate all your social communication into one place. Here, Dev stops back by the studio to tell us about the latest announcement: the availability of the LinkedIn connector and new Outlook integration with Facebook and MySpace.

With LinkedIn you'll be able to see the statuses and photos of colleagues, and any changes they make to their contact information will be synced to Outlook so it's always current. You can also add new people to LinkedIn right from Outlook. You can get started by downloading the Office 2010 Beta, then downloading Outlook Social Connector, and then heading over to LinkedIn to download this connector.

Keep track of the latest Office news by watching the Office blog, or follow the Office twitter @Office2010. You can follow Dev at @DevBala, or follow me @LarryLa.

The Tech Behind The Hard Rock Cafe

Larry Larsen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:36:00 GMT

While there's nothing wrong with the California Club, you don't go to a Hard Rock Cafe because you love food. You go because you love music, and now you're likely to stay longer because you love technology. Knowing the value of memorabilia, Hard Rock took on the huge task of photographing their memorabilia collection in high resolution, feeding it into their office SharePoint. Today, that SharePoint drives the Hard Rock Memorabilia site, the 18'x4' multitouch "Rock Wall" in Orlando, the Rock Wall Solo in Seattle, all the Hard Rock Microsoft Surface computers, and Microsoft Pivot. And all of it is tagged and indexed with the inside story and Deep Zoomable.

The access to this content is incredible when you think about it. These rockers could teach the world a thing or two about how digital curation is done. Think of how much stuff sits on a shelf at the Smithsonian, Vatican, and thousands of other museums and art galleries around the world. In this video, Hard Rock CIO Joe Tenczar gives us a tour of some of the tech you’ll see in the latest Hard Rock Cafes.

Here is a link to the Photosynth of Tommy Alsop's wallet that I mentioned in the video. And don't miss my behind the scenes look at the Hard Rock Cafe warehouse.

Where the Multitouch Devices Are, pt. 2

Larry Larsen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:21:00 GMT

In October I put together a list of all the available multitouch hardware that I could find. Here is an updated list of multitouch hardware. The number of touch points on each differ, and because that number is tied to the driver and can change, I haven't included that. A good rule of thumb is that optical and resistive often have 2 touch points while capacitive often have 4 or more. Thanks to Shane Abreu for helping compile the list.

OEM	Model	Platform	Form Factor	Technology
Acer	Aspire AS5738PG	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Acer	Aspire Z5610	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Acer	1420P	Notebook	Tablet	Resistive
Asus	Eee PC T91	Netbook	Netbook	Resistive
Dell	SX2210T	Display	Monitor	Optical
Dell	Latitude XT	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Dell	Latitude XT2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Dell	Studio One 19	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Dell	Studio 17	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Fujitsu	Lifebook T4310	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	Lifebook T4410	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	LifeBook 5010	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	DeskPower F Series	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Fujitsu	T900	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	LifeBook UH900	Notebook	Netbook	?
Gateway	Gateway One ZX4800	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	TouchSmart 600t	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	TouchSmart 300z	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	TouchSmart TX2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
HP	TouchSmart dx9100	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	DV3	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
HP	TM2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
HP	5102	Notebook	Netbook	Capacitive
HP	L2105tm	Display	Monitor	Optical
HP	L5009tm	Display	Monitor	Optical
Lenovo	ThinkPad X200	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Lenovo	ThinkPad T400	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Lenovo	IdeaPad S10-3t	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Lenovo	C310	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Medion	X9613	Desktop	AIO	Optical
MSI	AE2220	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Positivo	Union Touch 2200	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Sony	VAIO L	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Toshiba	Satellite U505	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Toshiba	Satellite M505	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive

Return of the Surface Monster

Larry Larsen — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:46:00 GMT

You might have seen the Surface Monster demo from PDC last fall. Just before CES I went over to the Surface team to talk to some folks about NUI and wanted to shoot a video on the Surface creature but it turns out he was on a whirlwind tour of North America.

So check out the latest video of the Surface Monster. It's a great way to show how Surface, with its vision system, can be the bridge between real world objects and software.

Ultramon (beta) for Windows 7 Available

Larry Larsen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:47:00 GMT

There have been some problems in the past getting the incredibly useful utility Ultramon to run correctly on Windows 7, looks like that's now a thing of the past with a new beta version of Ultramon (3.0.9) available.

If you've never used it, Ultramon is a great way to extend the benefits of using multiple monitors in Windows 7 including adding a taskbar to the secondary displays and some extra controls to the top right corner of applications for things like moving an app to another display. Granted some of these functions are now built in to Windows 7 (you can flip applications to another monitor with Windows Key + Left/Right arrow). Download Ultramon here.

Kodu Tips Available

Larry Larsen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:53:00 GMT

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Kodu being available on the PC. If you'd like to find out more about using Kodu, or you know a young potential dev who needs help getting ramped up, the Microsoft Research Blog has posted some tutorials on using Kodu. Tutorial #1 covers Basic Navigation, tutorial #2 covers the Edit Mode Tools, #3 goes over the features on the Load Level menu, and tutorial #4 goes over the Main Menu Options.

Have You Seen Bing Map Apps?

Larry Larsen — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:37:00 GMT

Here's a tip you might not have seen yet. If you go to http://www.bing.com/maps/explore, you'll see a panel on the left. At the bottom of that panel on the right edge you'll see a button called "Map Apps". If you click that you'll find 19 applications that run on top of Bing. Some of the apps include:

Twitter Maps updates from Twitter are applied to Bing maps around the world.
Photosynth 3D photo browsing through synths inside Bing.
Urban Graffiti Images of spray painted graffiti in cities.
Urban Murals These are murals across the world including things like the huge guitar mural on the side of Hard Rock Cafe Nashville.
TrafficLand An amazing array of live traffic video from across the U.S.
Local Events See what events are happening around you.
Newseum See newspaper front pages for cities across the world.

A Look at Seesmic Look

Larry Larsen — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:26:00 GMT

Seesmic recently launched Look, a Twitter client aimed toward tech novices and people who want a very clean, simple Twitter experience. TechCrunch called it A Tablet-Friendly Twitter Client For The Oprah Crowd, that's a good description. The UI of Look allows for a comfortable touch experience and WPF gives Look a polish that really makes it worth having even if only as a second Twitter client.

Seesmic Look organizes groups of Twitter feeds into a "Channel". For a company like TIME, they can have a single landing page with bigger graphics where you can see all of their Twitter accounts like CBS News and GMA. Look also allows you to follow Tweeters without having a Twitter account, which means you can follow without anyone knowing you're following them. Microsoft Sr. Platform Strategy Advisor Daryll McDade stopped by to give us a peek at Look and tell us more about it. You can download Seesmic Look here.

All About Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

Larry Larsen — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:26:00 GMT

One of the things I really like about Windows 7 is the inclusion of a virtualized Windows XP. I use this at home quite a bit for playing very old games and as a quarantine sandbox for suspect files.

Well if you ever wanted to know much more about Windows XP Mode, Ars Technica has a great in-depth look at XP Mode and covers what it is, how it works, and who it's for.

Nitin Bhandari on Skyfire's 1.5 Update

Larry Larsen — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:29:00 GMT

Nitin Bhandari from Skyfire was in town and stopped by the Channel 9 studio to talk to us about their latest release, version 1.5. As Gizmodo so boldly put it, version 1.5 has "more speed, less ugly", so it has that going for it. Along with that, Skyfire includes full VGA support for VGA and wVGA resolutions, fat finger UI changes, smooth (kenetic) scrolling, a full screen mode sans chrome, as well as some perf improvements on both client and server (pages are first rendered on Skyfire servers).

Skyfire is still the only mobile desktop browser, and by that I mean you can enjoy almost any file type you would on a desktop machine on your Windows Mobile phone, including Flash (v.10) video, Silverlight (1.5) video, QuickTime and full AJAX support.

Get it at http://get.Skyfire.com.

Get Tech Help on Channel 9 Live Wednesday 1/27

Larry Larsen — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:58:00 GMT

Tomorrow, Wednesday January 27, we will be doing a live show on Channel 9 where you can "call in" (technically Twitter or email) to a panel of Windows problem experts and we will troubleshoot these problems live on air. The host of the first show will be Chris Pirillo, and you can send your questions via Twitter to @ch9live, or email ch9live [at] microsoft [dot] com. Watch us live at 2PM Pacific Standard Time (5PM on the East Coast US) on Wednesday. Go to http://live.ch9.ms to watch.

Show Us Your Tech: Juan Goni Edition

Larry Larsen — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:48:00 GMT

Juan Goni is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft in the Exchange Online Deployment group and invited us over to take a look at his home setup. Juan has some of the same challenges many of us do, for starters he's got a bunch of machines and one set of speakers, here he uses a mixing board to control the audio from each. Juan also controls lighting through his PC and uses Media Center and extenders throughout his house to distribute video and music.

A Look at Lenovo's 2010 Lineup

Larry Larsen — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:17:00 GMT

Closing our CES 2010 coverage, this is a look at some of the hardware that Lenovo currently has or will be offering this year. It includes everything from the typical business machines to contemporary all-in-one machines, even a laptop that lets you game in 3D (they tell me all DirectX games are 3D compatible.)

Build a CableCard MCE PC with Ceton TV Tuner

Larry Larsen — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:33:00 GMT

Last year Microsoft announced that we would let people add their own digital TV Tuners to their computers to create their own Media Center PC's. (The big difference with CableCard and the TV Tuners you can get today is the ability to record pay channels like HBO in HD.) This was great news, except the number of CableCard based TV Tuners is.. well, almost non-existent.

That's going to change in Q1 with Ceton's TV Tuners. This PCIe card will let you install a CableCard in your PC and record up to four HD channels at once. At one booth at CES, they were running two of these cards in one PC, and who wouldn't want to record 8 HD channels at the same time? I met up with Gary Hammer, the President and CEO of Ceton Corporation at CES and asked him some questions about their new TV Tuner.

Behind Ribbon Hero

Larry Larsen — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:33:00 GMT

Jonas Helin, the SDE in Office Labs behind the Ribbon Hero project tells us about the application, how they came up with it, show us some early mockups and talks about the lessons he learned from the Xbox group.

You can download Ribbon Hero now at: http://www.officelabs.com/ribbonhero

How to Photosynth a Car

Larry Larsen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:12:00 GMT

The North American International Auto Show started this week, and one of the things I'm sure we'd all like to see is incredible Photosynths of cars. But Photosynthing cars is one of the more difficult things to do. The lines and the details on the shape of the car that Photosynth would normally use for edge detection are often changed visually because of the gloss of the finish. Next time you're looking at a shiny car, notice how as you move around it the surface of the car almost morphs through colors and reflections.

The Photosynth team has put together a blog post to give you some tips on how best to shoot a car for a synth, inside and out. The quick answer is lots of photos and to focus around areas of detail like rims, grills, and decals if the car happens to have them. Full tips can be found here.

Bing Maps Publishes Post-Earthquake Imagery

Larry Larsen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:17:00 GMT

Bing Maps has been updated with post-earthquake images from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. According to Chris Pendleton the new imagery comes from Digital Globe's Worldview 2 satellite (the one launched in the rocket with the Bing logo.) Updated imagery will be added as it comes in. MSNBC.com has created a Photosynth from some images from Haiti and an HD-View image from GeoEye satellite imagery.

You can find a list of charitable organizations helping in Haiti here at MSNBC.

Kodu Now Available for PC

Larry Larsen — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:12:00 GMT

You may remember seeing the Microsoft Research project Kodu for Xbox last year. The game allows programming novices to develop robust games on the Xbox and control interactions between the characters. Now the PC version is available in beta form which is great news as most schools don't have Xbox 360's.

With Kodu, the idea is to give kids a way to accomplish something they didn't think they would be able to do while strengthening their design, math, and problem-solving skills. It was created as Matthew MacLaurin, director of Future Social Experiences Lab, watched his then three year old daughter interact with a computer. Realizing there was a disconnect between the passive experience she was having and the coding that went into applications, MacLaurin began the project. Kodu is now used in more than 60 educational institutions around the world including a pilot program across 26 schools in Victoria, Australia. You can download Kodu for PC and get started here.

Tricks Behind Natal

Larry Larsen — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:50:00 GMT

Scientific American has a video including interviews with Director of Incubation Alex Kipman about Project Natal and talk about some of the challenges and methods they use to detect the user. One of the 'tricks' to Natal is that is is not concerned so much with the body parts as much as the joints that connect those parts. It also accounts for the type of clothing that you are wearing. See the video for more.

CES 2010: Blio with Ray Kurzweil

Larry Larsen — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:24:00 GMT

KNFB Reader CEO Ray Kurzweil joined me to talk about the state of e-reading and show us a demo of Blio. Blio is a WPF reading application and bookstore that reads XPS files. They've taken it a step beyond by creating a reader that can match a book to spoken text, play embedded video, or load web content. I can imagine students with something like the multitouch Pegatron slate reading rich media textbooks that update throughout the year. Ray mentions using the cloud to allow you to go from device to device and pick up where you left off and gives us his vision of the next 20 years.

CES 2010: Microsoft Booth PCs

Larry Larsen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:15:00 GMT

Inside the Microsoft booth at CES is a row of computers that we call Muscle Beach. These are some of the latest PCs from partners that will be coming out over the next year. I'm really impressed this year with some of the forward thinking features hardware companies are coming out with, like the dual monitor netbook shown here. My favorite had to be the Pegatron slate though. This device shown in the keynote has an 11.6" screen with an Atom processor, 1GB RAM and 32GB HDD. It's so light and portable, it would be perfect to carry around the house for reading and remoting into the other PC's around my house via Mesh. With so many different types of devices, there's something for everyone.