Entries tagged with uk - Channel 10

Free Play Lounge, GameCity07

Paulfo — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:08:00 GMT

We had a great night over in Nottingham at the Bluu bar as part of the Nottingham's GameCity07 festival of gaming. George, Nick and the gang from Rare had done a top job finding the venue and equipping it with over 12 - networked - Xbox 360/Elites for a night of competition gaming - transforming it into the 'Free Play Lounge'.

As soon as we opened the floor we were packed out! It was splendid to see plenty of girls attending too - gaming is not just for blokes you know! Well done to Clare who won herself an Xbox Elite.

Kit and Jam from the UK Fragdolls also joined us for the event and competed in the Perfect Dark Zero team competition.

Shout outs to the three amigos (you know who you are!), Trent Uni Computing Society and the Paladin thief catchers of Derby University!

Cross channel charity swim - update!

Paulfo — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:14:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: Cross Channel, Alpha Micro, UK, Air Ambulance

Congratulations to the Microsoft UK Cross Channel Charity swim team. Six brave individuals from Microsoft UK had been training hard for a cross channel swim (Dover to Calais) to raise money for the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance Trust.

Well, while I was sleeping in Seattle the intrepid team have successfully completed the swim!

The channel is approx. 18 nautical miles wide but with the swimmers having to go with the current the actual distance swam will be longer. If you look at the map I don't think they could have made it much longer!!

The swimmers were tracked in real-time using a solution by ALPHA MICRO Systems who stepped up to support the team. You can review the team's swim at http://www.amslivetrac.com/ Using Microsoft Virtual Earth to display the action, the Alpha Micro solution accurately captured the time and geographic data plus photos which were delivered to flickr.

Well done to the team and to Alpha Micro Systems for their support. If you haven't yet pledged support for these amazing people, now is the time to do so!

A Common User Interface to Clinical Systems

bcrounse — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:47:00 GMT

On October 21st, 2005, I wrote an entry on this Blog about the need for a more common and intuitive user interface to clinical information systems. Here's part of that entry:

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Jim Lynch, R.N. is quoted by Health Data Management's on-line news service on remarks he recently made during a presentation at the 77th Convention and Exhibit of the American Health Information Management Association. In his address, "Electronic Medical Records: Expect the Unexpected", Mr. Lynch recounts the plaudits and pitfalls encountered at Oklahoma City-based Integris Health during the implementation of their EMR. He says, “A major part of the problem was that the electronic record was not easy to use--the interface is not as simple as Microsoft Word, and many physicians had absolutely no computer skills.”

Indeed! Why is it that EMR interfaces have to be so challenging for clinicians? The typical community physician in many American cities admits patients to more than one hospital. In my own community, it's not unusual for docs to call on three or four different hospitals. One hospital might use Meditech; another IDX; another Cerner; and yet another something else. Even if any one of these systems had the "perfect" user interface, how can a clinician become proficient on all of them? How much training would that take!

Bill Crounse, MD

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I am now extremely pleased to tell you about something that I believe may be the tipping point in moving us toward a common user interface to clinical systems, perhaps worldwide. For the past couple of years, Microsoft has been working with administrators, clinicians and other experts in the United Kingdom to design a common user interface for clinical and administrative systems at the National Health Service. With the consent of the NHS and its Connecting for Health initiative, the design guidelines and tools are now being made available to developers around the world with the launch of the CUI Website.

As noted on the website, design guidance has been produced through a rigorous user-centred design process that incorporates primary and secondary research, usability testing, consultation with software providers and integrated hazard assessments. Patient Safety Assessments (PSAs) are continually performed to ensure the Design Guidance meets safety concerns.

The guidance is targeted at both existing clinical applications and those that are being designed and architected right now. The second part of this release is the implementation of much of that guidance in the form of control libraries for both WinForms 2.0 and ASP.NET. The website contains explanation and samples for each of the Web controls with the Codeplex project hosting a download of both the Winforms and the ASP.NET Control library.

Example of Common User Interface Design

If you are a developer of applications used in healthcare, an IT professional, or just someone who is passionate about clinical information systems, I urge you to become familiar with this excellent work, and help us make it even better by joining the dialogue here on CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/mscui). Take a look at the CUI Website and be sure to watch the introductory video.

My thanks to our Microsoft UK team and our colleagues at the National Health Service for providing leadership in addressing a much needed solution that will improve patient safety while providing a much easier to use, more consistent interface to clinical systems.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

Rocking the world

Paulfo — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:54:29 GMT

On my UK blog I have been really upset lately by the poor specification of PC Laptops - specifically the graphics capability. Basically, PC laptops are spec'ed in the main for business use and price is paramount in this world. So the graphics capabilities of these machines are pretty low. Well, how much do you need for email and a spreadsheet?

The truth of the matter, and the reason I'm so worked up about it, is that firstly the PC laptop manufacturers in general, aren't very good at telling consumers how good their products really are. For example, Windows Vista has a feature called the Windows Experience Index which will rate a PC's capabilities across five categories and give the PC the overall score of the lowest category. No PC manufacturer displays the WEI figure for their machines - as far as I've seen. In fact, some of the trendest PC laptop manufacturers don't even publish the graphical spec of their machines - you have to really dig around in their reseller channel material to find them. I think that really sucks, and when Apple are producing MacBook Pro's with the ATI X1600 built in( and clearly showing the spec), it all adds up to suggest my beloved PC platform isn't up to the job. Well actually, Windows Vista is really up for it, its just the PC laptop manufacturers are in the main stuck in the rut of supporting the business world, all dull suits and boring process.

However, I've discovered the PC laptop world isn't as bad as it looks and does have a dedicated crew who really do know how to build laptops. Following a tipoff from a friend I contacted Rock - makers of the Xtreme CTX Pro - and asked what the Windows Experience Index was on such a machine. They pack the Nvidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX with 512Mb of dedicated graphics RAM into this beast so my hopes were high this would be the laptop to rock my world!

And I am not disappointed. As you can see below the Xtreme CTX Pro simply blows the majority (and I mean 99.9%) of PC laptops off the face of this earth! Delivering the highest Windows Experience Index graphics performances I've seen in a laptop to date. Coupled with the Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0 Ghz this machine should be standard issue to all mobile PC enthusiasts.

The best bit - this isn't even the top spec for the Xtreme CTX Pro. There are two more faster processor options available taking you right up to the T7600 @ 2.33Ghz plus the ability to get 3GB of DDR 667MHz RAM.

Without a doubt, this machine with Windows Vista Ultimate is a Mac Book Pro killer. I wish I'd had one when I was working with UK software houses developing Windows Presentation Foundation applications last year rather than the scanky box I'm still lumbered with. Well, I'm definitely over due a machine upgrade and I know which one I'm going to push for. The Xtreme CTX pro (with 3Gb, T7600 and the hi-res WUXGA+ screen upgrade.)

Awesome.

Technorati tags: Rock, Nvidia, Laptop, windows Experience Index, Windows Vista

Robotics final sees teams go international

Paulfo — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:39:00 GMT

The UK final for the 2006 First Lego League competition completed recently. The competition is an excellant way for young people to get involved with technology; from researching the technical theme to building and programming a lego robot to complete tasks against the clock.
The teams can be of up to 10 young people aged 9 to 16. As well as competing with their robot the teams have to address three different judging panels on their research project results, teamworking and the experience of building and programming their robot.
Take a look at some of the fantastic robots built by the UK finalists. I love the hammer action 'terminator'!
Find out more about the competition at http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=690
And some of the team sites:
Team: Nano Mania http://www.nanomania.org
Team: Gecko Geeks http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/news/2006/FLL_Winners/
Team: Next Generation www.thenxtgeneration.co.uk

Parents Matter

mitchb — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:36:00 GMT

I frequently think about virtual learning environments, what they are, why they matter, what impact they may have on teaching, learning... and the administration of schools and universities. There's a great deal of debate about their (as if there's a category of product called "VLE" to which we can all agree) utility given the effort and cost often required to implement and adopt.

I recently had an opportunity to spend the day with some senior education leaders and policy makers from Europe. One of the common threads they shared was an unyielding belief (one they intuitively knew but also had research to support) that PARENTS (and their aspirational involvement) are critical to the success of all students. Their position wasn't so much centered on how VLE's may augment the formal or informal learning process... but on how we draw parents into the relationship, leverage their innate aspirations for their children and engage them in a productive, proactive and positive community.

I'm encouraged by insight like the following from an Independent article published today:

"Teachers use the gateway to plan lessons, contact parents and each other and mark school work from home. Pupils can upload their homework for marking and benefit from an e-portfolio of all their computer work, while parents can access their children's work, check on their attendance and behaviour and even look at pictures of school trips. Unless you invited parents in every week there's no way they'd have such a window into the life of the school..."

Accessibilty in Windows Vista

bgauth — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:24:00 GMT

We never speak enough about software accessibility. How software give people the opportunity to communicate with their friends, surf on Internet and find any resources. James Senior and Saqib Shaikh, friends and also colleagues from Microsoft UK made a great video about accessibility in Windows Vista. To watch the video, it's here.

U Music gadget

Paulfo — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:14:00 GMT

Universal Music have a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget to make it easy for you to listen to your music collection, watch brand new videos and receive up to the minute music news for free! Go here to download the gadget.

Sits nicely like this. Expands to to this >>>>>

***WHO:Universal Music,Where:UK,Gadget,Windows Vista***

British Library's Turning Pages

Paulfo — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:57:00 GMT

The launch of a new OS always brings cool applications to demonstrate its capability. For Windows Vista one of the most impressive applications to be demo'ed at the UK launch event was the British Library's Turning Pages application. An application exploiting Windows Presentation Foundation for impressive graphics and animations, and delivered 'through the web' to run directly on your PC. If you have .Net Framework 3.0 installed on XP or are already running Windows Vista, you can go here to run the application on your own machine.

The application makes available books from many hundreds of years ago. Allowing you to browse at leisure Leonardo Da Vini's Codex Arundel, and Codex Leicester together with 14 other books including the original Alice's Adventures Under Ground by Lewis Carroll, and the Northumbria, Anglo-Saxon masterpiece The Lindisfarne Gospels.

Layman’s guide to getting Windows Vista

Paulfo — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 22:21:00 GMT

The purpose of this video is to explain Windows Vista to my Mum and Dad, and help them (and others like them) upgrade or buy a new PC with confidence.

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can be found here.

Be warned this is another of my experimental videos :-)

Rare tour and XNA workshop

Paulfo — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 06:02:00 GMT

As part of the UK launch of XNA Games Studio Express, Microsoft Games Studio company Rare ran a series of XNA workshops for academia at the Rare offices. I tagged along to get the tour of Rare and discuss game development with workshop organiser and Rare software engineer Nick Burton.

I've had some fun in this video, tell me what you think. Also, to be clear Grant Kirkhope did most of the music for Viva Pinata with Steve Burke providing supplemental music. To hear Steve Burke’s fantastic music to Kameo, and see the story behind it, visit www.kameosoundtrack.com.

New toys!!

Paulfo — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:46:10 GMT

Sorry for the lack of entries over the last couple of weeks. Life is really busy at the moment what with Windows Vista general availability launch activities and NEW TOYS!

Yes more new toys for the Foster household. After over a year of waiting A1-DW my PC-Bot 914 was delivered and after a couple of evenings work over the last few days is now trundling around the Foster home - under remote control at the moment. Autonomous wandering will have to wait for a bit more dev!

I'm blogging about my A1-DW project in a specific blog here

Secondly, and more for work purposes I had some funky new software delivered today. The software is Ultra 2 and has been out for a while. The company that wrote it really deserved its name 'Serious Magic'. It is a shame that they have been snapped up Adobe. Lets hope Adobe invest in them - the technology of Ultra coupled with Adobe Premiere and After Effects will make some great video tools!.

Oops, sorry - what is Ultra 2 you ask? Ultra 2 is a chromakey by software package which means you get awesome Chromakey effects in your videos without the expensive hardware. The software technique also delivers more quality more easily than the hardware solution. The key thing is that another Broadcast technology is made a commodity by the power of software. The hardware solution costs thousands, but Ultra only costs a few hundred.

I splashed out via the VideoGuys web site in the US, paid import duty etc, to get Ultra 2 and the first two of four Virtual Set libraries. These sets are awesome and enable you to place yourself (or your 'talent') in a variety of interesting places.

So, last week I recorded some video of me in front of a green screen (in the hall at home) and today, well hey, I'm in a super high tech control room complete with animated plasmas. :-) super cool. The only prob is I'm still writing the scripts, filming, acting and editing so it all takes some time and well, my scripts are a tad cheesy too. But I think it all adds to the splendor of it.

Look out On10 here I come.

I'm currently finishing a number of video entries I promised from last year - the Rare XNA Workshop and tour among others. I apologise in advanced for the various awesome virtual locations and cheesy scripts!

XNA Games Studio Express UK Launch

Paulfo — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:26:00 GMT

Fancy being an Xbox 360 games developer?
A new era of garage computer games development begins with the launch of XNA Games Studio Express. Games for Windows and Xbox 360 can now be built by anyone. The power of the XNA framework and the tools provided is amazing! I attended the UK launch event and caught up with games developer group general manager at Microsoft, Chris Satchell. Chris tells of all the samples to help you get started and the type of games that can now be built plus his dream of a 'YouTube' of community games built using XNA. Developers from Microsoft Games Studio company Rare (developers of Viva Pinata), supported the UK launch with sessions and workshops.
Following the launch event I was lucky enough to attend an XNA workshop held at Rare. A video of my awesome day at Rare to follow shortly.

BT Vision launches across UK, Powered by Microsoft TV

Paulfo — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 11:06:00 GMT

Will broadband Internet kill broadcast TV? This is a hot debate on the web and in the broadcast industry at the moment. Benjamin and I will be getting the skinny on the latest direct from Le Web 3 next week in Paris. It does look like we have moved a step closer to the demise of broadcast TV with the launch of BT Vision - BT's new digital TV service that delivers a hybrid of digital terrestrial television combined with value-added IP services over broadband. The Philips designed set-top box (the V-Box), powered by a Microsoft TV-enabled system-on-chip, offers advanced features including 80 hours of hard disk recording capability, two tuners, smart card reader, HDTV and numerous extension capabilities. Viewers can ‘time shift’ programmes at their convenience, pausing live shows or record them to watch at a later date.

The key thing is that this is a broadband connected device that can support a myriad of services which can be added to over time. Initially users will be able to pay per view from BT's 'extensive' video library covering films, music videos, TV shows and kids shows. A new 'catch-up' service to be available shortly is however the most interesting. The concept is that programmes from broadcasters (like Channel 4 (the first adopter), BBC and ITV) will be available on-demand from BT's library up to a week after the broadcast date, enabling users to have even more control over when they choose to watch a programme.

To use BT Vision you must already have BT Total Broadband install delivering a 2mb or more service. Apart from the broadband subscription and the initial installation charge for setting up your V-Box, BT Vision charges only for the library content you choose to watch, although there are month subscription packages you can sign up to if you like. BT are keen to emphasize that these are optional and you can effectively 'pay as you go' with no monthly fee commitment.

I'll be delivering a full demo video of the service for On10 shortly - so stay tuned!