Diversions

Avast Ye XAML Heads

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:16:00 GMT

Arrr, Cameron Albert is cookin' up a cool Sil'erlight Game Gar, Where can I find a bottle o'rum?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist using the Pirate Translator.

Cameron shares a screencast of the pirate themed game he’s developing in Silverlight.

Technorati Tags: Games,Silverlight,Casual Games,Silverlight Game Dev

Mapping New York

Frank La Vigne — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:02:00 GMT

In our savvy Web 2.0+ era, we take it for granted that we can generate custom maps on demand complete with turn by turn directions and aerial overlays. Long before Deep Zoom and AJAX powered maps, maps were hand drawn and often filled with fanciful decorations and embellishments.

But the history of maps and map making is so much richer, as the new book Mapping New York points out.

From the 1600s to today, the book is filled with rich illustrations and the Guardian has 15 of them you can look at and admire right now.

Technorati Tags: Maps,GeoLocation,Mapping,New York

End-of-the-Decade Technology Quiz

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:44:00 GMT

Without getting into the debate on whether or not the decade ends this week, Network World has an online quiz on the technologies introduced in the past ten years.

It's not just the end of the year, it's the end of the first decade of a new millennium. Here is a quiz to highlight some of the biggest, most important or just plain quirky tech stories to hit the front pages over the first 10 years of the 2000s.

[Link]

Technorati Tags: 2010,Decade,Technology,Quiz

Flash: the Wicked Witch of RIA?

Frank La Vigne — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:09:00 GMT

NetFlix will stream a newly digitally re-mastered version of the Wizard of Oz via Silverlight for free on October 3rd, whether or not you are a NetFlix customer.

Looking at the official NetFlix site, however, reveals a wicked surprise: the promotional site if powered by Flash and not Silverlight!

Time to get a bucket of water. Remember there’s no place like MainPage.xaml!

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Wizard of Oz,Netflix

Creating Your Own Comics

Frank La Vigne — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:03:00 GMT

Here’s an interesting guide to free web sites that can help you create your own comics.

Video Game - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

I have some ideas. :)

Technorati Tags: Comics,Utilities,Fun

Palm Pre Exorcism

Frank La Vigne — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:52:00 GMT

iPhone devotees who feel tempted by the competition are not alone.

Watch as the Attack of the Show team tries to perform an exorcism to convert a woman possessed by the Palm Pre.

[found via Warner Crocker]

Technorati Tags: AOTS,Palm Pre,iPhone,Humor

Overclocking Madness: Liquid Nitrogen in the Desert

Frank La Vigne — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:35:00 GMT

This video shows how far some people will go to squeeze every last ounce of processing power out of their CPUs.

Technorati Tags: Overclocking

Musings About Project Natal

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:27:00 GMT

I've been fascinated by Project Natal since I first saw the videos from E3 and as a card carrying geek, I've been combing through the videos looking for clues on how the system works.

The marketing videos make a lot of promises: facial recognition, speech recognition, image scanning, object scanning, motion capture, and a slew of other "out there" technologies.

It's easy to stage a demo where you can control a lot of factors such as lighting and even wardrobe, but how would this work in consumers' hands in the real world?

Based on my experiments with the Touchless SDK, the Project Natal had their work cut out for them.

It's not just what the Project Natal device can do, but where it will be expected to do it.

From dimly lit dorm rooms to bright and cheery family rooms, consumers are going to expect the technology to "just work."

As Seen on TV

Right now, it's very hard to separate fact from fiction, hype from FUD about how ready the technology is to come to market, let alone for people to start guessing a release date.

There's a lot of debate on how well the technology works. Project Natal even landed a guest spot on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where the technology showed some cracks.

First off, what's with the red jumpsuits? I take it that's not the normal attire for appearing on Jimmy Fallon.

Based on my own experiments with the Touchless SDK, this was probably done to increase the contrast of the person against the background.

This raises some interesting questions (aside from the obvious "how ready is this?")

For one, if you can't control lighting conditions to set up the ideal environment in a TV studio, where the heck can you? Secondly, will the Project Natal documentation recommend you wear something bright and paint your room a nice neutral earthtone?

Sean Malsrom points out a less obvious oddity:

It is clear it doesn’t yet work properly. I have yet to see a Burnout video where people are not driving 50 mph when they should be driving 200 mph, and they’re still crashing into walls all the time.

He has a good point and if you follow the player's movements, sometimes they match up, sometimes they don't.

Sean also has a lot of other commentary and analysis on the buzz around Project Natal.

Now wonder then, that the "breakout demo" has been making the rounds, it's easiest to capture the location of four limbs pointing out in different directions.

So, the real question is now what?

When will this be out? How much will this cost? Will it connect to the XBOX 360 by USB?

If so, could you plug it into your PC can capture the data from it? Where's the SDK? Will there be integration with XNA Game Studio?

There are a lot more questions than answers and I suspect it will be like that for a time to come.

Technorati Tags: Project Natal,XBOX 360

Slides, Links and Code from Poor Man's Project Natal

Frank La Vigne — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:45:00 GMT

Thank to everyone who came out on Tuesday to CapArea.NET for my "Poor Man's Project Natal" talk.

Poor Man's Project Natal

View more documents from Frank La vigne.

Technorati Tags: Project Natal,Speech Recognition,Speech Synthesis,Johnny Lee,Wii,Touchless SDK

Speaking Tomorrow Night at CapArea .NET

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:08:00 GMT

Yesterday was the first "official" day of Summer and nothing says Summer like some fun and games. Tomorrow night, I'll be speaking at CapArea.NET on adding a little extra interactivity to your projects with a little help from the Touchless SDK.

Touchless SDK: Poor Man's Project Natal
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 7:00 PM
So you’ve seen the cool video from E3 on the new “controller-less controller” technology called Project Natal. There’s not been any word yet on how to integrate Project Natal’s technology with your Windows applications.
But with the Touchless SDK from Office Labs, you can implement Natal-Style experiences in your applications today with only a web cam.
It’s free and it’s fun to add multi-"touch" input with M&Ms, tennis balls, or markers.
Frank La Vigne is a Microsoft Tablet PC MVP and Lead Architect/Designer for Applied Information Sciences (AIS) in Northern Virginia. Frank started in software development when he was twelve, writing BASIC programs for the Commodore 64. He began his professional career writing Visual Basic 3 applications for Wall Street firms in 1993. He then moved on to be the first webmaster for a major book retailer. Frank then went on to develop a large multinational online banking project in Germany. In 2004, Frank became heavily focused on Tablet PC application development. Frank is also the co-founder and Manager of the CapArea .NET Silverlight SIG.

Technorati Tags: CapArea.NET,Touchless SDK,Fun,Project Natal