Larry Larsen

Larry Larsen

Total Posts: 369
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Watch Your Media Center From Anywhere

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Mar 18th @ 7:46 AM | 2,449 Views | 0 Comments
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Now that there are some great options for Cablecard tuners in PC’s, the only obstacle keeping me from enjoying my recorded content is that whole distance-from-my-computer thing. Lifehacker has a great tip about a Windows application called Remote Potato that will let you watch and schedule recordings on your Windows Media Center PC. The interface for the software is Silverlight-based and while I haven’t gotten a chance to install it yet (I’m still at Mix10), apparently it allows you the same functionality remotely as you have locally.

Tags: Media Center, silverlight

Surface + Dungeons and Dragons = Surfacescapes

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Mar 15th @ 2:27 PM | 5,670 Views | 0 Comments
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!
Tags: game design, gaming, Surface

Techfest 2010: Mobile Surface

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Mar 10th @ 3:17 PM | 9,111 Views | 0 Comments
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.
Tags: microsoft research, Second-Light, Surface, techfest

NASA Pathfinder Innovation Challenge

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Mar 1st @ 12:22 PM | 9,437 Views | 0 Comments

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.

[Click to read the full post ]
Tags: .NET, Azure, NASA, silverlight

Making a 3D Model From a Photosynth

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Feb 21st @ 7:07 PM | 10,344 Views | 0 Comments
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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.
Tags: 3D modeling, photosynth

Outlook Social Connector Announcement

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Feb 18th @ 6:21 AM | 10,161 Views | 0 Comments
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.
Tags: FaceBook, LinkedIn, Outlook, Social networks

The Tech Behind The Hard Rock Cafe

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Feb 12th @ 2:36 PM | 10,541 Views | 0 Comments

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.

[Click to read the full post ]
Tags: Deep Zoom, Microsoft Surface, MultiTouch

Where the Multitouch Devices Are, pt. 2

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Feb 12th @ 11:21 AM | 10,722 Views | 0 Comments
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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.

(list after the jump)
[Click to read the full post ]
Tags: hardware, MultiTouch

Return of the Surface Monster

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Feb 10th @ 3:46 PM | 12,194 Views | 0 Comments
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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.
Tag: Microsoft Surface

Ultramon (beta) for Windows 7 Available

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Feb 5th @ 1:47 PM | 11,320 Views | 0 Comments
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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.
Tag: Multi-Monitor
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