Answer My Query

Great news for all Kinect for Windows developers and NUI enthusiasts: a new version of the SDK will be available for download on Monday March 18th, 2013 from the official site http://www.kinectforwindows.com.

A comprehensive list of the new tools and features is available in the official Kinect for Windows Blog:

• Kinect Interactions tools for creating smooth applications with interactions like push-to-press buttons, grip-to-pan capabilities, multiple users / two person support;
• Kinect Fusion tools for creating accurate 3-D renderings of people and objects;
• OpenCV and MATLAB Samples;
• Kinect for Windows Code Samples on CodePlex through an open-source license.

Happy Kinecting everyone!

The last week has been very exciting for Microsoft developers: The //build/ conference in Redmond was full of amazing content including Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 SDK, Microsoft Surface, Xbox SmartGlass, Kinect for Windows and the new language TypeScript.

Unfortunately I hadn’t the possibility to participate at the conference but had some free time during the week-end to watch some of the recorded sessions available here on Channel9: this is really a great resource and I suggest everyone interested in Microsoft technologies to download some videos and have fun with it.

I decided then to take a look at the new features available in Windows Phone 8 and the related SDK: Justin Angel has a great article about this topic in the Nokia Developer Community.

To get my hands dirty I moved then on my personal Open-Source project “Multi-Touch Behaviors” on CodePlex: this is a set of Epression Blend Behaviors for different platforms including Windows Phone, Silverlight and WPF for applying gestures and manipulations (like the one available in the “old” ScatterView control) to generic XAML elements.

The project was not yet updated to Windows Phone 8 so I took this opportunity and experimented with the new SDK: this was really a great experience since I was able to upgrade quickly all my samples to the new platform using the same codebase used for the Silverlight version.

Unfortunately I haven’t the possibility  to test the performance on a real Windows Phone 8 device at the moment but the first impressions are really positive.

I have already checked in the code for WP8 here, I’m planning more testing and development in the future.

Happy XAMLing everyone

Check out this great sample available in the XNA community site.

It includes code that uses the Gestures API to enable hold, drag, tap, flick, pinch gestures.

Today I’ve finally found some time to make modifications in the “MEF MVVM” project on Codeplex in order to:

• create a new module using WCF RIA Services and dynamically load this it inside the “MEF module container” described in the previous post;
• use the INavigationContentLoader interface and MEF Metadata to share the same container for the various “MEF Modules”;
• use the new Cosmopolitan theme available for Silverlight Navigation applications;
• refactor the code of the ViewModel base class using the one available in the latest Prism drops;
• refactor unit tests inserting an apposite Mock service.

The source code is available for download on Codeplex.

Happy Silverlighting!

It’s now available a great technical whitepaper that highlights the usage of Silverlight Smooth streaming technology to stream live and on demand content for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

This Whitepaper goes into the technical details on how NBC in US inserted midstream ads and monetized the online content.

This is a follow on to the 4 case studies that were published in May 2010 on how NBC USA, CTV Canada, France TV, and NRK Norway  have used Silverlight and Smooth Streaming technologies during the Winter Olympics.

The Technical Whitepaper covers the following topics:

- A Solution Overview;

- Clip Creation and Ad Insertion;

- Rough Cut Editor;

- Inserting Ads, Ad Templates, Ad Logic;

- Ads delivered in VOD;

- Monitoring Ads.

Click here to read the article and… Happy Silverlighting!