Mobile World Congress Microsoft Event Live Blog

Digital Narratives From Microsoft Research

 

The Microsoft Rich Interactive Narratives (RIN) project aims to combine traditional forms of storytelling with new visualization technologies to create compelling interactive digital narratives. Experience sample narratives created using the technology at http://www.digitalnarratives.net. The RIN project is an undertaking by MSR India in collaboration with the Interactive Visual Experience group in MSR Redmond and the MSR External Research group. RIN supports a large number of media formats; standard audio and video formats, text, as well as the new formats such as Microsoft® Photosynth™, Deep Zoom™, etc. New visualization formats can be incorporated by adding dynamically-loadable plugins.

Technology

The Rich Interactive Narratives (RIN) technology consists of:

1. The RIN Data Model - a structured, extensible, and platform-independent representation for narratives (it's XML manifestation can be considered a kind of "HTML for RINs")
2. A Silverlight RIN player
3. Silverlight plugins for "foundational Experience Streams", each of which brings a specific visualization experience (such as maps, panoramas, Deep Zoom images) into the realm of RINs
4. Authoring tools to create RIN content

While we have invested in a Silverlight player and plugins, there is nothing in the technology that precludes creating a player and plugins for other platforms, such as HTML5/JavaScript.

RIN is prototype technology. The RIN technology has its origins in the "Sri Andal Temple project" in 2008. The temple demo featured an application that led users through an immersive, interactive, narrated walkthrough Photosynth's and HD View stitched images of a temple in Tamil Nadu (video). Several core RIN concepts such as "Experience Streams" and "Generalized Trajectories" originated in that project.

Keep checking www.digitalnarratives.net for updates. You can find details about the RIN technology at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/rin/

Microsoft Surface Alternative Using Kinect And PC

Design Lab Experience 001 from Disturbance on Vimeo.

Disturbance offers a first demo, "Design lab experience 001" which introduces interactive table "touchless" created in a few hours.

A glass table, IR sensor, a webcam, a video projector, a mirror and a Mac, this is everything needed to make this prototype behavior and convincing potential: no necessary contact sensor analyzes gesture in space to transform it into information.

A long series of exciting technology/design experiments should follow soon!

Samsung's Vision Of Future

Samsung from Yu Lee on Vimeo.

A world Futurist entirely samsung, realizing speed which the South Korea develops and becomes a global giant, Westerners have anything to worry seriously...
This is the most iconic brand of southern Korea. Samsung is the largest technology company in the world. Profits are higher than Apple, Google and Microsoft combined.
Samsung is also a giant conglomerate whose activities relate to almost all areas.
Search Amazon.com for samsung galaxy tab

Antivirus Protection Test

Open Notepad and paste this string into it ( without double quotes )

“X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H* ”

#2 Save it and as soon as you do your antivirus real time protection should be able to detect it. In case you have disabled the real time protection run a scan for this file.

Microsoft Releases OneNote Mobile For iPhone

OneNote Mobile for the iPhone lets you capture and review notes and lists on your phone. Notes are automatically backed up and synced with free Windows Live SkyDriveonline storage, so that you can access them from virtually anywhere - your PC, phone, and browser. Collecting thoughts and ideas on the go is what OneNote was made for.

And its free only for limited time. So grab it soon.

http://bit.ly/gtaiTd

Microsoft Academic Search Powered by Silverlight

Try it out here: http://www.academic.research.microsoft.com/

Its an awesome resource for Computer Science Students.

Max Payne Using Kinect Hack And Wiimote

The Chase Film- An Intel Core-i Series Ad

Google Goggles Solves Sudoku On the Go

From Google Mobile Blog,

Sudoku

Our favorite weekend distraction is a quiet 15 minutes spent solving a Sudoku puzzle. But even that can be an frustrating experience if (like us) you make a mistake and are unable to solve the puzzle. Now, Goggles on Android and iPhone can recognize puzzles and provide answers to help make you faster than a Sudoku champ. So if you ever get stuck, take a clear picture of the entire puzzle with Goggles and we’ll tell you the correct solution. Check out this video to see how it works.

Google Goggles 1.3 with improved barcode scanning is available for download in Android Market. Recognition of print ads and Sudoku solver is now enabled for the Google Goggles app on Android, as well as the Goggles component of the Google Mobile App on iPhone.

Microsoft Surface 2.0 Announced

Photo credit: Long Zheng – www.istartedsomething.com) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/longzheng/5328368222)

Some details:

Impressively thin table surface for Surface

- Surface 2.0 is mountable.

- No cameras included. Each pixel is a camera. Yup,pixelsense technology.

- Surface has the biggest piece of Gorilla Glass ever produced.

No word and pricing and availability. Steve Ballmer will reveal that at CES keynote I guess.

Created in partnership with Samsung, the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface incorporates all the key features of the original Surface product – a massive multi-touch experience, the ability to recognize fingers, hands, and objects – as well as a new technology that has enabled a more flexible form factor.

The Next Generation of Microsoft Surface - LCDs That Can ‘See’

Also during Ballmer’s keynote speech, Microsoft unveiled the next generation of Microsoft Surface, built upon a new technology that enables thin LCD screens to “see” without the use of cameras.

Created in partnership with Samsung, the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface is a major step forward in the surface computing category. It incorporates all the key features of the original Surface product – a massive multi-touch experience, the ability to recognize fingers, hands, and objects – as well as a new technology that has enabled a more flexible form factor.

Just Scratching the Surface

Looking at the year ahead, Ballmer noted that it is an exciting time for Microsoft, partners and customers across the board. Even with all the amazing experiences talked about at CES, from what’s next in Windows to the latest capabilities with Kinect, “the best is yet to come,” he said.

Intel® Anti-Theft Technology Demo

Find out how laptop security measures can help protect your data.

Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) for Laptop Security

What is it?

Intel® Anti-Theft Technology is an intelligent way for you to help secure the mobile assets of your workforce. This intelligent laptop security technology is built into select 2nd generation Intel® Core™ and 2nd generation Intel® Core™ vPro™ processor families. If a laptop is lost or stolen when the user is out of the office, the PC will be shut down and useless to thieves. It not only helps protect the intellectual property of your company at the pre-boot level, but also allows for fast reinstatement of a laptop without damage to information, should the laptop be recovered. Intel AT is available on select 2nd generation Intel Core and 2nd generation Intel Core vPro processorfamily–based laptops when activated with a service subscription from an Intel AT-enabled service.

Why it matters.

Laptop theft costs corporate America over USD 5.4 billion each year.¹ In everyday life, this amounts to 12,000 laptops disappearing every week from U.S. airports alone, and a laptop being stolen every 53 seconds.¹ The problem of data security becomes increasingly significant as employees are more mobile. Add to this the daunting challenges of healthcare privacy laws, and asset security can have a significant impact on your business.

Protection for laptop users.

Intel Anti-Theft Technology (Intel AT) is built into the processor of your laptop, so it is active as soon as your machine is switched on—even before startup. If your laptop is lost or stolen, a local or remote “poison pill” can be activated that renders the PC inoperable by blocking the boot process. This means that predators cannot hack into your system at startup. It works even without Internet access and, unlike many other solutions, is hardware-based, so it is tamper-resistant.