Microsoft Research has developed an app called TouchDevelop that lets you build Windows 8 apps by touch. You can run the app from an iPhone, iPad, Android, PC, Mac, or Windows Phone.

Touchdevelop is a project by Microsoft Research that allows you to build an app with touch. You write scripts by tapping on the screen. Scripts can perform various tasks similar to regular apps. Any TouchDevelop user can install, run, edit, and publish scripts. You can share your scripts with other people by publishing them to the TouchDevelop script bazaar, or by submitting them as an app to the Windows Store or Windows Phone Store. It takes a little while to learn how to navigate the application, but once you get going, you can build some pretty fun little apps in very little time.

Got a Windows Phone?

Download the touchdevelop app from the Windows Phone store. Visit the Learn tab to find instructional videos and documentation. A good starting point is the video tinter. This video gives you step by step instructions on how to create a phone app that will display a random picture from your phone when you shake the phone. The person doing the videos does have a tendency to go a bit fast, so be prepared to rewind to figure out what buttons she pressed! But, I was able to follow along, and now have a neat little app that randomly displays a picture on my phone when I shake it, the app took me about 60 seconds to build :)

Got an iPad, iPhone, Android, or Mac?

Use the touchdevelop web app. When you first visit the site you find tutorials that explain how to use the web application to build an app.

Yes this builds REAL apps you can publish to the store

This is a fun little application to explore, but what’s really cool is the fact that after you’ve played with it for a while and you build something cool, not only can you share it with other touchdevelop developers you can actually use the app to help you publish it to the Windows 8 or Windows Phone Store! Just follow the detailed instructions on how to publish.

Here’s a little peek at how to create a Magic 8 ball app to whet your appetite. Now what are you waiting for, go play!

This week Engadget announced their Readers Choice awards, no less than three Microsoft products were featured including the Nokia Lumia 920 as SmartPhone of the Year.

Engadget just announced their 2012 readers choice awards. I’d like to take a minute to look at each of the Microsoft products that earned an award. Starting with

SmartPhone of the Year: Nokia Lumia 920

I smiled as I read the Engadget review, because I do love Windows Phone 8, but in particular, the camera on the Nokia Lumia 920 quite literally blew me away (with the flash turned off especially) I’d like to share a story from a fellow gadget geek, Microsoft Certified Trainer, Christopher Harrison (@GeekTrainer) about how he discovered and fell for the Lumia 920. He was kind enough to share it. Thanks for the story, Christopher, it seems you are not the only one who likes your Lumia 920.

Vegas and the Nokia Lumia 920

I love taking pictures. Mind you, I’m not overly skilled at it, and I don’t have the best eye for what makes a good picture. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to take lots of pictures.

What does stop me from taking lots of pictures, however, is the lack of a good camera. I have a digital Canon Rebel, which I love. But lugging that around everywhere I go isn’t really an option. And considering my most common subject for photos is food and cocktails^[1], breaking out a dSLR makes me feel like a bigger dork when getting the shot. The one camera I, and virtually everyone else, has at their disposal at all times is their phone. Cameras on phones share one thing in common – they’re all terrible, especially in low light situations. And if you’re anything like me^[2], the most common time you want a picture is in a low light situation.

Thus enter the Nokia Lumia 920.

I had the Lumia 900 for quite a while, and I loved it. But as interested as I was in some of the new Windows 8 features, including NFC support, I wasn’t interested enough to spend the money to upgrade out of contract to the Lumia 920. Until my birthday trip to Las Vegas.^[3]

A friend of mine had recently upgraded to the Lumia 920. Whenever it was time for a group shot, we’d hand a point & shoot camera and the 920 over to someone nice enough to take the picture. Mind you, we weren’t trying to do a “taste test” of the two devices and which took the better, it was just how it happened. Invariably, the kind person would use the camera first, and the 920 second. The response after taking the picture with the 920 was universal – “Wow”. Every. Single. Time. After a little while everyone in the party was making sure we used my friend’s phone to take pictures.

After that I had to have one. And it paid off when I went back to Las Vegas for the Rock n Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon.

I was in New York, NY^[4] for work. I went to visit a friend in the Dyker Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, which is famous for over-the-top Christmas lights displays. My friend, with their iPhone^[5], and I with my Lumia 920. While I wasn’t able to get all the pictures the way I wanted – it’s challenging in that type of a lighting situation – I had a much higher success rate than my friend.

Every phone has its strengths and weaknesses. This phone meets my needs. The OS gives me the social networking integration I desire, and the camera, well, the camera is finally a good camera phone – much to the chagrin of my friends who can now expect several more pictures of cocktails and food on my Facebook wall.

^[1] Yes, I’m that kind of a geek
^[2] ...and I know I am
^[3] Yes, I know – going to Vegas for one’s 40th birthday is cliché. I’m OK with that.
^[4] The city so nice they named it twice
^[5] This is not to call out the iPhone specifically, it was simply what they had.

This week Engadget announced their Readers Choice awards, no less than three Microsoft products were featured including the Microsoft Surface RT as tablet of the year

Engadget just announced their 2012 readers choice awards. I’d like to take a minute to look at each of the Microsoft products that earned an award. Yesterday I talked about the SmartPhone of the Year: Nokia Lumia 920. Today I’d like to talk a bit about the

Tablet of the year: Microsoft Surface RT

I bought a Surface RT when it first came out, and the number one question I am asked when someone sees it for the first time is what’s the difference between a Surface RT and an iPad. So I thought now would be a good time to point out some of the differences. This is not a complete list, but will give you a sense of how they differ.

You can see the specs for each device yourself by clicking on the headers for each column.

This template gives you a great start for an app which allows the user to submit location based information.

This blog is part of a series

Have you ever wished there was an app you could use to tell the city about the potholes that on your daily commute? Or maybe you just want to an app for fellow runners to share notes on where to find public water fountains or good hills for hill training. The concept of crowd sourcing, letting the app users provide the information, is both popular and powerful. If you have a crowd sourcing idea that requires recording the location associated with the information, check out the Win8 Hero template.

This template will give you a great jumpstart for any app that requires a user to submit information about a particular location.

Platform: Windows 8

Programming language: HTML, CSS & JavaScript

The template includes a web based back end written in Node.JS

You can download the Win8 Hero App Client template

You can download the companion NodeJS server for the Windows 8 Hero template

You will also want to look at the Quick Start Guide to the Windows 8 Hero App Template and Server written by Mark Arteaga.

Don’t forget when you are finished your app you can publish it and get rewards through the Developer Movement.

Last week Engadget announced their Readers Choice awards, no less than three Microsoft products were featured including the Kinect as peripheral of the year.

Engadget just announced their 2012 readers choice awards. I am taking a moment to look at each of the Microsoft products that earned an award. Last week I talked about SmartPhone of the Year: Nokia Lumia 920, and Tablet of the Year: Surface RT. Today I’d like to talk a bit about the final Microsoft product selected by Engadget readers:

Peripheral of the year: Microsoft Kinect

The Kinect lends itself to innovation. With a price point of somewhere around $250-$300 in Canada, the average developer can purchase a device that captures images, multi-directional sound, and 3D motion. Microsoft’s release of the Kinect for Windows complete with APIs means developers no longer need turn to hacking to leverage this capabilities of the device.

Being a Star Wars and Star Trek fan, one of my favorite Kinect projects this year was developed by a team at the Human Media Lab at Queens university. They used the Kinect sensors to create a 3D holographic projection called Telehuman.

The Kinect is also a popular feature in Imagine Cup entries.

• Canada’s team Greeni from George Brown College used the Kinect to help control building environmental controls to save energy.
• Team HealthConnect from Spain used the Kinect as a way of collecting information from patients to provide remote healthcare.
• Team Technology Lanterns from Qatar used a helmet mounted Kinect camera to help create a system that would allow the visually impaired to sense where objects are located using sound frequency and providing information about their surroundings by reading customized tags.

It’s clear the Kinect has empowered developers around the world, I can’t wait to see the Kinect projects at Imagine Cup 2013!