Even though I’m in love with my Zune 120, when I learned that I could be writing multi-touch games in XNA for the Zune HD, it didn’t take much to convince me (the recent price drop plus Bing cash back helped, too). I probably would have bought one even sooner if the Newark airport had them in their handy little Best Buy vending machines.
I picked up a 32gb Zune HD last week when I was in the US, and even I am shocked at how beautiful this device is. The touch screen is very responsive and the display simply amazing. Just like my previous two devices, it does great synching with my music, videos, audio books, pictures and podcasts, it has a radio, and it lets me wirelessly beam songs to friends. And now it also has wireless, marketplace access, internet, apps and a handy 33 hours of battery life.
Downside? 32 gigs does not seem like much space to me; I listen to and watch a lot of podcasts as well as audio books, and I am voracious with music. I hope the next version will have more storage. Not that I need another one any time soon, but I will admit I was a bit jealous of a friend’s slick Zune Originals design!
Just like with previous Zunes, this can connect to my laptop so I can deploy XNA games I create myself. The XNA 3.1 release last Fall included some new APIs for multi-touch and accelerometer. You can read more about the 3.1 Zune extensions here on the XNA Team Blog.
This weekend I played around with some of the new APIs in an attempt to get Pong up and running on my Zune HD. I’m going to wrap this into a three-part series of posts from start-to-finish, including prototyping my game in SketchFlow.
Want a sneak peak? Here’s the game so far on my laptop:
and here’s the game running on my Zune HD:
Anything you’re dying to know about writing touch games with XNA 3.1? I will try and make sure I cover it in my series.
The “Discover Your National Library” exhibit I blogged about here has now been on display for over a month, and it’s getting some serious attention from people all over.
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed it hit the Silverlight.net front page (!) which is the first Irish application to do so.
Additionally the good guys from Komplett ventured down to Kildare Street for some culture and posted a great review over on their site called “The Nation’s Memory Digitised.” JJ Worall interviewed Assistant Keeper Elizabeth Kirwan and myself about the motivation behind the project and the technology involved. The article is a really nice insight into the content of the exhibition and the long-term effects of digitising our valuable archives.
If you haven’t been down to 2-3 Kildare Street yet to see the Surface tables and the exhibition itself, what are you waiting for?
I know we’ve all been calling it the Zune Phone for a while now, but whatever it is it’s public news and it’s gorgeous.
I’ve been getting a few questions about writing applications for it, so I thought I’d throw this out there. MIX is traditionally a conference for web developers and designers, but they’ve added a ton of sessions for people who want their applications to go even more places and reach even more people.
Here’s a small blurb about what to expect from the MIX10 Windows Phone sessions:
Everything you could ever want to know about Windows Phone 7 Series is at MIX10. You’ll preview the new development platform, show you how to work with the Windows Phone 7 Series development tools, and give you a tour of the Windows Phone Marketplace. All MIX10 attendees will receive access to the Windows Phone 7 Series development tools and have access to a dedicated track on the Windows Phone 7 Series platform that runs throughout the event. MIX10 attendees will also receive exclusive free developer support for the Windows Phone 7 Series development tools. Don’t miss this unique opportunity -attend MIX10.
See you at MIX10!
About a year and a half ago, Josh Holmes visited Dublin from the US on a whirlwind tour of Europe to talk with developers about rich, interactive applications. Josh spoke with developers from all over Ireland and from all different backgrounds. He’s a great speaker and a fun, down-to-earth guy who really “gets it.” I like hearing Josh speak because he’s quite agnostic and isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.
Josh loved Ireland so much (it’s true – he even calls out Ireland specifically in his blog entry!) that he’s coming back next week. This time, he is talking about PHP and Ruby on Azure. If you’re building applications in scripted or dynamic languages and you’re thinking about doing anything with cloud hosting, you need to be here on Sunday night.
WHO: Developers and those in the tech industry building cool, cutting-edge applications WHEN: Sunday night, February 21st from 7:30pm WHERE: The Radisson Blu Royal (formerly Radisson SAS, the one on Golden Lane) in Dublin city centre REGISTER: http://joshholmesirl.eventbrite.com/
Like any good developer meetup, we’ll have free drinks after in the Radisson and of course some nice giveaways as well (Zune anyone?). Dublin is lucky that we get Josh on his first night of his epic two-week tour, so he’ll be all refreshed and ready to take on your heckling. :)
Registration is open now, so don’t miss your chance to meet Josh and other great developers, have a few drinks on us, and learn everything there is to know about hosting your applications in the cloud.
http://joshholmesirl.eventbrite.com/
On Wednesday January 20th, the National Library launched a brand new exhibition on Kildare Street called “Discover Your National Library.” It’s a fantastic exhibit, not just because of the wealth of the collection of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, prints and drawings, but also because the experience can also be enjoyed online!
Check out http://www.nli.ie/discover to see this brand new application, developed by one of Ireland’s most creative companies, Martello Media. Martello Media met with me last year about their interest in possibly creating a Surface application for this project. They loved the technology and decided to bring that in as part of the exhibit. The project grew to include an online presence, and with the touch technology in Silverlight 3, Martello Media decided to use that to build the online application, using Deep Zoom to show off the items in the collection at a very high resolution and to allow for easy sorting and searching using metadata.
Maryann Jardine (a student of the original Silverlight Jumpstart course!) developed the application at Martello Media, and she did an absolutely stunning job. Both Martello Media and the National Library are very much to thank for their innovative approach to online museum archival, and I couldn’t be more excited that this learning experience is now available for audiences all over the world. I hope this inspires more organizations to think creatively about the possibilities online and digital preservation here in Ireland.
The Surface tables deployed at the National Library are the first in Ireland. To see them for yourself in person, visit the National Library’s new exhibition at 2-3 Kildare Street in Dublin city centre. To see the Silverlight application online, go visit http://www.nli.ie/discover. And you, too, can learn how to say “Zoom” in Irish!