Just by downloading Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Beta 2, you will get a shot at a trip to New Zealand and an assignment to help the New Zealand Snowboard Training Group bring an edge to their new Web site! Three students will win this...

Jeff Sandquist posts about Bitman's Place , a new experiment in helping introduce young kids to computers. Check out his post for a link to log in during this test period.

Thomas Nguyen has posted a bunch of his pictures from this weekend - Thomas was a competitor in Imagine Cup from the University of Houston with their AgileAgents project. For any competitors who attended and took pics, if you want to share them...

Congratulations to Northeastern's Team Splines and their eVt applicaiton for taking 3rd place! Jorel Fermin, Churk Leung, Maurice Peltier About eVt, in their own words ( and their bios, in Word ): The ability to communicate has...

Congratulations to Team Smartcare from Carnegie Mellon University , for taking home 2nd place in the US National Finals of the Imagine Cup 2005, Software Design Invitational! Bryan Shen, Mark Pimental, and Andy Shen About Smartcare...

Sorry this took so long to post (we needed a nap after all the excitement): AND THE WINNER OF THE US NATIONAL FINALS for the Imagine Cup Software Design Invitational IS Team ECESIS from Virginia Commonwealth University! Congrats to James...

Wait until you see what is coming this summer! Chandu Thota who is on the team getting the Virtual Earth project going has some screen shots on his blog . Maps, aerial imagery, photos, directories and more. This is going to be big. - Alfred (Microsoft...

In case you read the Regional results below and wondered how Boston U could end up in the Northwest Region, or University of Hawaii Manoa in the Mid-Atlantic reason, here's the answer: The names are just a fun way to break up the competition into smaller...

John Gibby and Peter Pesti of Georgia Tech are presenting their application called "mGraffiti", which is all about using a mobile device to apply "graffiti", or personal notes and comments, about key spots (like your work building, favorite restaurant...

You know you're official when you get up on Microsoft PressPass! For lots of great stuff about this 2-day event in Redmond, take a look at this site . Including: Student bios and project abstracts (plus some of their photos) Image gallery...

This year's competition is just a whirlwind compared to last year. In 2004's US Imagine Cup we hosted 4 regional competitions around the country, then the top 2 teams from each advanced to the US Finals at TechEd San Diego. Those 8 teams spent an afternoon...

The regional results for the US Software Design are listed below. The first place team for each region is now presenting again. Keep checking the blog for updates. School - Team West Region 1st Place: Carnegie Mellon University – SmartCare 2nd...

Jan-Kristian Markiewicz blogged about some details with the US Software Design in Redmond. Things are going well so far and I have been impressed with the projects. Information on the top nine teams are will be coming soon. -James

You can find some early ones here . We'll get some more posted from the Project Fair in a bit We'll also try to post some pics of the Halo 2 Tourney Party we threw for the students last night at the Marriott. Nothing quite like eight 42/50 inch...

Day one is flying by - we started out with intro presentations by Nicole, Daryll, and I, then had Chris To from the MS Mobile Developer Experience team present. Chris was part of the competition last year down in San Diego, and along with his UCLA...

Soma Somasegar, VP in Developer Division at Microsoft, talks about the Imagine Cup student technology competition we're putting together today and tomorrow in Redmond. Scoble is coming over this morning to meet with a bunch of them (and hopefully...

Microsoft Research is creating a new operating system written in C#. The operating system is called Singularity and there is an interview with the creaters at Channel 9. Very interesting stuff! - Alfred (Microsoft)

CNET takes a bit of a closure look at the use of games within CS courses at US universities.

Johnathan Dowdall and Mike Hall from the University of Houston have both advanced in the Imagine Cup's Visual Gaming competition, and get some press in Medical New Today as a result! Stay tuned for more coverage of Imagine Cup. We are gearing...

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Once again a senior Microsoft exec, in this case Bill Gates, is interviewed by a blogger. Part one of an engadget interview is here . - Alfred Thompson (Microsoft)