The XNA team created their XNA Game Studio to simplify the creation of games for: Windows, the Xbox 360, the Zune, and the Windows Phone 7 Series. The Game Studio includes the XNA Framework--a set of managed libraries that are designed for game development. Version 3.1 allows you to create games for...

In this, my first Sensor and Location Team Blog post, I will discuss sensor permissions. I’ll cover: · Clearing up some confusion around sensors and devices · What are sensor permissions · What permissions permits · How the sensor platform uses permissions...

In last week’s blog post we provided best practice guidance for Sensor State management in Location Sensors. At the bottom of that post we mention that SENSOR_STATE_ACCESS_DENIED is reserved and should only be used by the Platform. As a follow-on post we wanted to briefly dig into an issue that some...

In the last blog post we investigated the fundamental characteristics of a sensor driver (properties and data fields) and how the Sensor Class Extension interacts with them. Here we will expand the basic driver template to include raising events and managing clients. A client is an application that has...

The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) is a great place to get started when writing your first sensor driver. In this post we will take a look at the Sensor Driver Skeleton Sample , which provides a basic sensor driver template. A future post will investigate the Time Sensor Sample to learn about incorporating...

So you just got yourself a new laptop. Congratulations! Did you notice that it has an Ambient Light Sensor (ALS)? With Windows 7, we’re seeing more and more laptops coming to market with built in ALS. How does Windows 7 take advantage of this sensor? How can you tap into it? How do I see it reflected...

Accelerometers, motion-sensors, distance-sensors, and compasses. What do these sensors have in common? They compose the Introduction to Sensors Kit that the Parallax Corporation sells for $79.99. Purchase this kit , a programmable microcontroller like the Parallax BS2 , a kit board , and a serial cable...

We continue our overview of the Sensor and Location Platform this time focusing on the Sensor API. The Sensor API is made up of several COM Interfaces but where to start and how does it all fit together? Today we’ll answer that question. The Sensor API is used by applications that want to access sensors...

Welcome back and Happy New Year! As we resume our blog in the new year, we begin by doing a series of what we call drill-down posts, where we look at a particular part of the Sensor & Location Platform and do a deep dive into its various components and piece through its technical aspects. We begin...

The Sensor & Location platform for Windows 7 is essentially a set of COM APIs designed to interact with a variety of sensor devices in a standard manner. Rather than explain it in words, here is a neat picture that shows the 50,000-Foot view of the platform components: As you can see, there are two...

Welcome to the Sensor and Location Platform Team Blog. We’re the ones who brought this new platform to Windows 7. Our goal in this blog is to add another dimension to the wealth of information that is already out there regarding the platform. What is the Sensor and Location Platform? The Sensor...