Steven Sinofsky, President of the Windows Division at Microsoft presented at  the ‘All Things Digital;’ Conference #D9 yesterday. Steven announced  a few details about what we can expect from the next version of the Windows operating system.

Windows 8 will feature a new UI similar to the tile-based interface of Windows Phone 7 and this will all be touch enabled (see the video below).

Windows 8 will focus on two types of apps:

· Classic Windows desktop apps- they will run and look similar to Win 7 today. They will open from the Start screen into familiar Win 7.

· HTML5/Javascript apps – they will look more like mobile apps and will run in a different experience than classic Windows apps. This includes IE10. This new style of app will be able to access everything new in Windows 8.

The concept of HTML 5 application is these be like mobile apps and will run in a different experience than classic Windows applications additionally HTML 5 applications will have access to a number of new features in Windows 8 and both type native windows and HTML 5 applications can run side by side.

Apps using “new Windows” programming are built in HTML and Javascript. Windows 8 will run both those apps and ones written in traditional Windows code. Now, it’s wait and see to the Professional Developer Conference. Also, if you’re interested in building applications for Windows 8, you should keep September 13-16 free and book a flight to California for this: http://www.buildwindows.com/.

Windows 8 start screen will appear with a a lock screen similar to Windows Phone 7 and be displayed with s a clock, upcoming calendar item and notification and customisation of this screen will be possible.

Windows 8 will not require any specific enhancement to hardware in terms of memory, disk space, CPU than Windows 7 and exciting for the UK Academic space is Windows 8 will run on Intel, AMD and ARM based chips.

The Academic Search beta is a free search engine, developed by Microsoft Research, that helps users quickly find information about academic researchers and their activities. It is also a test-bed for our object-level vertical search research.

With Academic Search, you can easily find top researchers and their papers, conferences, and journals. You can also find relationships between researchers who co-authored papers. Academic Search will be changing its name with the upcoming release of new and improved features. In the meantime, try Academic Search and explore more than 15 million publications.

Disney's New Tron: Legacy Site Comes to Life Using IE9 with HTML5

After my recent visits to numerous Universities across the UK, I am aware a number of you have been teaching HTML5 for a number of years as part of your curricula. Therefore I thought you may be interested in the following examples of HTML5.

Check out what Disney Publishing was able to produce using Internet Explorer 9 hardware acceleration and HTML5.

The website takes Tron fans through an original, interactive adventure, raising the bar for what an interactive, graphic novel can be. IE9 features such as hardware-accelerated HTML5 canvas, audio tags, and fast JavaScript engine were critical in bringing the site they imagined to life.

There are also numerous other show case sites from BMW, SKY, Wired, Top Gear and many more… the sites are specifically designed and developed for IE9 and HTML5 visit the beauty of the web showcase site to see the power of IE9 and HTML5.

UK Academic community, This evening Microsoft is announcing something very special. which I know a lot of you will .

Check out the live stream from MSDN Channel9 

To help explain Microsoft Azure offering please view the following short overview video below

For more information on Microsoft Cloud services see http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/cloud/developer/default.aspx?WT.srch=1 

Check out the following blogs

Simon May is an IT Professional Evangelist in the UK for Microsoft. His focus in on Microsoft Windows and Microsoft cloud technologies - http://blogs.technet.com/b/simonmay/

Steve Plank, or "Planky" as he is more usually known, works for Microsoft in the UK's Developer and Platforms group. His focus is on Microsoft's cloud technologies such as office 365 but especially Windows Azure - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/plankytronixx/

The Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3 (Microsoft RDS) is a Windows based environment for academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. All previous editions of Microsoft RDS 2008 R2 (Express, Standard and Academic) have been combined into one new version, RDS 2008 R3 and can be downloaded at no charge from MSDNAA or DreamSpark.

The Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 R2 is no longer available as a standalone product and is now included for no charge with RDS 2008 R3. RDS 2008 R3 includes a lightweight asynchronous services-oriented runtime, a set of visual authoring and simulation tools, as well as templates, tutorials, and sample code to help you get started.

The key problem with both games and robots has been the cost and complexity of producing the necessary building blocks that faculty can use to create computer science assignments. By partnering with faculty who are domain experts in robotics and teaching, Microsoft External Research has collaborated with many institutions and researchers to advance state-of-the-art curricula, coupling existing practices with compelling, practical, and affordable robotics technology.

Projects

• Institute for Personal Robots in Education
  Resources and robot kits for use in computer science education, in a joint effort with Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr College.

Research Tools and Services

• Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio
  A Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. Extensive online training materials include more than 30 tutorials, videos, and an active online community for peer technical support. See also:
  Microsoft Robotics Studio Introduction on Channel 9
  Microsoft Robotics Blog
• Microsoft Robotics Downloads
  Software is a free download for research and non-commercial purposes.
• CCR and DSS Toolkit
  Concurrency and Coordination Runtime and Decentralized Software Services libraries and tools

Hardware Support

• LEGO Mindstorms RCX - Robotics Inventions System
• LEGO Mindstorms NXT
• Fischertechnik Robot
• Lynxmotion Lynx 6 Robotic Arm
• RoboticsConnection Traxster 6 Robot Kit
• Parallax Boe-Bot BASIC Stamp Robot
• iRobot Roomba

Academic Publications

• Q&A: Robots in the Computer Science Classroom
• Robotics Academic Courseware
  Microsoft Academic Resource Center includes extensive courseware for robotics in the classroom
• Experiences Teaching CS1 with Personal Robots, Microsoft Research Latin American Academic Summit, 2008

This morning Microsoft UK are holding a special event for the UK Academic community on the Kinect for Windows SDK! Its been an awesome day so far and.. I will be blogging more about todays event and presentations.

Kinect SDK Beta Launch Content

Microsoft has produced over 4 hours of Channel9 Live content that includes developer talks, demos from Code Camp. For those of you whom were unable to attend todays event you can watch the Kinect for Windows SDK launch at channel9.msdn.com/events where you can download all the sessions and slides.24 hours prior to the event hosted a Code Camp with 30+ students, pro devs, hackers and enthusiasts who all built projects on top of Kinect.

Coding4Fun’s Kinect Project Gallery !

Coding4Fun Toolkit

A handy developer API for things like converting a byte array to a bitmap for Windows Forms and WPF or getting the distance of a particular pixel in one line of code. 

Kinect for Windows SDK VB Samples

All of the SDK samples have now been ported over to Visual Basic Express

Kinect cursor

Brian Peek built an awesome Windows cursor that includes click and click/drag support

Kinect Paint

A fun, Metro-esque designed paint with your hands app (Drawing the word “cool” with a “caffeinated” apperance) from Evan Lang and Laurent Bugnion.

Jellybean

Clint’s awesome Kinect-enabled drivable Lounge chair!

Kinect for Windows SDK Quickstarts

Six short and sweet demo heavy videos showing how to use the Kinect for Windows SDK

Installing and using the Kinect Sensor

Setting up your Development Environment

Camera Fundamentals

Working with Depth Data

Skeletal Tracking Fundamentals

Audio Fundamentals

Other Interesting examples and links

To download software from the Faculty Connection site or to access faculty only material in the Faculty Connection Resource Center a faculty member will need to become verified. What this means is the person will need to submit proof they are a faculty member and not a student.

There are two options to accomplish this:

• The first option is to submit any of the following information (to a company called e-academy who works with Microsoft to validate the faculty):
  • A link to the school's web site showing their name listed as a faculty member.
  • A copy of their current faculty ID.
  • A letter from the school that shows they are a current faculty member.
    
• The second option involves the use of a Personal Invitation Code. This code is generated and is given to a faculty member to use when they follow the verification process.

If you try to download software or faculty only material you will see a Get Verified Now! button.

As you follow the process they will get to a screen that allows you to either enter the Personal Invitation Code or click the Manual Verification link. (See screen shot below.)

So if your a UK academic and interested in faculty only material contact us via the Faculty Connection Linkedin Group and simply ask for a Personal Invitation Code.

Microsoft BizSpark: Helping startups succeed with all the right resources

Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program that helps software start-ups succeed by giving them access to Microsoft software development tools, connecting them with key industry players, including investors, and providing marketing visibility to help entrepreneurs starting a business.

BizSpark Network Partner Programme Guide, which explains how 3^rdparty organisations like Universities can participate.

All we need to proceed is for the university to assign a programme owner. There is a straightforward agreement, which you may need to pass by your legal department, but just to give you some assurance, this has not caused any issue for the more than 2,000 organisations around the world that have already signed up as Network Partners.

Amazing story of the power of the Imagine Cup. This months Microsoft Health Tech Today 

We are excited to announce this week’s episode of Health Tech Today, features a country winner of the 2011 Imagine Cup Windows Phone 7 competition with Lifelens from a team of students from UCLA, University of California, Davis, Harvard and the University of Central Florida.

Lifelens was designed in less than six months, this app came out of as the U.S.A winning entry to Imagine Cup 2011  Windows Phone 7 Application competition. Lifelens is a revolutionary new mobile app to detect malarial parasites.

This demonstrates the power and exposure of the Imagine Cup and how the Imagine Cup is an exciting opportunity for the academic community, with the power and exposure of showcasing a student application on the frontier of mobile medicine.