Archive for Video
April 25, 2008 at 9:16 am ·
Filed under Video, Technology, Releases
On April 21st, Microsoft unveiled RoboChamps (www.robochamps.com), a simulated robotics league that is open to academics, hobbyists and developers from around the world, that demonstrates the power of the Microsoft platform to enable a broad range of developers to explore new ways to use .NET for robotics programming.
RoboChamps is built on top of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio(MSRDS) 2008 CTP, and uses that product’s robust, physics enabled simulation environment to remove the barriers of entry that exist for many today. This simulated league provides individuals with immersive 3-d environments, simulated versions of robots, and compelling scenario-specific challenges where they can win real robots.
The site also generates its own API keys so developers can compete and have their code tie into the site’s services, provides community with ‘robocards- rich SilverLight cards that are exposed to be readily consumable on blogs, websites or third-party networks like Facebook. Advertising also plays a big role with sponsorship, ‘in world’ ads with Massive, and Silverlight Streaming for the video podcast.
Check out Tina’s cool video:
February 26, 2008 at 10:31 am ·
Filed under Video, Fun
Barb, my fellow EE, just sent me this super cute extended commercial for Microsoft Office 2007. Who said Microsoft was dull and liveless? :) You just gotta check this out! I love how this movie proves that Office 2007 is so easy to use that even rabbits can have a go at it. Sit back for this one, you’ll enjoy the ride. Warning: Pinkness overload :)
Also check out the other clips for Office2007 :)
February 22, 2008 at 12:34 pm ·
Filed under Games, Video, XBox 360, Community
From the presspass: In a landmark announcement during the keynote address at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft Corp. promised to soon allow Xbox LIVE members to play, rate and share community-created games. As the first in the industry to pioneer high-speed online gaming and high-definition games, Xbox 360 once again broke new ground by introducing a new, open distribution service for games created by the community and soon playable by its 10 million Xbox LIVE members. Community-created games on Xbox LIVE will quickly double the size of the Xbox 360 game library. By the end of 2008, Xbox 360 owners will have access to more than 1,000 games, making it the largest, most creatively diverse library across all next-generation platforms.
That is really AWESOME news. Especially because the game created by fellow Belgian Loïc Dansart (”Little Gamers”, a 2-D high definition action side-scroller based on the famous Web comic) has been selected to be made available together with 6 other XNA created games. The platform will be opened up, so that ‘consumer generated games’ can find their way to a worldwide audience!
The game was developed using Microsoft’s XNA technology, so it’s currently able to run on both PC and XBOX360 (the later requires a Creators Club membership). A fully playable XBOX360 prototype of 5 levels was submitted to the Dream, Build, Play! competition, and it won a place as a finalist. Currently, the full version is in development, and should be available for Windows in a few weeks.
The game is a 2D action sidescroller which borrows many gameplay elements from action games such as Metal Slugs and Madness Interactive and mixes them with the webcomic feel and humor of Little Gamers to create a unique cute but deadly combination.
An Xbox 360 community game created using Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio software and XNA Creators Club membership will be able to be submitted for distribution on Xbox LIVE. Each community-created game must then undergo a thorough peer-review process and be evaluated for accuracy in representation and appropriateness. Community game developers will be able to beta test the process this spring and will be able to distribute their games on Xbox LIVE by the end of this year.
Related:
Little Gamers - Teh Game (info + download)
PressPass Release
Check out the comic!
See the demo below:
February 20, 2008 at 7:08 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Video, Technology, Demo
We’ve had another cool Circle of Media where we announced the DreamSpark program and a new partnership for Media Center with RTBF, a French spoken national broadcasting company. The full DreamSpark announcement can be found in an earlier post on this blog, if you want to know more about that. The partnership with RTBF includes an exclusive content delivery with podcasts and digital radio (and tv programs) for the Media Center platform through the very well-known interface. This content can be consulted if you set the Media Center settings to Belgium/French, and will extend pretty fast as new content will be made available on a swift pace.
I’ve also done a 10 minute demo of InkSeine, a brilliant application for tablet PCs (I also reported on that earlier). Luc Van Braekel and Maarten Schenk, two of the invited and present bloggers, both recorded the session and I’m posting Luc’s clip below, since Maarten’s cam wasn’t able to get the screen capped clearly.
Under normal conditions, the web search would go faster and I’d show off a little more features, but since there was no wifi available, I had to uplink my phone to 3G and connect to the internet over USB. That caused a small delay in the demo-flow but still, it went pretty well. Enjoy the demo. Thanks againfor the USB cable, Maarten :)
Video: Miel Van Opstal presents Microsoft InkSeine
February 14, 2008 at 9:58 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Video, Fun
Everybody knows that outsourcing is a common reality in a lot of companies. Also in Microsoft, global tech support is located in India (I think). Obviously we still have a local IT department that helps us out, but when the issue outgrows the local helpers, we have to log a ticket at ’support’. When they get back to you, you sometimes have to pay a lot of attention to understand what is being said, because a dialect is very often difficult to understand. Somebody recorded a follow-up call from global support, and it’s really funny :) Check this out:
Video: Microsoft Support Call
Painful, but incredibly funny.
February 13, 2008 at 2:09 am ·
Filed under MicroLife, Video
Ever wanted to find out how life really is at the campus in Redmond? Tina did. And she filmed it. And it’s funny :) Check it out:
February 5, 2008 at 11:17 am ·
Filed under Video, Music, Technology, WoW
If there is one thing I truly like, it’s the mix of music and candy :) In this case the combination leads to The Bubblegum Sequencer, a physical step sequencer that lets you create drumloops by arranging colored balls on a tangible surface. It generates MIDI events and can be used as an input device to control audio hardware and software. The Bubblegum Sequencer senses the position of the balls through a video camera mounted underneath the surface. The captured image is processed by a computer vision routine that computes the average color in each hole. The colors are quantized and mapped to notes. For each note, a MIDI event is generated and sent to the operating system’s MIDI bus.
Video: Bubblegum Sequencer
In addition to the original features shown in the video, we’ve implemented a few more:
- Tempo tapping: Tap three or more times on a pressure-sensitive area on the side of the sequencer to set a new tempo for the playback loop.
- Visual feedback: The sequencer now sports a row of running LEDs to indicate the current position. We’ve also experimented with projecting animations of popping bubbles onto the surface to provide direct feedback which beats are currently played.
- Melody mode: Instead of just playing monophonic beats, we developed a mode in which the vertical position of the balls encodes the pitch of the sample played. To increase the range, two balls can be combined, totalling seven different possible notes on the blues scale.
- Voiceover mode: To make the sample mappings less reliable on computer-based UIs, we wrote a Processing application that lets you record voice samples for each color at playback time. You record by holding down the spacebar and speaking into a microphone.
Finally, people can’t claim anymore that electronic music isn’t handmade.
The Bubblegum Sequencer is a project by Hannes Hesse, Andrew McDiarmid and Rosie Han.
It was conceived and created in the course “Theory and Practice of Tangible User Interfaces” at UC Berkeley’s School of Information in the Fall semester 2007.
For more information, visit the project site
January 30, 2008 at 3:23 pm ·
Filed under Video, Releases, Live Services
The Belgian MSN team is about to launch msnvideo.be. It’s actually a local version of the Soapbox website that’s been online for a while now, and of which I’m hoping they’ll switch to Silverlight really soon. That would be sooo awesome. But let’s not get off the track. The MSN Video site will publish ‘purchased content’ like clips from National Geographic, Gossip and Hollywood crap and more pleasant things as (live) concerts and music clips. Obivously some news content will be made available as well. As much as I like the initiative, I think it’s a bit of a downer that they didn’t include the ‘embed’ link for the videos and only the ‘email this’, ‘blog it on spaces’ and ‘link to video’. There are so many more options available on Soapbox to promote a clip, which contributes to the portability and accessibility of the data. I hope they’ll add this too locally and I’m pretty sure that having a lot of the Soapbox content localized is a good thing to promote our platform. For the launch, a commercial has been released with the (translated) catch phrase: “You’ll prefer picking what you see yourself”.
Video: It's better to choose what you see
January 30, 2008 at 12:41 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Video, Fun
If there is one thing I can assure you, then it’s that we spend a lot of time on the phone to report, discuss global events, do budget run-throughs and what not. It’s a given throughout the entire company, and the most annoying part of it is the smooth jazz they play while you’re waiting for the leader of the call to dial in and open up the call. A few guys have recorded their attempt to meet and show you what happens behind closed doors of a meeting room. Rated ‘RF’ for ‘ridiculous’ and ‘funny’
Video: Conference Call
December 9, 2007 at 3:17 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Video
I left Brussels on Tuesday afternoon to get on the plane to Romania because I had to give a presentation at NetCamp, which turned out to be a wonderful and very well organized event from EvenSys. Microsoft was one of the main sponsors there, so it also offered me the opportunity to meet up with the local DPE manager, Bogdan Musat. Unfortunately I arrived a little late due to a plane switch in Prague, so the I missed the speakers dinner. Nevertheless, the entire Wednesday was incredibly pleasant. I attented most of the speaker keynotes, and I got to be on stage with Hugh Macleod, which to me is a pretty cool experience on itself, since I kinda admire his style quite a lot. Other interesting speakers on the event were Eric Solheim, Nir Manor, Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz and Mihai Crasneanu. Radu Ionescu presented right after me and shared a few very remarkable insights and views on the entire Web 2.0 meme. I really enjoyed the entire day and the evening dinner as well. After the dinner Diana took me for a ride through the city so I could at least see some of the most important cultural buildings before I headed back to the hotel. Thanks a lot Diana :-) I had a wonderful time, and it was really nice of you to take me on a guided tour. I had to check out at 4 AM to get to the airport in time and fly back to Belgium. I made a small compilation of the footage I shot at NetCamp and I’ve just put it online. Enjoy :-)
Video: NetCamp Romania
My overall impression of Romania is that all the people I met were very nice, very open and very ambitous. I can’t count the number of people who told me to get in touch again as soon as I would travel back to the country. I came home with a bunch of new friends and a pile of business cards. I feel honored to have been invited and enjoyed the hospitality. Thanks, Dana and Christian, you guys rock! This was a superb event!
PS: I taped Hugh’s entire presentation, but I think he needs to approve it first before I put it online. I’ve put my slideshow online at my marketing blog, and as soon as the guys from NetCamp throw my keynote online, I’ll link to it, or post it on this blog.
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