Adam Kinney posts tagged with 'pdc2008'

New Controls and Tools - PDC2008 Cool Hunting finale

Adam Kinney — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:44:00 GMT

Monday was a blow out day for The Continuum Show. 5 videos from PDC were posted showing off new, unique and useful tools. As UI technologies improve and expectations grow control and tool vendors are adapting and changing in interesting ways. I'm loving the attention paid to enabling better experiences.

Here's the rundown:

Exploring Time and Space with Infragistics - Timeline, Map and Zoombar controls
Smooth Scrolling Datagrids with Xceed - Innovative Datagrid from the future
Dynamic 3D Charts with Telerik - flexible 2D/3D charts, you can even use your own 3D model
Shazzam - A Tool for Creating WPF Pixel Shader Effects - Useful tool for building and designing WPF Pixel Shader Effects
Smart Search and Replace with Aggiorno - Regular Expressions with custom AI that runs in Visual Studio

To finish up the Cool Hunting expedition at PDC2008, I present two more videos. First off, actual footage of the big 9 guy walking around. Don't get too close, he might challenge you to a dance off.

Next up is a quick clip of David Teitlebaum's "Multiple WPF Pixel Shader Effects applied to the input of a WebCam in real-time" demo.

Multi-touch enlightenment with IdentityMine and Vectorform

Adam Kinney — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:30:00 GMT

Something about companies with compound names...

Being a UI guy, one of the biggest impressions PDC2008 left on me was Multi-touch. This is the first time I've seen it done in so many forms. There were Surface tables everywhere, in the Lounges, Hand-on Labs, Exhibitor booths, in the hallways and even in rare cases under the escalators.

Along with the abundance of Surface tables came the abundance of applications written specifically for Surface. Multi-touch at this scale presents a new design challenge and opportunity, these aren't your basic data entry apps.

IdentityMine's multitude of Multi-touch apps (3:26)

Surface beats with Vectorform (5:26)

IdentityMine had all of the Multi-touch bases covered. On a whirlwind tour of their booth, provided by Kurt Brockett and Meg McAllister, we get to see their Photo Sharing app running on Surface, their Photo Slideshow app using NextWindow touch screens and their AirHockey game running on an HP Touchsmart running Windows 7.

As an added bonus, Gilbert Corrales and Laurent Bugnion make a quick cameo in this Hollywood worthy action film.

You can see more IdentityMine's Surface work on their Surface technology page.

In this video, Vectorform performs using their SurfaceDJ application. Not only is it Multi-touch, WPF-based, Surface-enabled and spouting out fun electronic beats; it is also a great example of a new collaborative type of application. This app makes me want my own Surface table.

Check out Vectorform's Surface blog to see some of their other Surface applications. Yes, they are the ones behind NBC's Electoral application.

With the video interviews and the working and the talking and the more talking, I missed every session but one. Here a few of the relevant Multi-touch sessions, pulled from Mike Swanson's PDC2008 Sessions page, I plan on catching up on.

PC17 | Developing for Microsoft Surface (Brad Carpenter, Robert Levy)
PowerPoint
PC03 | Windows 7: Developing Multi-touch Applications (Anson Tsao, Reed Townsend)
PowerPoint
KYN04 | Day 3 Morning Keynote (Rick Rashid)

Did you get access to the Surface SDK? Are you building something with it? If you are, I'd love to hear about it.

Cool hunting at PDC - Conchango's Tesco project

Adam Kinney — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:39:00 GMT

PDC2008 was an awesome show with a great turnout. This was the first year I was involved so much with the event crew so it was very interesting to see it from the logistics side. A lot of great work done by a lot of people, congratulations to the whole PDC team!

Conchango and the Tesco project (15:52)

Busy the first two days I was able to take time the next two days to run around with the camera and go cool hunting. Being a UI guy, I was really interested in capturing the new work done with Windows 7, WPF, Surface and the HP Touchsmarts. I ended up with 9 videos to post and I thought I'd lead off with Conchango's Tesco project. The WPF-based application is redefining how you order groceries online and the preview was so impressive it was shown during the Day Two Keynote (starts around 94:00).

After working and then shooting videos, I realized although I had gone to many events I hadn't made it to a single session yet. Luckily the realization came just in time and I was able to attend David Teitlebaum's WPF Pixel Shaders and DirectX talk.

Now having missed almost every session, I have quite about of catching up to do with the online PDC2008 videos on Channel 9. Along with the page on Ch9, I've also found Mike Swanson's PDC2008 Sessions list to be quite useful, especially when you know the title or speaker of the session you are looking for.

My goal is to release the rest of my PDC2008 videos this week, so expect to see an unusual flurry on the Continuum Show page.

Day 0 at PDC2008 - on inspiration and creativity

Adam Kinney — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:20:00 GMT

Here I am in my Moroccan hotel room at the Hotel Figueroa ruminating over the first day at the Conference Center for PDC2008 thinking, who works on a Saturday? Many people do, of course, and some people work really hard like those setting up the Conference Center for the PDC so that the attendees can enjoy the wonderland that it is and will be.

Other people are working hard on a Saturday, like Rick Barraza who shot a video of his latest work, Project Touchstone.

Touchstone is a lobby Surface application written in WPF that takes advantage of Effects and I believe the WPF Effects Library. Its always fun to see when people try new things with new capabilities.

Now I am going to be coy and say "I believe there might be a Surface at PDC". Maybe. Possibly.

On the note of trying new things and being inspired by design. I've recently found two other things I'd like to share. The first is an intriguing slide deck, which Don Campbell thankfully bookmarked, by Chris Wilson that discusses change in design.

Rapid Change in Design: The Changing Landscape & New Rules for Design Project

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

I really like his thinking and especially the packaging - "3 Rules of Rapid Design".

I don't want to give any more away, but its worth the 2,3, even 10 minutes you may find yourself thinking about the slides.

One of the things that really gets me about the slides is that I feel Chris Wilson, the author, may be watching TED talks like myself. If he hasn't that might even be better. It could be a clue that we're heading towards the singularity.

The second item comes from TED Talks, which have become my most recent passion.

I might be late to the game, but that doesn't matter. The reruns are great. Watching TED Talks are entertaining and they fill my head with ideas, give me a different perspective on some of my older thoughts and make me feel like we are not just a collection of gangs, tribes and countries, rather that we are also one human race. Just a peaceful, "ah yes, this is what life could/should be about".

Anyway back to design and being inspired by new things and big conferences in Los Angeles that start with a "P" and end with a "C... ya there", in one the recently posted TED talks Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discusses creativity, fulfillment and flow. I would recommend the talk to anyone who thinks about what they are doing with their time. I'm not quite sure the following the slide will have the same effect without listening to the talk but I wanted to end this post here because I'm still meditating on it. I think its a great way to think about the work you do. Simply put, aim to spend as much time in the flow as possible.

The PDC flow begins tomorrow with Registration, PDC Marketplace, Pre-Conference Sessions and the WomenBuild Workshop.

"C...ya there!"

PDC 2008 Badges interview, cereal included

Adam Kinney — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:52:00 GMT

Countdown to PDC2008: Badges!? We do...

"It's like applying the Xbox Live Achievement system to your conference atten... attention... experience!"

After watching the video from the "people in the camera" view, I'm guessing this video was way more entertaining to Jennifer and I than it will be for the viewer. But you do get to learn more about the PDC Badges program along with seeing a few of the sample Badges that will be handed out.

This was actually a difficult video shoot for me. My wireless mouse receiver was bent.

Although it no longer works properly, its kind of cool to have a USB that looks and smiles at the camera.

PDC Badges, I've got one already

Adam Kinney — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:55:00 GMT

This year at PDC we're starting a new thing called PDC Badges. Collecting Badges is the way for Attendees to capture their experience at the PDC conference. You can think of it as applying the Xbox Achievements system to a conference.

Badge holders given to attendees at registration will contain an extra slot to display a custom badge of their choice. Each attendee will start out with the official PDC 2008 badge and will be given new badges as a result of an accomplishment or in some cases being at the right place at the right time.

After collecting your own PDC Badges, at the end of the conference you should end up with a stack of cards that describe the highlights (maybe lowlights, too) of your trip. I'm hoping to see pictures of card collections posted on Flickr or the image service of your choice.

Another opportunity available to participate in the PDC Badges program is by creating your own custom Badges that other Attendees will want to wear proudly in their Badge Holder. Reasons an Attendee may want to wear a Badge include: the hopes of winning a contest, brand loyalty, exclusivity of the badge or just because the badge is so dang entertaining.

To keep things simple, PDC Badges are the size of standard business cards (3.5”x2”). Business card size templates are easy to find, but to make it easy I'll provide a link to a business card template here.

A few Badge ideas that might help you get started include:

The Amazing Badge – This badge is so visually stunning attendees are compelled to show it off. Your badge may include custom artwork, a humorous cartoon or even an LED display.
Win Me a Prize Badge – This badge could be tied to a contest where if Attendees are seen displaying your badge they have chance at being randomly selected to win a prize. The bigger and better the prize the greater the participation, of course.
An Exclusive Badge – This badge is only given to a select amount of Attendees that attended some special event or were able to accomplish a certain achievement. An example might be solving a puzzle at your booth or wearing a T-shirt given by you as swag.

If you do decide to create your own badge, let us know (make sure to put "Badge" in the subject line). We'll be looking out for the best ones to add to the Official PDC2008 Series.

Personal Road to PDC challenge

Adam Kinney — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:36:00 GMT

I have come to the realization that due to my particular position, reading habits and verbal communication exchange; I hear at least one interesting item a day that's worth sharing with the rest of the world. More specifically those in this world that are online and trip across my signal whether it be on purpose or because they searched for Ghost Rider Drawing (still #1 on Live Search!).

So my challenge is simple - post something that touches on the Client Continuum (I don't need to inundate the Internet, with all I learn outside of that realm) every day counting down till PDC.

I actually started Monday and this post doesn't count for today.

Fall Events Schedule

Adam Kinney — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 07:50:00 GMT

After a quiet summer, I thought I'd post up my schedule of conferences for the next 3 months.

Heartland Developers Conference
September 28-30th
Upcoming Event Page

I'll be speaking at this event about the Client Continuum, what it is, how to choose which technologies and what are some of the new features available in WPF and Silverlight. It should be a lot of fun and I'm also planning on shooting video for The Continuum Show while there.

PDC2008
October 27-30th
Upcoming Event Page

Possibly attending the SoCal Code Camp as an appetizer, PDC2008 is going to be a great time to "Capture the Brainpower" of those behind the new technologies coming form Microsoft. PDC is always a massive show and we haven't had one since '05 so the energy has been building up.

I'm helping out with the PDC Lounges, Big Room, advising on the MicrosoftPDC.com site and Channel9's involvement. I'm also working on another program called PDC Badges which we haven't quite announced yet (feel free to speculate). So along with the technology news and announcements, there is quite a bit of fun to be had.

Adobe MAX 2008
November 16-19th
Upcoming Event Page

With such a cool conference site, how could you possibly resist the Adobe MAX conference? In actuality there some interesting session lined up including the much talked about Designer/Developer Workflow, Thermo (the Blend-like Interactive Design tool) and all the new features coming in Flash.

Maybe I'll even shoot some video there as well...

Great way to start the fall...39 Days till PDC08!

PDC2008 T-68 Days, now is the time to register

Adam Kinney — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:10:00 GMT

The Early Bird Discount was extended until Sept. 8th so you can still get the discounted registration. One of the cool things that I just found out about though and prompted me to write this is there is a registration contest going on called the L.A. Experience Prize Drawing.

When you register and use the RSVP code LAExperience you are entered into a drawing to win a separate trip for 2 to see the Lakers, the Dodgers or attend a Universal Movie Premiere (flights and hotel included).

That's just simple fun in a scratch-off lottery ticket way.

Plus if you're already planning on going, it'd be worth it take a look at the recently posted PDC Pre-Conference Sessions video. Jennifer and Mike, the hosts of the PDC Countdown videos, talk to our WPF Man Jaime Rodriguez who is leading the pre-con effort. If anything watch the first 30 seconds to see Mike wearing a hard hat.

PDC2008 site and registration is live

Adam Kinney — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:11:00 GMT

I'll be there.