Darren talks about the Surface version of the Local Impact Map. Lots of plaid is worn.
Endquote is Josh Santangelo, an interface developer and former man-about-town in Seattle. Lately, he talks a lot about Silverlight, Surface, and Stimulant.
email: josh[a]endquote[.]com
work: stimulant.io
Updates to Microsoft Local Impact Map
Not sure if this will warrant any big announcement, so I’ll post here about how the Microsoft Local Impact Map (previously) has been updated. The functionality is pretty much the same as before, but the design is totally different, much of the backend has been reworked, and there’s now an RSS feed for new stories.
Most of the front-end rework on this was done by our newest hire, Joel, who is getting up to speed on things quickly.
Stimulant’s official video and writeup for the Kodak application. We’re doing another, sort-of-similar app for their booth at CES. Should be fun.
A bit about the vision system in Surface. The vision system is what makes Surface unique from other technologies which only handle basic touches, and is what makes things like the previously-posted Kodak application possible.
A video of folks using the Surface app that Stimulant made for the Kodak booth at Print 09.
Some images of the Surface app that Stimulant worked on for the Kodak booth at Print ‘09.
I’m off to Chicago on Tue to help set up this beast of a trade show booth for Kodak at Print ‘09.
If you look close (click the image for a bigger view), you’ll see six Surface units there which will be running some software that we developed at Stimulant. However that’s a small part of the booth compared to the 32 touch kiosks and the “pipeline of innovation” developed by Obscura. The booth as a whole is even bigger than that, and is put together by Mirrorshow and Partners + Napier.
Should be a good time, I’ll be there from the 8th to the 13th.
Misc
Things:
- Nathan did a post on his sound design for the Surface version of the Local Impact Map. His new audio-focused blog is fun, and it’s great to have such a multi-talented person to work with.
- Stimulant hired a new developer, my long-time friend Joel Pryde. He should appear on the about page soon. He works with me in the Seattle office and has lots of experience in the world of high-performance graphics, both on game consoles and on Surface. We’re teaching him Silverlight and WPF, he’s teaching us other awesome things.
- I am working on a Surface app for the Kodak booth at Print09 in Chicago in Sept. I’ll get to attend part of the show along with some folks from Obscura. I will leave lots of room in my luggage for paper samples.
- In a few days I’ll be spending another week in the SF office, finishing up the above project. I also plan to spend a lot of time holed up in a hotel room doing things with MonoTouch and XNA.
Microsoft Local Impact Map (for Surface)
A couple of months ago we finished the Microsoft Local Impact Map, a Silverlight app highlighting all of the progressive and wonderful things Microsoft does around the world. Today we launched a new look at the same data, presented on Microsoft Surface.
Microsoft Local Impact Map: Surface Edition from Stimulant on Vimeo.
Aside from being a cool multi-touch, multi-user, 360-degree application, this one is technically interesting because it shares so much with the Silverlight app. It uses the same data classes and hits the same web services as the RIA, but presents the data in a completely different way.
Whereas the web app is pretty much a single-user experience, we hope that the Surface version allows people to literally sit around the table and share an experience and a discussion about the stories and data in front of them.
It will be installed at Microsoft facilities around the world shortly. Look for it next time you’re on campus!
