Dr. Neil's Notes

Developing for the Kinect

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:32:54 PST

In November I sat with Carl Franklin and explored some code to help you get started with Kinect development. Carl has broadcast this on DNRTV.
You can view it here http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=208

Talk on Seamless computing

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:47:59 PST

This video was taken recently at a talk I gave, at a WiseTech Forum, on how we can build futuristic technologies today.

Creating Seamless Experiences, MSDN UK

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:53:06 PDT

I met with the MSDN UK team recently to discuss the work we have been doing to create seamless computing experiences. Sara Allison has posted on the UK MSDN team blog about some of the topics we discussed.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukmsdn/archive/2011/11/03/creating-seamless-experiences.aspx

This is the original video that has triggered this conversation.

Seamless Computing, bring the future to life.

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:31:07 PDT

I am heading back to Sydney in a few days and some friends at WiseTech have asked me to come and spend an hour at UTS talking about Seamless Computing scenarios.
the details can be found here http://www.wisetechglobal.com/events.html
Hope to see you there.

In this session Dr. Neil Roodyn (http://www.roodyn.com) will discuss how scenarios, that a few years ago would have been science fiction, are now becoming achievable with the technology we use every day. Taking some small leaps and pulling together technology from different platforms, enables us and our clients to now achieve tasks that would have seemed to be magical a mere 5 years ago.

In this session you will learn how some key technologies are likely to become the core components of experiences that seamlessly connect devices, people and software together.

Hardly any agile left in Agile

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:37:14 PDT

This is something has been nagging at my mind in the last couple of years. When I started getting interested in eXtreme Programming in 1998 it represented a step up from some of things I was already doing with software development teams. We were using techniques best classified as Rapid Application Development. First eXtreme Programming and then the Agile manifesto represented lightweight methods to get software shipped.
There are two important parts of that last statement:
1. lightweight methods
2. software shipped

The concept of doing the simplest thing to achieve a goal, is an important part of eXtreme Programming. Traveling light (or not carrying baggage from previous experiences) is an important part of being agile. One of the aspects of agile that I always found attractive was the objective of enabling the development team to deal with change in short time frames.
While it may not be fully apparent, from the behaviour of many software development teams, the objective of developing software is to ship a product, a finished piece of working software. This desire to find better ways to get software shipped is clearly not something everyone in the industry shares. that is why we have collections of rules that appear to do nothing than keep people in jobs. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that in certain situations we need 5 people analyzing the business rules in order to determine how to build software that manages a complex business process. The reality I often see is that the business process is not that complex and the reason the team has 5 business analysts is because the career path for developers in that company is to be promoted to a business analyst role.
I digress...
The reason for this post is to try and make you think about how the actions you are taking are really making you more agile (small 'a'). If your objective is to be able to handle change with as little pain as possible then following a hard set of inflexible rules is not going to help you too much.
Shipping software is a art that is not easy to teach by laying down a set of rules, in many ways it is much more like a creative activity than an engineering activity. Decisions have to be made that are not pure engineering decisions, they are not pure business decisions, nor are the decisions purely design oriented. It is a combination of all of these things and more.
Questions that need to be answered include; is the software aesthetically pleasing to the user, is the software functional, is the time right to release this to the market, etc..
There seems to be this constant flow of software with rules designed to help people become Agile, there are also more and more people professing to have the ultimate rule book for Agile software development.
In my opinion this is 90% bogus, the number of people that have a career telling other people how to ship software and have not actually shipped software in years (or ever!) amazes me.
If you want to be truly agile then drop as many tools as you can, learn to do more with less rules and restrictions, and most of all practice shipping software by actually shipping software!

Cloud and Client chat on CodeCast

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:34:44 PDT

In this episode of CodeCast, Ken Levy interviews Dr. Neil Roodyn discussion the differences and scenarios around cloud and client computing. Topics includes applications running in the cloud, documents hosted in the cloud, and rich/smart clients that use the cloud as part of the solution, with more and more of a mixture of client and cloud within applications rather than one versus the other.

Another week of wonder

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:29:48 PDT

The last few weeks have been action packed, and each week seems to have more than the last.
In the last month while in Sydney I have been to the Hotel, Hospitality and Design expo and the EduCause expo, both in Darling Harbour at the Sydney exhibition and convention center.

The nsquared team in Sydney has been working on optimizing the nsquared education pack for Windows 7 touch. This has been done on a range of devices; HP Touchsmart desktops, Tegatech TEGAV2 and the 3M 22 Inch touch screen.

The Managed Chatrooms website and service has been revamped and updated. Microsoft is among our customers of Managed Chatrooms, and our customers have stated using Managed Chatrooms for more events this month than ever before.

You may have noticed that Apple released a new product in March and the iPad app I wrote to help manage tasks on Exchange and SharePoint, ntask, has had an update to work better with Exchange 2003. Also on the iPad nsquared released coin swap, a game to teach children the value of money.

Enriched Customer Engagement at the Table

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:15:24 PDT

The February issue of Cutter IT Journal published an article I wrote on the experiences nsquared had building a table top solution for Telstra.

Telstra bought Microsoft Surface units to run the nsquared business pack and some custom software that the nsquared team built specifically to engage the Telstra small business customers.

Depth vs. Breadth vs. Value

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:45:50 PDT

After some recent conversations I thought I would jot down some thoughts on how different companies position their brands through the way they target their audience.
I have recently been involved in a number of conversations regarding breadth marketing, essentially this means going for more customers over a wider range of vertical markets. On the other hand depth marketing means targeting a small number of (often already known) customers and spending more time making sure they are incredibly happy with your product.
Given a limited amount of resources (every company in the world has its limits, just some are bigger limits than others) the breadth approach means a lower level of engagement per customer than a depth approach.
The question in my mind is how does the approach taken to marketing impact on the perceived value of the brand.
and can making the right choice of approach combined with a price point help a brand become more successful.
The question about perceived value seems like it might be a no-brainer. Yet the question might be better asked this way; in order to be successful does the marketing approach effect the perceived value or does the product value determine the marketing approach ?
Surely an approach that encourages a deeper level of customer engagement will increase the perceived value. Take for example the custom built super car industry. Here the customer is cherished and their hand is held through each step of making choices about the car, including fittings and extras. This is clearly a high value product and nearly always perceived as high value brand; you don’t go to Citroen in order to get a customer super car built, you go to Ferrari or Lamborghini. Yet we could flip this on its head and say that because this is such a high value product it dictates that the customers be given a better service. If you look at it this way it would then suggest that the higher the value of the product the deeper you would want your customer engagement. I also wonder if deciding to position your product for a breadth marketing campaign actually lowers the perceived value of your product. The more people that use your product the less exclusive they feel.
Some products are clearly well positioned for breadth-marketing examples include; soft drinks such as Coke or Pepsi, consumer electronics such as iPods or televisions, and mainstream movies such as Spiderman or Harry Potter. These are all low value products and have mass-market appeal, or so their producers would like us to believe.
Lets focus on technology for a moment and consider the entire experience, not just hardware and not just software, but the end-to-end experience. Clearly Apple has a lot of passion in this space, they have built a strong brand on the user experience of their products. Yet the Apple products are themselves not that expensive and are certainly targeting the mass-market space. Apple is clearly going for breadth marketing, and it seems to be working out pretty well for them. Microsoft has done well in this space with Xbox and recently incredibly well with Kinect, again a low value, consumer focused device with mass-market appeal.
So why all this pontificating?
Recently I have come across a few products that are clearly high value propositions, not targeting consumers but rather specific verticals and small numbers of clients (in the big scheme of things) and yet they are taking a breadth marketing approach. They are twittering like crazy, putting their products to be touched by consumers that will never be able to afford the products and trying to drive what appears to be a consumer facing marketing campaign for a non-consumer device. To me this seems like a mistake and yet maybe they will prove me wrong.
Time will tell.

The Hotel Room of the Future

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:50:14 PDT

This week I have been at the Hotel Hospitality and Design Expo in Sydney. The nsquared team released the nsquared hospitality pack for Microsoft Surface. This includes three applications designed specifically for the hospitality industry, nsquared concierge, nsquared room service and nsquared tourist table. Each of these applications helps the hotel up-sell services that they offer directly or through affiliations.

News.com.au included an interview with me in their video about the hotel room of the future

VIDEO: Future visits

It is not cloud or client

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 16:55:11 PST

With so much discussion recently about moving your computing solution to the cloud as opposed to building a rich client application I thought I would make some observations.

Step back 30 years (1981) to the days when the mainframe was being positioned as a computing solution for business via thin client terminals. At the same time a new type of computer was starting to become popular, the personal computer. The personal computer was a low powered device by comparison to the mainframe, but it was all yours,.There was no sharing of resources or concerns of your personal and private data getting into the wrong person's hands. Microsoft made it their mission to put a computer on every desktop, it was a noble cause, a democratization of computing power. As personal computing power increased and with it the software for personal computers, the dream has become a reality. Now the modern day personal computer is often more powerful than many of the mainframe devices. The personal computer has also become so cheap as to be considered a disposable item by large companies. Place a large number of personal computers together and you can create an immensely powerful shared computing resource. In many ways, this stacking together of large numbers of computers provides more redundancy than a single large powerful computer. When a part of it fails it is really disposable and can be left as a dead component in the array of computers. The operating systems that these personal computers run is not considerably different from the operating system that runs the modern day laptop or the desktop computer.This has lead to a shift in the dynamics of the industry. The manufacturers of the personal computer operating system (let's face it, I am talking about Microsoft here in the main), is now the same company that is producing the operating system for the shared resource computing accessed through the modern day terminal (the browser). This now means the same company that has lead the charge to bring computers to the desk and into your hands is motivated to create large online shared resource centers, centers that run their operating system.

The interesting thing is that over the last 20 years Microsoft's Windows operating system has matured into a far superior server technology than client technology. Consider the Vista issues that clients reported and compare that to the lack of issues reported for Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008 is a really solid operating system and yet at its core is the same operating system as Windows Vista. It should not be surprising then that a company like Microsoft would play to its strengths and be motivated to sell more of its server operating systems. Windows 7 has done a lot to regain credibility for Microsoft as an operating system on the personal computer yet it is clear that market share is being lost to other products.

Many of these other products are no longer the traditional 'personal computer' and Steve Jobs in his announcement of the iPad2 referred to these computers as 'post PC' devices. Clearly your phone, slate computer or TV are not quite the same as your personal computer, yet these devices all harness the same (if not more) computing power as the personal computer of 5 years ago.

These post pc devices are often designed for richer media consumption such as movies, video chat, music and games. In order to optimize the experience for the consumer the software running on the devices is getting increasingly complex.

This clear movement to richer and richer experiences on client devices leads to a higher and higher consumption of bandwidth. At the same time greater levels of abstraction are being created by developers to simplify their lives. For example consider the heavy use of XML as a data transfer medium, XML is human readable and easy to debug, yet it increases the bits required to send the information compared to other methods software developers used when the available bandwidth was far more constrained. Couple this increased use of bandwidth with, what seems like, an insatiable appetite for richer experiences and we have a scenario where more power is being required on both the server and the client.

The cloud or shared computing resource is here. It has been here for a long time and will be here for a long time yet. Creating a new name for this massive shared computing resource may help with marketing it as the new thing, but ultimately it is nothing more than a huge online computing platform that is shared and scalable. I am sure I remember a salesman from IBM telling me this about the IBM offering in 1986!

The smartphone, tablet, tv and laptop will always provide a better experience when the application is written to target that device specifically. The web provides a lowest common denominator for interfaces that might be interesting for businesses that want to maximize their reach at the cost of user experience. The most enjoyable experiences will always come from applications designed to take advantage of the platform upon which they are running.

I think the argument of cloud vs client is not a real decision that needs to be made. To create an optimal user experience requires a rich client application. To make the experience seamless across the different devices in our pockets and on our desks requires shared storage that is reliable, scalable and can be accessed from (almost) anywhere. It is not about cloud or client, it is about cloud AND client.

Surface 2.0 chat on CodeCast

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:43:43 PST

I recently had a chat with Ken on CodeCast about Surface 2.0, Kinect and a bunch of other Microsoft technologies.

It has been difficult in the last few months to discuss what we have been working on and there are still areas that we cannot discuss. Yet the cover has been lifted on the surface 2.0 project and I am proud to have been involved in the new software development that the team at nsquared has been creating.

Grab your headphones and listen to this easy going chat between Ken and myself.

Mix'11 Sessions Proposed, please vote now

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:00:06 PST

Las Vegas will host Mix again this year, between April 12 and 14. As always I expect there will be a wide range of interests around Microsoft technologies represented at the event.
I proposed a total of nine talks for the event, sadly only three were accepted for the community voting. If you would like to attend any of these presentations please will you click on the link in the title and vote for them.

Wave, Touch, Pen, Speech, Mouse and Keyboard
In the last decade we have seen a variety of new interfaces popularized. With Microsoft Kinect you are the controller. There are screens that can see like Microsoft Surface. We have touch screens that can feel you and pen interfaces that provide rich digital inking capabilities. Speech technology to control an computer has existed for over a decade now. Yet we still are using the mouse and keyboard almost daily.In this session you will explore how the different input technologies can be applied to different categories of engagement. You will learn why the mouse and keyboard is here to stay and when you should take advantage of the other input technologies. This session will also provide you with some insight into how you can apply combinations of input to enhance your applications further.

How to build a great Microsoft Surface application
Microsoft Surface represents a new category in computing. Vision based screens enable unique interactions and they present fantastic opportunities for innovative software to be created. In this session you will learn what makes Microsoft Surface unique and how you can use that to build great software for Microsoft Surface. This session will cover the user interfaces and concepts that you need to apply in order to take advantage of the technology in MicrosoftSurface. With the imminent release of Microsoft Surface 2.0 this session will cover everything you need to build really amazing experiences for MicrosoftSurface.The company Dr.Neil works for has more applications certified for Microsoft surface than any other company in the world. This session will provide some insight into how they conjure up the magic that enables them to repeatedly build awesome Surface experiences.

Building Really Social Software
Technology can be both an inhibitor and an enabler of social engagement. This session presents a discussion on how technology can be used to enrich the dialogue between users. When you consider many forms of computing today you think of users staring into a screen and yet the most successful systems, such as twitter and Facebook, are really about how people converse with each other. In the last few years new categories of technology, such as Microsoft Surface and Kinect, have emerged that truly bring people together. This session will discuss the way these new technologies (and others) will change the way we can use technology to enhance human interactions.

Then with the other Surface MVPs we are proposing a discussion on all things relating to Natural User Interfaces.

The Microsoft Surface MVPs present: Natural User Interfaces, Today and Tomorrow; an interactive discussion and demonstration
Joshua Blake; Neil Roodyn; Dennis Vroegop; Rick Barraza; Bart Roozendaal; Josh Santangelo; Nicolas Calvi
The Natural User Interface (NUI) is a hot topic that generates a lot of excitement, but there are only a handful of companies doing real innovation with NUIs and most of the practical experience in the NUI style of design and development is limited to a small number of experts. The Microsoft Surface MVPs are a subset of these experts that have extensive real-world experience with Microsoft Surface and other NUI devices.This session is a panel featuring the Microsoft Surface MVPs and an unfiltered discussion with each other and the audience about the state of the art in NUI design and development. We will share our experiences and ideas, discuss what we think NUI will look like in the near future, and back up our statements with cutting-edge demonstrations prepared by the panelists involving combinations of Microsoft Surface 2.0, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7.

Please submit your vote for the sessions you would like to attend or hear. Remember many of the sessions get recorded and published online after the event.

The presentations that got rejected were:

Confuse me, lose me
Lets face it no one reads the manual anymore. Software should be so easy to use that the user can just walk up and start using it. So why is this not the case?
In this session Dr. Neil will discuss how interfaces can be built to enable users to get started with new technology and learn by using the system. A rich discussion of the pitfalls of complexity and how to simplify your user interface will allow you to leave this session with a set of tips to make your applications easier to use.
This session will provide an insight in to the thinking behind Natural User Interfaces as well as how to improve your Graphical User Interfaces.

Future Furniture
What will the furniture of the future look like? What functionality will it provide? This session provides you with a fun filled look into the way technology is being built into furniture and how furniture may look in our meeting rooms, our office and our homes in 10 years time.
Microsoft Surface has provided a glimpse into this future of furniture, where a table is no longer just an inert object but provides rich digital content. How else might our future change with new innovations that we expect to see emerge in the coming decade.

Look into my eyes
Face to face meetings provide the best way to really understand another person. Human interaction happens between people. Business transactions are agreements between people. It is easy to forget that everything we do in the software industry is still about people. In this session you will discover how technologies like Surface 2.0 can enrich the true social interactions between people. You will also learn why it is important for software developers to understand the nature of human engagement in order to build better

Now you’re speaking my language
Do you want to support multiple languages in your software? Can’t afford to pay for a translator to translate your software into every language? Microsoft Translator will help you support multiple languages in your application.
At Mix 09 Microsoft announced the release of the Microsoft Translator SDK. At Mix 10 Microsoft announced an update to the Microsoft Translator SDK include the Community Translation Framework. Come to this session to find out the new technology being released by the Microsoft Translator team.
Microsoft Translator is a team within Microsoft Research that focuses on natural language processing. The Microsoft Translator technology is used by Bing Translator, in Internet Explorer and in Office 2010.

So what exactly is technology anyway?
How are you reading this session abstract? Is it created with technology? Is the attendee badge you are wearing technology? One of the definitions of advanced technology is you will not notice it is there. It will blend into everyday life. With this concept in mind, Dr. Neil will discuss how we can move the technology we are building to the next level and become unnoticed by our users.
Come to this session to be awakened by the reality of what we are all creating in this world and learn how we can extend the reach of our technology into the everyday lives of our users.

If you would like to hear one of these presentations, please get in touch.

ntask, another win for the nsquared team

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:29:00 PST

Over the weekend a new iPad app became available in the Apple App store; ntask.

It is a gorgeous task management application that synchronizes with Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Sharepoint tasks lists. I have been using it while it has been developed and I am so pleased to see it has been selling like hotcakes now it is available in the App Store.
Earlier today when I checked it was the 32nd best selling business application in the app store! Congratulations to the nsquared team for another wonderful application.

Social networks, sharing and your personal information

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:33:05 PST

The latest wave of social media frenzy is about sharing your location and knowing where your friends are, or have just been.
This is something that I have discussed and presented on many times before. In fact in 2003 I presented proof of concept applications on the Microsoft smartphone platform ( then it was actually called Microsoft Smartphone) and the Microsoft Tablet PC platform. These applications enabled the user to post their current location to a blog or shared feed. I have used a number of variations of this to keep my 'Where was Dr. Neil' page updated.

In the last couple of years the rise in popularity of Facebook and Twitter have lead to an increase of related location sharing services. Services like foursquare or Facebook's own checkin system enable you to share your location with the world. This is great for those occasions where you want everyone to know where you are. These systems are mostly an all or nothing solution, either share with everyone or no one. So when you just want to let a couple of people know where you are located it's is back to the old text message or even resorting to call them.
It is for this reason we built Locus. Locus enables you share your location when you chose and with whoever you chose, including Facebook and Twitter.

I truly believe the pendulum will start to swing the other way now, with private personal information becoming more valuable. This value will start to be realized by the consumer and leveraged by the consumer to their own advantage.

When will you start to take more care of the information you share and who you share it with?

What is a table for?

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:07:30 PST

Let me ask you a question, what is a table for?
It may seem like a strange question yet it is not something we typically think about.
Furniture is taken for granted, in fact sometimes the word furniture is employed to mean the adornments in or on an object. You could say someone with lots of facial jewelry has 'furniture on their face' or, as I have heard it said, they have 'face furniture'
In our everyday lives we utilize furniture to enhance comfort and to perform functions, it is these functions that are worth exploring.
Think of all the things you do at a table. Eat food, work on your computer, layout a puzzle game, hold a meeting, and many more 'events' occur at a meeting. Consider which of those events take great advantage of the horizontal surface that is presented by the table. Playing puzzle game with friends, or holding a meeting at a table is something that clearly requires a horizontal platform. The horizontal nature of a table with multiple sides open and available for people to sit, presents the ideal place for holding a meeting. It enables eye to eye contact, allowing all participants to engage in a much fuller conversation. Such a large portion of communication between people is non-verbal and by facing the other parties around a table we can pick up on these subtleties. We can understand from proximity and quick glances of the eyes the nature of personal relationships between people.
Many technical solutions ignore the human interactions that are crucial for us to work together and create far shallower modes of engagement. Instant messenger, for example, provides a mode of communication between multiple parties, each siting at their own workstation. The nuances of passion, humor and disgust during the conversation can be hinted at with the use of emoticons. These provide a limited set of clues to hint towards the users feeling as they make a statement. The vocabulary of these is not just limiting but also deceptive. A person may want you to feel they are being jovial while really they are sad. You would only ever pick this up if you actually with the person. The telephone can provide a better medium for judging the mood of someone, through the tone of their voice and through other audio clues.
Yet nothing bis better than sitting at the table with someone for truly understanding their feelings and position on a topic. Most digital content is still presented using vertically oriented displays, yet these displays act as barriers to the optimum personal communication.
When working with the Tablet PC team at Microsoft in 2003- 2005 one thing became very clear, the slate form factor could radically change the dynamics of a meeting room. In a typical meeting at Microsoft people will bring their laptops and sit around a table, each staring into their own screen. This is incredibly anti social and detrimental to the level of engagement of the people in the room. In a meeting where each participant had a slate device the device did not act a barrier between the individuals at the table. Tabletop computing now has the opportunity to take this to the next level. By sharing the content directly on the tabletop the number of barriers is further reduced. A personal screen can present personal distractions during a meeting (email, IM, etc...), on a shared screen the focus can be on just the content desired.
Today I presented these concepts to a potential client showing the nsquared business pack for Microsoft Surface. It is clear that these applications can really change the dynamics of a meeting. Even as we were discussing the requirements of the project we were sketching out the ideas on nsquared thoughts. Tabletop computing should start to bring new ways of human engagement to our meeting rooms in the coming years and this will help us to work better together than many earlier technologies.

Measuring the success of your tabletop application

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:10:47 PST

Over the last 2 years I have been heavily involved in working with tabletop software, specifically software for Microsoft Surface. Having content displayed directly on the table top can radically change the interaction that occurs between the users sitting around the table. How we present the information on the table top will greatly impact on this interaction.

A number of researchers have spent considerable time and effort working on this challenge and recently at the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces 2010 (http://www.its2010.org/) some of this research was presented. One of the more interesting (and arguably problematic) papers was presented by Tang, Pahud, Carpendale and Buxton; entitled VisTACO: Visualizing Tabletop Collaboration. The paper presents a way that researchers can scientifically understand the interactions of the users at a table. One of goals being to validate the design of a multi-user tabletop computer.

I say this can be problematic because while it is easy to track the user interaction on the table top, with software, this project (as described in the paper) attempts to solve a couple of other challenges; 1. does the interaction change if the people are not all physically sitting at the same table, 2. does the spatial position (configuration) of the users impact on the interaction models. The results are certainly useful but do they tell the whole story about the success of an interaction model?

From the work we have been doing in the real world with tabletop multi user deployments at nsquared there are other factors at play that are less easy to measure. The emotional connections that are made between people at a table during an interaction is often (maybe always?) more important than the actual physical interactions that have occurred. Creating an environment that encourages a rich and deep social engagement has been one of our goals at nsquared.

Our other goal at nsquared, which might be even harder to evaluate, is to enhance the intelligence of the people using the technology. More on this topic another day.

A quick glance back

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 11:45:05 PDT

Today I was writing an email to a customer and I was explaining what the nsquared team has achieved in it's short lifetime, I thought I would share this with you because it is something to be proud of.

The nsquared team is a small and high specialized group of developers and designers based in Sydney. We do have people in the Uk, USA and Hong Kong, but most of the development happens out of our studio in Sydney. Our main mission is to make the world a better place through the intelligent application of technology. For this reason one of our core areas of focus has been education, where we believe so many of the world issues can be solved. A number of our team are ex-teachers and have a passion for teaching and helping people reach their potential.

We often see technology as something that hinders social engagement and this was one of the key attractions of Microsoft Surface. The table is a place of social engagement and adding digital content to the table should be used to enhance the conversation. The nsquared education pack has been the outcome of this work and you can find out more about this here http://nsquarededucationpack.com/

We also realized from the work we were doing that business meetings could be improved around a table, and drawing people's attention away from their personal computing devices to a shared screen would help increase the value of business interactions, this lead us to build the nsquared business pack, more information is here http://nsquaredbusinesspack.com/

We also have been busy exploring other touch and gesture based technologies, the most dominant being the Apple iOS set of devices, iPod, iPhone and iPad. We have been building apps for ourselves and third parties now for close to 2 years for these devices.You can explore all of our products on this page http://nsquaredsolutions.com/products/

As leaders in the field of Surface and NUI (natural user interface) development we wrote the first book on Surface development, http://nsquaredsolutions.com/surfacebook/

We are also the only company in the world with more than one application certified for Surface, in fact we have more applications certified for Surface than Microsoft does! http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/Pages/Product/Applications.aspx

Through the work we have been doing we were awarded the contract, by Microsoft, to deliver all the Surface development training to new partners in Europe in 2009 and 2010.

Earlier this year I was awarded by Microsoft the first Microsoft Surface Most Valuable Professional award. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=BD4DC19A-A1B7-49B4-90B2-EB41C67F980F

It is so great to achieved all of this and yet I feel we have only just started. We have so many great ideas and big goals for the technology we are working on. I am sure that his time next year we will have added some more fantastic achievements to this list.

Watch this space....

Certification For Microsoft Surface Applications

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 18:04:55 PDT

Over that last 2 years the nsquared development team has been building Microsoft Surface applications. We are one of the most accomplished teams in the world at developing tabletop computing experiences. We wrote the book Developing for Microsoft Surface and have delivered all the global training to Microsoft Partners for Surface development. The certification of 10 of our applications now puts another achievement on our list to validate we are masters of our craft.

It is important that customers can differentiate between validated experts and those that claim to know what they are doing. Building software for table top interfaces such as Microsoft Surface is not a skill that can easily be adapted from desktop programming skills. This is not about the technology, this is about creating simple, easy to use, and engaging experiences. At nsquared we are bringing our expertise in this space to produce applications that owners of Microsoft Surface can purchase, download, and start using today. Having our applications certified for Microsoft Surface provides a level of assurance to our customers that we are delivering high quality software that will deliver a rich Surface experience.

My belief is that within 5 years we will see a proliferation of table top computing devices and at nsquared we plan to be at the forefront of this revolution.

Another codecast interview

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:23:46 PDT

Last month when I was in Redmond I managed to catch up with my friend Ken Levy who drives the CodeCast podcast. We went for a great lunch at an indian restaurant and afterwards he set the ipod to record and we chatted about a number of topics, including Microsoft Surface, tablet devices, Microsoft Translator and the Messenger Connect SDK. All products I have been busy working with over the last couple years.

You can download the podcost from here.

Windows 7 Touch or Microsoft Surface

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:09:41 PDT

I have received a number of questions around the topic of touch on Microsoft Surface and Windows 7.

I have seen a variety of feedback from client and developers along these lines:

Surface doesn't have a web browser, I must have a web browser
Surface is just Windows with touch

While the work I have done with After-Mouse and nsquared has led to a web browser control being built for Surface, typically a user trying to browse the internet is not looking for a multi-user, social, computing experience and Windows 7 is much more suited to provide a single user experience. Browsing the internet (the way we do today with modern browsers) is a single user experience, you cannot have two users clicking in the same browser at the same time and expect to get meaningful results. At best a browser can provide an experience for multiple users with a driver-passenger model of engagement. One person is the driver and is the only user interacting directly with the browser, the other participants are passengers, observing the interactions and potentially providing verbal guidance to the driver.

The questions to ask are:

What is the client trying to achieve?
What is their vision? A good place to start is to understand the usage scenarios they are hoping for.

If the objective is really to get multiple people engaged then Microsoft Surface provides a far superior solution. For a single user touch experience go for Windows 7.

You should also note that while the touch is getting better in Windows 7, the shell in Windows 7 is not designed to be 100% driven by touch, whereas the Microsoft Surface Shell is designed for touch from the ground up. With Windows 7, touch enhances the mouse and keyboard interactions. With Surface touch replaces the mouse and keyboard interactions.

Where will it end up ?

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:55:06 PDT

I received a great question from one of my Surface students today.

They wanted to know if they can calculate where a ScatterViewItem is going to end up when it is flicked. Or the other way around, could you set an end point and set up the inertia processor to move an item to that location.

Lets say i have a ScatterViewItem on position point(30,130) and i want it to go to point(550,300).
How can I set the following:

// settings
inertiaProcessor.InitialOrigin = new Point(30,130);
inertiaProcessor.DesiredDeceleration = ?;
inertiaProcessor.InitialVelocity = ?;

// Restart Inertia
inertiaProcessor.Begin();

// Now please end up at: new Point(550,300);

Sadly there is no way to know this with precision. In theory you could use the physics formula to calculate this. The precision is not that accurate though so you would probably be a little off.

Remember one of the objectives of the ScatterView is to scatter things in an apparent random manner on the screen.

If you wanted to build an application where the exact location of movable items is important then a ScatterView control might not be the best option.

Another First: Surface MVP Award

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:53:50 PDT

I like to be the first to work with a new technology and many of the folks at Microsoft know this. Over the years I have worked with the leading edge of Microsoft technologies, COM, Smartphone (now Windows Phone), Tablet PC, Virtual Earth (now Bing maps) and most recently Surface.

I have been delivering training to a number of Surface partners for the last 18 months, written a book on Surface development and formed a Surface development team in Sydney within nsquared .

Microsoft has recognized my contributions to the Microsoft Surface community and I am really pleased to receive the first ever MVP award for Microsoft Surface.

Interviewed by Tse:

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:36:38 PDT

I was interviewed recently by Corwin Tse of TseDrive.com and the interview has now gone online.

Corwin asked some interesting questions about nsquared, Microsoft Surface and software development.

I hope you enjoy it.

Creation From Thought

Neil@Roodyn.com (Dr. Neil) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:33:28 PDT

As pure as output can be

Virtual worlds to explore and see

Internal mechanics are hidden

Magic words unlock the forbidden

Fingers whir to weave the spell

Separates his layers for testing well

A wizard of the modern world

Sees fresh creation unfurled

Unwind, unlock, protect and store

Validate the ceiling

Validate the floor

Reload, refresh, enqueue and batch

Trying tricky patterns

Followed with a catch

On a stage of many switches

Removed of any glitches

Perfection tantalizing closer

Is this the million dollar grosser ?