Geosense is a Windows Sensor that provides the Location and Sensors platform in Windows 7 with accurate and reasonably ubiquitous positioning information without requiring or the assistance of GPS hardware, enabling more practical location-based applications and scenarios on Windows 7.
The release comes with an open call to action to download and develop location aware applications against it. Who’s going to be the first out the door with a desktop FourSquare client?!
Watching the Mobile World Conference live feed of the windows Phone7 phone reveal. The UI is awesome. Every thing I had hoped for with a perfect tie to the Zune experience. Watch the live feed here http://bit.ly/c1DHgQ (9AM EST)
Coo demo of a 3d display with multitouch and off-screen gestural control.
We transform an LCD into a display that supports both 2D multi-touch and unencumbered 3D gestures. Our BiDirectional (BiDi) screen, capable of both image capture and display, is inspired by emerging LCDs that use embedded optical sensors to detect multiple points of contact. We exploit the spatial light modulation capability of LCDs to allow lensless imaging without interfering with display functionality.
Lately there’s been quite a bit of buzz about SilverX, an application that claims to convert Flash files to Silverlight. The SilverX website does a good job of outlining the features and benefits of the application but there was little information on how it handles Actionscript.
Is this the Holy Grail for Flash developers looking to use the Adobe IDE to build Silverlight applications? We decided to put it through the paces to see what it’s all about.
Install
Installing SilverX is straightforward and it provides an uninstaller in the application folder if you decide to remove it. One thing I didn’t expect was that it inserted a splash page to Expression Blend. A nice touch, and useful as I wouldn’t have immediately known that it added items to my ‘File’ menu.
Converting a Flash file to Silverlight
For the first test I decided to load a fairly complicated Flash application that I had built as a prototype for a touch screen picture frame. The reason I chose this file was because it had no externally loaded assets, it was built as one fat .SWF with embedded images.
The Flash to Silverlight conversion process only took a few seconds
Oops, a warning that Actionscript was not supported. Not surprising.
Having a look at the output, it created a folder with 3 areas that were very well organized.
Preview containing the original .swf, the .xap Silverlight app and supporting HTML/JS
Resources containing all the placed assets in the .swf
Solution containing the .sln and Silverlight project files
Running the application
Upon launching the application I found that none of the Actionscript was implemented, but all of the artwork came over nicely. Below is a preview of both the original .SWF and the .XAP outputs.
Note that this is a large file (2.7mb) with no preloader as it was originally indented to be run locally.
Another test
I knew that converting such a complicated app was a lot to ask, so I ran another test with something much more basic. This is a timeline based animation of a crane unfolding that I had used for the 1000CranesOfHope.com website.
As you can see from the examples the conversion of the animation was flawless. The only thing it missed was some Actionscript that sets the visibility of my guide asset to false and a stop action at the end of the timeline.
Conclusion
Considering that I was running version 1.2 of the application I’d say it’s very solid. Is it the Holy Grail for flash developers who are looking to build Silverlight applications with the Adobe IDE? No. But SilverX never said it was. Maybe in future releases we’ll see support for Actionscript conversion, but I imagine that is a huge undertaking and in the end may not be all that useful.
The strength of SilverX is in its ability to quickly and cleanly extract assets, vector graphics and timeline based animations from .swf files. If you’re a Flash developer that needs a jump start on a Flash to Silverlight project SilverX is a must have in your application toolbox.
Bing released an iPhone app today (App store link). It’s pretty sweet. Check it out and write a review before the haters flood the ratings like they did with Seadragon Mobile.
Starting today you can access Bing Maps via a new Silverlight interface by visiting this Bing Maps Beta URL
In addition to all of the standard Bing Map features the Silverlight interface seamlessly blends between map, satellite, and birds eye views. It also offers context sensitive links to Photosynths, online photo galleries and points of interest.
Rafael Rivera and Long Zheng have been hinting at a new initiative for a few days now.
