Okapi, Endless Mural with HTML5 and IE9

Thomas Lewis from MIX Online (visitmix.com) introduces Okapi, a simple Javascript framework for building digital, generative art which allows you to take advantage of concepts such as “bounce effects”, “continuous draw”, sprite management, symbols, instances, and auto-updated visual properties that were primarily only available to plug-ins. Check out more information about Okapi and enter a contest to win $500 or well-known digital artist, Joshua Davis' skateboard at http://okapi.visitmix.com. (Also, follow Thomas on Twitter at @tommylee or MIX Online at @mixonline.)

TPL Dataflow Tour

This 15-minute video provides a high-level tour through some of the functionality available in the new TPL Dataflow library (System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.dll), an early preview of which was released as part of the Visual Studio Async CTP, available for download at http://msdn.com/vstudio/async.

Acer Iconia

Physical keyboards are old news, right? They will be come January 28, which is when Acer intends to make its dual-screen Iconia laptop available for public consumption. That's the date we've received from the company's official Spanish mouthpiece, accompanied by a lofty €1,499 ($1,987). Literal currency translations are as usual inadvisable, but that's a hefty fee, however you want to think about it. Then again, the Iconia does come with two 14-inch multitouch LCDs, which last we checked weren't the cheapest parts in the land, and also furnishes you with some decent grunt under the hood courtesy of a Core i5 CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 750GB of storage, an optional 3G module, and -- lest we forget -- a USB 3.0 port. We're sure it'll end up as somebody's perfect bowl of porridge. more

Kinect Gets Own Set of Wheels

Yeah, we're a sucker for a good Kinect hack, and we're a sucker for anything involving RC cars, too. Happy day for us, then, as the two come together in blissful harmony with this project from Michael Schweitzer and Michael Himmelsbach at the University of Bundeswehr Munich. It's a 1:10 scale auto with Microsoft's fancy cam mounted up front and what looks to be a surplus Dell XPS M1330 riding in style on the back. The laptop is running a simplified version of the software that propelled the school's MuCAR-3, a full-sized VW Touareg, in the Darpa Urban Challenge. This little 'un is a little shaky right now, but that's largely because they haven't managed to get an accurate odometer working yet. Still, it does avoid obstacles, as you can see, and now all it needs is some Lexan bodywork before it can look pimpin' when cruising the strip -- autonomously, of course. more

ZScape 3D Holographic Prints

As the video above shows, Zebra Imaging's so called ZScape prints pull off some pretty amazing 3D visual effects despite being based on old school hologram technology. These prints are made using a variety of 3D data sources -- think AutoCad and the like -- that are then rendered as thousands of holographic elements by recording laser light onto a single film-based material. The resulting images are easily viewed without glasses or spinning mirrors, and just require a run-of-the-mill halogen or LED light source to reveal 360-degree, full color representations -- akin to what a physical model might look like. Fancier versions can also be made using overlays and layering techniques to show more information. To date, over 8,000 ZScapes have already been developed for the US military, but surprisingly their prices range between $1,500 for a 12- x 18-inch version to $3,500 for the largest 2- x 3-foot size, making them relatively obtainable for those not on Defense Department tabs. If the video of Seattle pulling anInception above didn't impress you enough, be sure to check another embedded video after the break. more

Image Composite Editor

Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. Given a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location, the application creates a high-resolution panorama that seamlessly combines the original images. The stitched panorama can be shared with friends and viewed in 3D by uploading it to the Photosynth web site. Or the panorama can be saved in a wide variety of image formats, from common formats like JPEG and TIFF to the multiresolution tiled format used by Silverlight's Deep Zoom and by the HD View andHD View SL panorama viewers.

Click here to watch video.

New features through version 1.3.5

• Accelerated stitching on multiple CPU cores
• Ability to publish, view, and share panoramas on the Photosynth web site
• Support for "structured panoramas" — panoramas consisting of hundreds of photos taken in a rectangular grid of rows and columns (usually by a robotic device like the GigaPan tripod heads)
• No image size limitation — stitch gigapixel panoramas
• Support for input images with 8 or 16 bits per component
• Ability to read raw images using WIC codecs
• Photoshop layer and large document support

Additional features

• State-of-the-art stitching engine
• Automatic exposure blending
• Choice of planar, cylindrical, or spherical projection
• Orientation tool for adjusting panorama rotation
• Automatic cropping to maximum image area
• Native support for 64-bit operating systems
• Wide range of output formats, including JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PNG, HD Photo, and Silverlight Deep Zoom

Support

Microsoft Image Composite Editor is provided free of charge and without official support. However, if you have questions or issues with Image Composite Editor, you may find help at the Image Composite Editor Forum, which is monitored by the developers and provides community-based support.

Microsoft Research: Zentity

With Zentity, researchers can extend existing data models by adding additional relationships and properties to these relationships. Zentity is flexible and extensible, taking advantage of the optimization and performance available from Microsoft SQL Server. Zentity provides a built-in ScholarlyWorks data model with pre-defined entities—such as lecture, publication, paper, presentation, video, file, person, and tag—along with basic properties for each of these and well known relationships—such as author, city, and version. The platform also provides support to create custom entities and design custom data models by using our Extensibility API. Learn more...

New Features

Here’s what’s new in this release:

• New services: Pivot Collection Service and Zentity Data Service
• New client applications:
  • Pivot Viewer and ODATA Viewer, in collaboration with Microsoft Live Labs
  • Visual Explorer, in collaboration with MSR Asia
  • PowerShell admin console
• .NET 4.0 support
• ODATA support
• Data model agnostic
• Multi-tier application support
• Zentity SDK
• Improved deployment experience

System Requirements

To run this software, you’ll need the following:

• Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0, IIS 7 or above, Application Server role installed, Silverlight version 4, Windows SDK for Windows 7, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native client, Windows PowerShell 2.0
• SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition or above, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Express with Advanced Services (with file stream, full-text search and named pipes enabled)

For more detailed information, see the system requirements section in the Installation Instructions document (also included with the downloaded .zip file).

Installation Instructions

To install Zentity 2.0, do the following:

1. Extract the contents of the .zip file to a folder.
2. Open the folder containting the extracted files, and then run the corresponding client or server MSI installation wizard.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions to install Zentity 2.0.

For more detailed information, see the Installation Instructions document (also included with the downloaded .zip file).

Chrome to Windows Phone 7 Now Available

Approved and waiting for your download, Chrome to Windows Phone 7 is now available in the mobile OS' operating system. True to its name, once you download both this app and the applicable Chrome extension, a quick click on the Windows logo in your otherwise Google browser will send links or selected text to your Microsoft mobile. Join your Android friends in embracing the Continuous Clientlifestyle.

Microsoft Research: Zentity

With Zentity, researchers can extend existing data models by adding additional relationships and properties to these relationships. Zentity is flexible and extensible, taking advantage of the optimization and performance available from Microsoft SQL Server. Zentity provides a built-in ScholarlyWorks data model with pre-defined entities—such as lecture, publication, paper, presentation, video, file, person, and tag—along with basic properties for each of these and well known relationships—such as author, city, and version. The platform also provides support to create custom entities and design custom data models by using our Extensibility API. Learn more...

New Features

Here’s what’s new in this release:

• New services: Pivot Collection Service and Zentity Data Service
• New client applications:
  • Pivot Viewer and ODATA Viewer, in collaboration with Microsoft Live Labs
  • Visual Explorer, in collaboration with MSR Asia
  • PowerShell admin console
• .NET 4.0 support
• ODATA support
• Data model agnostic
• Multi-tier application support
• Zentity SDK
• Improved deployment experience

System Requirements

To run this software, you’ll need the following:

• Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0, IIS 7 or above, Application Server role installed, Silverlight version 4, Windows SDK for Windows 7, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native client, Windows PowerShell 2.0
• SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition or above, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Express with Advanced Services (with file stream, full-text search and named pipes enabled)

For more detailed information, see the system requirements section in the Installation Instructions document (also included with the downloaded .zip file).

Installation Instructions

To install Zentity 2.0, do the following:

1. Extract the contents of the .zip file to a folder.
2. Open the folder containting the extracted files, and then run the corresponding client or server MSI installation wizard.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions to install Zentity 2.0.

For more detailed information, see the Installation Instructions document (also included with the downloaded .zip file).

Research in Software Engineering (RiSE)

coordinates Microsoft's Research in Software Engineering in Redmond, USA. There mission is to advance the state of the art in SE, to bring those advances to Microsoft’s business, and to take care of those SE technologies that are critical to the company, but not inherently linked to particular products.

http://rise4fun.com/Fine