WPC 2015 in Orlando, Florida, Day 2. Focus on Hololens (Worldwide Partner Conference)

 

For day 2 (Tuesday 14th), I will present THE ONE session that, according to me, is the one that could not be missed. This is about Microsoft Hololens and its technical featured reveiled so we, as a partner, can start to engage our customers and start coding.

To ensure I’ll be part of that session, I stood up in front of the door one hour before the beginning of the session !

Here is a brief summary of the session :

Market differentiator: Why is it so different ?

Let list the various technologies that we could find

• VR, Virtual Reality: full immersive 3D experience, but with some limitations (pixels, no interraction with the “true” reality)
• AR, Augmented Reality: 3D experience, data notification, can suprempose the reality, …
• Mixed Reality : integrated 100% blending of digital (voice/sound, vision, …) with reality AND interraction with both reality and digital (in 2 ways).

==> Hololens is positionned on the latest category.

Technical parts:

• Microsoft has been working on 2 areas in conjonction : inputs and outputs, where both of them are using the power of Windows 10 , and possibly Microsoft Azure to interract with IoT
• inputs : Gaze (to fix your attention to some areas), gesture, holographic cameras, AND patial mapping (understands 3D geometries of the real-life and track its movement)
• output : Light & colors, scale, spacial sound (immersive), “world locking” (i.e. consider true content; consider virtual content and place it in front of someone, or event the content can follow that person!)

All this is done and process at OS-level using Windows 10 (i.e. for exemple, interraction with Cortona becomes possible).

• Coding stand point:
• it is a Windows 10 ‘regular app’
• it uses Unity 3D, where Microsoft has officially made a partnership with

     (side note: Microsoft is also partnering with Oculus)

Here is an impressive enhancement of a true-motorbike on stage, during the Keynote, where the “user” could augment the reality and interract with it. That was an astonishing demo that cannot be nice with the two pictures below  !! (with poor quality photo, besides)

 

 

Some partners have already provided 400 use cases to Microsoft of their potential usage; its power is phenomenon. Here are the possible areas that HoloLens could address:

At the end of the session, although the organizers kicked us out, many people were still asking many questions… and I was one of them.

So lets move on to the next generation of User Experience between human and machines, with Hololens, Windows 10 and MS Azure !

Monitor the code quality over time

Here is a quick post to show an example of a code quality report over time for a CMMI project. The rendering of the graph is done via the FusionCharts Flash library, that is bound to an XML file.
It could be noted that the Flash graph could be rotated around to better see the values.
Anyway, since we are talking of a 3 years report, we are just interested in visualizing the trends, not the exact values.

You can find online examples here : http://www.fusioncharts.com/Gallery/Category.asp?Column3D

Having fun with "Silverlight Augmented Reality Toolkit" (Silverlight 4)

Last December 2009 we were playing around with a POC for a customer and the SLARToolkit (Silverlight Augmented Reality Toolkit). However, I did not have the chance to write about it. Here you go :

1/ First print a markers (for example a L-marker here) or make your own L-marker by drawing it approximately on a sheet of paper, like this one (note, I put deliberately my finger over the edge to break it, else Silverlight will recognize the marker and put a "teapot" over it) :

2/ Then, go to the CodePlex project : http://slartoolkit.codeplex.com
and find a live demo, such as "Balder Sample".

3/ Then, you can allow Silverlight to have access to your WebCam and microphone :

4/ Start the fun by moving the marker around the screen : back and forth and spin it all over the screen. Make the teapot scale up and down, rotate or move it up and down.

If your did not yet have the opportunity to play with, I would recommend it. Moreover, your marker will work with other online Silverlight demos.