Last night on the banks of the Thames, Nokia turned the Millbank Tower into a massive projection screen and thousands of people lined up along the river bank to enjoy a set by DJ Deadmau5. Sixteen projectors placed on the South Bank worked their magic onto 800 windows to produce some stunning visuals, you can view a sample below. This was all to celebrate the launch of the Lumia 800 Nokia hardware which runs the Windows Phone operating system. Enjoy…

Think you look rather fetching in your 3D specs? Wear them while you still can – Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group (ASG) is developing a display that knows who and where you are and allows you to interact not only with the display’s surface a-la touch, but also above the screen (yes, in mid air!).

It also allows different views to be sent to different people using head tracking – so your desk buddy will see something different to you, even if you swap seats. You don’t need any glasses either.

How will this translate into the real world? Imagine an informational display for the public that allows you to see personalised content based on what you’re looking for – like train information for example – even in different languages. So one single display could provide customised information to many people – all using this head tracking technology that allows people to move and see different views from the same screen.

Cool, huh?

If you want to find out more there’s loads more videos on the ASG site…

Today’s Windows Phone Mango announcements highlight a variety of exciting new features soon to be available to Windows Phone owners. My personal favourite, as a hobbyist game dev, is the ability to combine the slick and speedy user experience of Silverlight with the powerful 3D graphics abilities of XNA enabling a new era of app user experience that brings together the functionally useful world of apps with the graphical splendour of games.

To demonstrate this new capability we teamed up with British Airways to deliver a Mango enhanced version of their Windows Phone 7 app. Our team consisted of Thin Martin on UI design, The Motion Box on graphical design and Synapse Gaming on 3D world implementation. Over a period of 9 days (including two weekends) we pulled together, from scratch, new functionality which includes the ability to select your seat and view its location in an accurate 3D model of a British Airways Airbus 319-100 aircraft – using the new Silverlight and XNA integration.

Figure 1: Screenshots from the app showing the finished seat selection feature

The Motion Box team rapidly created the aircraft cabin model using the SoftImage toolset, over the first weekend. It was then down to John Kabus and the Synapse Gaming team to use their SunBurn engine to add high quality lighting to the model, provide the seat selection and the model fly-thru functions.

The SunBurn Game Engine is a very special piece of technology. Launched on Windows Phone 7 last November, it enables the XNA developer – on Xbox, Windows and Windows Phone 7 in version 2 – the ability to add lighting to a 3D world scene. For Windows Phone projects the lighting is pre-computed and stored as light maps within the models. This enables fantastic, high quality lighting to be rendered in Windows Phone XNA projects with highly efficient CPU/GPU usage.

Once the developer has arranged a scene in the XNA 3D world, the runtime SunBurn world editor is used to add light sources of different styles to the world. This is all done from within the 3D world scene making it very simple to see the effects of adding or editing light sources.

Figure 2: SunBun World Editor showing lights placed within the model

Games engines like SunBurn are usually only available at professional games studio prices. But Synapse Gaming offers the SunBurn game engine at three price points to support the hobbyist developer right up to the professional games studio. The SunBurn collision system and in-game triggers to ‘script’ seat selection logic were also used to complete the seat selection feature.

The resulting fully lit Airbus 319-100 cabin model, with full interactive functionality runs at a smooth 25 fps and looks amazing – setting a new level of expectation for future apps and games on the Windows Phone 7.

It was a straight forward task to integrate the cabin XNA functionality into the Silverlight British Airways app. A new Shared Graphics Manager enables the programmer to control the rendering of Silverlight and XNA elements. This enables the Silverlight design tools of Visual Studio and Expression Blend to be used to design a Silverlight UI of standard Silverlight UI elements, complete with normal events, that is overlaid on the XNA rendering. In a typical XNA game, this approach now offers a simple mechanism to implement game menus and HUD using Silverlight.

The Mango British Airways app was demonstrated at the Mango announcement events in London, New York and other locations across the world. It never ceases to amaze me just how much a great team can deliver using Microsoft technologies in a short time frame. It was a real team effort and sets the bar for apps across all phone platforms. Roll on the autumn I can’t wait for the full Mango release.

To see more of what the Synapse Gaming SunBurn Engine does see these games:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBE8vyl2wsI
• http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/AvaGlide/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585505b9
• http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Cyborg-Mice-Arena/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550263
• http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Crate-Expectations/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550345

Now a creative team have taken advantage of the latest 3D technologies around, using Kinect and a 3D printer to create statuettes of people in a campaign ‘Become Your Own Souvenir’.

By hooking up a 3D printer to Kinect, blablabLAB were able to print out a person’s image when they struck a pose for the camera. So now the code-monkeys are the artists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLifVK_64eA

This hack may look complicated, after all 3D printers are not so easy to come by. But if you would love to give it a go, make sure you check out MakerBot – the affordable open source home 3D printer! We were thinking of creating a chess board; one side Spooners and the other Beebys

The boys at Microsoft Research are smart… I mean really smart, they make simple developers like me, look like extras in The Only Way is Essex (for the US readers its a bit like The Hills). At the MIX event in Las Vegas they had a number of booths near the restaurant in which they proceeded to blow the minds of passing developers.

My favourite demo from the whole week was the one below from Eric Stollnitz. He showed a research project that could take a set of photographs and construct them into a 3D scene.

The basis for the technology is Photosynth, they use Photosynth to extract the point cloud from the set of images. They then use a technique that falls into the category of depth from stereo, which infers the three-dimensional structure of a scene from a pair of stereo images. Finally they stabilise the camera path to achieve the smooth scrolling effect.

When you put all this wizardry together, it creates an effect that could be used by hundreds of retailers to sell anything from dress to second hand cars. Check out the video below.

CES is *the* tech show. It’s the first opportunity of the year for tech companies to announce the new products and services that they’ll be shortly releasing. The great and good and the geeky of the tech world descend on Vegas to press buttons, flick switches, or close their eyes and imagine a vision of the future.

Taking a look through the coverage, there’s a trend towards 3D. We’ve been used to 3D TVs for a while now but there’s announcements of 3D cameras, laptops and now glassless 3D TVs but only on3 bit of 3D tech made our picks. Read on to find out which one did…

Toyota Entune

We heard Carlos Ghosn from Renault refer to the car as a ‘platform’ at LeWeb 2010 and furthering this idea, Toyota’s new in-car telematics service, Entune, brings mobile apps to your dashboard. Bing, OpenTable, MovieTickets.com, Pandora, and Iheartradio were on show.

With Bing integration, you can type a search for restaurants and it will bring up a list of those nearest to your location. Touching one of those entries will give you the option of feeding the address directly into the navigation system as a destination.

Voice command is also enabled with Bing. Touching a microphone button on the screen, you can say, "I need to get some flowers," and it nearby florists will be displayed.

OpenTable works in very similar fashion as on its Web site or app, finding nearby restaurants and listing available reservation times. Users enter their account information for OpenTable and the other apps through a Toyota owners’ Web site, so it can facilitate the interaction between those services and the Entune app. Music is available on Pandora and Iheartradio.  (^AS)

Wireless Power solution from Fulton Innovations

“Driven by innovation, our mission is to introduce solutions that enhance lives everywhere” say Fulton Innovations and this piece of tech would enhance my life. Being slightly obsessive about the tidyness of my kitchen is in direct contrast for my need for a kitchen to be functional. Fulton Innovations wirelessly powered kitchen work surface is clean, safe and practical. Love it. Want it. (^AS)

PC update

It wouldn’t be a tech show without a new laptop, notebook or tablet being announced, here’s an update from Ben ‘The PC Guy’ Rudolph. Love the look of the Acer Iconia, I’m not saying I’d buy one, but I like the way things are going. (^AS)

Microsoft’s Touch Mouse

Becoming so accustomed to touchscreens thanks to the pace of innovation in phones, it can feel a bit like going back to the 90’s when you get back to your PC: left hand on the keyboard, right hand on the mouse. I want to zoom in on a picture – do I really have to click the little magnifying glass at the bottom of the screen eight times to get it to 180% zoom? A few years in development, the new touch mouse means you can treat the top of it like you would a screen – flick, drag, pinch and even use three fingers to control all of your desktop like switching between tasks, automatically snapping window sizes and so on. Due to arrive in May and designed to take advantage of Windows 7 touch capabilities, it’s definitely the next gadget on the shopping list. (^AR)

Tremont Kinetic Charger

Car-chargers are brilliant. But for those who cycle or walk most places, Tremont Electricity have created a battery that charges itself based on your movements. Place it in your bag when you head out and the device will move the interior magnet through its coil and covert it to energy, to juice whatever device you plug in later. It’s an obvious first generation technology – the battery isn’t exactly miniscule and one minute of walking equals about a minute of charge for your MP3 player, but it’s definitely one to watch over the next 12 months. It’s due to go on sale in the US later this year, at the $160 price point. (^AR)

Nintendo 3DS

As we mentioned above, 3D seemed to be the buzz topic for CES this year, and Nintendo stepped up to the plate to show off their new offering. While the internet has been abuzz with news of the 3DS for a few months now, it’s great to see it in the flesh. I’ve been a bit of a fan of the DS since it launched back in 2005, and have only recently put it down since mobile games have finally come up to the same standard. However, I think the 3DS could be a game changer, with Nintendo being the only one so far to attempt to get a hold on the 3D handheld game market. I’m looking forward to playing with one as soon as I get the chance. (^LM)

Microsoft Surface 2.0

I have been in love with the Surface ever since I had a play with one in Sydney back in 2008. Believe me, this is not just a Microsoft product love-in. The possibilities of the Surface are amazing and could actually make table-top computing a reality. However, when they launched commercially in 2009, the close to £10k price tag meant that this was an enterprise/commercial product and definitely not consumer, which disappointed me slightly. I wanted a Surface in the home! At CES, Microsoft announced Surface 2.0, which along with 10 inches extra screen space, far more powerful insides, a completely new way of doing object recognition and is remarkably thinner than its predecessor, also features a price tag that is about US$5k less.

I’m very excited about the new Surface, and although it may still earn me a large credit card bill and an unhappy spouse, one may be making its way into my living room in the near future. (^LM)

Have we missed something?

Let us know on twitter @ubelly or in the comments below.

How could these be anything but ‘hot’? Star Wars MIMOBOT USB Flash Drive – hopefully they’ll be coming to a store near you (i.e. in the UK) soon…

3D might be the next big thing in film, but is gaming a step too far? Gaming giants bet on 3D for next big boost – my bet is on 3D gaming reaching its peak in 5 years when we may have got around the need for glasses… ‘not’ (yet)

New Standard Hopes to Unify Your Address Book – in a post by Steve Plank we describe being able to manage all your social media accounts in one place – Messenger. The WC3 has recently published a draft of the contacts API to provide a unified address book of contacts, offering a way of standardising the way contacts are managed so individuals have more control over what applications use your data. Hmmm…. I’m too old not to care about privacy, so it’s definitely ‘hot’ IMHO!

Got a brilliant start-up idea but don’t know what to call it? .Dot.Com.Roulette does. Is this the start of a new naming convention? Might rely on roulette to name my pets! ‘Hot’.

It’s Tuesday 22nd June, it’s 4.30 and it’s time for the BizSparkCamp for Windows Phone 7 pitches to commence. Eight companies were ready and waiting to pitch their mobile phone application idea to a panel of ‘dragons’.

Helen Keegan              Oded Ran                      Carlos Espinal             Joe N

MoMoLo                         Microsoft                        Doughty Hanson          M8 Capital

Company: 21apps

Application: 21scrum

This two man SharePoint consultancy has become a micro-ISV and are ‘putting the scrum in SharePoint’. It’s an application that allows the user to easily manage scrum cycles and sprints using SharePoint 2010 and is accessible via browser, phone and of course on the PC.

21apps are talking about taking the application to the user – taking it out into large plasma / touch-screens and also to the phone so that developers can check what they need to do that day, wherever they are. The application will cover more than just the specific Scrum Development scenario and enable organisations to manage different types of task lists and projects.

Pitch Number 2

Company: Cortexica

Application: WINEfindr

Cortexica are an Imperial College London spin-out founded in 2009 and now generating revenues. They’re looking at the evolution of visual search from bar codes / tag codes through to taking a picture and understanding what you’re looking at.

WINEfindr on the iPhone was the no.1 lifestyle application on launch, displacing Jamie Oliver.  The application works by taking a picture of a wine label and uploads it to the Cortexica vision system. This returns a wine, or a list of candidates, and enables you to compare prices. It’s hosted on Azure to scale and respond quickly.

WINEfindr differs from Google Goggles in that the user gets a 1 for 1 match rather than loads of data you then have to sift through. With Google you simply get back a picture of the world that Google has already built, whereas with this app many wine producers and retailers have been involved to create the library and metadata. This requires business partnerships – there is much scope for crowd-sourcing in this.

Pitch Number 3

Company: Intelligent Touch Solutions Ltd

Application: Mobile client for Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint.

Founded in October 2009, Intelligent Touch is a Microsoft Solutions Provider specialising in Windows Phone 7, Microsoft Surface and SharePoint 2010.

Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint enables you to connect to multiple systems and allows a user to render the data within the portal, as well as taking it off-line.  This includes ERP Data, e.g. modifying HR records off-line.

There is no mobile client for this and Intelligent Touch have built mobile integration to enable the reading and management of the information on Windows Phone 7.  It can actually run on any platform running Silverlight.

Pitch Number 4

Company: ParcelGenie

Application: Instant gift messaging service (iGMS)

Parcel Genie enables anyone with a Facebook, Twitter or Linked In account to send a real gift instantly without knowing where the recipient lives – you just need an email address/social network ID/mobile number and the recipient adds their address in to get the gift – which means the giver never sees the recipient’s address.

ParcelGenie is also on iPhone which allows instant sending from within the application without needing extra credit card information.

You can select a person from Linked in, Facebook or Twitter, select a person from that account, choose a gift and place your order. No subscription/credit card necessary. Gifts include fun retro style sweets like Fizz Whizz, Wham bars or candy necklaces to coasters, key rings and badges and you can get them wrapped in a picture of you from your social network data. ParcelGenie monitors the sales of gifts and regularly asks for customer feedback to ensure the gift list is appropriate.

It’s not only aimed at consumers but also businesses for B to E (business to employee) rewards, e.g. rewarding staff with real gifts rather than a gold star.

Pitch Number 5

Company: Realtimerace

Application: An immersive 3D driveable experience

Realtimerace is a privately owned company. The application takes the Streetside View from Bing and creates an immersive 3D driveable experience, allowing the user to do anything from racing a car around the M25 to ski jumping/downhill skiing or joining a Formula 1 race. It’s delivered through video stream and is very quick.

Using a 360 degree camera on top of a car (yeah it looks like scaffolding) and laser units at each side, the result enables the user to ‘drive’ the vehicle left and right and also find out what happens when they drive it into the side of the track, for example. The BBC covered the application on BBC Click last year – you can watch it here.

The company want to take the application to Windows Phone 7, ideally giving it to the user for free.

Pitch Number 6

Company: Replify

Application: Optimiser and SyncStor, to make networks faster and synch more easily between remote and local applications.

The company aims to help people by reducing the time wasted waiting for their computer or network. By learning patterns, protocol manipulation and caching, the applications can improve network speed by 10 times.

Replify see the applications being used mainly for businesses rather than consumers, with companies cutting down the time it takes to manage caseloads by starting the process as soon as they’re with the customer.

Pitch Number 7

Company: Richmond IP Ltd

Application: Auditing products for multiple platforms.

The auditing products created by Richmond IP help auditors (small companies/freelancers etc) to quickly and easily scope the audit, for example with inspection, evidence gathering and compliance checking.

For example:

• Client management – including company details, audit calendars, reference methodology library, audit dashboard
• Audit fieldwork – the auditor would take a picture which will have a date/time stamp and also has note style audio recording to tie in the image with the inspection. They can upload the data directly from the field.
• Glanceable reference data.

The application includes a desktop offering and a cloud-based offering which would be used for the application on Windows Phone 7.

Pitch Number 8

Company: Touchnote

Application: Takes your digital photos and post them anywhere in the world as postcards.

Why? Because you can’t stick an MMS on your fridge

The application is currently live on Symbian phones (Nokia and Sony Erickson), Android, iPhone and Blackberry and Touchnote want to bring it to Windows Phone 7, so are looking for developers to help them do that!

The applications uses a WYSIWYG front end and hooks into the native address book so you only see people who you have a physical address for and therefore can send the postcard to. The postcard is sent same or next day and is printed and sent locally so your postcard will actually get delivered before you get home for a change! It costs £1.49.

And the winner was…

Cortexica!

Congratulations guys! And thanks to Bindi at BizSpark for a great day.

3-D Without the Glasses – thanks to the latest Microsoft technology we won’t have to wear those ridiculous glasses (they’re fun at first but the novelty wears off pretty quickly, especially when you’re trying to be serious watching the footie, right)?

New Feature Pack and Power Tools Extend VS2010 improves code editing and navigation, along with new ways to work with files and tab behaviour, while the Visualization and Model Feature Pack extends the modification and validation functionality of UML 2.0 modelling and Layer Diagrams (C and C++) in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. The Feature Pack is available to MSDN subscribers.

Python language upgrade slithers toward final release – finished version of 2.7 should be ready by 3rd July and represents the last of the 2.x series with a long period of end-of-life support expected.

Countdown to the E3 conference (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Los Angeles, June 15-17. Don’t miss the Keynote session streamed live tonight at 18:30 GMT!

Take a tour of Mars through the eye of a telescope (soon, anyway!)  – Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope Ready for 3D Views of Mars

Chinese Supercomputer Is Ranked World’s Second-Fastest, Challenging U.S. Dominance – pumping out one thousand trillion mathematical operations a second (or 1.27 petaflops)

Adobe reveals magazine iPad-izer software – new viewer software lets publishers create splashy digital versions of their magazines – you can use Adobe’s new InDesign CS5 layout software to create the digital version. Adobe’s not giving up without a fight!

Tech Crunch UK reviews the new-look MSN UK. Opinions on the new look are welcome!