Dev Days Keynote and Ambition

Also available for parties and discos…

Some time back I was asked the very perceptive question “What are your ambitions?” This is not a question that I get asked very often, and it gave me pause to think a bit about life. Eventually I  said “One day I’d like to take part in a keynote presentation at a technical conference”.  The keynote is the big session right at the start where everyone attending the conference turns up to hear some talks that set the scene for what follows.

Today I got to do that. I was on the same billing as Scott Hanselman, Wade Wegner and Ben Riga. I was talking about the joys of Windows Phone game development.

Everyone had their own laptop, mine is the Dell nearest (and they kept making fun of it because the video output was a bit dodgy).

Brandon Foy’s video looks great, even from the back of the screen. Remember that you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/windowsphone

The presentations were all great, although I must admit I wasn’t concentrating that much – what with being the last man in.  My bit seemed to go OK, which was nice.

I now have to move on to my next ambition, which is to buy Bill Gates a drink. I’d just love to be standing at the bar with Bill, see him reach towards his pocket to pay for the glasses of Coke and say “No worries Bill, I’ve got this” and the produce my wallet….

Windows Phone XNA in TechDays Antwerp

This is the Metropolis in Antwerp. Nice venue.

This is my usual picture of the audience arriving.

Did my first Windows Phone session of this part of my “World Tour” ™. I’m at Tech-Days in the Netherlands tomorrow and Friday. Thanks for being a great audience folks, although with the bright lights it was a bit hard to see if there was anyone out there (although I did hear some clapping from time to time). You can find all the code I talked about, and a lot more, in my demo directory:

http://www.robmiles.com/demos

Heading to Antwerp

Some of these trains do not exist.

In the Netherlands trains don’t run late. They just don’t run. Which makes for all kinds of fun and games if you try to use the ones that aren’t there. The 14:07 from Schipol airport to Antwerp made a brief guest appearance on the station display before vanishing. After a while I got to recognise the “apologetic cough” in Dutch that pre-ceded messages about trains that weren’t going to run. Even though I couldn’t understand much of the rest of the announcements.

Fortunately they announce the international trains in English too (I still find the idea of trains that “go abroad” really exciting) and so I was able to figure out how to get to Rotterdam and then change for Antwerp. And here I am. The hotel is great, the presentations are written and the demos are working. I’ve even found a McDonalds to have tea in. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Antwerp Central Station looking good.

Ready for Tech Days

I’m doing some bits and bobs at TechDays around Europe this week, starting with a Windows Phone gaming session in Antwerp on Wednesday 27th, then a keynote session, a Micro Framework session and a Geek Night Windows Phone session in rhyme on Thursday at The Hague in the Netherlands. On Friday, assuming I survive, I’m doing another Windows Phone gaming session. At the moment I’m busy preparing all the content and demos. I’m making something completely new for the keynote, and I’m rather pleased to find that it is mostly working, which is nice. 

You can find out about TechDays in the Netherlands here:

http://www.techdays.nl/

You can find out about TechDays in Antwerp here:

http://www.microsoft.com/belux/techdays/2011/

I head out tomorrow, I’m trying to squeeze a robot, microcontroller, laptop and all my other bits and bobs into a single carry on bag.  

Parrot Drone Flying

The Parrot AR Drone is an amazing device. It contains a whole bunch of digital technology, including a WIFI access point, two cameras, an ultrasonic rangefinder and four computer controlled rotors. You can fly it from your iPhone and you see a view from the camera in the front of the device as you remotely pilot it around. Today we had a go at flying it, and it works really well, once you have told it that it is flying outdoors. This takes some limits off the behaviours, making it more able to cope with the small headwind.

It really is impressive to watch. It just hangs in the air waiting for commands, and it is very easy to control. In fact, in some ways it is too easy. If you leave it along it just flies, if you give it directions it just follows them, and then waits for some more. Even landing is mostly boring, except for once or twice when it flipped upside down for no reason. There are some augmented reality games you can get, and of course it gets really fun if you have someone else with a drone to fight against.

They are a bit pricey (fortunately I didn’t pay for this one, we use it in the department) but the biggest problem is the battery life. You can get around 10-12 minutes of flying time before the lithium ion battery needs a top up. I’d definitely get a couple of spares if I was going to get serious about flying a drone.