August 2006 - Posts

• XNA Express is here!

  Don't waste your time reading this - go and download it from here! Can't stay.... must.... code.... Andy   Posted Thursday, August 31, 2006 2:55 PM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments

• Technology that Empowers: Texting for Democracy

  In the Philippines, mobile devices and text messaging are enabling groups of activists, some thousands strong, to bring their message into the public's view with much less effort and much more precision than ever.  Using the devices to organize and orchestrate their demonstrations, they are able to outwit oppressive forces and broadcast their message... one I particulary like from the Philippines: Books, not bullets. The article by Mary Jordan of the Washington Post is here. Links: Going Mobile: Text Messages Guide Filipino Protest Posted Monday, August 28, 2006 11:08 AM from Mitch's Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: mitchb, education

• Technology that Empowers: Texting for Democracy [Technology that Empowers: Texting for Democracy]

  In the Philippines, mobile devices and text messaging are enabling groups of activists, some thousands strong, to bring their message into the public's view with much less effort and much more precision than ever.  Using the devices to organize and orchestrate their demonstrations, they are able to outwit oppressive forces and broadcast their message... one I particulary like from the Philippines: Books, not bullets. The article by Mary Jordan of the Washington Post is here. in reply to Technology that Empowers: Texting for Democracy Links: Going Mobile: Text Messages Guide Filipino Protest Posted Monday, August 28, 2006 11:08 AM from Mitch Benson | 0 Comments Filed under: education

• Give your students a jump-start with the Windows Mobile Starter Kits

  The Windows Mobile Team have just published three starter kits for mobile developers.  Comprising a tabbed browser, plugin utility and a game, each starter kit is a fully functional application written in either C#, VB.NET or C++.  To get started you'll need Visual Studio 2005 and the Windows Mobile 5 SDK installed.  Oh, and the starter kit. Enjoy. Andy Posted Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:43 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments

• XNA Express Licensing in Academia

  Since my last post on XNA, I've been literally swamped by an e-mail asking for some clarification around licensing XNA Express in Academia. So, where are we at? Both the XNA Framework and XNA Express (and therefore Visual C# Express) are free. It will cost you nothing to write games with these tools. If you want to run your game on the XBOX 360, you'll need to have the XNA Framework installed on your 'box. The framework will be available to XNA Games Creator Club subscribers, and it's this subscription that carries the $99 / year price tag.  Full details of the subscription contents and benefits have yet to be released - expect more soon. So, to run the games on a 360 carries a $99 pricetag. How will this work in Universities?  In the long-term, we're pushing to make this part of MSDN AA, but before then, we've got two options: a) Universities purchase the XNA subs per machine, bound to a university-owned gamertag/account.  The tags can be loaned to students for the duration of the course and reclaimed at the end.  If a student wants their own sub, they have to purchase it b) have students purchase the subs for the course.  There will be a $49 for 4 month sub for this. So, this is where we are.  I can see the cost being an almost-trivial issue in most western countries, but can't see how this is going to work across the globe. I know we're working on academic discounts for the product, but expect this to take a little longer. Andy Posted Monday, August 21, 2006 11:45 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Teaching Resources

• Teaching Games Dev on the 360 - Oh Yes

  Across the UK, I'm always bumping into academics who are either teaching, or are planning to teach on a games programming degree.  And to a man (generally), they ask whether or not they can use XBOX 360's for games dev in the classroom.  And unfortunately, I've never had a good answer for them - until now! We've just announced, at Gamesfest, the arrival of XNA Studio Express - a development enviromnet for developing games that can be run on any XNA Framework-complient platform - which of course includes the XBOX 360. This is massive news, and I've been sitting on since - get this - January 2006.  That's been tough.  However, the bag and the cat have parted company, and you can read all about the plans for XNA Studio Express (and of course the other versions of XNA Studio) in the official press release, the XNA Studio Team Blog, and in Dr Dobb's article Pimp my Warthog. Honestly. We're working with a handful of UK Universities to check how this is going to work in the teaching envrionment, and once happy, we're going to announce a UK Academic Launch Event, and a series of hands-on workshops run by none other than the mighty Rare.  Watch this space - I'll be posting here as we get the events slotted together.  Expect some more news in the next couple of weeks. Andy Posted Friday, August 18, 2006 7:25 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Teaching Resources

• Imagine Cup World Wide Final - The Results Are In!

  Well, you heard it here last.  After a very long week of competition in Agra, and a couple of days battling it out in Delhi, the world-wide Imagine Cup final results are in. Italy's team, Event .ctor (I think that's right) demonstrated a system for collecting ad-hoc patient data - the kind not usually communicated during diagnosis - that could prove useful in helping treat patients with anxiety disorder. Teams from Brazil and Norway took second and third place respectively. A really great offer was made to these teams, and others from the top twelve entries - the chance to help accelerate their ideas into business with a week-long intensive workshop with BT and Microsoft UK. So - what about the plucky Brits? Alas, the Digital Recovery Environment didn't seem to be a sticky idea this year, and despite and excellent presentation and Q&A, Team Three Pair didn't reach the finals.  Never mind - now all eyes turn to Imagine Cup 2007, and Korea!  For those of you in the UK, it's likely that we'll be holding a similar event to last year to celebrate the best of UK student talent.  In addition, we'll be looking to get some great entries in the other competitions - IT Challenge, Short Film, Algorithm, Programming Battle and Interface Design.  I'll be blogging about the individual competitions over the next few weeks, but as ever, it's your students that count here.  This year's theme for the Software Design Challenge is... "Imagine a world in which technology enables a better education for all" Have a good look at our UK Imagine Cup site, and sign up for updates - there'll be plenty of chance to get your students involved, and get your hands on those tickets to Seoul! Read More BBC News Article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4789979.stm) UK Team's Diary (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5246630.stm) UK Academic Mentor's Blog (http://www.robmiles.com/display/ShowJournal?module...)   Andy Posted Tuesday, August 15, 2006 3:20 PM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Imagine Cup

• Windows CE 6.0 Hands On Lab

  For those of you that teach embedded systems, you may well be aware that Windows CE 6.0 has gone into Beta.  To help you get to grips with this, we have a Virtual Lab availble on MSDN.  It'll take you the best part of a couple of hours, but you won't need to have anything other than an ActiveX control installed to run this (which should make this an interesting experience outside of IE). The lab looks at configuring, building and debugging a CE image - let us know what you think. Andy Posted Wednesday, August 02, 2006 5:51 PM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Teaching Resources

• Learning Resources for SQL Server?

  SQL Server Express is a great database for students to learn the basic on - it's a fully featured RDBMS, and it's totally free.  I've been a fan of SQL Server since 6.5, and used it at all kinds of levels - from simple web sites through to enterprise data exchanges.  What amazed me about SLQ Express was the huge amount of functionality built into a free product. Best of all, there's a whole bunch of training material that's sprung up around it - ideal for self-directed learning.  A good place to start is the Learning Resources page, with around four hours of training videos that you can download and use in or out of class. And as always, there's plenty more - webcasts, ebooks, sample applications, articles, whitepapers, and of course, the Mircosoft staple - the newsletter. Have a dig, and let me know how you get on. Andy Posted Wednesday, August 02, 2006 6:24 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Teaching Resources