Microsoft’s XNA announcements were not the only news to come out of the Game Developers Conference related to user community development tools for games. Sony will be releasing their PhyreEngine tools, which will allow development of games that can be recompiled for the PS3. PhyreEngine has already been used to create several games that are
Microsoft releases dev software to students
In their journey to get everyone hooked on their dev tools, Microsoft has rolled out DreamSpark, a site where students can download: Visual Studio 2008 Expression Studio Windows Server 2003 XNA Game Studio 2.0 These products are great for folks who are just starting out in development and design. They are free to students on
Globe Glider – Try some geo-browsing
Our reader Ed always sends us great links to cool applications and projects, and Globe Glider is another great find. According to the site, it’s a “geo-browser” with an interface that allows users to search and browse by location. Both a Google Maps and Virtual Earth interface are available (you can also use it in
Highlighting a few geospatial podcasts
I am, as usual, a bit behind on the blogs and podcasts. But as I am catching up (aka procrastinating writing) I wanted to highlight a couple of podcasts that have come out recently. Directions Podcast (Jan 17) – focuses on Agile development ESRI Speaker Series (Jan 16) – Interview with authors of Placing History
Second Annual ArcGIS Server Code Challenge
Our good friend and GIS Day Mate (GDM for short) Rick Lawson sent me a note about the 2008 ArcGIS Server Code Challenge. If you’re the programming sort and have a hankerin’ for an extra $25,000 bucks, you might want to enter. Entries have to use ArcServer 9.2 and must be uploaded to the ArcScripts
Google, Facebook join DataPortability workgroup
DataPortability announced today that Google, Facebook, and Plaxo have joined the DataPortability Workgroup on creating open standards for social networking data. DataPortability’s mission is ” To put all existing technologies and initiatives in context to create a reference design for end-to-end Data Portability. To promote that design to the developer, vendor and end-user community.” In
Japanese researchers continue to blur the virtual-real world boundary
A couple of projects by Japanese researchers show that work in the area of augmented or mixed reality is really pushing the boundary between the real and virtual worlds. Michihiko Shoji, a researcher at the Yokohama Nationa University Venture Business Laboratory, has developed a virtual humanoid called U-Tsu-Shi-O-Mi. The robot is covered in a green
4D Cities – photo-based 3D reconstructions of urban change
I just read an article at NewScientistTech about a cool software application called 4D Cities, developed by Frank Dellaert and Grant Schindler of Georgia Institute of Technology and Sing Bing Kang of Microsoft Research (His group worked on some of the technologies related to the Photosynth project). The project is being funded by NSF and
BBC collaborating on new Photosynth collections
In conjunction with their new series “How We Built Britain”, the BBC is collaborating with Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth team on a new set of collections called Your Britain in Pictures (Jesse tells me that this was mentioned briefly during the virtual globes session at ISDE5 last Friday) that will feature some of Britain’s most
WooHoo…time to play with code
Summer is here, grades are turned in, time to play with the toys. As some of you know we have been waiting anxiously for ArcGIS Engine 9.2 to upgrade some projects for the day jobs and try out some of the new bells and whistles. Since they pushed Engine into a new EDN package for
































