Surface at PDC09

(Should have posted this two months ago… Found it as a draft in Live Writer today…)

At the last day of PDC 2009 I attended the only session about Microsoft Surface. It was presented by Robert Levy who is Program Manager for the Surface team and his equivalent from the WPF team. The session was interesting and it’s always to see the fun stuff that the Surface team has cocked up. This time it was the Surface Monster that stole the show. Videos and more info is available on http://www.surface.com/monster

The WPF-demos showed of the multi touch capabilities of WPF 4 where you can scale, rotate and transform objects on touch enabled hardware. The example is similar as in my previous blog post (multi touch). Please note that that example is for beta 1 for Visual Studio and that some things have changed to beta 2. I plan to post an upgrade soon.

The session was probably perfect for those who were new to touch or new to Surface and also draw some applauds from the crowd. For a developer already up and running with Surface it was fun but not much new. I would have liked to see another session on the program with Surface SDK Deep Dive or Performance Tips When Developing for Microsoft Surface or Surface from the Trenches – Experiences from a Real World Surface project. What I look for is more level of depth with two sessions, one introduction and one a bit deeper.

One new announcement was the Surface Touch Pack for Windows 7 that will enable you to use the same controls in WPF for Windows 7 as you do in Surface which is really cool! Robert also “announced” that they are working on units that will be cheaper, thinner and wall mountable. That wasn’t too hard to guess and no real details were available. I was hoping to hear something about Surface SDK 2.0 that hopefully will be on the way with some new controls, new gestures and maybe detection of a hand in the contact events.

Earlier on the conference I did get a chance to show the two applications that I have been part of the development team for, Sonicspree and HelpingHands. The feedback from Robert and another guy whose name I can’t remember were all positive. Not sure that they liked what we had done with the element menu but I think they bought the reasons we had for doing what we did. We have changed the behavior of the element menu in HelpingHands so that it will act more like a toggle menu and stick even when the user removes her finger.

All in all it has been a good PDC from a Surface point of view. Cool stuff on the session, one on one time with the team and confidence in that the applications we develop at Connecta are top notch!

Alive again

When I wrote my last blogpost about Surface our unit was dead. That was before the summer but now we are back on track again. The unit got replaced by Microsoft and our new SP1-unit is now up and running again at Connectas head quarters in Stockholm. There is still some work to do to get every application installed again but most of the work has already been done by a colleague of mine. Last week I conducted a demo for a group of people at a large Swedish company which was really fun. I think it sparked many thoughts among the participants. Before the demo I Connecta-branded the Music and Photos app and did the final install of Sonicspree.

Regarding Sonicspree there has been some development over the summer. Some of the work was regarding bug fixes but most importantly, virtual dice! So now the application can be started without the fantastic dice that Ergonomidesign created for Sonicspree to From Business to Buttons. This facilitates a lot because it has previously been a bit sensitive to where we store the dice.


This fall we will have two more or less public appearances with Surface. The first is at Microsoft Parter Summit on the first of October at Kistamässan in Kista, Stockholm, Sweden. We will be there with our Surface to show Sonicspree to the masses and where we also will attend .NET Awards. I hope that every reader will take a minute to place a vote for us here. Seriously, it takes less than a minute!

The other event we will attend is Sign Scandinavia in November but more information on that later.

Internally we have been working on a demo together with SAP on Surface. I personally haven’t been involved in the development of the application but there is some form of SAP/Connecta-event on Wednesday so I think the project should be done really soon.

This was just a short update to let you all know that we don’t have a dead Surface anymore but one that is alive and kicking.

Our Surface is dead!

On the last day of the Malmö conference our Surface unit broke down! After shipping it from Stockholm to Malmö (about 600 km/370 miles) everything worked perfect on the press viewing and on the first day of the conference. But on the second day it didn’t boot!

You can hear the fan start and all the status lights indicate normal running mode but nothing happens on the screen. We checked the project lamp, plugged out BlueTooth usb, plugged in an external monitor but nothing changed. It was dead!

Last week I got in contact with a Surface Escalation Engineer that tried to help me get access to the registry. There is one setting that says what x-coordinate the display starts at and that might get corrupted if you unplug an external monitor the wrong way. I have seen it happen with the Surface Shell not showing up on the table but never during boot. I think it is a very strange solution that the bios checks the registry for this value. It feels like the table should always boot with the table as main display.

Anyway, it was impossible to get access to anything on the unit. The I/O panel is completely dead. I don’t get an IP-address and there is no response when I plug in an usb mouse or keyboard. And since I will void the warranty if I try to open the unit and since there are no Surface technicians in Sweden a complete exchange is the only way to solve this issue.

Microsoft has been really helpful with my case, both from Microsoft Sweden and thru the Surface Community. But I still think it is remarkable that they sell a piece of hardware for +10.000€ with no technicians in the country!

By the way, I just got the exchange confirmation and the new table will arrive next week. The good thing is that now it is delivered with SP1. The bad thing is that I’m having hours after hours of installing and configuration to get the unit back to where it was when it broke!

Table on tour again

In the beginning of May I wrote a blog post about the coolest project in Sweden. Since then Connecta and Ergonomidesing have been working really hard to finish an application to From Business to Buttons starting in Malmö tomorrow. I have to say that I’m really happy with the result and looking forward to show it to a crowd that probably will be a critical one since the main focus for the conference is user experience. But confident as I am – that will be no problem! The UIX-people on our team has done a great job!

The application that we have built is a music game and I will get back with more details on that after the conference.

The table was supposed to get picked up by DHL yesterday but they failed big time. Apparently some delivery guy from DHL went to Connecta yesterday, didn’t find the table, and then went home. I suppose that he had a bad day and I can’t blame him but he certainly ruined my morning. A phone call at 8.30 from my colleague Marcus: “The table is still here as Connecta, is that a problem?” Panic, stress and gastric ulcer!

DHL says that they are responsible but that they don’t have a car available to drive the table to Malmö. The clock is ticking. A lot of time and money invested in this project. On site set up and deployment today in Malmö and the conference starting tomorrow. What to do?

Urban Falck to the rescue!

A new phone call, this time from another colleague; Urban Falck. Urban is a guy that doesn’t see many problems or obstacles. His solution was: I’ll take the 125 kilo pallet with the Surface table in my tiny car and drive down to Malmö! Hey, it’s only 600 km!




So, the table is in a car and on its way with Urban. Marcus is on site and responsible for the bits and the dice (more on that later) and I’m still in Stockholm. Tomorrow is last day in Pre School for my oldest daughter and then departure to Malmö.

Hope to see you at From Business to Buttons on Friday!

Surface on tour

Today our Elvis has left the building! I just got an email with a proof of delivery that the messenger service has picked up our Surface table and is expected to deliver it to the Sheraton hotel in Stockholm later tonight. Tomorrow is the first day of Cornerstones conference Developer Summit and Connecta will be in the exhibition together with Microsoft and our Surface table. To this event three of our developers have worked really hard to finish a first version of an application used to present Connecta. I have been promised the final bits on email later today!

On the table we also have the latest applications from Microsoft, including the three games released last week and the Mobile Connect Sample Application. The later not yet installed but based on the previous installation experiences, it should be no problem. The four games are Chess, Checkers, Tiles and Ribbons.

The Microsoft Surface Mobile Connect sample application connects a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to a Microsoft Surface unit to enable users to interact with data and contacts on their phone. To be able to use the application you have to have an application installed on your phone and you have to have a Bluetooth stack from Microsoft.

So if you are at Developer Summit 2009, come by the Microsoft booth, say hi and touch the Surface!

iBar from Mindstrom

Today I tried the iBar from Mindstrom. They say that it is the first commercially available multi-touch, interactive, customisable bar in the world and, as far as I know has similar setup as Microsoft Surface. The form factor is different and that’s what makes the product really interesting but Surface seems way ahead when it comes to the technology side. Microsoft Surface feels more robust and has better 360-degree capabilities. In the demos I saw and tried there was no notion of orientation on the things placed on the bar.

The iBar is about four feet (120 cm) high and maybe seven feet (210 cm) wide but you can connect several iBars together.

We have talked about building some sort of podium for our Surface to be able to work at it standing. Today’s demo of the iBar convinced me even more. It is really hard to sit at a Surface-table for a longer period of time since you don’t really have a comfortable way of sitting around it. There is no where to place your legs.

I’m really looking forward to see what other form factors Microsoft are planning for coming versions of Surface!

The table is here!

Finally the table is in our hands. It was some time ago that the table arrived but I haven’t had time to write anything about it so far. The table was delivered by UPS and they deliver thru the first door of the house. After that it is you own responsibility to move it to the desired location. There is a Site Readiness Guide and I really recommend reading it carefully, specially the parts about Surface Dimensions and Weight. The shipping crate that the unit comes in is huge! I had just assumed that it would arrive on a pallet of standard size but the pallet was wider and didn’t go thru the door. So I had to unpack the Surface unit outside our office and carry it with bare hands. Well not alone since the table weights almost 90 kg.

Our setup consists of a wall mounted flat screen monitor as a primary display and a Logitech DiNovo Edge Bluetooth keyboard with integrated touchpad for input. I have also set up Live Mesh to simplify deployment of applications that don’t need an installer but more on that on another post.

Setting up the table was really easy thanks to the great video on the community site where Greg Swanson and David Nichols unpacks and installs a unit. The video can be found under Training Videos in the downloads-section and is named “Installing a Surface Unit”. When you have placed an order, make sure to ask for access to the Surface community via the Surface Business Desk!
At first I was struggling a bit to be able to set up the primary and secondary monitors correctly. I tried to use my normal plug-in-an-external-monitor-to-Windows-Vista-skills but didn’t realize that there is a shortcut to an application to set up the monitors on the desktop. With that in hand the set up was really easy.

After setting up the monitors, the administrators account, installing antivirus and hooking the unit to our domain it was time to start the Surface Shell. Excited to try our own unit for the first time I forgot to start Surface Input with the result that nothing happened when interacting with the Surface. Then I remembered Dr. Neil saying “There is nothing wrong with the table. Just start Surface Input first.” Surface Input is started by a shortcut on the desktop and starts an application that activates the cameras and makes the unit ready for input.

The last two days the unit has been placed in the reception during some events that we have had with customers and the response is massive. People love it! One thing that I have noticed is that it is really interesting to observe new users from a distance. See what they do and how they try to interact with the applications. A lot try to double click and if they don’t receive feedback on interaction right away they start to touch all over the place. One of our developers has built an application that reads image libraries from our Intranet based on SharePoint. It uses the classic folder metaphor and when a user sees a folder they have to double click! But in this application one click on a folder loads the pictures and the next click on the same folder hides the pictures. So by observing users you can learn a lot! This is of course nothing new but became really obvious when they are not only interacting with a new application but also with a new type of interface.

Now the unit is going back to the developer cave again and that feels good. It is impossible to sit in a public area and develop and test applications.

Interviewed on MSDN Radio.

I have been interviewed on Swedish MSDN Radio! Last week Dag König, who is a Product Technology Specialist at Microsoft Sweden, talked to me about out Surface in general, Surface development and out plans with Surface at Connecta. The interview is in Swedish and is entitled “We put all the cards on the table with Microsoft Surface.” The show is over an hour and the Surface-stuff starts at about 27 minutes into the show and last for 20 minutes.

The interview

Surface training

When me and Jouni were at the Surface training in Munich Jouni wrote an application that uses the raw images from the cameras. The table consists of five cameras, four cameras that take pictures of the corners and one that takes a picture in the center. Then there is a process that goes from the raw images to a binary version of the image with each pixel either black or white for faster processing. The screen is divided into a grid containing one-inch squares. The next step is to place each frames contact data into shared memory and tell the SDK that data is available and ready to use.

The fact that cameras are used and not just a touch screen is what makes Microsoft Surface so special. Things that happen on the surface are recognized and even things that happen above the surface are noticed. About one inch above things starts to happen.

The course that we attended took place at one of Microsoft’s Technology Centers (MTC). There are three MTC in Europe, Dublin, Paris and Munich. On these centers Microsoft have three types of offerings, Strategy Briefing, Architecture Design Session and Proof of Concept Workshop. The center was really great even if the lunch was a logistical challenge. You can read more about the centers here: http://www.microsoft.com/mtc/default.mspx

I had to try Jounis application and the quality of the images that you get from the cameras with my face. "Thank god they can be cleaned was Dr Niels diagnosis."


The resulting image

Jouni in action

Ordering a Surface Table

So how do you do when you want to order a Surface table? The first thing you need to do is to contact your local Microsoft representative. From her/him you will get an order form that you are supposed to send to an email address. After that there is nothing. I didn’t get any reply, no confirmation and no nothing. So I waited for a couple of days and then I contacted the local Microsoft representative again and he contacted the Surface Business Desk and managed to get a delivery date! Or at least a date when our unit will leave the warehouse in Germany. So on the 29th of January it will leave Germany so in the beginning of February it will arrive to Stockholm. I can’t wait!

In the reply from the Surface Business Desk they also said that the team working with the shipments is working fast and furiously to ramp up and ship units to customers. It would be really interesting to know how many units that are ordered in Sweden and in the rest of Europe.

I’m still waiting to get the exact shipping details and logistics so that I soon can get my hand on our big ass table!

I'm a Surface Developer, yes I am!

This blog, Surface Developer, is about developing for the Microsoft Surface.

The company that I work for, Connecta AB, finally agreed to let me order a Surface table yesterday. So now we have assigned a Scrum Master, formed a Scrum team, set one person responsible for the business parts and myself as responsible for the technical aspects. I will also be part of the Scrum team as a developer.

Hopefully I will get someone else from the team to contribute to this blog but I will wait with any deeper presentation of the team members until then.

I myself also run a blog in Swedish at http://bjorneriksen.blogspot.com but my feeling is that this might attract an international horde of readers so I assume that English is a more suitable language.

Hopefully we will be able to post videos, pictures and stuff about the applications that we develop.

Right now I'm waiting for a comfirmation of my order and a planned delivery date and it is also time to start planning a kick off!