Android Tablet

On Tuesday the 6th of March 2007 I will be allowed to blog about a secret project I have been leading with some of the greatest minds available. It has been a very exciting project and one that has kept me away from the blog…sorry. Now that I am back however I am pleased with the results and looking forward to disclosing more. Not only have we crossed the globe, virtually, to deliver a solution unseen previously but we have also made use of a great array of resources still considered bleeding edge. Thanks to Samsung Australia, Microsoft Head Office Redmond, Microsoft MVPs and more, the results are huge.

The project is built using a combination of the latest Microsoft technologies and agile development practices. Dr. Neil, a Microsoft Regional Director for Australia, in collaboration with Tricky Business a boutique interaction design studio in the UK worked with Tegatech Australia to deliver a custom made solution for one of the world’s leading Car Manufacturers and UMPC.
Richard ‘Tricky’ Bassett, CEO of Tricky Business took a hands-on approach personally overseeing the design of the keyboard using the Microsoft Expression Blend toolkit. Microsoft Expression Blend produces XAML, a markup language used by the new Windows Presentation Foundation found in Microsoft .NET 3.0.

Dr. Neil was then able to take the keyboard designed in XAML and place in into a functioning application that was developed in parallel. The core of the application sits on the Windows Shell (the desktop) an uses the Win32 APIs, the frame that hosts the keyboard is written using Microsoft’s .NET 2.0 Framework and the keyboard user interface is developed using Microsoft’s .NET 3.0 Windows Presentation Foundation Working across the globe with the aid of Skype and shared notes in Microsoft OneNote, the team delivered a shining example of what is achievable today.

You’ll be surprised how simple the solution really is and see just how much potential Ultra-Mobile PC has. Stay tuned.