September 2008 Entries
I have been pursuing when high school students will be getting the free software that Microsoft promised with the DreamSpark announcement back in February. I finally have been communicating with the team that is in charge of this and I've been told not to announce the release date but only to tell you that it will be soon. Real soon! The distribution will be different from what college students have been doing. The high school computer science teacher must register. The high school administrators/faculty...
Last February, Bill Gates announced a free software giveaway to college university students and high school students as well. Here is what was offered to them: Microsoft developer tools. Visual Studio is the Swiss Army knife of computer programming. These professional-grade products provide a security-enhanced and reliable environment, enabling students to program everything from a cell phone to a robot or to create their own Web page. Students will also be able to invent compelling new gaming content...
Kudos for Microsoft to open up a Research facility amongst the brains that walk around Cambridge, MA. Microsoft’s other research laboratories are located in Redmond, Wash., California’s Silicon Valley, China, India and England. What is interesting is that the purpose of this lab is not to come up with widgets and products. It's going to be a place to think. No better location than in Cambridge. Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Research...
So back in August, I blogged about this site because of my excitement for XNA and Academics. I was hoping to use whatever came on the site with my programming students. I was hoping that by now Microsoft either put content on the site or take it off and stop teasing us educators. To date nothing! Everyone is waiting patiently for content and I know one person who isn't waiting so patiently..... What gives? Technorati Tags: Microsoft, XNA, Academics, Creators Club...
Microsoft MVP, Rob Miles has emailed all who are interested in reviewing his new XNA curriculum. I had a chance to look at Part 1 today and it looks good to use for any high school programming course that wants to introduce XNA into the curriculum. The curriculum will have a total of 8 parts: Part 1: An Introduction to ProgrammingPart 2: Controlling GamesPart 3: Displaying MessagesPart 4: Pictures and SoundsPart 5: A Complete GamePart 6: Creating GameplayPart 7: Complex Games Part 8: Multi Player...
Microsoft MVP, Rob Miles is writing some XNA curriculum. YAAA! He write a good XNA book and he teaches at the University of Hull. His site called Very Silly Games made this announcement. Visit his site and send him an email to be put on a list. Technorati Tags: xna, curriculum...
Microsoft has been lowering the price of the XBOX 360 in different countries recently and North America is the latest where there are price drops happening. You can get the low end version of the 360 for 199 bucks. That's an 80 dollar difference. The higher end sells for $399 and originally sold for $449. One has to question if another model is coming out in the distant future! Technorati Tags: Microsoft, XBOX...
Apparently Google sees the need to compete with highly popular Internet Explorer and Firefox according to this article. The product is called Chrome and it suppose to have a more sophisticated Web browser better suited for displaying the dynamic and interactive content blossoming on the Web. Today was going to be the release of the product but there is no official news from Google as to when we can look at the new browser. I'm not sure if we need another browser but like everyone else, I'll take...