Flash (SWF) to WPF (XAML) converter

Micheal Swanson, Microsoft Technical Evangelist has put out a very useful tool which can convert Adobe Flash SWF files to XAML, the declarative UI language for WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). I belive that this tool will definitely ease and aid in adoption of WPF and also help developers understand XAML programming semantics and paradigm.

SWF File Format can be found here, in case you're interested.

ePaper

"The Hindu" - India's National Newspaper has released its ePaper, an online edition of its printed daily. I'm impressed by the simplicity and elegance of ePaper. Its infact a very innovative use of a simple technology -- map on image which brings to the user the feeling of reading "real" newspaper.


In my opinion from an implementation prespective, the scanned images of the printed paper (Digital Assets) must have been annotated with appropriate text links as metadata. The publishing system would have to pull and these together and publish them on the web. The PDF/Text option allows the user to choose his format of choice for viewing.

I installed Times Reader bulit on Windows Presentation Foundation (.NET 3.0) as a standalone application. There is no doubt that this also brings a user experience of reading the real newspaper. I would assume that this will be the future web version of NY Times as WPF-E (Everywhere) becomes available.

Update: Recently I stumbled upon provider of ePaper technology - PressMart

Brightcove ties the knot - Owner, Publisher and Ads

Brightcove, the video syndication startup released its newest offering Brightcove Network -- Video marketplace. The Brightcove Network allows anyone to launch their own Internet TV channel in a self-service manner. The service is free and allows unlimited utilization of Brightcove's bandwidth. Brightcove Network provides the technology platform that allows both individuals and media mougals to get to market rapidly. Their adveritising platform -- Brightcove AdNet is designed to generate revnue for the Publisher (50-50 between Publisher and Brightcove).

For the Geeks, there is Open API --- programming interfaces on top of Brightcove's HTML/JavaScript/Flash platform.

IView @ Microsoft: DAM

IView, a Digital Asset Management company is recently acquired by Microsoft. Channel 9 has an interesting video of the team talking about their product and company. I agree with the developer comment on the interview that cracking the RAW proprietary format is a challenge, it is indeed a great challenge. The team has a Windows platform developer so I would speculate the integration of their product into core Windows obviously.

GoogTube buzz

Today the blogsphere is screaming about the Google - YouTube deal. Thanks to the deal new billionaries are born. It would be interesting to see if Google would syndicate the content of the Google Videos and YouTube or if they would integrate at all?

Google also signed a deal with Warner Music and Sony to distribute their content to the world.

Now, the question is whats next?

The invite from Microsoft for beta testing soapbox finally arrived! The interface and organization of video is very user intutive. I really like the Categories feature.

tags: tech, technology, digital, video, microsoft, google, youtube