nsquared Surface goes to School

It seems the weeks are getting busier here, whether or not our unit is the studio or not. Last week our Surface device went back to school, loaded up with our Surface Education Pack Apps.

It spent the week in a classroom filled with very excited 6-8 year olds who dubbed it the "Cooperation Table". While they did have to learn to cooperate, it seemed to us that it was a lesson learned very quickly. From our initial observations, we confirmed once again that Surface definitely has a place in Australian classrooms. Its social design encourages cooperative and collaborative interaction. It also provides a very safe and effective place for competitive learning activities.

We are very grateful for, and lucky to have the support of Curl Curl North Public School Teacher, Gretel Watson. Gretel is an extremely passionate and dedicated teacher with a talent for innovation, so she was happy to be able to trial Surface and provide valuable feedback to us. We were also strongly supported by Sue Beveridge, who drives the Connected Classroom's programme of the NSW DET. Thanks to Sue's support and links, we'll shortly be able to post a video of action from last week here, so stay tuned.

nsquared at the Gartner IT Summit

At the launch of Microsoft® Surface® early last month, we had the opportunity to show off some of the apps we've been creating for the Education market. Since then, one of those has been given the honour of being only the third Surface application in the world to bear the Certified for Microsoft Surface badge.

Late last week, Microsoft asked us to supply some business-focused apps for display on their Surface unit at the Gartner Business Intelligence and Information Management Summit that was held on Tuesday and Wednesday this week at the Sydney Exhibition centre. We provided them with some ideas that we’ve been working on and that were ready to demo. We have other projects we’re working on in this space and hope to show you more in the coming months. For now, on display at the Garner conference were:

1. nsquared Schedules – uses tagged business cards to view and share the details of your exchange account calendars. It's also designed to allow you to reschedule, follow up, delete, and create new appointments all with the touch of a finger (or two).
2. nsquared Office Images allows you to view, share and discuss business information created in Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents using Surface. Great for the Board Room or for international Board meetings with connected Surface Tables.
3. nsquared Stock Exchange – a visual application that lets you view your share portfolio in real time and respond to changes in the market.

Take a look and let us know what you think!