nsquared documents 2.1

The Surface Hub is an incredible achievement. As an interactive multi-user screen it presents a canvas (or surface if you will) upon which your team can collaborate, create, brainstorm, and present ideas.

As a true multi-user device, you do not login to the Surface Hub; who would be the person logged in when a team needs to work together at the screen? Authenticating the entire session for a single person makes sense if only one person is going to need to access their data. The latest update to Windows 10 Creators update does do this, and it alleviates the challenge for a single presenter.

When you have a meeting with multiple people, who want to bring their content to the screen, you need a way for each person to authenticate. Authentication on the Surface Hub is a cumbersome experience. If you log in using the on-screen touch-keyboard you are sharing your password with all the people watching. This is made far worse if your Surface Hub is projected out to other screens on a teleconference or in room.

To solve this problem at nsquared we built nsquared documents, an application that allows multiple people to authenticate with their accounts on the Surface Hub, in the same session. With nsquared documents you associate an NFC tag with your account the first time you use the application.

In the first version we released you could connect to your OneDrive for Business account using your Office 365 account. In version 2.0 we expanded nsquared documents to support your SharePoint and Dropbox accounts. You still only need a single NFC tag and you can access any of the accounts you have added to your profile.

This latest release enables you to also add your OneDrive personal account to the same tag.

With nsquared documents 2.1 you and your team can access files from Dropbox, Office 365, and OneDrive personal accounts.

Create an NFC tag to connect to any of these cloud document stores

Add other cloud document stores to your tag in nsquared documents 2.1

If you are using a Surface Hub, please download the free trial of nsquared documents from here

If there are any features you would like to see added to nsquared documents please let us know.

For more details please watch the video

Microsoft Surface Hub - Whiteboard collaboration settings

At a recent Sydney Surface Hub user group meeting there was a question asked about preventing the Whiteboard app from sharing. 

There are a some settings that can be changed on the Surface Hub to enable or disable sharing of the Whiteboard. 

Disable Sharing

Hide entry points from the Share button, hiding export in the Share charm and Collaboration.

Disable Export

Users cannot send Whiteboards using email, thumb drives, or other mechanisms through the Share charm.

Please follow the link below for more information:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-au/surface-hub/manage-settings-with-mdm-for-surface-hub

Microsoft Surface Hub - BitLocker Issue

At a recent Sydney Surface Hub user group the topic was raised on how to recover a Surface Hub from a BitLocker locked situation.

If the Surface Hub is BitLocker locked for whatever reason without BitLocker code recorded, in addition to the option of sending a spare SSD, the other option is to ‘reset’ the locked device using ‘Cloud Recovery’. This feature is only supported in Creator’s Update. Refer to below screen flow for process. This process can take up to 2-3 hours.

1. Press 'Esc' on keyboard.

2. Press 'Skip this drive'.

3. Click 'Recover from the cloud'.

4. Press 'Yes'.

5. Press 'Reinstall'.

Microsoft Ignite Australia 2017 - Conversations as a Platform

Have you ever wondered how a computer can learn to speak to a human? Siri and Cortana are recent examples of conversation bots, but the technology has been around for decades in different forms. Last week Dr Neil Roodyn from nsquared presented talks at Microsoft’s Australian tech conference, Ignite. His first two talks were about building bots that can hold a conversation with a customer, and potential ways in which this process could be used for business.

Click on the links below to watch the presentations.   

Conversation as a Platform Part 1 
Neil discusses the ways in which conversations have evolved in contemporary life through the use of various forms of technology. He explains how to code a conversational bot in Microsoft Visual Studio, using the example of ordering food online. Neil talks about how developers can create a good structure for the code, and explains the complex steps of chaining dialogs.

   

Conversation as a Platform Part 2 
In Part 2 Neil discusses ways in which we can create richer conversations between customers and applications. He discusses ways in which programs can make devices seem more intelligent, and how they can use data and ‘machine learning’ to gather information to make accurate predictions about customers. He talks in depth about LUIS – Language Understanding Intelligent Service, which allows apps to understand language. 

Microsoft Ignite Australia

Developers, IT professionals and curious minds across Australia are heading to the Gold Coast next week (14-17 Feb) for Microsoft's Australian Conference, Ignite. Attendees are expected to walk away with new connections and new ideas about how to do things faster, smarter and better.

At nsquared we're most excited about Dr Neil Roodyn's six presentations.
Come and say hello, and remember nsquared is hiring developers.

Conversation As a Platform Part 1

Tue 14 Feb, 4:15 PM

Speak to me, make your app conversational. In this session you will learn how to integrate Cortana, speech, and the Microsoft Bot Framework into your applications.

Read more

Building apps for Surface Hub - 30 minutes of tips, tricks and q&a on Surface Hub dev.

Wed 15 Feb, 1:00 PM

In this session come and find out about building apps for Microsoft’s biggest most stunning screen.

Read more

Conversation As a Platform Part 2

Wed 15 Feb, 6:30 PM

Enlighten me, make your app smarter. In this session you will learn how to integrate cognitive services and machine learning into your conversational applications.

Read more

Developing for Surface Dial and Surface Studio

Thu 16 Feb, 11:30 AM

If building great software for really cool hardware is what gets you up in the morning, this session is for you!

Read more

Building apps for Surface Hub - 30 minutes of tips, tricks and q&a on Surface Hub dev.

Thu 16 Feb, 3:00 PM

In this session come and find out about building apps for Microsoft’s biggest most stunning screen.

Read more

Building apps for Surface Hub - 30 minutes of tips, tricks and q&a on Surface Hub dev.

Fri 17 Feb, 9:45 AM

In this session come and find out about building apps for Microsoft’s biggest most stunning screen.

Read more

Design and Develop Apps for Surface Hub

In the second half of 2016, Dr. Neil, a director of nsquared, spent some time at Microsoft's headquarter office in Redmond, WA to present training in the design and development of apps for the Microsoft Surface Hub.

The Surface Hub has the potential to have a huge impact on the way we interact in office meetings. It is perhaps the ultimate window Microsoft has created; it is a portal to another room. Skype images appear high-quality and allow for natural conversation. Its touchscreen capabilities allow multiple users to interact with it like a simple whiteboard, a place to write up ideas and involve a group.

Designing for the Surface Hub presents its own set of challenges. How can it be accessible for all people, including those who may be in wheel-chairs, for example? How can multiple users interact with it effectively?

The work we have been doing at nsquared has provided a fantastic foundation to support the delivery of great Surface Hub apps. At nsquared we have been focused on building software for large multi-user interactive displays for over eight years. We know the value of large shared screen devices in public spaces and enterprise meeting rooms.

The lessons we have learned are shared and discussed in a series of training videos presented by Dr. Neil. From set-up, to design, to developing; these videos cover how to create great apps for Surface Hub. Presented with the help of Sankar Nemani and Jackie Giusti from Microsoft, they are essential viewing for prospective Surface Hub designers and developers. 

Click here to watch the training videos. 

Win10 What's Up!

A few months ago we were approached by Microsoft to build some fun apps to help junior developers take advantage of the awesome new features of Windows 10.

Optical character recognition technology, IoT hub, Raspberry Pi, the Windows Universal Application Platform… we had a lot to cover in a few small applications.

The result is 4 Win10 Quick Starts, 4 awesome apps:

1. DoorBell. Whodat? Connect to a Raspberry Pi and send a picture of that person at your door straight to your phone. It's so meta.
2.  
3. MusicSync. Never again will you need to synchronise several people in different rooms of your house to hit the play button at the same time. Synchronise music playback through all of your Win10 devices to get the party started. 
4.  
5. CardReader. Throw away that dusty pile of business cards, CardReader automatically transfers them straight into your Windows People app. 
6.  
7. TugOWar. Who is the fastest clicker in the west? Compete against your friends in a heated battle by connecting to up to four Win10 devices.

Test out your coding skills and build something cool, fun and useful. Find them all on the Windows Dev site here.

 
Learn more about nsquared  by  following us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

More Personal World

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed" 

- William Gibson

Everything we need to make computers more personal already exists and has existed for a long time. The main change is the price point. You no longer need to be as rich as Tony Stark in order to have this tech in your hands.

Futuristic tech is no longer limited to the richest few. Real life Tony Stark, Elon Musk. Source: amazonaws.com

Over the coming few years, Moore's law will continue to apply and technology will become more and more personal.

Today on the sunny Gold Coast of Australia, our very own Dr. Neil Roodyn is presenting at Ignite Australia on how to build more personal software for more personal computers. In his talk he will be showing developers how they can build software that has more context awareness and more natural interfaces using common hardware available today.

"Multi-touch technologies have a long history. To put it in perspective, the original work Undertaken by my team was done in 1984, the same year that the first Macintosh computer was released, and we were not the first." 

-Bill Buxton

 
Consider how a modern computer (yes, this includes your phone) can receive inputs; vision (camera), touch, gestures, ink (stylus), speech, identity (fingerprint scanner, face recognition, etc.) These inputs can be used by software to change the way people interact with computers, making the interaction more personal and more natural.

This leads to output from new computers that is more natural as well, computers that speak to us, present emotional content that is tailored to our needs and output that is tangible, touchable, interactive, and even present in our spaces. Technologies such as HoloLens are providing a glimpse into an exciting future on new modes of interactions.

More emotional content fed to us by our devices will mean a limitless number of exciting possibilities. nsquared's iBook, The Digital Table, presents our vision for how we see technology, and simultaneously, our relationships, changing.
 
Technology tailored to us, the future is looking good.

For more on how technology is changing the way we behave, follow nsquared on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

How Old Do You Really Look?

The Microsoft How Old? Project has been a phenomenon. The app, built to show off the new Windows 10 facial recognition API and the power of Azure cloud, uses algorithms to determine how old a user's face looks. And, understandably, it has become the definition of viral. It has grown faster than Facebook. It has even grown faster than Angry Birds. The stats speak for themselves:

• 1.2 million visitors per hour in 48 hours
• 540 million photos analysed to date
• More than 1/2 billion photos uploaded in 1 month
• 0-50 million users in just 7 days.
• Ellen even tweeted about it:

But don't stop at Ellen. THERE'S MORE.

We have exciting news: in a world first, the nsquared team is helping to bring the How Old? online experience into a real life experience.

All this work on How Old? has seemed to have weathered nsquared's faces by a few years, but stay tuned to see what this wrinkly crew has to offer. 

Windows 10 is here!

 The Windows 10 Launch in Sydney  Source: Microsoft

This week, Windows 10 was launched in 190 countries in spectacular fashion. With select cities across the globe ushering in the new operating system with parties worldwide, a few of our team went to join the Sydney celebrations.

Having a number of our machines running the new operating system, the nsquared team have been testing Windows 10 in the office for a few months. As well as a fantastic vision into the future of computing (read our post on Microsoft Continuum here), Windows 10 is a beautiful new interface and we are excited to see the launch of an inspired, responsive system.

The next generation of products is a great way to reflect on the progress of technology, and we can see clear jumps from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, giving a good indication as to where Microsoft see technology heading. As Surfaces grow, ‘holographic’ technology develops and new team-oriented products such as the Surface Hub become a reality, we at nsquared are excited to see the parochial ‘single-user’ idea of technology breaking down, as the tools for collaboration get more and more traction. Hooray future!

Ok Cortana, you did good. You did good.

To get interesting updated on new and multi-user technology, follow nsquared on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

What makes a mission statement great?

 

Satya Nadella - CEO of Microsoft Photo: NewYorker.com

This week Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, sent out a "State of the Union Microsoft" address email to his 118,000 global employees. In it, he detailed a vision for the next year, full of 'tough choices' and mobile-first, cloud-centric computing. As he has been sitting in the role for nearly 18 months now, it came as little surprise that he also announced his new mission for the company, finally updating the much maligned mission statement of his predecessor. It got us thinking in the nsquared office, what makes a good mission statement?

Let's have a quick look at the history of Microsoft's mission statement.

Under Bill Gates, the famous, metrics-focussed mission of an IT revolutionary: "A computer on every desk and in every home."

The more controversial verbosity of Steve Ballmer came next with his idea to, "create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most."

And finally, Nadella announced he wants "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more."

While there is similarities in all of them, you can see a particular preoccupation from each CEO and a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve, some maybe more evocative than others.

So how do other company's compare?

Google - Google's mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Coca Cola - To refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, to create value and make a difference

Amazon - To be Earth's most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online

Virgin Atlantic - our mission statement is simple, yet the foundation of everything we do here at Virgin Atlantic Airways… to embrace the human spirit and let it fly.

nsquared - putting digital tables everywhere.

So what makes a mission statement great? A mission is basically a giant, long-term objective, a collective goal to strive for as an organisation - what makes a mission statement great is the visionary behind the idea and the people executing it every day.

If you would like to receive more updates about what is happening in our world, follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or subscribe to our VIP mailing list.

Making large format multi-user screens easier to use

Shared screens should be accessible

The face of technology has changed quickly since the invention of the first computers and it continues to do. So that we can continue to get the benefits of the new platform offerings we need to move our management policies forward in keeping with the use case scenarios of the various devices.

Which user should log in?

Large format displays driven by touch input are being placed into meeting rooms, foyers, and other shared spaces. Increasingly they’re placed in these spaces with the specific intent that several people will use them simultaneously and collaboratively without intermediary devices such as the keyboard and mouse.  Multi user screens, particularly those in horizontal format, are designed to enhance conversations and communication. Conversations flow more naturally and meetings can come to resolution more effectively and efficiently.

To provide their full design benefit these devices need to be easily accessible and available for anyone that comes into the space, as are whiteboards, phones and light.

In an enterprise environment this means a couple of things:

1. The large format shared-screen computer should not be domain joined. 

2. Any network resources required for the screen to operate need to be provided to the PC that is driving the screen.

This thinking represents a new way forward and a change in the way all computers in an organisation are treated equally. Shared computer experiences are a different use case to personal devices and need to have different permissions set.

If you want to find out more get in touch with us at nsquared.

Your digital tables are safe when using nsquared software

nsquared software innately prevents the introduction of malware to your digital table whether it’s a Samsung SUR40, Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC. 

How does it work to prevent members, guests or students from making things crazy, I hear you ask?

It’s simple. nsquared software doesn’t display pop ups, or files that are irrelevant to the contextual case for which it’s designed.  Files that are relevant (such as images, videos, PDFs and MS Office files) are displayed as rendered images of those files, not live files, and any links are inactivated. This means that there isn’t an opportunity to click on malware executable files disguised as harmless links in Word, Excel, Powerpoint or PDF files.

nsquared maps and nsquared web, both of which display content directly from the world wide web, block pop-ups. This means that in User mode, there is no way for any of your members or guests to activate malware (or any other software) installations. 

Even if a USB stick containing malware files is introduced, the only files that will be recognized and rendered are PDFs, image and video files, and MS Office files. The software isn’t designed to seek or display other files (such as .exe files) so even if malware files are present, they won’t be recognized or rendered by the software.

When using nsquared software the security of your digital table and network is honoured by design. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us 

nsquared presenter for iPhone

As a seasonal gift from nsquared we are happy to offer you the iPhone version of nsquared presenter for free.
With nsquared presenter for iPhone you can send images and movies directly to your digital tables, touch screens and presentation screens that are running nsquared presenter.

iPhone 5s running nsquared presenter

Download nsquared presenter for iPhone from here.

Our Story, Our Goal

nsquared is a leading edge development company that specialises in creating multi-user, massive multi-touch software for digital tables. We pride ourselves on standing out from the crowd by delivering unique, innovative and highly functional off-the-shelf products. Our customers can be found across a wide variety of vertical market sectors and backgrounds.

We have one ambitious, straightforward goal; to get people talking and collaborating together again to move the world forward, by putting digital tables everywhere. 

Our goal motivates us to design and build robust applications that work seamlessly in 360 degree, collaborative environments across a variety of platforms. We already have a number of amazing, forward thinking clients in business, education, government and hospitality that are embracing the vision and using our products to enhance and improve their spaces.

Each of our products is thoughtfully designed to stimulate conversation, encourage collaboration and create deep, long-lasting connections with people. Our customers recognize this and choose us because our software empowers them with the tools that make their content more meaningful.

nsquared is Australia’s only Microsoft Premier Partner for PixelSense and one of seven Premier Partners around the globe. nsquared has an extensive global footprint and our software can be found across the world in the Unites States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.

Get ahead of the curve and ask us how nsquared products can take your organization to the cutting edge today. Email us - enquiries@nsquaredsolutions.com  

nsquared feature in The Australian

Well look what we’ve just found in the nsquared archive…

Our highly publicized feature in The Australian!

Chris Griffith, a prominent IT writer for The Australian, visited our nsquared technology studio in Sydney to have a chat about the power of social computing around the Samsung SUR40.

The original article was published on July 10, 2012 – Read it here,

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/personal-tech/samsung-overturns-regular-computer-design-with-the-microsoft-surface-table/story-e6frgazf-1226421861385

We are happy to say that more than 18 months later there continues to be a  high and increasing demand for the Samsung SUR40 (and other multi-user tables) and our off the shelf applications. We have a broad range of customers from business to education, retail to hospitality – both here locally in Australia and across the globe.

Today you can find the SUR40 running our nsquared software in many schools, universities, museums, hotel foyers and even real estate offices!

Spark your curiosity?

Find out more about increasing productivity, collaboration and creativity in your spaces today by contacting us on +61 2 9262 3386 or email us – info@nsquaredsolutions.com 

New 55'' Perceptive Pixel @ nsquared studio

There are big smiles in the nsquared studio this week with the exciting delivery of the 55'' LED Multi-Touch Display by Perceptive Pixel!

Following our mission, we literally are putting digital tables everywhere. While the PPI screen is originally intended to be placed vertically, we have enhanced its multi-touch, multi-user capabilities by mounting it horizontally. If the display wasn't enticing enough, our LED, steel structure stand changes colours - perfect to blend into any educational, business or public space environment. 

5 cool features of this device include:

1.  Large 55'' Pro Cap Display (Projected Capacitive display)
2.  2.5'' trim profile
3.  1920 x 1080  HD
4.  Supports massive multi-touch, and input from 6 stylus simultaneously
5.  Built in colour correction 

We are very excited to have this new piece of hardware in the nsquared studio and look forward to adding and testing our variety of nsquared business, education and hospitality applications on it.

If you are interested or want to know more about this product and our software, please do not hesitate to ring us on + 61 2 9262 3386 or email enquiries@nsquaredsolutions.com.