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.

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. 

Multi-User Collaborative Education on Windows 10

 

nsquared makewords: engaging multi-user educational app available on Windows 10 App Store now

The exciting launch of Windows 10 a couple of weeks ago marks a big moment for the future of apps. As Microsoft moves towards cross-platform responsive apps and collaborative technology (read our posts on Microsoft Continuum and Microsoft Surface Hub), we are excited to see substantial growth in the multi-user app market. Don’t forget to head over to the new Win10 store to check out our great range of multi-user education apps, all engaging games which encourage kids to socialise whilst learning.

Learn object recognition and differentiation with nsquared makewords.

Develop numeracy, pattern matching and object recognition with nsquared herding.

Explore words and letters virtually with nsquared letters.

Explore numbers and equations virtually with nsquared numbers.

Develop pattern matching and object recognition with nsquared snap.

Challenge the mathematical skills of players in nsquared coinswap.

Develop pattern matching with nsquared missing card. 

To learn more about multi-user educational apps follow nsquared on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook or check out our DIGITABLE site for more information.

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.