The Coming of Mango

This is how the campus looks today. Feel free to compare it with Harvard Yard any time you like….

The latest version of Windows Phone Mango is now trickling out to developers. If you’ve upgraded to the first developer version of the platform you should soon get a message telling you an upgrade is available. Indeed there is. This one is really close to what people will be getting when Windows Phone 7.5 (to give it its proper name) will be released. It now has the Twitter integration which works really well, along with a whole host of extra goodies that I’m having great fun playing with. If you are not into Windows Phone development then you really should be.

Imagine Cup Thoughts

Now that the dust has settled a bit I’ve had time to reflect on the Imagine Cup this year. Here are some random observations:

• It gets better every year : the teams, their ideas, their implementation and their presentation seems to improve with every world final. This year was the best ever. I get the impression that teams are really thinking about how to not just make their ideas work, but how to make them real so that the outside world can make use of them. This is great.
• Making stuff is much easier : quite a few teams had made hardware. The winners even used the .NET Micro Framework to power their in-car device. In the old days using hardware meant messy wooden boxes and dodgy looking devices. Not so now. With fabrication machines appearing at very low prices it is now possible for a team to make a case for their device which looks as good as any shop-bought item. There was some highly impressive, consumer ready, hardware being shown off.
• Teamwork is still vital : the teams that did best did it as a team. The ones that played off each other and made use of all the team members in presentation and development were the ones that did the best.
• The judges had a great time too – every judge that I spoke to really enjoyed seeing what had been made and talking to students. I said at one of the briefings there was only one group of people more determined than the students to come to the next Imagine Cup, and that is the judges. This is absolutely the case. And I’m including myself in that..

Meeting Alfred Thompson

Alfred and I, conveniently name tagged for your convenience. No idea who the bloke in the background is though…

One of the really nice things about going to the Imagine Cup was that I got to meet up with some friends I’d never met. One of them was Alfred Thompson. I’ve known Alfred since the days of “the Spoke”, an early network community where we used to via for visits to our respective pages. This was way back in 2003, when the idea of community sites and stuff was just taking off. I was very proud of the fact that I’d had more visitors to my page, right up to the point where Alfred overtook me and headed off into the distance.

Alfred works hard to promote Computer Science as a “good thing” and it was nice to finally meet up and swap some stories.

Back Home

Got home today after an overnight flight which managed to steal five hours of my birthday. Oh well. Nice to be back though. Hull is looking good in the sunshine.

Heading Home

These are some of the tickets, brochures and badges that we have used over the last couple of weeks. Some great memories here.

And now we have to fly back.

MIT Museum

This one’s for you, Dr Brayshaw….

We went to the MIT Museum today. One of the highlights of the trip. They take all the things they’ve done and put them on display. Great idea, and some really interesting stuff.

Robot close-up. I know what a few of these chips actually do..

They had this robots idea wall. I had to add an idea of my own. I’ll be back next year to see how they’ve got on.

Franklin Park Zoo

Boston has a really nice zoo, located a way out of town – the journey itself was a bit of an adventure, particularly as we missed the stop to get off the bus.

They have some butterflies.

..at least one peacock..

..and a gorilla.

At the moment things are very, very hot. We had to keep ducking back into the gift shop to cool down.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Boston Museum of Fine Arts is huge. All the attendants were suits. Very posh and with art to match. I could happily have spent the entire week here, the art is fantastic.

This glass is by Chihuly. Get to see it if you can.

Boat Trip

This is our third day on the water. Today it is a boat trip around the harbour.

This is how you get to the Aquarium stop. The final stop for this train is “Wonderland. I’d love to go there.

This is the USS Constitution, or “Old Ironsides” as she is known. Apparently in the seventies she went around in a wheelchair solving murders..

Boston harbour looking really nice.

Harvard Natural History Museum

After the whale watching we went off to Harvard to look at their museum.

This is “Harvard Yard”. Like Hull University campus, but not quite as nice looking.

These flowers are made of glass. Amazing.

Whale Watching

If you go to Boston you really should go whale watching. They don’t guarantee that you will see a whale, but they will give you another trip if you don’t. You sail out of Boston for an hour or so and then spend some time searching for tell-tale spouts on the horizon. Then the boat accelerates like mad towards them, until the whales go back down again. This was great fun, and we were really lucky to see several whales while we were out there.

Watching for whales.

A humpback comes up for air.

…and then goes down again.

Aquariums and Patriots

Boston Aquarium today. Very nice, but very hot. this is a dragon fish.

In the afternoon we went on a cruise on a “Liberty Clipper”, which was great.

Under sail

During the cruise we had a “Boston Tea Party Re-enactment” which was great fun. At the end we threw some tea in the river, and then had to get it back. We also fired the ship’s gun, along with a pistol..

Boston Science Museum

Not a lot of narrative for the next few days, but a few choice pictures from our holidays. Today we went to Boston Science Museum.

They have this amazing clock in the lobby

They also have a really impressive lightning display, including sparks to music.

I’m not sure they should call it a Science Museum, in that science is not something that exists in the past, but it sure is a great place to visit.

Boston Wandering

Boston has a very nice waterfront.

We went for a wader round Boston today. Very nice. Went down to the waterfront and had a hot dog.

This is what the waterfront looks like when it gets a bit darker.

In the evening we went to see an open air movie, “Megamind”, which was a good piece of CGI with a nice plot and a happy ending.

Movie Crowd.

Science Museum tomorrow…

Heading to Boston

After the excitement of the Imagine Cup we are today heading of for a few days in Boston. Heard nice things about the place, so it should be fun.

Imagine Cup 2011 Awards Ceremony

These are the top three for the Imagine Cup Software Development Challenge this year. We have OaSys (Jordan) in third, NoteTaker (USA) in second and Hermes (Ireland) first. Very warm congratulations to you all.

More winners take to the stage.

The awards ceremony was a great event, with appearances from the Mayor of New York, and Eva Longoria, to name a few. The students had a great time, which got even greater when they were told that along with the Kinect they will be taking home with them, they have also been awarded a brand new “Mango” release Windows Phone device as soon as they become available. Lucky people.

Imagine Cup 2011 Finals Judging

Imagine Cup Final Judges, from the left: Kulbir Arora -Technology Director Goldman Sachs, Edward G. Happ - Global CIO and Head of ISD; International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Sandra Regina Boccia -Editor PEGN Magazine, David Tisch  - Director TechStars NYC, Dr. Fiona Wood -Director McComb Research Foundation, me, David Connor - Managing Director, Europe; 3BL Media.

Well, that was fun. Six and a half hours of deliberation, including six team presentations and a lot of discussion. I thought when we started that we wouldn’t need all the discussion time. But we did. It was not so much that we couldn’t decide the results, but more that we all wanted to be certain that we had done right by the six finalists. Eventually we handed over the winners and then I staggered off to bed. For me the judging is now complete. 67 teams have been taken down to a top three.

I want to thank all the judges who helped us get where we are. This kind of competition is as good as the judging process. If that is broken the whole thing becomes pointless. I’ve been so proud of the way that the judges have done their jobs over the last few days. The Imagine Cup can be justly proud of them too.

Imagine Cup 2011 Culture and Party

Today was a cultural day. This is when the Imagine Cup delegates get to do their own thing, or take part in some activities specially set up for them. However, in the morning we had our own agenda, and set off to go up the Empire State Building. The good news is that if you go first thing you can pretty much walk straight in. It was rather nice to walk through all the areas that would normally be fully of queuing people. Once at the top I took quite a few pictures, which will doubtless surface on these pages over time.

Then we went over to Macys store and had a look round, before returning to the hotel to join a “walking tour” around Manhattan. When we arrived the advice from folks who had been here before was to just walk around the city. I completely agree. Each neighbourhood has its own character and it is very interesting to see each one change into another. You can walk a single block and find all the shop signs complete change from one language to another.

In the evening we joined the trip to Ellis Island for a barbeque.

On the way we went past a New York icon. and even managed to get onto the island and see here up close and personal.

There are all the teams, with a rather nice backdrop.

The skyline looks even nicer when the sun goes down a bit.

Once we’d had enough to eat and drink we had a quick look around the Ellis Island museum and then it was time to get back on the boat and head home. Just a fantastic evening, thanks Microsoft.

Imagine Cup Round 3 Finalists

This is me taking to the stage to announce the teams that are going forward to the finals on Tuesday. Fortunately there are no pictures of me nearly falling off the stage at the end.

Anyhoo, the six teams that have made it to the final round are:

• Care Everyone China
• OaSys Jordan
• OneBuzz New Zealand
• SIMPLEX Romania
• Team Hermes Ireland
• Team Note Taker United States

Awesome work folks. Very impressive stuff. Now these teams have got to take their presentations onto the big stage on Tuesday.

Imagine Cup Round 2 Judging

Not a bad place for breakfast.

Imagine that you spent a day doing something which was great fun. And then you got to spend another day doing the same thing, only better. Well, that’s how today is going. Yesterday we judged the Imagine Cup Round One teams, who were excellent. Today we get to do the same thing for Round 2, with the 18 teams that are left. I’ve done my marking and I’ve even had time to stitch together some pictures that I took at breakfast, which is nice. The other judges are still working away at their score sheets, and later today we will be announcing the six teams that will be going forward to the finals on Tuesday.