Modeling The World

The biggest names in supercomputing have been brought together at modelingtheworld.com.

The highest-power computational efforts on the planet are working to solve science’s hardest problems, from protein folding and gene sequencing to climate modeling and quantum physics. Stimulant helped Microsoft Technical Computing illustrate their commitment to these cutting-edge efforts with an equally cutting-edge website.

ModelingTheWorld.com is a Silverlight-based website that features interactive HD videos of some of the most respected luminaries in the supercomputing field today. 15 are available now, with more throughout the year, and each has a rich array of time-synchronized “extras” that add context to the interviewees’ statements or link to other related videos. Synchronized transcripts enable captioning and non-linear navigation.

High performance computing comes alive through the stories of its own leaders.

Stimulant designed an entirely procedural layout engine to display all of the videos, reinforced by an intelligent particle system, to evoke a complex system of many elements that form a greater whole. The system features parameters such as gravity, attraction, and elasticity that allowed design and development team members to interactively dial in the look and feel. Subtle controls also exist for featuring some videos more than others. Particles swarm to videos the user is interested in. If the user wishes to browse in a more ordered way, such as by name or tag, all the elements intelligently make room for additional interface elements as they appear.

Stimulant’s deep background in digital media also allowed us to help art direct the look of all the interviews, to ensure that the emotional tone of the videos matched the exploration and playback environments. A richly interactive video experience is offered once a video is selected for viewing, built upon our past successes for Microsoft Research’s Project Tuva. Silverlight Smooth Streaming video automatically provides the right quality level for the user’s bandwidth, immediately and in real time.

ModelingTheWorld.com is a testament to Microsoft’s commitment to advancing the state of computing on a massive scale, and reaffirms Stimulant’s not-so-secret mission to use technology to tell stories in new and engaging ways.

SAP unveils InSite Studio at SAPPHIRE Now

InSite Studio enables collaborative access to real-time business analytics from distributed locations.

We’re on-site in Orlando this week helping SAP showcase their InSite Studio initiative on the Innovations Campus, which marries in-memory computing with a large-scale, Windows 7 touch-based UI and a Cisco TelePresence System 3000. The last slide of SAP chairman Hasso Plattner’s Sapphire 2009 keynote was a sketch of this idea, and we were asked to help bring his vision to life for SAPPHIRE Now. The solution enables business decision makers to drill down into business analytics, review data and make changes from distributed locations in real-time, using SAP’s suite of business software, a variety of devices, and a bespoke multi-touch interface designed and built by Stimulant. Our UI integrates deeply with Windows 7, providing an efficient way to control and share live applications via the Cisco TelePresence System 3000, using only touch. This is a massive engineering feat, and we’re thrilled to have had the pleasure of working side-by-side with the insanely talented folks on SAP’s Chairman’s Special Projects and Design Services teams. A full case study is forthcoming, but for now, come swing by the studio at SAPPHIRE Now — we’ll be demoing every hour until Wednesday.

Project Tuva selected as a 2010 Webby Honoree

Project Tuva has been selected as an Official Honoree by the Webby Awards for the Best Use of Video or Moving Image. A big thanks to our great friends and partners at Microsoft Research for the chance to collaborate on the creation of a meaningful experience for this amazing content.

Stimulant Promoted to Microsoft Surface Strategic Partner

We’re pleased to announce (albeit somewhat belatedly) that Stimulant has achieved the highest level of partnership with Microsoft Surface, having been promoted to the strategic partner level. This honor, conveyed upon only the most committed and innovative companies, is the culmination of over three years of working with the platform. We have a long history of collaboration with the Surface team, and have also taken a design leadership role, speaking regularly about the new scenarios and interactions enabled by Surface. Our TouchTones application was the first third-party freeware application for Surface and the first application to be Certified for Microsoft Surface, and our recent creations have been leveraged by global brands and organizations. Among all agencies at this level, Stimulant is the first agency to be 100% focused on multi-touch, multi-user and Natural User Interface development. We’re honored to be recognized for our commitment and contribution to the platform, and look forward to continuing down the path of innovation.

Stimulant’s Darren David at Web 2.0: “Blurring the Lines”

Darren’s been invited to participate on the Blurring the Lines: From Human Centered Design to Customer Driven Development panel, talking shop with colleagues and stellar thought leaders Alon Salant from Carbon Five, Maria Giudice from Hot Studio, and Rob Spiro from Aardvark, moderated by our good friend Josh Damon Williams from Hot Studio. To quote our panel’s charter:

This panel investigates and drills down into the practices that designers, developers and product owners are learning to use across their disciplines to ensure they successfully deliver their vision to engaged customers.

Our panel will lay out specific guidelines on how best to accomplish this—and showcase techniques like Wizard of Oz testing and running experiments in the working product. Strategies and systems will be explored to clearly address and answer questions such as: “When and how do I do my research?”, “Am I defining a solution or a system?”, and “Will my design ever be fully realized?”

We’re on at 2:35pm on Wednesday, May 05. Hope to see you at the show.

Bing for Nokia S60

Bing Mobile Application for Nokia

In early 2008, Microsoft announced that they’d be bringing Silverlight to the Nokia S60 platform and at Mix 2010, that effort took a big step forward with the beta release of the plugin for Symbian. Stimulant, which has been working with Silverlight on mobile platforms since its inception, was chosen (along with a few other elite agencies) to participate, helping deliver applications to showcase the runtime.

The application Stimulant worked on is a mobile variant of the Bing Bar desktop application. Stimulant worked closely with the Bing team and was able to reuse a significant portion of code and existing graphic assets, while adding in mobile-specific interactivity for this unique form factor. Much of the Bing Bar’s functionality has been ported, including stocks, weather, and real-time feeds of MSN content.

Got an S60 phone? Point your mobile browser at the demo application, located at http://silverlight.net/content/samples/s60/bing, and experience Bing in the palm of your hand.

TouchTones

It’s musical, it’s magical, and it’s free. Stimulant is thrilled to announce the release of TouchTones as a freeware application for Microsoft Surface.

TouchTones (formerly ToneGrid) is a multi-user collaborative music maker that doesn’t require any musical knowledge in order to make something beautiful. Just tap the colored spheres to get them started and change the melody in real time! TouchTones has a range of innovative features:

• TouchTones features four sounds and a four-octave “grid,” which acts like a keyboard.
• Up to four people can use TouchTones at once.
• Symmetrical controls on all sides let any user control any sound.
• Holding down a colored button while tapping an arrow with another lets the user play the grid like an instrument. You can even play chords!
• Volume control, reset button, and integrated help video makes learning and playing a snap.
• No written instructions are needed to learn how to use TouchTones!

TouchTones is being made available for free for any Microsoft Surface running Service Pack 1 or higher. If you’re interested in having Stimulant visually reskin the application, replace the stock sounds with something custom, or want additional features, just ask. TouchTones is designed to be fully customized to meet your specific branding goals. Feel free to contact us for any general inquiries regarding TouchTones.

To learn more about TouchTones, or to download the installer, visit Stimulant’s Product Page.