Infosys | Microsoft

Visual Studio 11 is a bit more colorful

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:58:27 +0000

In my previous blog I had talked about Metro Applications and Metro UI. Visual Studio 11 would qualify as an application with Metro like UI as we have already seen in the current beta release. It also no surprise that products from MS will imbibe the Metro style guide. We see similar trends with upcoming Office 15 (you can search online for images).

VS 11 however got some pretty strong comments from developer community and MS is making changes to its UI. The Metro look is here to stay, so it is still very much there, but the application has also been made a bit more colorful. Check out the details here.

Some points to consider to leverage the benefits of asp.net MVC and jquery more

Tue, 01 May 2012 06:25:48 +0000

This article explains some real time issues that one may face while working with asp.net MVC and jquery. And accordingly the corresponding resolutions. These points if taken into consideration then may help a new developer leverage the benefits of asp.net MVC and jquery more.

In case any suggestions are there please let me know, I will more than happy to include them.

For the full article please refer to this.

Metro App, Metro UI, What's all this?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:47:55 +0000

Microsoft had introduced Phone 7 in early 2010 and released the first version in market by late 2010. The key point that MS highlighted was that Phone 7 a completely new, ground up, operating system and another immediately noticeable thing about it was the tiled based UI. While on first look the tiles looked like desktop icons, they were in fact much more than that. They were live and hence could provide updates from the application right on the home screen, so a person need not go into an application just to check basic updates.

Desktops / Laptops / Tablets / Smartphones

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:22:20 +0000

At the turn of the century (year 2000) desktops and laptops were still going strong and mobile phones had just started to appear. I had put my hands on my very first mobile phone in year 2001 as getting a landline took few weeks and the mobile phone was activated within a day or two. I had moved to a new place and hence getting connectivity was critical. The mobile phone allowed me to stay connected while on the go, and in those days, I had to pay to receive calls as well. I had not thought of how the phone would evolve into today's smart phone with significant processing power, with ability to capture and view high resolution photos and HDMI videos, with ability to let me be connected with friends over facebook and twitter all the time and with ability to download and install thousands of applications from its very own marketplace. My family is hooked onto Angry Birds :-).

SQL Server Unstructured Data Analysis (Semantic Search)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:11:51 +0000

In my previous blog here, we had seen the file table feature introduced in SQL 2012 to store unstructured data. From business perspective, it is very important to find ways to analyze this unstructured data to gain useful insights into behavior and patterns. Normal SQL query search wouldn't work efficiently on this type of data, as the "Like" kind of operators work on character patterns. Additionally, the "like" pattern search can take a long time, as normal text data cannot be indexed properly.

SQL Server 2012 - Unstructured Data Storage (File Table)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:59:39 +0000

In simple words, unstructured data is information which does not fit well in relational model. It is mostly text heavy, but can contain images, videos, emails etc.

File Table, a new feature introduced in SQL 2012, builds on the existing filestream object SQL Server had come up with in 2008 to store unstructured data. Filestream datatype tried to integrate the relational database engine with the windows file system. More information about the filestream object can be found here.

Smooth Streaming in Windows 8 Metro Application

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:26:12 +0000

For smooth streaming in Windows 8 Metro Application we need to download and install Smooth Streaming client and Microsoft Media Player Framework . After these installations, create a blank application. To create a blank application open VS11 and then from File menu select New option and then select JavaScript-> Windows Metro Style. Choose blank application from installed templates.

SQL Server 2012 - Overview

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:35:36 +0000

SQL Server 2012 was officially launched on 7th March 2012 and has been touted as a major release with some new/improved features around database management, data integration, business intelligence and integration with cloud. The features have been categorized into three themes by Microsoft namely

Microsoft Surface for retail stores

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:38:04 +0000

We have earlier seen that Microsoft Surface has been making its mark in domains like retail banking and automobile sales. Apart from these, we at Infosys have been exploring applications of Surface for retail establishments and in particular consumer electronics stores. By leveraging Microsoft Surface, retail stores can take their customer experience to the next level, along with the possibility of increased sales.

Augmented reality advertising

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:34:34 +0000

In my previous blog, we looked at how mobile augmented reality (AR) is making its mark in travel and navigational assistance. Another interesting application of AR where firms have been evincing interest is advertising. In today's highly competitive environment vendors are continuously looking for ways and means of differentiating products and increasing brand recall. We at Infosys have been investigating how firms can take their advertising to the next level using AR.

Travel, navigational assistance and more using mobile augmented reality

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:47:20 +0000

Augmented reality (AR) is an area that has been attracting much interest and hype, but has it really delivered? We at Infosys have been actively looking at market trends and we believe that mobile AR is a key area to watch out for. Smart phones are becoming quite ubiquitous today and being equipped with digital camera, GPS, compass, gyroscope etc. they make an ideal device for bringing mobile AR applications to the masses.

Changes in the Windows 8 consumer preview

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:58:25 +0000

Windows 8 consumer preview was launched on 29th Feb . After having explored the developer preview for a while now, we had a chance to download it from here and install the consumer preview.

Next generation automobile shopping experience using Microsoft Surface

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:28:39 +0000

We earlier saw that retail banks are deploying Microsoft Surface as part of their future banking experience. Here we will take a look at another domain where Microsoft Surface is an excellent fit - delivering a futuristic in-store automobile shopping experience.

The future of retail banking with Microsoft Surface

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:31:15 +0000

Microsoft Surface is getting a big facelift with the commercial launch of the 2.0 version developed in collaboration with Samsung. Here is a quick listing of what's new. We at Infosys having worked with customers in the past on the earlier Surface platform are all excited about this. Especially the thinner design that supports vertically mounting and the lower cost of this new version expands the scope of potential business applications. One particular domain that is showing much promise is retail banking.

Microsoft Surface can help generate customer interest in financial products, increase sales and reduce processing cycle time. We are exploring Surface being used at retail banking branches both as a self-service kiosk as well as a discussion tool for customers with banking sales representatives. The bank can issue credit or debit cards featuring identity tags using which customers can identify themselves by placing these on the Surface table. Alternatively identification can be achieved by placing their cell-phones, which might need a preinstalled application that communicates with Surface via Bluetooth. Similarly banking sales representatives can have identity cards with these tags to identify themselves and manage information using Surface.

Streaming Media to Devices

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:41:50 +0000

I came across a Build video where the music playing on the Windows 8 device is streamed to the music player directly and the video is streamed to the Home TV without having to make any connections. Just like Share and Search Charm there is also a Devices charm that lets us accomplish this.