After all the rain we had our first blue sky. The smog was gone and we could clearly see the mountain. I don’t want to think too hard about what happened to the smog but it’s great to see blue … Continued
Today was really cold. Got up early and all the pandas were out which meant I could get a few pictures of ones that I don’t usually see. It’d rained overnight so most of them were a bit wet too … Continued
We get the weekends off so had a bit of a sleep in this morning, then went and said hello to the pandas before we set off on our walk up the mountain in the background. I thought it’d be … Continued
Today was our last day on the Ibis. My keeper let us take a photo inside the cages which was easier said than done. It’s actually really dark inside under the tree canopy and the Ibis don’t like to stay … Continued
This morning the pandas were up and playing in their enclosures and generally looking cute up trees and doing Kung Fu poses. These guys love to climb trees, and pull on the branches. I knew pandas climbed a bit but … Continued
There were a bunch of logs meant to become a swing for the black bears. Unfortunately a few of them had been eaten to bits by what looks like witchetty grubs. Not wanting to put it to waste we had … Continued
Early this morning the pandas were out and were quite playful. They were up trees, play fighting and generally looking cute. They make this interesting sound that reminds me of a cross between a lamb and a goat. So reckon … Continued
This morning we left the volunteer house and headed to the Shaanxi Wildlife and Rescue Centre, our home for the next two weeks. After moving our belongings into our twin share room which is quite large Tiger took us on … Continued
This morning we had our orientation at 10am, which meant it wasn’t worth trying to go anywhere so we did important stuff like washing. Got an overview of what will be happening in the next 2 weeks and v1 of … Continued
Peter arranged a minibus to take the 6 of us out to the Terracotta Warriors wait for us 3 hours and bring us back to today. So the 6 of us headed off this morning at 8 am. It took … Continued
This afternoon we made our way to the airport bound for Xian. Great thing at Hong Kong airport is they have free wifi, so we could check our mail etc. We got there pretty early and soon discovered our plane … Continued
Thursday we set off on our adventure to China. First we have an overnight stopover in Hong Kong. We boarded our A330 ready for our 9 hour flight. After flying on brand new a380’s recently this older plane seemed so … Continued
The most asked for snippet of code at our recent workshop that I didn’t have was how to properly align a Kinect skeleton to either the Video image or the depth image. It turns out this is non trivial and … Continued
We have a decent sized play area for our Kinect but do find with 2 players we need to shift a bit of furniture and can get a bit dangerous when the person you’re playing against is 6’4” and has … Continued
Since the update to Beta2 of the Kinect for Windows SDK all our Kinect samples are out of date so I thought I’d update them to the latest and greatest and post them all here. To begin with I want … Continued
John and I were invited to help out with the HCI Summer School at ANU to get the students started with the KinectSDK for Windows. In the morning Henry Gardner opened the Summer School quickly followed by a look at … Continued
A little late in coming I know…but on 26th December Brisbane was host to the first DDD Brisbane! We’d sold out quite a lot before the event and had 40+ people on the waitlist so it can only be a … Continued
After being fortunate enough to be a Software Design Finalist Judge for Image Cup for the last 2 years, I’ve been invited to be part of the keynote and give a breakout session at the QUT Image Cup Smackdown Event … Continued
The folks over at YOW! 2011 are putting up a couple of free tickets to the Brisbane conference and offering a discount to the Girl Geek Dinner ladies to attend. For those that aren’t familiar, YOW! is part of the … Continued
While we were sleeping on the weekend the latest version of the Kinect SDK for Windows was released – Beta 2. It also mean a new web address for everything KinectSDK here: http://kinectforwindows.org/. There’s been a bunch of changes to … Continued
I’m a big fan of SCRUM / AGILE / insert other name that helps me actually get on doing my job and be able to get it done more efficiently without being tied up in titles, roles and rank. I’ve … Continued
This week we were able to expand TransHub to 7 cities – now including Canberra. We were able to do this because the dataset for Canberra became available on data.gov.au. Just over 5 years ago we saw the first campains … Continued
After our initial launch of TransHub Sydney just over a month ago, our biggest feature request is to have a version for other cities. We’re pleased to announce that as of yesterday we now have 6 cities – 5 in … Continued
Since we announced TransHub Sydney there’s been a few articles popping up around the place. Thought it’d be a good time to put the ones we know about in one place. TechAU interviewed John at Teched Australia about TransHub … Continued
It’s been a few weeks since Teched, but it also feels just like yesterday. We’ve been busy with TransHub and Build and Tuesday we even did a last minute Qld MSDN User Group presentation on the Kinect SDK. For anyone … Continued
Day 1 of Build is over! Today Microsoft shared with the world their brave new Operating System, Windows 8. Honestly we weren’t expecting much more than a new touch shell on Windows 7. We were wrong. A whole new API, … Continued
Today we headed off to LAX via Sydney for Build. Had my first flight on an A380 today as we rarely fly through Sydney. The entertainment system and the noise level are definite improvements over the 747. Even though there’s … Continued
Last Wednesday, after months of really hard work, we presented our Spotlight competition entry to an audience of over 100 people including Microsoft staff, Government officials and of course Teched Australia attendees. We were up against some great competition with … Continued
We spent last week down on the Gold Coast for Teched Austalia. It was a MASSIVE week for us. While we were there we did a talk on the Kinect SDK, did our presentation for the Spotlight Showdown, and won … Continued
We’re pleased to announce that TransHub Sydney is now LIVE for download and purchase on the marketplace. You can get it at http://syd.transhub.com. If you want to test it out before you buy it from the marketplace, it comes with … Continued