Splendid have been asked to sit on the Connected Device Council by our good friend John Holdstock at Microsoft. The group is a select group of brands and companies (we are the only user experience company in the mix) that will help shape the future of all thing embedded, that's everything that isn't a desktop or laptop. So everything from cars to toasters.

The group includes Vodafone, easyJet, Road Angel and hosts Mclaren (the people who make those nice fast cars).

It was a great day, some good discussions (such as when Silverlight will be available for embedded devices) and the day ended on a high with a tour of the Mclaren F1 and SLR factory...

Well I spent the day at the Welcome Trust today for the launch of Microsoft SQL 2008 (as well as Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008) and I am writing this while trying to get our keynote for Mix08 finished...

It was full day that started with a briefing from Gordon Fraser, UK MD of Microsoft, then the US team gave us some of the details of what the products had on offer. We had a bite to eat with Gordon and Paul Curtis from easyJet (see picture)

The highlight of the day for me was customer demos, forget what Microsoft say about things... lets see what the customers have done with the products, kinda selfish here as we had designed and developed one of the demos for easyJet.

We have been working with easyJet for the last 18 months on a number of cool projects including this latest POC (proof of concept in Microsoft speak). The work is based around what easyJet could look like in the future, what would a customer journey experience be? Could easyJet become a travel portal rather than a booking engine? these were some of the questions we were trying to answer, and according to the user test feedback we succeeded.

For the POC we used a good chunk of Silverlight 2.0, some AJAX controls on a Virtual Earth map and served it up with some cool geo spatial features from SQL2008. This allows users to define tourist attractions 10 minutes (or however far you want to walk) from your hotel based a predefined polygon of information. A more detailed technical post will follow as I am not a developer (as most people at Microsoft will testify) but what the technology allows us to do is create a great user experience, and that's what matters at the end of the day.

There was also a very cool demo by a Profesor and a Doctor from Cambridge University, looking at modeling data from 1820. Very cool demo.

We then ended with a live link up to Steve Balmers keynote in the States.

As a designer using Silverlight I was a little sceptical at first coming from an adobe background. I began using Silverlight on concept work using the tools provided (Expression). I was surprised to find the tools excellent to use and the interface extremely easy to understand.

My initial concerns were that it didn't have the functionality I needed to build all that was required for the project. This could be a small hurdle for most designers similar to me, stuck in our actionscript ways, that I was unable to understand the reasoning behind the functionality and the set up of the projects. Once I began working alongside developers I had my first 'aha' moment with Silverlight, I was able to see first hand the method for building and developing projects.

It was great working alongside developers and seeing how they were able to develop using the very same assets I created for them.

It is a great step to bridging the gap between designers and developers. As I have spent more time designing and developing projects using Silverlight I am beginning to see more and more potential for the technology.

All in all I am very keen to see the development and implementation of this technology across the net.

Recently we at Splendid were invited to send one of the team to attend a Boot Camp at the Microsoft campus in Redmond in the USA.

The purpose of the Boot camp (named the Artist in Residence Programme) was to to give each resident the ability to implement Silverlight solutions using the Microsoft Expressions Studio, Visual studio and other 3rd party tools such as Illustrator etc.. Silverlight (formerly WPF/e) was officially launched this week at NAB in Vegas.

During Boot Camp each resident worked with a mentor from the Silverlight development team to help them develop the knowledge of the platform. The programme was run by Barak Cohen (Marking product manager of Silverlight), assisted by a number of managers from the Microsoft team including Mike Harsh, Ed Maia, Aaron Brethorst, Mark Rideout, Peter Blois, Celso Gomes and Joe Stegman.

So, what is Silverlight? Silverlight is a cross-browser plug-in, a sub set technology of the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) . Silverlight uses XAML and Javascript to enable designers and developers to produce rich Web 2.0 user experiences using video, vector based graphics and animations that can be integrated in to existing web based technologies.

During the first few days of the program we were introduced to the different aspects of the Silverlight and Expressions studio Tools. We looked in detail at XAML and it's integration with Javascript and C#. XAML (Extendable Application Mark-up Language) is a text document that describes an applications look and feel and defines position, size and colour of multiple objects.

The expression studio tool set and Visual studio 5 with IntelliSense are designed to enable both designers and developers to work closer together. A designer can use Expression blend to create the visual assets which are immediately translated into XAML (using a logical naming convention) from which point a developer can control the graphics, video text and animation using Javascript.

One of the most interesting aspects of the program was to be involved at a point when the application was still in development. A stated objective of the program is to gather feedback from real users developing application for clients using other software packages (like Flash etc.). We were able to suggest elements that would prove extremely useful to designers and developers and which will hopefully be included in later versions of the software. One of the obvious pitfalls of this is that there are very few experts of Silverlight and there were many questions asked and bugs encountered.

As well as learning some really interesting stuff about Silverlight and it's capabilities we also met some cool guys from the Microsoft team and from the other companies participating including Elor and Rudi from Metacafe, Michael from McCann, Hiljamaria from Conchango, Mike from MondoRobot and Maya from Eyeblaster and of course everyone else from Render space, and AKQA.

It was a great opportunity to work within such a diverse group of designers and developers all with varying levels of ability. We also had a great day out skiing during the trip. Nice.

For more information on what we are doing with Skinkers and other projects using Microsoft Silverlight please contact dan@howsplendid.com