Microsoft recently hosted a very interesting conference,
MIX06,
in Las Vegas. By Microsoft's standards (PDC, TechEd) this was a very
toned down event, but nevertheless very interesting. This wasn't just
an event about Microsoft products, but also about sharing knowledge and
interesting discussions such as the one between
Bill Gates and Tim O'Reilly.
One of the technologies showcased at this event was WPF (Windows
Presentation Foundation, formerly known as Avalon), a new way to create
and render user interfaces. It relies on DirectX to accelerate
everything including font rendering, alpha channels, video and
animation. However you don't need to have any knowledge about hardcore
C++, all you need to know is C# (orVB) and XML. Up until now I have
seen few real world showcases that really show off the technology, but
REZN8 has pulled it off by developing an application for Nascar that
really shows off the power of this technology (
watch video, disregard the first 3 minutes as these people are way too excited for their own good).
My team is currently using Flash 8 for these kinds of interfaces
as that is available today and requires less powerful computers.
However I am already considering switching to WPF for future
functionality.
Some interesting links:
What is of interest to me personally is that the Nascar demo is
presented by Andrew Whiddett, a former co-worker that poached me away
from a Dutch multimedia company to work with him for a really rubbish
company in the UK. I didn't recognise him at first as it looks like he
is trying to grow a beard and suddenly got a real heavy American
accent. Nevertheless Andrew knows his stuff, he is always operating on
the cutting edge of technology and recently published an interesting article on WPF data binding. I am glad for him that he finally got out of the boring retail sector.