When I bloged about the minority report style computing a few months back, I predicted that it wasn't going to be long before we saw something like than in production.

Microsoft has proved me right today, as it announced Surfacing Computing!

Besides the hardware though, Microsoft has also developed a number of very cool applications to target the surface computing technology, which you should definitely see.

I just hope that this technology reaches Greece as quickly as it reached production.

I usually check my email boxes before leaving home to see if something interesting is there and today there was. The popfly invite, I had to wait for a couple of weeks, had finally arrived. Unfortunately I had to wait again in order to get to work before being able to give it a go. Once I've started playing with it though,I found out that it was worth waiting after all.

Popfly is indeed a great tool for developing cool mashups and gadgets quickly and easily. And although it's rather unstable at the moment (a couple of my mashups did not work with no apparent reason and the mashup designer did not always start), I believe that it will play a vital role in building web Next.

I can't wait until I build my first real popfly gadget using my new popfly account.
If only I had a cool idea to start with...

 

For those of you interested in finding out what silverlight really is as well as develop silverlight applications...

bits & bytes

Get silverlight

Telerik RadControls – 3d virtual rooms using control based framework

DLR & IronPython

Silverlight developer reference “poster”

Forums – installation, troubleshooting

Electric rain harmony (coming summer 2007) – flash to silverlight converter

Silverlight 1.0 Beta QuickStarts

Silverlight 1.1 Alpha QuickStarts

Silverlight 1.0 QuickStart Using Blend 2: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=93839 New

Silverlight Online Documentation: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=88945 New

sites

Main Microsoft site. 

Community site. 

Mix conference

experiences & demos

Getting started with silverlight - Scott Guthrie demos how to build an app from scratch

"How Do I?" with Silverlight 1.0

"How Do I?" with Silverlight 1.1

Using Blend with Silverlight 1.0

Community gallery

Top 3 samples in community gallery

Silverlight Pad

Page Turn

Video Library

Beijing Olympics Use Silverlight

Channel 9 screencasts

Watch movie trailers & videos via Silverlight

How to do Rich media advertising - example using eyeblaster

blogs

Scott Guthrie – no intro needed

Jim Hugunin - chief architect of the DLR

Mike Harsh – silverlight team

Lutz Roeder – Expression Blend team

Delay  of silverlight airlines demo

Ironpython

Tech talks

All recorded mix07 sessions

ScottGu’s mix keynote and great overview

ScottGu’s Channel9 interview

Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers

Deep Dive on Silverlight Media Integration

Developing ASP.NET AJAX Controls with Silverlight

Creating and Delivering Rich Media and Video on the Web with Silverlight, Expression Studio, and Windows Server

Building Silverlight Applications using .NET (Part 1)

Building Silverlight Applications using .NET (Part 2)

Extending the Browser Programming Model with Silverlight

Just Glue It! Ruby and the DLR in Silverlight

Papers

Getting started whitepaper

Silverlight Architecture Overview

What... you haven't thought about it yet? Well I have two suggestions for you.

• IOS island from 2 to 3 of June for the Greek Blogger Camp and
• Budapest from 11 to 12 of June for Microsoft's Remix07

I don't know if I'm going to be there, but even if I'm not, it still is a great opportunity ;-) to learn, meat and communicate with colleagues but relax and have fun at the same time.

t? sync p??f?? µ??

For those of you wishing to help children, there is a tv marathon charity running from MEGA channel. The money gathered is going to be given to build a hospital which will treat children with cancer. Don't hesitate, the smallest amount can really make a difference (believe me I know).
You can give your charity through www.easypay.gr or by calling +30 2111202020 or by sending an SMS at 1919 with the text "??????" at the body.

Having been to Mix06 I knew that there were going to be a lot of cool things coming out this year too. So I've been following closely Mix07, although I didn't manage to go this year and I must say that I'm pretty excited with all the things announced (although some were expected ;-) ).

One of the coolest demos I've seen so far is the Silverlight Airlines application posted by David Anson. I just hope that it will work for Europe as well as USA soon. Check it out.