We have managed to secure some tickets to an exciting upcoming XBOX event! There is an exclusive event called the “Open House” to showcase Microsoft’s latest consumer products including the Australian debut of “Kinect for Xbox 360.” The event will take place at Luna Park with satellite events in other locations. The event will showcase our technology as part of the consumer’s life by bringing scenarios to life including the kitchen, living room, kids room, on the move and in the office. You will be amongst the first people in Australia to see and play with Kinnect, Windows Phone 7 and other new technology.

[Please see attached invitation]

?

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Details

Thursday 2 September, 2010

4-5 pm (please note the invitation says 3-4 which has been changed to 4 to 5. So 4pm to 5pm is the correct time)

Crystal Ballroom, Luna Park, Sydney

1 Olympic Drive, Milsons Point, NSW, 2061

RSVP with your name and university to Anoop.Mehta@student-partners.com.au

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On the event day, you are allowed to take pictures & film video and share the content with other students in the community, especially good for your blogs.

Email me if you have any questions.

Anoop

Source: http://blogs.student-partners.com.au/unswmsp/?p=91

TechEd Australia - Gold Coast 2010

THE STUDENT DIALOGUES

Come and hear from and interact with students from all across the country – possibly from your very own university – who all want one thing – to have a better, richer, more productive and inspiring experience while they study.

Hear how they want to be inspired to use technology and what they need to feel supported by you in their endeavours to better themselves, and why they want to be more productive (and how they can be) which in turn will help them succeed even more, and even what they want in an email service at their university.

Want to know what your students want to do when they graduate? Feel it’s important to know how to interact with the modern day student in your class or on your campus? Hunger to not only teach but lead your students to success in study and career?

Last year’s Academic Day confirmed one thing to us – the faculty and IT staff attendees found it incredibly valuable to hear  directly from the students on the day, so we’re committing ourselves this year to making that happen even more – every session delivered in The Student Dialogues will be presented by a student from around the country that all have a common goal – to help their universities serve their students better so that when they graduate they’re ready for the outside world as powerful and effective as they can be.

You might have noticed the title of this event contains the word Dialogues, which is completely intentional. While every student presenter will be delivering to you their key messages, they’re also keen to hear from you – they’re committed to making this an interactive experience that benefits both the university and the students. So every session will have a dedicated Q&A time slot allocated to it.

So don’t miss this special three and a half hour event on the Gold Coast. RSVP is essential so book your place today!

All attendees will also receive complimentary access to the opening keynote  address of the biggest technical conference in Australia – TechEd, and an invitation to attend the opening party of TechEd where they can network with the IT industry itself, potentially finding partners to help support their students in their study.

AGENDA OUTLINE – 12:30pm Start

• Introduction
• The Modern Student: What it means to be a student
• The Future Student: What can you do to attract students to your institution
• Inspiration – Imagine Cup – students want to represent your uni or school on the world stage
• Afternoon Tea
• Mobility – Windows Phone 7
• Productivity – Office 2010 and Office Web Apps
• Communication – Live@EDU
• Conclusion

Remember, all sessions include Q&A so you can ask the students directly for more details on the burning info you’re after.

4:00-4:30pm Transition to Keynote

4:30pm – Complimentary access to Opening Keynote of TechEd Australia

DETAILS

When

12:30pm – 4:00pm, Tuesday 24 August 2010

4:30pm onwards for TechEd Opening Keynote

Where

Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre

Corner of Gold Coast Highway and TE Peters Drive, Broadbeach QLD 4218

Session information

The Modern Student – What does it mean to be a student in today’s world? How does the modern student cope with the pressures of always on communication, families, work and social activities while at the same time trying to excel at study? What things can you do to help them succeed and not feel bombarded and helpless? What things can they do to help you better connect with them and communicate with them more effectively?

The Future Student – All universities are constantly challenged to recruit more and better candidates for their undergraduate courses. Hear from students who are passionate about exciting kids to get into studying technology and how they can help you get more passionate high school students applying to study at your university. Find out what techniques work when trying to get potential candidates keen on IT, and hear how your own current student pool can help you reach out to your surrounding schools.

Inspiration – Students all over the country are proud of the university they study at and we’re hearing they want to represent their uni on the national and global stage. Microsoft run Imagine Cup, the world’s biggest technology competition for students with over 325,000 students entering the competition worldwide in 2010. How can you help encourage and support the students at your university represent their technical prowess and in turn showcase the talent that is produced out of your university to the industry and media worldwide.

Mobility – A special introductory session on Windows Phone 7 that shows off the features and how it can integrate to other aspects of the learning experience for a student, plus a quick demonstration of how easy it is to build your own applications for the phone that could potentially leverage off your institution’s existing infrastructure.

Productivity – All students want to be as productive as possible. Studies show that they have almost double the amount of activities as they have waking hours in a week, which means they need to be as efficient as possible with everything they do. Hear how some students use products like OneNote and the new Office Web Apps to make their lives easier and see how they can be integrated into your own learning environment easily and at low or no cost to help them be even more productive in their study.

Communication – Email is arguably the most important and effective way of communicating with students in a typical university environment but is also one of the hardest to manage. Hear how students who have used Live@EDU have found it to be an incredibly effective solution for their email needs and has the additional benefits of being able to be used as their online ID elsewhere, thus spreading awareness of your institution on a wider net.

To attend, simply send an email to tech.ed@infosalons.com.au and include the following information for each person you’re RSVPing for:

Full Name

Educational Institution

Too easy!

I look forward to seeing you there, but more importantly, the student speakers are looking forward to seeing you there. Don’t miss out.

Make sure you stay tuned onto this blog as well as the AshMan says…Facebook page for updates on some exciting events that will be coming up.

One is TechEd 2010 which I will be presenting at the Academic Day on Microsoft Technologies.

The other one is a secret right now and will be announced very shortly! But if you attend QUT you will be reaping the maximum benefit from this awesome event!

So stay tuned!

AshMan says…

With the launch of the iPhone 4, there were and still are a myriad of issues surrounding its design. When you gripped the phone with your left hand, covering a crucial part of the phone’s antenna the phone would lose signal and drop calls.

Some people have come out with some comical designs to help fix the problem as below:

The end call vinyl: The name says it all, when you want to drop the call simply cover this area!

iPhone 4 End Call Sticker

AntennaAid-Bandages: Again, name says it all. A simple band-aid solution for your iPhone 4! Not bad for $5 US.

Antenna-Aid - Not bad for $5US!

So what are you waiting for? Go grab it for when iPhone Launches on July 30!

Halo has been one of those defining video games for the Xbox 360. Since the original launch in 2005 Halo has taken gamers on a journey with Master Chief to save the world from the Covenant. The success of the game and its great universe has spawned novels which one their own have been very successful.

The latest and final release from Bungie is Halo: Reach, which actually covers the events from the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach. However you follow the perspective of a Spartan team who is on the ground on Reach.

The game looks fantastic and following in tradition of Halo 2 and Halo 3 a limited edition of the Xbox 360 is being released to celebrate the game. The console is a special silver version feature the same internals as the newly redesigned console. It also is bundled with two matching silver controllers and a copy of the Halo: Reach Standard Edition.

The Australian pricing of the limited edition console is $549, and from what I’ve seen. It is worth every penny! It simply looks awesome.

Halo: Reach Limited Edition Console $549

Kinect (aka Project Natal) has had its pricing confirmed for Australia. Microsoft also announced its Arcade replacement model called the Xbox 360 4GB.

The Xbox 360 4GB has the same features as the new Xbox 360 however instead of a 250GB hard drive it features 4GB of internal flash memory and instead of a shiny finish, it will come with a matte finish. This may seem a little small, however don’t forget the old Arcade only came with 512MB of internal flash memory.

The pricing for Kinect is $199 and it includes the motion sensing device as well as Kinect Adventures which is a full game. A bundle has also been announced with the Xbox 360 4GB, Kinect and Kinect Adventures for $449.

Kinect Adventures includes 20 different game modes as well as support for two players at the same time. You can also swap in and out instantly in a game. As well as Kinect Adventures launching, there will be 15 other titles launching.

I’m yet to play with Kinect myself but am looking forward to the chance hopefully in the near future!

Let me know what you think of Kinect in the comment section below

Kinect $199 Pricing Announced Australia

XDA-Developers have posted news that one of their forum members has been able to dump the ROM from an upcoming HTC Device named Mondrian.

Seeing some videos of the new Windows Phone 7 and test driving the operating system through an emulator is nice and already gets the discussions and speculations flowing.

What most XDA-Developers followers really are waiting for is a full fledged ROM, that magically appears out of nothing.

Wait no more, because member 911sniper posted a Windows Phone 7 ROM from a HTC device named theHTC Mondrian.
The posting of the ROM is so fresh out the oven that at this point there’s not a lot of concrete information about either the device or the ROM itself. But it is certainly good news, knowing that developers and cooks are sharpening their knives to cut it to pieces and find out as much as possible about it.

Originally posted by 911sniper

Model: HTC Mondrian (Cingular USA)
AKU: WindowsMobile_7_AKU_6176
Language: 0409_WWE

Happy cooking!

At the moment it is clear that the known tools most chefs use, will not work without modifications. XDA developer and moderator Da_G already dumped the ROM with his currently private NBHImageTool which allows dumping unsigned ROMs.

If you’re dying to find out what the real low-down is on Microsoft’s operating system and HTC’s new device, head on over to the original thread to stay in the loop of the latest finds.
Make sure to keep an eye on the XDA-Portal, we will keep you updated with the latest information from the developers and chefs!

Do you want to live rent free in a property which costs up to $1500 per week for 7 Months? Do you also want it to be decked out in awesome technology? Well Microsoft has a competition for you!!! Head over to facebook.com/TheStudentHouse for entry details!

Windows 7 unlike previous versions of Windows allows you the user to really personalising the look and feel of you PC Experience.

The backgrounds are no longer just static images, you can choose to display a slideshow of photos of your friends and family or anything else you want to display. You can even customise if you want those images shuffled, and how often you want your background to change.

The colour of your task bar is also fully customisable, allowing you to choose any colour on the spectrum you like to match your personality!

The video below shows you how you can customise the look and feel of Windows 7. Be sure to check it out.

At the Mobile World Congress Microsoft revealed the much anticipated latest release of Windows Phone/Mobile (whatever you want to call it). This particular version has been considered long over due by many users. Windows Phone 7 had also been delayed numerous times, and also the original version of WP7 was scrapped completely and a rework was created.

The new OS is a completely different approach to any other phone operating system including older versions of Windows Mobile. WP7 moves to a tile based menu/group of icons which can be customised by the user with contacts or applications.

From the various demo’s which have been uploaded to the internet shows WP7 to be a very responsive and pleasant experience. This is helped by the applications like the contacts application to be loaded like a panoramic image which the user creates gestures to move across the menu.

A big announcement for the OS was the integration of the Xbox Live service and the ability to have your avatar and gamerscore available on your device. At the event they also mentioned the ability to play online with users around the world on other WP7 devices, PC’s and Xbox 360′s, which means that it will be interesting how the experience will be for all users across the platforms.

Microsoft is also taking a stronger position on the hardware which its partners are producing, by creating a list of requirements which each device must have including for touch based devices a large capacitive screen, minimum 5 mega-pixel camera with LED flash and three dedicated hardware buttons (back, home and Bing search). This means a more consistent user experience across all devices available.

With all of this announced Windows Phone 7 Series is looking to be a very strong competitor in the mobile arena, and be sure to look out for more info at Mix2010 coming soon.