Call for robotic/artifical brain developers

Are you looking to participate in a business challenge focused on edge developments related to robotics, artificial neural circuits,AI and other near sci-fi cutting edge technologies?

Ideally you should have a deep expertise in  Electronic Engineering or related field, a strong background in FPGA Design ,C/C++ skills, fluent language skills in English , High-Performance-Computing (HPC) experience/knowledge
Any experience/background in IT, robotics, AI, cognitive science may be of use.

So, If you have an entrepreneur spirit bored from your current life and have a mood to start a great adventure please drop me an e-mail to r_trifonov@hotmail.com  with attached  CV.

Workshop: Building Windows 8 style apps with HTML5 and javascript

I just delivered a workshop about the development of Windows 8 style applications with HTML5 and javascript. The workshop was jointly developed and organized by  New Horizons Bulgaria and Mobile Affairs.

We had a demo unit of Windows 8 powered tablet provided kindly by Microsoft Bulgaria in order to demonstrate some of the new UI touch concepts.

I am providing links to the sample app building guide and the application source code in case someone has missed them:
VideoLib - sample app tutorial
VideoLib - sample app source code

Here come additional resources about the WinJS Promise implementation as it seems to be the most difficult to understand topic and most important and the same time.

Mike Taulty on WinJS Promises

http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2012/04/11/winjs-promises-1.aspx
http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2012/04/11/winjs-promises-2.aspx
http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2012/04/11/winjs-promises-3.aspx
http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2012/04/11/winjs-promises-4.aspx
http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2012/04/11/winjs-promises-5.aspx
http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2012/04/11/winjs-promises-6.aspx

Derick Bailey on WinJS Promises

http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2012/07/19/want-to-build-win8winjs-apps-you-need-to-understand-promises/


Here comes a good overview of the key principles behind Windows 8 from the Build conference, last year delivered by Jensen Harris,Microsoft
http://ak.channel9.msdn.com/build/2011/wmv/BigPicture-1.wmv

Debugging Prestigio PMP7070C

 

I just unpacked brand new PMP7070C, connected it to my Windows box in order to have a quick debug session using Eclipse and ADT and ….  kabooom!

 

I failed to deploy my app on the device, although I have already enabled the debugging from the Android’s Settings/Applications/Development menu.

I checked the DDMS perspective in Eclipse and played a little with adb commands from the command prompt, but still without success. It turned out that the device was not connected ( according to adb ). So, I checked the Windows Device manager and realized that the ADB driver for the device was not installed automatically.

 

So , XDA-DEVELOPERS.COM forums came to help again. I found the following post containing a link to the adb drivers and even install instructions if you don’t know how to do it alone.

NOTE: there was a guy complaining that the drivers did not work on 64 bit Windows. However , I am on 64 bit Windows 7  and it works for me.

Android development training

I just finished the Android development course, which was developed and delivered in cooperation between Mobile Affairs and New Horizons in Sofia.  I had to present the Android developer story to the participants for 3 days and I we were able to cover most of the basic topics, which I think are must for every Android developer. We had theoretical sessions and practical exercises using the equipment provided by New Horizons. The interesting part was that most of the participant were coming from the .NET world  ( we had 2 Java-experienced participants also) , so we were able to make parallels between the two platforms and their own  tools and making the learning process more interesting.

It turns out that there is a demand for Android training around , so I guess we will continue to deliver even more training events dedicated to the Android development together with New Horizons in Sofia.

I was asked several times to cover more advanced topics by some guys, so I am already investigating the opportunity to organize more advanced events.

We will have events dedicates to Windows Phone 7 development together with New Horizons in the several  weeks, so stay tuned.

And hey, if someone from the latest Android development training was not able to obtain the source code of the labs, let me know and I will send it to you.

NAVmobile/AXmobile - 2011 Q4 roadmap

I was quite out of the blogging business for a while. I am still following the latest technical and business trends in the IT area, but I am mostly focused over the development of Mobile Affiars and our product NAVmobile/AXmobile.
We're trying to stay in touch with our partners and giving them as much as possible information about the product roadmap and the expacted product changes. This information is shared through our partner channel resources, but I decided to share some informarion in public in order to reach potential partners, current customers and other interested parties.

I will discuss some of the main platform-wide functional areas , which we're digging into. I will miss the various improvements in the standard Sales/Warehouse scenarios that we support. So, here come the main areas:

• Device Agent Improvements
• Barcode management improvements
• Graphical UI for deployment process tailoring
• Off-line working mode in Warehouse management. ( IT.Warehouse )
  
• Support for more mobile platforms

Device Agent

NAVmobile/AXmobile introduced a concept for a device agent few months ago. It is a background service working on the device and performing different activities behind the scene. It is extremely nice to have feature in scenarios, where the mobile user is not supposed to manually perform device synchronization. The on-line Warehouse Management scenario is a good example. The Device agent is performing activities like:

• caching and resending of failed synchronization packets
  The network connectivity may have poor quality in larger warehouse areas or experience connection droppings, when netowork roming takes place.
  
  
• sending of device system information and logs
  The Device agent performs collection of event logs and device system information and sends them to the server, when connection is available.
  
• downloading of system settings from the server
  if new settings are published on the server, the Device agent will automatically extract the settings from the server and they will affect the device behaviour immediately. The agent is capable to execute device provisioning "scripts" in order to configure different aspects of the underline mobile OS.
  
  
• downloading mobile software updates
  if new mobile software version is published on the server, the agent will automatically download and install the software without user interaction, making sure that the user will not lose any unsaved work.
  
  
• alerting device user for custom messages
  ERP users and administrators can send messages to devices or device roles ( group of devices). These messages are handled and displayed/alerted on the device by the Device agent.
  

We are working over a number of additional device agent features, which will be announced in the next public release

• Location data collection and GIS integration
  The Device Agent will collect GPS data on the device and will be able to send the GPS log to the Mobile Sync Server. The administrators will be able to analyze the collected location data through the web administrative console or exporting the data to third party GIS.
  
  
• User task management
  The ERP users will be able to create tasks for the mobile users ,wich will be sent to the device and displayed in a customized splash screen. The splash screen will allow users to launch spefiic task from their list by taping over it. Initially the customized task management splash screen will be introduced in our standard Warehouse module , but partners will be able to integrate the task management approach in their own customizations.
  

Barcode management
NAVmobile/AXmobile had a platform-wide barcode management support from the begining. Our partners are able to easily introduce support for additional barcode scanners/imagers by implementing a simple barcode "drivers" using CF.NET and delivering them through the standard OTA(over-the-air) infrastructure.

Our next release will introduce new barcode pattern based management features. Partners will be able to specify the various barcode types and masks and their content ( like item-numbers, quantities, lots, bins and more ) and the system will automatically parse the barcode conten and automatically extract encoded quantities, numbersm bins , etc. Barcode patterns configurtion will be deployed on the devices by using the same server-side provisioning approach,


Graphical UI for deployment process tailoring
NAVmobile/AXmobile allows partners to tailor the automatic OTA deployment process. They can "instruct" the server to perform various additional activites during the initial mobile application deployment. It allows partners to deploy additional apps ( like keyboard layouts for example ) or provision the mobile OS on deployment. This is done (right now ) by writing instruction in a dedicated xml file (Deploy.manifest ) . In the next release we will introduce dedicated UI in the Web Administrative Console to make the deployment tailoring even easier.


Off-line working mode in Warehouse management. ( IT.Warehouse )
Our standard warehouse module was developed as on-line solution intially. We introduced failed sync packet resending features to minimize the on-line requirement impact, but it turns out that there is a big demand to support the warehouse scenarios in complete off-line mode.
Or next public release will allow organizations to select between off-line and on-line mode with a simple setup and even mix off-line and on-line warehouse workers in a single deployment.

Support for more mobile platforms



Microsoft announced the extended support for Windows Mobile based devices and event longer support for the rebranded Windows Embedded Handheld and Windows Compact editions. We will keep introducing more features on these platforms as this is the most popular mobile OS for rugged devices these days.
However, the IT area is very dynamic and forces us to introduce support for additional mobile platforms and form factors. We will incrementally introduce support for all of the major mobile operting systems starting with Android near the end of the year. The new platform will support complete off-line mode through native mobile apps and on-line mode through a modern web browser.
We will introduce new cross-platform mobile development environment to allow our partners to write once and distribute their ERP connected mobile apps to various mobile platforms.
We will also incrementally introduce all features and mobile modules supported on Windows Mobile to the new platofm. Partners/Customers will be able to "host" and manage Windows Mobile and all supported modern mobile devices in a single deployment with the same skills and knowledge.


Disclaimer: The NAVmobile/AXmobile features are subject of change witout notice. We will do our best effort to inform our partners and customers in advance if changes in the roadmap are comming in response to changes in the dynamic business environment.