//Build’16 Keynote – Day 2

Let's do some Azure this time. Did you know that they are bigger than Google and Amazon combined? Let's hear more from the Red Shirt ™ ! This post is more picture heavy than usual, so many things to show not just write about!

 

 

What are the main reasons people choose them? These are Choice and Flexibility (management, applications, application frameworks, databases, middleware, infrastructure), the Openedness (choice of device, framework, OS), their Enterprise readiness (certifications, compliance, ability to choose between service provider datacenter, azure datacenter, your own datacenter – same tools, APIs, UIs to manage), and Productivity (focus on developers – did you know 40% of Azure clients are startups and ISVs). There are the various Azure app services you can create – providing web, mobile, logic, api as building blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here comes Xamarin – it's FREE. FREE as in really FREE and OpenSource. You do get it for the community free edition as well. And if this wouldn't be enough – you don't need a Mac anymore. And the windows emulator have multitouch. And with android emulator. Using Xamarin Android Inspector, with markdown support. With Roslyn providing code completion. With live editing for Android. Xamarin Studio on the Mac – free!

 

With Visual Studio Team Services getting the Xamarin Test Cloud added, you have a complete mobile devops life cycle now. "I'll just rub a little devops on it and it will make it better". With not only picture playback, but also video playback with realtime memory, CPU and log correlation.

"The first time I installed Linux was after I joined Microsoft."

No devices to buy, no VMs to manage. All comes hand-in-hand.

 

And we switching gears ™ to IoT.Starting with Open Mobility Cloud for cars (BMW this time, not Volvo ). Noone is going to ask you to deliver IoT. People ask you to make them access data easier and better. Check outhttps://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/campaigns/mydriving/ if you interested.

Announcement time again: introducing Azure Functions (with an opensourced platform), enabling to host snippets in the cloud with only paying for the actual resources you use. With automatic alerting, cloud connectivity and more. And another announcement: Azure IoT Updates with Start Kits, Hub Device Management, Gateway SDK, and more.

 

And now over to one of my favorite topics: Microservices.

267 million messages per second with 50.000 concurrent user in the same battle. Age of Ascent MMO game round now, anyone?  Age of Ascent developers helped adding 2300% increase in speed to Kestrel – thanks to them going opensource. Who does not love opensource?

 

 

And our favorite one lesser Scott is there showing an opengl game, Visual Studio.NET and Service Fabric Explorer at the same time. Object Oriented design moved to the cloud. You already know this if you know how to code .NET. Little learning curve for IReliableDictionary and Queue – not your usual collections.

 

Can I submit a PR for fixing the typo? 

"When I test my code I test it in production." "F*ck, awkward" "This is the classic off-by-one error in a MMO game"

Actually next to learn about weather we see another game, using DocumentDB:

 

And now a new area (is it just me feeling we have been rushing through more areas than ever?): PowerBI (free till May 1st), with PowerBI SDK for creating ability in your application to add PowerBI capabilities and connectivity to your own application.

Next topic is productivity. Reinventing productivity. Developer productivity. Transition to the cloud. Delivering new productivity experiences on the mobile. Building a modern productivity ecosystem. The platform opportunities are already open today. You can build intelligent applications by connecting to Office services. You can make your solution part of the office applications. And you can engage the users through conversations – conversations as a platform. You need a productivity platform and working ecosystem for this. The four pillars around this are mobility of experiences, collaborative productivity, intelligence everywhere and being trusted all times.

You can use Microsoft Graph to reach the data – similarly how you did it using Microsoft Hailstorm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_My_Services , anyone remembers it?). The demo is using DocuSign to show how the new beta graph API enables you to use the data and intelligence from the Microsoft Graph. The office addin capabilities (announced today) now making it easy – using web technologies (html5, css, javascript; and technologies like OAuth). This enabled announcing Office addins for Office 2016 for Mac and Office 2016 for iPad/iPhone/Android. Also, having a common, modern distribution using enterprise or normal application store enables you to easily reach people.

Simple web technologies and a config file enables you to write, package and deliver your addins easier:

We speak of a Seattle company – Starbucks connectivity in your email available now 

Machine generated alternative text: Starbucks for Outlookchooi. Vow .GftThjnk You!IO O2JI s. *a>e’C.f f.. FavørI.s •—- oWeddingr. O___ , ‘ 7f(5_ —ee AI>

Machine generated alternative text: Sta rbucks for Outlook< Check Outrl Microso//build/-’siœo, O.ooe Y Om Aioia.QLu. riprjòtt cornCatd Arnotint $100Chooi.c Your Paent Mr-thod[vlsA 1111

Office 365 Group connectors – another productivity announcement, from now on you can add custom connect, already 60 providers having their information actively added to the threads:

Also enabling trusted, secure video and audio conversations by using a the common communication platform, embedded into the applications:

And probably the last gear change:

Having the Muzik platform iOS/android/windows phone addins – devices, IoT, next generation productivity. Showing demo for Highspot and machine learning – they are an AWS shop, but running PowerBI there. And – running azure website inside powerpoint as an addin, and use Vorlon.js to debug the application realtime. Also adding possibility to add the bot framework and platform using node.js and restify.

 

And introduced http://projectmurphy.net and the Skype bot you can use there for playing with 

We learned a lot about ongoing projects – open source projects Microsoft is involved in, user groups Microsoft is involved in, Enterprise customers and ISVs Microsoft is involved with, the involvement with students and universities, etc. Lastly – we learned about a new show called http://www.decodedshow.com/ as part of the closing words.

 

I think I have to repeat myself from yesterday: Empowering developers!

//Build’16 Keynote

What I figured out just by watching the pre-intro – they are more low-key about the event than usual. No wild build-up to the keynote, music is relaxing and downtempo. And they are very blue 

 

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1600_5F00_phplnvfosp3300034.jpgSatya Nadella started by taking over the stage. Taking over – he is full of energy, everyone loves him (what is not to love on the guy who brought you SQL on Linux, Office for iPad, etc.) He quickly points out how dev conference is a dev conference: it's about networking and being inspired. This unique characteristic what he wants to build on and celebrate. He brought up topics in his opening speech that focused on society and how it can be a mainstream thing; how it can either hurt or help it; how it should empower you. He also was overly optimistic, and said, that optimism must be buoyed by making the right choices. And of course, the mantra of 'mobile first, cloud first'. "Cloud is not a single destination. It's a new form of computing" he said.

 

1600_5F00_phpxhnma9p3300038.jpg1600_5F00_4.pngCreating, building and reinventing is the 3 main pillars for cloud and is Microsoft's ambitions in this space. Windows 10 is off to a great start – he said. New platform for human voice, fingerprint, and more? "It's such a great time to be a Windows Developer." And there are 270 million Windows 10 installation (5 billion store visits); if we look at the 1 billion installation in 3 years, we are not that far from the forecast – and actually is the fastest ever adoption.

royen.pngTerry Myerson starts with "Hello Developers" – anyone wants to continue with "Developers! Developers!" and large amount of sweat?  Windows 10 anniversary update would still come free.It contains new ink experience (with ink workspaces for last used ink apps), biometrics for Microsoft Edge (got demo of it, using biometric scanner to log into the website), support for Windows 10 on XBOX, enabling general XBOX One development (e.g. any retail XBOX One can be used as a dev kit/machine, using the same UWP username/account). You get nice controller support for selection, focus, etc. But also you get speech recognition and more on the XBOX, and with full VS.NET debugging experience. Hololens gets also refresh during the summer. Bryan Roper stayed in character with his clothes and style, no surprise  They are bringing pen & paper even further into the focus. He demoed the new ink features – front and center; and he just started! He was able to write with ink and that got contextive focus from Cortana providing full integration for sticky notes ('Call mom tomorrow' gets translated into reminder). Can I get an 'Ohhh' – Ohhh!

 

1600_5F00_php49fr87p3300045.jpgWe saw demo of a virtual ruler using whiteboard/sketchboard as well, and just tweeted it from the application. Important to know how you get something new – ink and touch together, enables for example amazing features in PhotoShop. Also, we got demo of 3D maps and ink usage – points of interest, plotted routes, etc. Also we got demo of using ink in Office – Word to remove texts, for highlighting; Powerpoint to show how items can be lined up, etc. Generally Microsoft is creating a layer of contextual computer learning to make the stylus smart and useful in a way you want it to be. It's more of a real digital pen than ever.

As part of the keynote, Facebook was announcing that it's bringing it's ad network to Windows 10 universal apps, that will considerably help monetizing applications.

home.pngAnd at last (35 minutes in) "It's about time we looked at some code!"  Kevin Gallo is on stage! "We want Windows to be home for Developers" Part of UWP got AnimationFX platform introduced with hovers, blurring, flowing, shadows. All GPU accelerated! And also with deep ink integration. Here comes "Hello world" for ink, with InkCanvas and InkToolbar. The new design language seems to merge Material, Jellybean and existing metro; flat & robotic, but layering and animations.

linux.pngVisual Studio 2015 Update 2 and Anniversary SDK preview was announced, that enables use the features above. Next topics was web apps, e.g. how to make a desktop application using only web technologies. And yes, BASH shell is coming to Windows. Not VM, not cross compiled. New Linux subsystem supports this. This enables people stay in BASH, emacs, etc., e.g. with their known tools but still use Windows.

And officially announced was Centennial – Win32 app converter, to continue running your desktop application; they will get built into WISE, Installshield, etc. And with doubleclick support for .appx, with support for accessing live tiles, toasts, etc. You only need to add the extra functionality as a separate DLL and load that on demand when you are. This will help move the 16.000.000+ applications to the store.

 

devmode.png1600_5F00_w10.jpgAnd the expected demo from Xamarin – nice addition was a remote XLB editor from Visual Studio next to rest of nice, immersive features. Ok, Terry Myerson just said Bash and DOS in the same sentence. If you are doing a drinking game, this is the time to drink the whole bottle. They just mentioned we will focus on gaming now – Phil Spencer first, Kipman on Hololens next. Phil will surely have a hard time convincing people that UWP is the best platform for writing games. Killer Instinct, Quantum Break, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, etc all being UWP. In May they add GSync and FreeSync instead of VSync. DX12 is coming full speed, for full screen games, with overlays, and more. They actually demoed Age of Empires (directly from steam!), Witcher 3, running as an UWP, full frame rate, full screen.

This ins't a hobby. It's a commitment – said Microsoft about Xbox One Universal apps. and the preview of dev mode is available from today. And DX12, which makes it all possible is the fastest adoption of API so far.

hololens.png

And yes, shipping for Hololens is happening today. And they are opensourcing Galaxy Explorer. We got a good demo on how medical students can use Hololens. "To think and see beyond the possible" Also demo of Destination Mars, in Kennedy Space center and onto the Build conference. At last people can try doing everything Matt Damon did in Martian was wrong. Hololens do transform your world.

 

cortana.pngAnd Nadella is back to 'switch gears'. We will help computers learn so that they can help in everyday tasks. It's not about man versus machines. It's about man with machines! By augmenting human abilities and with experiences, being inclusive and with earning trust. Human language is the new UI. Bots are the new apps, digital assistants are meta apps. Intelligence gets infused into all interactions. As a result of this idea, Cortana is building to be an actual assistant, not an assistant that's limited to platform/device. Right now Cortana answers one million spoken questions per day, 1000+ application connected. New version of Cortana will work on lock screen, having a full screen experience; also having an integration with Outlook. "Sent Chuck to powerpoint I worked on yesterday"; by sending text message it automatically sets up meeting and moves other meetings around. Also will figure out it's during lunch time, so it will try to suggest eating out; all based on the connected applications. This happens based on a connected application which looks into calendar and decides to toast based on that. Based on receipt in email, Cortana suggested submitting expenses. "what toy store did I got to last year at build?" Cortana Developer Preview invites are available!

domino.pngGrowing number of conversation canvases are there – slack, kik, groupme, wechat, line, skype, email, sms, etc. They look into making these into rich conversational canvases. Where does this lead? Into working Cortana into the applications via using bots. Like transcribing video messages, having rich bing powered cards, brokering conversation with 3rd parties, knowing context from previous conversations, and sharing context between brokers. Like not only booking calendar, but booking hotel, suggesting to contact people, etc., this working for typed text, voice but also for realtime video and for hololens. Cortana really behaves like a real assistant – though making available the newly announced skype bot sdk; with a hackathon to kick it off; and is available in the applications from today; based on Microsoft Bot Framework (with bot builder sdk for nodejs and C# available from github), Cognitive Services (new website with 22 services at start at https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services, and with a demo ofhttp://captionbot.ai/ and CRIS recognition of voice) and Machine Learning (with many tools to teach the system on the fly and involve humans to help when machine is stuck). The idea is to have cognitive micro-services that you could use from each of the conversation canvases, not only from Skype. Also a very nice (actually, I'd say, amazing) demo for people for disabilities on how to use these services in action.

 

The summary of the day: Empower developers!

Ubuntu on Windows – what does this mean

Seeing the recent set of announcements – starting from Office for iPad through buying up Accompli, Sunrise, Xamarin, etc., also announcing Microsoft SQL Server for Linux – it came less of a surprise that Microsoft is bringing Ubuntu on Windows – however comparing it to the Microsoft of the past (Steve Ballmer once considered Linux users a bunch of communist thieves and saw open source itself as a cancer) it still comes as a big surprise. We still lack some of the details there, but we are seeing various Linux subsystems integrated into Windows (does it mean that Bash would be coming for Windows? I think yes). So we are not talking about a Windows-Ubuntu hybrid OS. Neither we talk about a virtual machine. However, as a result of this, Ubuntu would be able to run on native Windows libraries, using the subsystems, and gives access to Ubuntu from within Windows without the overhead of a VM/dual-boot setup.

What else I expect? Some excitement around Ubuntu LXD and using together with containers and Windows would be nice.

Ionic just added support for UWP

Ionic just announced (http://blog.ionic.io/announcing-windows-support-in-ionic-2/) – as part of the other huge sets of Microsoft Build announcements – that their API and toolkit, along with a total UI looknfeel and component set is coming for UWP. Why is this important?

If we glance at the sessions of //Build'16 you can see they focus on two major target right now: game development for UWP and web development (or better to say, using web technologies) for UWP. You could ask, where is the desktop development? Next to having a session focusing on moving desktop apps to UWP (using project centennial, which enables bringing win32, .net, etc apps to become part of the UWP ecosystem and windows 10), there is no speak of desktop development at all. What does this mean? A move of focus? I have been watching the whole UWP story for a while, and by now I'm positive (even if not sure) that the web technologies is the way how desktop applications would be built. So, I'm more than thrilled to wait for the //Build'16 keynote and the breakout sessions where this would be hopefully dived into.