{"id":2383,"date":"2011-09-09T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/2011\/09\/09\/project-hawaii-xapfest-2011-awards-hawaiian-trip-to-windows-phone-app-contest-winner\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T07:33:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T14:33:39","slug":"project-hawaii-xapfest-2011-awards-hawaiian-trip-to-windows-phone-app-contest-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/blog\/project-hawaii-xapfest-2011-awards-hawaiian-trip-to-windows-phone-app-contest-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Hawaii XAPFest 2011 Awards Hawaiian Trip to Windows Phone App Contest Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">Working as an intern at Microsoft has many benefits, but a vacation in Hawaii is not usually one of them. This year, summer interns had an opportunity to work on exciting new mobile technologies, while competing with their peers for an all-expenses paid trip to one of the Hawaiian islands. Microsoft Research Connections&mdash;in partnership with Microsoft Research&rsquo;s Mobile Computing Research Center and Windows Phone&mdash;hosted a first-of-its-kind intern competition: Hawaii XAPFest. The competition was open to all U.S.-based Microsoft interns. The challenge: develop Windows Phone apps by using Project Hawaii services and that make use of new consumer features coming in the next version of Windows Phone, code-named &ldquo;Mango.&rdquo;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">All participants were trained in the key <a href=\"http:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/windowsphone\/en-us\/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Windows Phone<\/a> development areas to provide them with necessary background to complete the challenge. The training included a series of lectures about relevant Microsoft technologies, such as <a href=\"http:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/silverlight\/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Silverlight<\/a>, <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/create.msdn.com\/en-US\/education\/basics\/xna_framework\" target=\"_blank\">XNA<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/um\/redmond\/projects\/hawaii\/services\/\" target=\"_blank\">Project Hawaii services<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/windowsazure\/\" target=\"_blank\">Windows Azure<\/a>. Armed with this knowledge, each participating intern developed a Windows Phone app for submission to the evaluation committee comprised of researchers and developers from Microsoft Research and Windows Phone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">The final round of XAPfest judging took place on August 9, when finalists presented their projects to a panel of judges comprised of Microsoft executives. Each finalist was required to present their project to the judging panel and provide a live demonstration of their app. The judges selected the top four projects based on their creativity, presentation, use of Project Hawaii, and use of features in the next version of Windows Phone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\"><strong>Top Award Winners<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">The grand-prize winner was Julia Schwartz, a second-year graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University and an intern with the Microsoft Research Human Computer Interface (HCI) group. Julia&rsquo;s app, &ldquo;Headshot,&rdquo; uses facial detection and audio feedback to make it simpler to get the perfect self-portrait every time. Julia&rsquo;s prize for this victory is a trip for two to Hawaii. Congratulations, Julia!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><video poster=\"http:\/\/media.ch9.ms\/ch9\/d3a8\/ed3e3dbc-ccf9-43ad-bbbd-9f52013ad3a8\/XAPsizzle_512_ch9.jpg\" controls=\"controls\"><source src=\"http:\/\/media.ch9.ms\/ch9\/d3a8\/ed3e3dbc-ccf9-43ad-bbbd-9f52013ad3a8\/XAPsizzle_low_ch9.mp4\"><\/source><object data=\"data:application\/x-silverlight-2,\" width=\"512\" type=\"application\/x-silverlight-2\" height=\"288\"><param name=\"minRuntimeVersion\" value=\"4.0.50401.0\"><param name=\"source\" value=\"http:\/\/channel9.msdn.com\/scripts\/Channel9.xap?v=1.8\"><param name=\"initParams\" value=\"mediaurl=http:\/\/smooth.ch9.ms\/ch9\/d3a8\/ed3e3dbc-ccf9-43ad-bbbd-9f52013ad3a8\/XAPsizzle.ism\/manifest,thumbnail=http:\/\/media.ch9.ms\/ch9\/d3a8\/ed3e3dbc-ccf9-43ad-bbbd-9f52013ad3a8\/XAPsizzle_512_ch9.jpg,deliverymethod=adaptivestreaming,autoplay=false,entryid=ed3e3dbcccf943adbbbd9f52013ad3a8\"><\/object><\/video><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">The top three runners up were:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\">Marvin Cheng, a senior at the University of Washington and intern working in the Windows Phone division. Marvin presented the &ldquo;Optical Search&rdquo; app, which uses the Project Hawaii Optical Character Recognition service to recognize words in documents and enables users to search for those words on the Internet. The app also has built-in definition look-up functionality.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\">Gary Roumanis, a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Gary showed &ldquo;8 Tracks,&rdquo; a handcrafted Internet radio service app that offers a simple way for people to share and discover music and playlists.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\">Ian Christopher, a first-year graduate student at Stanford University, and Roberto Sonnino, an undergraduate at the University of S&atilde;o Paulo. The duo, who are both interns in the Microsoft Visual Studio Graphics team, collaborated to create an app, &ldquo;Hands Free Cook,&rdquo; that uses speech recognition and synthesis to provide cooking tips while keeping the phone a safe distance away from the stove and sink.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">All of the presentations we saw this year were very impressive, which made it tough to pick a final winner. The quality of work we saw from our participants demonstrates the innovation we continue to see with Windows Phone. I&rsquo;m pleased to say I received overwhelmingly positive comments from contestants, who shared that they had a great time participating in this unique, exciting competition. Of course, the most excited of all is Julia, who started out working with Project Hawaii, and is now set to take off and see the &ldquo;real&rdquo; Hawaii!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\">&mdash;<em><a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/people\/arjmands\/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Arjmand Samuel<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Senior Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Connections<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;\"><strong>Learn More<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\"><a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/um\/redmond\/projects\/hawaii\/\" target=\"_blank\">Project Hawaii<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\"><a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/channel9.msdn.com\/Blogs\/Windows-Phone-7\/Hawaii-interns-XAPfest-2011\" target=\"_blank\">Video recording of Hawaii XAPFest 2011 event<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\"><a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/collaboration\/focus\/cs\/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Computer Science at Microsoft Research Connections<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;\"><a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/windowsteamblog.com\/windows_phone\/b\/wpdev\/archive\/2011\/09\/07\/8-amazing-student-apps-aka-thank-goodness-it-wasn-t-not-code-named-delaware.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">8 Amazing Student Apps<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working as an intern at Microsoft has many benefits, but a vacation in Hawaii is not usually one of them. This year, summer interns had an opportunity to work on exciting new mobile technologies, while competing with their peers for an all-expenses paid trip to one of the Hawaiian islands. Microsoft Research Connections&mdash;in partnership with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32627,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[194701,194915,195643,195772,195858,196079,196284,196306,196333,196439,196460,196482,196534,196907,197043,197299,197623,197639,187239,187362,197855],"research-area":[],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-2383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog","tag-arjmand-samuel","tag-carnegie-mellon-university","tag-gary-roumanis","tag-hawaii-xapfest","tag-ian-christopher","tag-julia-schwartz","tag-mango","tag-marvin-cheng","tag-mcgill-university","tag-microsoft-research-connections","tag-microsoft-research-mobile-computing-research-center","tag-microsoft-silverlight","tag-mobile-technologies","tag-project-hawaii-services","tag-roberto-sonnino","tag-stanford-university","tag-university-of-so-paulo","tag-university-of-washington","tag-windows-azure","tag-windows-phone","tag-xna","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[],"related-projects":[212082],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","byline":"","formattedDate":"September 9, 2011","formattedExcerpt":"Working as an intern at Microsoft has many benefits, but a vacation in Hawaii is not usually one of them. This year, summer interns had an opportunity to work on exciting new mobile technologies, while competing with their peers for an all-expenses paid trip to&hellip;","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262293,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions\/262293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=2383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}