Archetype’s Silverlight 4 Applications Showcased in PDC Keynote

As part of the keynote presentation at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s Corporate VP, .NET Developer Platform, showcased two of Archetype’s innovative Silverlight 4 applications . Taking advantage of Silverlight 4’s new webcam and audio capabilities, Archetype created photobooth and barcode applications. The photobooth application allows users to record and playback video and still images via webcam, as well as apply a series of pixel shader effects, including bulge, chromakey, cartoon and emboss.  The photobooth application also includes publishing capabilities, allowing users to share video and images via sites like Twitter and Facebook. During the photobooth application presentation, Scott captured a picture of himself with the bulge effect activated and published it to his Twitter account, making for an interesting profile picture.

Scott demonstrated the barcode scanning application by holding up in front of the webcam the barcode of a book he coauthored. After scanning and recognizing the barcode, the application then searched for the book and brought back a list of online retailers who carry the book, along with a picture of the book, prices and other details. Dramatically speeding up the purchasing process, the barcode application has myriad uses including finding products of all types.

Both of these demonstrations highlighted new, powerful capabilities in Silverlight, as well as Archetype’s commitment to being at the forefront of emerging technology. Through partnering with the Silverlight team, Archetype produced a set of compelling and useful applications that demonstrate the power of Silverlight 4 and its webcam support.