The Microsoft Dreamspark Yatra was conducted at Sir Padampat Singhania University on Thursday, 29th March. The event was 2 hours long divided into 5 sessions that were taken up by 5 Microsoft Student Partners.

The answer ‘8 Seconds’ to the question ‘What is the booting time for Windows 8?’ got an attendee a Microsoft Goodie Disc. The first session on Windows 8 was walked through by Siddharth Saxena.

Windows is the popular Operating System by Microsoft and after Windows XP, only Windows 7 has been able to achieve the same popularity. Microsoft is now working on enhancing and developing Windows 8. Siddharth discussed various new inbuilt features in Windows 8 and showed videos supporting his presentation.

students discussing with Gaurav Mantri (second from left) of Cerebreta

The second session was about Kinect. Launched in 2010, it is a motion sensing input device for Xbox-360, which needs no handheld controller. The gaming device studies your moves and emulates them on the game. Anubhav Mohanty explained the inner working of Kinect and the ways it can be best used.

‘Windows 7 in depth’ was the theme of the third session. Everyone used and admired the intricate details in the smallest of the application flaunted by the OS. Manish Lad described some lesser known features in Windows 7.

Following Operating Systems, the fourth session was on Windows Phone. Windows Phone is the new version of its predecessor Windows Mobile, developed by Microsoft. Launched in Asia in 2011, it uses Metro Designing style to minimize the system requirements of the OS. Amrinder Singh went through the functioning and features, while also informing that the developer of 3 apps for the platform directly gets gifted a Windows Phone by Microsoft!

The last session of the Seminar was by Subrodeep Ray on the lesser known, Microsoft Surface. Surfaces’ first version came out in 2007; the second is due early in 2012. Surface is 40 inches in screen dimension, structured like a table and can recognize 52 touches simultaneously using Infrared Cameras and PixelSense technology in the new version. Surface also supports object recognition.

At the end of the program, the organizing team were promised authentic appraisal certificates by Microsoft for the successful event and the audience was assured of their Dreamspark licence keys and Microsoft Participation Certificate.