The cat is out of the bag… The Northern Summer (it will be Winter Downunder) embedded Spark Challenge has been announced:
http://www.embeddedspark.com/howtoenter.aspx
The theme is “Media Explosion” and the context in Windows Embedded Standard 7, the embedded version of Windows 7.
Thos who progress to round two get a suitable hardware supplied.
WES 7 has gone RTM but not yet available on MSDN (Subscribers).
Key Dates
It seems that one of the focuses of WES 7 with OEM is for media devices with the Windows 7 “engine”.
The question is how much can entries appear to just use the inbuilt WES 7 devices/macros yet offer something that is different.
So what would / could be a suitable entry? One could specify a TiVo like media device. Or how about a web pad given that Microsoft has just ditched theirs, whereas Apple have just released one?
One question of has is this: WES licensing requires that the device is a specific purpose device, not a general purpose device like a PC is. A PC can be reconfigured/programmed to be just about anything. WES licensing bars it being used like that. Does this constraint apply to the competition entries?
Starting point: Think Windows 7. ie Multi-monitor, Touch, Glass, Media, Media Player, Mobile Synchronisation, Sensors, Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, Storage etc Now rap that up into an embedded dedicated device.
Go for it, Spark your imagination.