Today we got our long awaited Hillcrest Labs reference kit. We are probably one of the first third-party developers on the new platform and would like to thank the good folks at Hillcrest Labs for the opportunity! For those not familiar with Hillcrest Labs, the company is the pioneer behind the first pointer–based, award-winning interactive media system for TV. Basically it’s a pretty cool HD set top box with a unique 3D controller that developers can write software for!

 

I must say, I was most impressed by The Loop, the innovative 3D controller based on the company’s Freespace motion control technology. It’s not only easy to use, it’s extremely accurate and actually fun! (This would make for great game controller!). Having used a number of 3D controllers in the past, this puts them all to shame. You can visit Infinity Labs for a demo of The Loop. The setup required a HD TV (so I had to bring one in from home) but otherwise it went pretty smoothly and by the end of the day I had successfully created my first “hello world” application!

The Hillcrest Labs development environment is interesting. It basically uses the Javascript language (which we have a lot of experience in) for interactivity/programming and its own flavor of SVG – an XML-based file format used – for describing both static and animated graphics. SVG is a new experience for us, but we are big Adobe Illustrator CS users which can be use to read and write SVG using a add-on (plug-in) from Hillcrest Labs. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be building some applications on the platform and we’ll let you know how it goes.