All the new and shiny from \\BUILD 2014

So \\BUILD for 2014 has been and gone, but in it's wake is a whole lot of new toys for us to get to know and make the most of.  Thing is, so much new means we're going to need volunteers to make this month happen and do lightning talks on some of the various subjects.

So, if you'd like to have a go talking through one of the announcements at \\BUILD and why you think it's cool and sexy, and why we should care then drop either James or Richard a line and let them know you want to talk, or just drop a comment on the Facebook page.
By the way, don't worry if you've never talked in public before - you're among friends and we'd love you to have a go. Plus it's OK if you don't really know much about your chosen topic either - you only need to cover 10 minutes or so and we probably don't know much about it either :-)

P.S. If you want some inspiration then here's some, but not all, of the things covered at \\BUILD:

• Windows 8.1 Update 1
• Universal Apps
• Touch version of Office
• Cortana (Windows Phone) - if you have one, bring it!
• IE11 Enterprise Mode (for those of us wanting to kill off IE8!)
• IE11 Dev tools [TAKEN]
• Windows and The Internet of Things
• Azure - Puppet, Chef and Powershell [TAKEN POWERSHELL]
• VS Browser Link updates
• ASP.NET MVC 5.1 and Web API 2.1 new bits
• Identity 2.0 new bits [TAKEN]
• TypeScript 1.0
• .NET Native Compilation
• Node.js projects in Visual Studio
• Azure Webjobs
• Xamarin and Microsoft love in [TAKEN: talk on Xamarin & Native interop see below]
• .NET Foundation (Open Source .NET projects)
• Roslyn
• The new Azure portal & VSO
• Application Insights
• Kinect for Windows v2
• DirectX 12 [TAKEN]

...or you could choose something else completely!

It would be great for us to get through as many of these as we possibly can on the night, so either volunteer or just come along and be part of the fun. RSVP by grabbing a free ticket from the event page (or just click in the event box on the right of the page) and we'll see you there.

Abstracts & talks so far....

Jessica Brazelton - Binding Java & Objective-C Libraries in Xamarin Studio
Most 3rd party libraries for mobile applications are designed to work with the native programming language for that application. This presentation will give an overview of how to bind those libraries so that you can use them in Xamarin Studio.

Jason Stangroome - Exciting new powershell

Aaron Powell - updates to the IE11 dev tools

Adam Korczynski - Identity 2

Luke Drumm - Direct X 12.