Microsoft gives a behind-the-scenes tour of the Nokia Arc of Wonder

As you are all well aware by now, Microsoft is now in control of handset maker Nokia, though the two were already close partners in the Windows Phone business. Recently the two (one?) companies put together a display called “Arc of Wonder”, using 50 Lumia 1020 phones. 

Now an inside look at the creation of this display is being given, thanks to Microsoft’s Jesus Aguilar, who wrote an interesting piece, including images, on his personal blog — Given to Code. 

Facts of the display go wel beyond the 50 handsets used, including how these devices were coordinated and synced. “We had to think simplest way to achieve the goal and try it. Ensuring that all the phones could capture a sequence of pictures with a latency of less than 50ms (1ms is a 1000th of a second) was not a simple goal. We wanted to avoid point to point connections to each device to push the ‘shutter’. The rationale behind this was that in such cases, the triggering app would have to sequentially enumerate each connection to send data, hence introducing the risk of triggering delays between the first and last devices”, Aguilar states. 

There is lots of information and some images of the setup process, which you can find below by following the link. It’s a fascinating look at how all of this came together and the technology used and innovated to make it possible.