Appatic

Thirteen23 is a Startup focused on UI-UX geared .NET App development (most of the time) that works in WPF and Silverlight. I find their Apps to be quite interesting so i am reviewing my favorites.So don’t get surprised if you see some of its apps reviewed and quick viewed here.

TED is a non-profit org that does conferences with notorious personalities with the sole purpose of spreading ideas, proposing concepts and engaging into vision of the future. To enjoy the “Talks” with these personalities you usually go to the website and look around until something picks up your interest. But if you liked one or two talks. It is quite probable you will be seeing one talk now and then. So why not to enjoy them with the utmost quality with the click of a desktop icon?.

That is what Thirteen23 though up with TED Talks. A simple, yet very well designed Silverlight 3 based Video Player app that you can install in your PC thanks to SL3 OOB (Out Of Browser) Mode that works exactly like SSB. Right now SL3 OOB is on the level of AIR 1.0 in terms of OS integration. But it will be more than enough in the case of most apps. TED Talks is a perfect example of a good reason to use such mode.

If you go to the TED Talks page, you see that there is a Silverlight 3 Badge:

You only need to click or right click in order to install it. Once you click it will present you with this dialog:

You can choose to only send it to your Start Menu app lists or to add a Desktop Icon. If you add the desktop icon it will appear instantly:

As you click OK, the app will also launch instantly. That is it, you have installed and your are running it. it is a 10-15 seconds install and launch process.

Once you see a talk that strikes your interest from 3 sets (12 talks per set) of featured talks (divided by newest, popular and jaw-dropping), you just click and it will start pretty much instantly thanks to how SL3 downloads, plays and starts caching the video of the talk you have chosen. It is NOT like YouTube HD experience as this will not eat all your RAM or CPU and will start 10 seconds later after you clicked.

And once you are running, you just click to go full screen from the video player floating controls and it will go swiftly into full screen mode. It perfectly reproduces the experience you would expect of seeing a DVD in WMP or VLC, etc. So much as you can even jump parts in the video and it will feel as if you had the video file locally.

That is it. That is the app and that is how simple is use and having it around. If you want to uninstall it. just like with any other SL3 OOB mode app. Just right click in the running app and it will show you the dialog that says: “Remove This Application”. You click and 3-5 seconds later it is gone.

A very good SL3 app that serves excellent content from TED. if you liked you may also want to check out The Webby Awards Player

The app can be used in Windows  (XP, Vista & 7) and in the Mac (Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard).

Linkage

TED Talks         <—App Homepage

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