LiveSide - News blog : Window Mobile

Windows Marketplace now supports Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1

Sunshine — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:18:44 GMT

It hasn’t even been a week since we noticed in a post that Windows Marketplace would support Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 later this month! Well, later this month has come. Starting today almost all people with phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and above with a supporting data plan can access Marketplace.

To get Marketplace for a Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 based device, customers can simply point their phone’s browser to http://mp.windowsphone.com to start the download process; from the Web, customers can visit http://windowsphone.com/getmarketplace or simply click here. Then browse and shop a wide range of quality applications for work and play; roughly 90% of the apps in our catalogue already support Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 devices.

Go on, have a look!

There are now over 800 applications available at Marketplace, which is more than three times the number it started out with. Surely there’s something that suits your needs.

New Features In Windows Marketplace For Mobile, Support For Windows Mobile 6.0 And 6.1 Later This Month

Sunshine — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:16:25 GMT

Windows Marketplace for Mobile, launched in October together with the launch of Windows phones, got some upgrades:

Developer portal improvements and stronger anti-piracy protection

We’ve been gathering input on what we can do to improve the developer experience and have made some subtle but important enhancements to the developer portal to enable easier uploading of images, greater insight into account status and several other refinements based on feedback from developers. Today’s update also provides more advanced anti-piracy protection. While the underlying technical changes will be transparent for customers, developers will now be able to take advantage of these new protections by following the steps outlined in this anti-piracy whitepaper. As always, updates to existing applications can be submitted for free. To learn more about developing applications for Windows phones, head over to the Windows Mobile for Developers site.

Browse and buy applications from the PC

While we’ve heard great feedback on the Marketplace experience on Windows phones, sometimes people just want the benefits of a shopping on a PC. Starting today, Windows phone customers can browse, buy and download applications online at the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site. The selected applications are delivered wirelessly to the customer’s Windows phone and install the next time the Windows Marketplace client runs on the device. This creates another way for customers to easily find and purchase applications and gives developers a whole new level of exposure.

But that’s not all of the news! In the announcement on the Windows Mobile Developer blog something else caught my eye:

I look forward to providing a more detailed update on Windows Marketplace for Mobile when we extend the service to Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 customers later this month.

Support for Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 customers later this month! Yes, this month! Now is that good news or what?

Windows Phones, My Phone And A Sneak Preview Of Bing For Mobile

Sunshine — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:04:00 GMT

Yesterday we told you about Windows Mobile Marketplace going live. Today we can tell you more about which Windows Phones will use Windows Mobile 6.5 and some more about My Phone.

First the phones. Microsoft and its partners now deliver a variety of Windows phones for people to choose from in several regions...

...(read more)

Windows Mobile 6.5 Phones Coming To A Store Near You On Oct. 6

Sunshine — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:17:53 GMT

Microsoft announced today that Windows Mobile 6.5 phones will be widely available at retail stores worldwide on Oct. 6, 2009. The new phones will be offered by the following phone makers and mobile operators:

• In North America: Mobile operators AT&T, Bell Mobility, Sprint, TELUS and Verizon Wireless, and phone manufacturers HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba Corp.

• In Europe: Mobile operators Orange, Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group Plc, and phone manufacturers Acer, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

• In Latin America: Mobile operator TIM Brazil, and phone manufacturers HTC, LG Electronics and Samsung

• In Asia Pacific: Mobile operators NTT DOCOMO Inc., SOFTBANK Mobile Corp., SK Telecom, Telstra and WILLCOM Inc., and phone manufacturers Acer Inc., HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

Windows Mobile 6.5 will offer users an improved, easy-to-use interface, better browsing capabilities and access to valuable services, including Windows Marketplace for Mobile and Microsoft My Phone. Yes, you read that correctly, Windows Marketplace for Mobile (apps) and My Phone (free back up and sync) will be released at Oct. 6th too!

What else to expect from Windows Mobile 6.5? As mentioned, better browser capabilities. The redesigned Internet Explorer Mobile browser includes a new engine and built-in Adobe Flash Lite support for better rendering and completion of tasks (where’s Silverlight?). Also included is Microsoft Office Mobile and with Windows Live, you can keep track of friends in one place, no matter which social networking sites you belong to — Facebook, Twitter or MySpace Windows Live. You will also be able to change the look and feel of your phone with designer themes or a personal background and customize the home screen with widgets so the information you need is always easy to find.

Windows Mobile Marketplace Update

Sunshine — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:10:37 GMT

In our previous article about Windows Mobile Marketplace, we reported that developers outside of the US had problems signing up. Today we can tell you that, at this point, registration is open to English language markets (en-*) in the following countries: US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore and India. Registration in other markets will be enabled over the next few months.

Developers with an existing billing relationship are asked to go through these steps to ensure all the information in their commerce profile is correct:

1. Go to http://billing.microsoft.com

2. Sign in with your Live ID that is associated with your credit card information

3. Under "Billing account overview", click on hyperlink "Go to personal information"

4. In the next page, under "Your personal information" make sure every item is correctly filled and is accurate. If there is any piece of information that's missing or is inaccurate, please click on "Edit personal Information", add/modify the missing piece (including phone number) and save.

5. Try to sign up for Windows Marketplace for Mobile again.

In this Tech Ed Online video about Windows Mobile Application Development, John Bruno chats a bit about the Marketplace registration launch and the subsequent phases. He also mentions that submission of applications is scheduled for later this summer.

What in the world is Tegra?

RyanRCRea — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:15:00 GMT

Tegra is Nvidia's 1st foray into the mobile computing realm. Nvidia is the company that makes the awesome video cards for your desktops and laptops. Most higher end machines use some type of powerful GPU made by ether Nvidia or ATI. For instance, my Gateway FX laptop uses a GeForce 8800 GTS & my desktop uses a 9800 GTX. Why are GPU’s good for computing? Once again take a look at the laptop. In most laptops the CPU does the heavy lifting for the GPU also, this is called “integrated graphics”. In the Gateway FX, a GPU handles the task of blasting pixels to the screen, allowing the CPU focus on more important stuff, like processing and cruching non visual data. A setup like this is called “discreet graphics”.

Everything above applies to phones as well, on a much smaller scale of course. Most phones and portable media players can barely handle standard-def content, much less HD. Tegra aims to change all of that with support for 720 & 1080P video, along with advanced 3D gaming capabilities. Tegra promises to revolutionize Phones, Digital Media Players and much more. In the videos posted below, you will see that Tegra has chance to change the way mobile UI's are thought of and used.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Check out some of Tegras drop dead amazing specs

Processor and Memory Subsystem

ARM11 MPCore
32-bit LP-DDR
NAND Flash support

HD AVP (High Definition Audio Video Processor)

720p H.264 Baseline Profile Encode or Decode
720p VC-1/WMV9 Simple & Main Profiles Decode
D1 MPEG-4 Simple Profile Encode or Decode
Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA, and MP3
JPEG Encode and Decode acceleration

ULP (Ultra Low Power) GeForce

OpenGL ES 2.0
Programmable Pixel Shader
Programmable Vertex and Lighting
Advanced 2D Graphics

Display Subsystem

True dual-display support
720p (1280x720) HDMI 1.3 support
FWVGA (864x480) LCD and SXGA (1280x1024) CRT support
Composite and S-Video TV output

Wondering how this relates to Microsoft?

Back when Nvidia launched Tegra, Microsoft was one of their “featured partners”. Tegra is also primed to launch in "mid 2009" right around the time that MS has few big launches. If everything goes according to plan, expect to see a plethora of devices running on Tegra sometime later this year. If Tegra runs as good as it looks... Sign me up!

What about you, what do you think of Tegra?