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One of the more amazing design aspects of the Windows Phone operating system is the use of motion design. It’s part of what makes Windows Phones feel alive. But animation is about more than just making things move – motion entertains, provides cues toward interaction, makes transitions feel faster, and adds personality and elegance to your apps. In short, animation helps you look like a pro.
Motion design has earned a reputation for being painstaking and difficult work. It turns out that’s just not the case. The Windows Phone Toolkit makes it simple to add powerful animations and bring your Windows Phone apps to life.
School’s been out for a little more than three weeks now. You’ve taken the kids to the zoo, to the beach, the park and the mall. You’ve arranged play dates galore.
Still searching for an activity to help the kids use up their seemingly boundless amounts of energy? Consider bringing them to a YouthSpark Summer Camp.
“During the summer, Microsoft retail stores across the country become interactive, hands-on technology classrooms where children learn by doing. The camps, designed for kids age 8-13, offer everything from video game design to digital photography to movie making to storytelling. And I haven’t even mentioned the best part. The two-hour camps are free!” writes Elisa Willman, Senior Marketing Communications Manager at Microsoft Citizenship in blog post today.
Admit it, when you’re feeling under the weather, and you’re not sure what’s wrong, you probably reach for a search engine before calling your doctor. Now, Microsoft Research’s Dan Morris and a team of researchers at Columbia University have developed Remedy. It’s a prototype search system that cuts through Internet clutter and helps people find relevant results.
As the Microsoft Research Connections Blog puts it, “General-purpose web search engines give a broad array of results, without providing tools to help people narrow in on technical or non-technical content, avoid ads, and spot indicators of quality and credibility.” Remedy, on the other hand, helps users find reliable, patient-friendly educational material more easily. It supports rapid filtering and comparison of medication information search results, and summarizes the topics that it finds in those results. It also provides a topic-based view in which users can see what multiple sites have to say about a single topic of interest.
Moviefone has come a long way from the days when you would dial in to find nearby big screen options and hear the familiar, “Hello, and welcome to Moviefone!” intro. Now, this free app is on Windows Phone 8 and not only can you easily find movie theaters and showtimes, you can also get directions to those theaters, read movie news about your favorite celebrities and watch movie trailers.
You can also browse through categories like “In Theaters,” “Top Box Office Hits,” “Coming Soon,” and “New on DVD.” Reviews can also help you decide what to watch.
There certainly has been a lot of activity today on the Microsoft campus. Starting this morning, in an email to employees released to the public, chief executive Steve Ballmer announced a far-reaching realignment of the company’s senior leadership team, and he provided a compelling memo demonstrating how much we’ve developed “our thinking on our strategy for high-value activities based on devices and services delivery.”
In the email, Ballmer discusses that vision. And he talked about where we’ve been and how far we’ve come:
“This company has always had a big vision — to help people realize their full potential. In the earliest days, it was by putting a PC on every desk and in every home. We’ve come farther than we could have imagined. The impact we have collectively made on the world is undeniable, and I am inspired when talented new hires say they chose Microsoft because they want to change the world — that’s what we do today, and that’s what we’ll do tomorrow.”
Sixteen talented young game designers from across the country as the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media announced the middle school and high school student winners of the 2013 National STEM Video Game Challenge.
This is the third year in a row that Microsoft has supported the STEM Video Game Challenge, a competition that “aims to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) among students in grades 5-12 by tapping into their enthusiasm for playing and making video games,” according to the Microsoft Citizenship Blog.
Nearly 4,000 middle school and high school students participated in this year’s challenge, with many using Microsoft’s Kodu game design software to complete their submissions.
Today, Nokia unveiled the Lumia 1020, a smartphone with a groundbreaking 41-megapixel camera that puts some digital SLRs to shame.
“The new Lumia 1020 delivers not only a completely new imaging experience, but it also represents an amazing opportunity for developers to build unique experiences for Windows Phone users,” writes Emilio Salvador Prieto in a post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog. “In conjunction with the announcement of the new Lumia 1020, Nokia also introduced a new Imaging SDK to help developers take full advantage of some of Nokia’s leading imaging technology.”
Creating a groundbreaking device like the Nokia Lumia 1020 takes a great deal of collaboration. Nokia unveiled the new smartphone at a press event in New York City today.
Earlier this week, Windows Phone Blog Editor Michael Stroh had the chance to sit down and talk with Nokia’s Kevin Shields and Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, two corporate vice presidents at the forefront of the joint smartphone effort.
During their talk, Shields and Belfiore covered a wide range of topics, including the role Windows Phone played in the development of the Lumia 1020’s impressive 41-megapixel camera.
Zoo Tycoon, a wildly (see what we did there?) popular game franchise, will be available this fall for the first time on both Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles.
“Zoo Tycoon” is being developed by Frontier Developments, the studio behind “Kinectimals” and “Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.” Frontier Developments and Microsoft Studios are hard at work creating games that retain the magic of “Zoo Tycoon” while also adding new features and “groundbreaking social dimensions” only possible on the Xbox platforms.
Jorg Neumann, studio manager with Microsoft Studios, shared some of the latest developments in an interview with Xbox Wire. Neumann said “Zoo Tycoon 2” will feature more highly personalized zoos, greater ways to connect to the animals you’re caring for, and all-new, collaborative social possibilities.
Today, Yelp users on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 get some great news: major updates to the app that allows them to search for nearby businesses, snap photos for later posting – and most importantly for many folks, write reviews.
Yelpers can also drill down deeper on searches by neighborhood, distance, price, and what's open now – pretty convenient when you’re on the go and hungry. Log in to find friends and follow the places they recommend, at home or while you’re exploring another city. And once you find a restaurant you want to try, you can make reservations on OpenTable without leaving the app.
Think of it as the world’s coolest science fair.
Each year, tech-savvy students from around the world compete in Microsoft Imagine Cup to outdo one another with innovative apps, games and other tech projects. Today, winning projects were announced in the contest’s three main categories: Innovation, Games and World Citizenship. Additional prizes were awarded for product-specific challenges as well as a few special honors. All in all, more than $1 million worth of cash and prizes have been distributed during this year’s competition.
It’s here and, as usual, it’s beautiful. We’re talking about the new Nokia Lumia 1020, which comes with a 41-megapixel sensor that puts the 1020’s camera on par with most digital SLRs.
“The phone—which comes in yellow, white, and black—will initially debut at AT&T for $299.99 with a two-year contract. AT&T kicks off online preorders on July 16. The phone, which runs on the carrier’s 4G LTE network, officially goes on sale July 26,” Windows Phone Blog Editor Michael Stroh reports in a post today.
Today the latest Netflix original series “Orange is the New Black” launched in more than a dozen countries around the world. If you have Xbox Live Gold and Netflix subscriptions, you can watch all 13 episodes on your Xbox 360 immediately.
From the creator of “Weeds” and based on the memoir by Piper Kerman, this comedic drama set in a women’s prison follows Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a Brooklynite whose decade-old relationship with international drug-runner Alex (Laura Prepon) results in her arrest and year-long detention in a federal prison.
Today Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer sent an internal email to employees regarding changes in the company’s senior leadership team. Read the email.
Committing your organization to a software deployment of any kind is not something to be undertaken lightly. This is especially true of software that helps you maintain relationships with the lifeblood of your business – your customers.
Microsoft has launched a new site at www.crmawesome.com to help businesses make informed decisions about the current market for customer relationship software.
The site allows you to test drive and demo Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The demo will give you a detailed idea regarding how to manage contacts, put social media insights to work, respond quickly to service cases, collaborate with colleagues and qualify sales leads.
Marques Lyons, a Microsoft Xbox MVP, said along with a computer and a phone, small-business owners may find value in one additional device: The Xbox One.
“What is being positioned as an excellent entertainment device can be just as enticing for you and your small business,” Lyons writes on the Microsoft Small Business blog. “In fact, it's entirely justifiable to make the Xbox One a business expense.”
The Xbox One, priced at $499, has many features built into the console such as Skype and Kinect that help it rival other video conferencing and networking platforms. In addition, Xbox One users have access to SkyDrive via Internet Explorer and the dedicated SkyDrive app so they have access to documents anywhere.
Autolib’, a car-sharing solution, is using Windows Embedded technology to help the 8 million people in and around Paris realize a smarter, more connected commute.
“It’s a vivid reminder of how Microsoft and Windows Embedded technology can have a positive impact on daily life — here, by relieving traffic congestion and pollution, and giving millions of Parisians a better way to get where they’re going. The Paris program is so successful that it’s expanding to the U.S.; it’s just been announced that the solution’s developer is planning to launch a similar Windows Embedded-based solution in Indianapolis, sometime in late 2014,” says Barb Edson, general manager of marketing and business development, on the Windows Embedded blog.
The Nokia Lumia 925 will be available starting July 17 for $49.99 down with 24 equal monthly payments of $20, according to a post today from Windows Phone Blog Editor Michael Stroh.
“The phone is the first Lumia model to incorporate metal into the design and also the first Windows Phone for T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network,” writes Stroh, who first wrote about the Lumia 925 in May.
Microsoft Trustworthy Computing will release results of its new “Trust in Computing” research study this week. The Microsoft-commissioned survey aims to uncover current attitudes and perceptions related to security and privacy. The research touches on timely topics, including the impact of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in the enterprise, the development of secure software and cybercrime.
Microsoft wants to make Windows Phone the go-to choice for businesses large and small.
To that end, the Windows Phone team announced today that it will increase the length of the support lifecycle from 18 months to 36 months.
“Beginning with Windows Phone 8 we’ll make updates, including security updates, available for 36 months,” Tony Mestres, vice president of Windows Phone partner and channel marketing, writes in a blog post today. “These updates will be incremental, with each update built on the update that preceded it. The mobile operator or phone manufacturer may control the distribution of these incremental updates and update availability may also vary by country, region, and device hardware capabilities.”
In addition to the new 36-month support lifecycle, Windows Phone will also release an enterprise feature pack as an update to Windows Phone 8 in the first half of 2014.
Xbox and Comic-Con go together like thumbs and controllers. Good thing Major Nelson and Xbox Wire have outlined Xbox’s schedule of activities at the 44th annual Comic-Con International in San Diego next week.
Comic-Con attendees will be among some of the first in the world to check out some highly anticipated upcoming Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles, “Ryse: Son of Rome," “Killer Instinct,” “Dead Rising 3,” “Halo: Spartan Assault,” and for the first time ever, hands-on with the “Halo 4 Champions Bundle.”
Microsoft has formed a partnership with Socrata, one of the world’s foremost providers of Open Data solutions.
“The Socrata Open Data Platform running on Windows Azure provides government organizations with a comprehensive set of capabilities for launching their transparency initiatives. This solution combines best-in-class data portal, API creation, and performance management functionality with the global scale and reliability of Windows Azure,” writes Parul Bhandari, Government Industry Solutions Lead, Worldwide Public Sector, in a blog post today.
Over the last several years, citizens from countries all over the world have begun to demand easier access to government data, a movement often referred to as “Open Data.”
If you’ve been thinking about developing Windows Phone apps, your time has come. Today the Windows Phone team announced the series “Windows Phone 8 Development for Absolute Beginners.” It’s a complete refresh of the extremely popular Windows Phone 7 Development series, which received rave reviews from novices and experienced developers alike. With more than 11 hours of training, this new series promises to deliver as well.
When you want to escape the real world, heroic fantasy worlds hold a strong appeal, and with “Order and Chaos,” Windows Phone 8 users can create characters that can engage in an environment teeming with a complex array of skills, equipment and quests.
You can choose from Elves or Humans if you want to fight for Order; or Orcs and the Undead if you want to go over to the dark side and cause Chaos. And then you can choose gender, how you look, class and talents, not to mention skills and equipment. After that, you’re ready to engage with thousands of others in this MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). You and your characters will encounter them in trades, duels and challenges, choosing from more than 1,200 quests.
Microsoft has completed its acquisition of InRelease, a release management product built specifically for Team Foundation Server by InCycle Software.
The acquisition, which was first announced in June at TechEd, was completed “about a week ago,” according to a blog post from Brian Harry, a Microsoft Technical Fellow working as the Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server.
However, it will be some time before Microsoft can start selling InRelease, Harry noted.
“In the interim, developers will have the following options:”