Windows Mobile, Pocket PC and SmartPhone

Rumors: Could Silverlight Be Coming to the iPhone?

Frank — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:00:00 GMT

Rumors are rampant around MIX about a curious set of circumstances and interesting turns of phrases heard at the Keynote.

First of all, a disclaimer, I have no inside information and all of this is conjecture and maybe even rumor mongering.

The first curious tidbit was an interesting phrase Scott Guthrie used during the keynote when he said that Silverlight would be ported to any mobile device "with an SDK."

This was right after the NOKIA "official" announcement. So, at first, I assumed he meant other Symbian-based phones.

But then, it hit me: Apple is set to release an SDK for the iPhone this week.

Curious.

Then things got really interesting when Steve Jobs said Flash isn't fit to run on the iPhone.

The rumors on the MIX floor were flying.

The keynote set for tomorrow afternoon includes Steve Ballmer and Guy Kawasaki.

For reference, here's Guy Kawasaki's bio from the MIX08 website:

Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Truemors and a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures. He is also a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

His presence here at MIX may have more to do with his work post-Apple, but his connection to the Steve Jobs 1.0 era has only fueled the speculation about what may be coming out today.

Loren Heiny offers up some speculations about the situation.

As excited as I am about the potential of Silverlight coming to the iPhone, I've learned the hard way to not read too much into wild rumors.

After the rumors of a MacTablet and the subsequent letdown at MacWorld, I've learned to be cautious about things that seem too good to be true.

Either way, today looks to be another interesting day at MIX. :)

Technorati Tags: MIX08,Silverlight,Silverlight Mobile,iPhone,SDK,iPhone SDK,Guy Kawasaki,Steve Jobs,Steve Ballmer

Facebook Development for Mobile Devices

Frank — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:51:00 GMT

The Gen Y/Internet Generation adores Facebook and they love their mobile phones.

MSDN has an article on Facebook Development for the Compact Framework and the source code from the article is available on CodePlex.

To call Facebook a gianormous phenomenon would be an understatement.

Add the mobile factor to it and you've got an explosive combination.

Technorati Tags: Faceboook,Mobile Computing,Compact Framework,MSDN,Developer

No MEDC This Year

Frank — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:33:00 GMT

Call me behind the times, but I just found out that MEDC has been canceled this year.

I agree partly with the rationale that with mobile devices becoming more mainstream, the content belongs at TechEd.

However, Embedded development is hardly mainstream and I wonder if it ever will be.

One of the coolest parts of MEDC was seeing just how big Microsoft's impact in the embedded space is: something you would miss at an event the size and scope of TechEd.

Technorati Tags: Mobile Computing,MEDC,TechEd

But Does It Run Windows Embedded or Micro Framework?

Frank — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:36:00 GMT

No doubt that you've seen spinning rims on cars and SUVs.

They feature prominently on tricked out cars and in music videos.

Now, you can kick it up a notch with Dub's new line of Pimpstar rims.

They have LED light embedded in them and software to control the lights in synch with the spinning of the wheels to display different images.

At a starting price of $12,000, they are for the serious playas.

The YouTube video shows one "use case scenario."

It also shows the images on the wheels being updated in real time by computer running Windows XP.

I want to put my RSS and Flickr feeds on them and have it update in real time.

I'd love to know more about how the system works under the hood (so to speak) and if they'd be willing to ship me a demo unit. :)

Or how about we see an episode on how to program this on Code To Live?

Technorati tags: Funny, Windows Embedded, Micro Framework, Pimpstar

ActiveNick on XNA on the UMPC

Frank — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:59:00 GMT

Nick Landry (aka ActiveNick) is presenting a session on XNA and the Ultra Mobile PC here at DevConnections.

Any topic about the UMPC gets my attention. Any topic that talks about video games also gets my attention.

Bringing game development to the masses.

Professional game development, while not beyond the reach of the ordinary coder, is not for the timid. There's math, and plenty of it.

If you wanted to target a console like the Playstation, up until recently, you had to get a license to develop for the platform. I don't have the exact numbers, but it's beyond the practical budget for most hobbyists.

This keeps console developers to a limited population of folks who work for game publishers.

The gaming industry has ridden a great wave, but they're in a creative rut.

Sequelitis runs amok and most games are clones of other titles.

This is indicative of the same set of people doing the same thing year after year. It's hard to keep things fresh unless you have a healthy amount of new ideas and talent.

The gaming ecosystem is a closed loop, until now.

However, XNA changes the dynamic:

350,000+ downloads as of August 2007
-- that's roughly 10 time the size of the existing professional game developer population

That means that there are roughly 10 times the number of developers playing around with XNA than there are professional game developers.

Think about that.

Think about what that means for the gaming industry.

Some interesting facts about XNA:

XNA is the term for all game development tools at Microsoft: both managed code and unmanaged code.
XNA targets Windows and XBOX 360.
XBOX 360 is actually a customized version of the Compact Framework.

Networking stack is not present
Next version will have network stack to XBOX Live.

Windows side has full access to the network stack
XNA Framework sits on top of .NET
Currently, only works with Visual Studio Express

it's free
2.0 will run on VS2005 or later

No more VS Express installs

Colleges are using XNA to teach fundamental computer science concepts
Math functions are built-in

Game development is all about mathematics
Math helpers are there, but you need to understand the fundamentals

Starter kits exist

Complete Games

Space Wars
Racing Games
More

Technorati tags: XNA, UMPC, DevConnections, MobileConnections, Games, Game Development

A Scary Thought on Halloween Night

Frank — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:57:00 GMT

Wired Magazine has compiled a list of ten reasons to hate US cell phone carriers. (Only 10?)

From the article:

"'They own politicians - Sure, it's just phones. In a world where worse things happen all the time amid the muck and despair of human existence, having to pay for premium text is hardly worth worrying about, is it? [..] But today's cell towers might be tomorrow's Pony Express: they're TV stations, internet access, emergency 911 and news networks all rolled into one. WWAN could well end up supplanting copper sooner than anyone expects: do you want these companies in charge of it?"

From Verizon's attempt to redefine the word "unlimited" to locking phones down to work only with their network, cell phone carriers are a blight on the US technology landscape.

Yes, Virginia, Telco's in charge of everything from TV to emergency 911 services. That is a scary thought.

[found via Slashdot]

Technorati tags: Wired Magazine, Rant, Cell Phone, Halloween

Speaking at Mobile Connections in November

Frank — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:53:00 GMT

If you're heading out to DevConnections in Las Vegas, be sure to check out Mobile Connections, the section of the conference devoted to all things Mobile: from SmartPhones to Mobile PCs.

The sessions look amazing, including this Silverlight-themed gem:

MPC303: Annotation and Drawing with Ink in Silverlight
Julia Lerman
TabletPC development for Web sites just got a whole lot easier and more flexible with Silverlight. This session will show how to use Silverlight’s InkPresenter control to let users annotate photos, videos, and blogs to create highly interactive and fun Web sites. The session will also explore methods of saving annotations, replaying them on demand, and synchronizing them with video. Javascript and .NET functionality will both be covered in this session. Unlike the ActiveX control solutions of the past, Silverlight’s flexibility also means that non-Tablet users (even Macs) can interact with these solutions although they will not get the high resolution and other advantages that only a digitizer and stylus allow.

The sessions I'll be presenting are:

MPC304: Adding Location-Awareness to Mobile PC Applications with MapPoint and Virtual Earth
Frank LaVigne
Mobile PCs are, by definition, on the move and with the addition of Location Awareness you can add significant value to your application. Whether leveraging GPS or IP-based location tracking, find out how you can quickly pinpoint your location and offer location-specific services, directions, and more using MapPoint and Virtual Earth.
MPC307: Developing for the Tablet PC as a Smart Client Platform
Frank LaVigne
Learn all about the basics for building Smart Client applications that leverage the portability and power of the Tablet PC platform. In this session, Frank La Vigne introduces developers to the hardware, software, and development options available to building out Smart Client solutions on the Tablet PC. Adding Ink functionality can dramatically add value to existing applications without adding significant amounts of code; see just how easy it can be to take an existing application and add support for Digital Ink, handwriting recognition, and document recognition.
MPC302: Practical Ink Analysis in Mobile PC Applications
Frank LaVigne
The new InkAnalysis API not only provides for the conversion of Digital Ink to text, but also the conversion of entire document structures and shape recogntion. The science behind this is hard, but the API has been designed to be easy to use. In this presentation, Frank La Vigne will run through three sample applications built on top of the InkAnalyzer API that will demonstrate real world usefulness.

Hope to see you in LV :)

Technorati tags: DevConnections, Silverlight, Mobile Computing, Mobile Connections

Five Finger Keyboards

Frank — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:06:00 GMT

Interesting.

http://slashdot.org/palm/21/07/07/23/1256213_1.shtml

Slides from Last Week's Richmond.NET User Group Meeting

Frank — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:06:00 GMT

I've posted my slide deck from last week's Richmond.NET User Group meeting on SlideShare.

SlideShare is a free service that allows you to upload your presentation and share it online. Right now, they do not support PPTX (PowerPoint 2007), so you'll have to save in good, old PPT or PPS. The site can even understand PDF files.

Slide decks can also be tagged and searched across. There are plenty of good WPF and user experience slides, including this one entitled "The Age of the UX."

My colleague, Russell Stalters, told me about the service and how easy it was to upload documents and embed them in blog posts. He has a lot of presentations up there on the site.

Technorati tags: SlideShare, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, WPF, Richmond VA, Developer, Device Development, Embedded, Tablet PC, Mobile Computing

Presenting at Richmond .NET Tonight

Frank — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:21:00 GMT

I'll be presenting tonight at the Richmond.NET User Group on "Welcome to the Mobile World/ Tech Ed & MEDC 2007 Round Up (or Embedded Devices in the Mist)," which, of course, merits a movie poster. ;)

Technorati tags: Richmond VA, User Groups, Mobile