Microsoft Surface 2.0 Announced

Photo credit: Long Zheng – www.istartedsomething.com) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/longzheng/5328368222)

Some details:

Impressively thin table surface for Surface

- Surface 2.0 is mountable.

- No cameras included. Each pixel is a camera. Yup,pixelsense technology.

- Surface has the biggest piece of Gorilla Glass ever produced.

No word and pricing and availability. Steve Ballmer will reveal that at CES keynote I guess.

Created in partnership with Samsung, the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface incorporates all the key features of the original Surface product – a massive multi-touch experience, the ability to recognize fingers, hands, and objects – as well as a new technology that has enabled a more flexible form factor.

The Next Generation of Microsoft Surface - LCDs That Can ‘See’

Also during Ballmer’s keynote speech, Microsoft unveiled the next generation of Microsoft Surface, built upon a new technology that enables thin LCD screens to “see” without the use of cameras.

Created in partnership with Samsung, the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface is a major step forward in the surface computing category. It incorporates all the key features of the original Surface product – a massive multi-touch experience, the ability to recognize fingers, hands, and objects – as well as a new technology that has enabled a more flexible form factor.

Just Scratching the Surface

Looking at the year ahead, Ballmer noted that it is an exciting time for Microsoft, partners and customers across the board. Even with all the amazing experiences talked about at CES, from what’s next in Windows to the latest capabilities with Kinect, “the best is yet to come,” he said.

Google ebooks and ebookstore

We designed Google eBooks to be open. Many devices are compatible with Google eBooks—everything from laptops to netbooks to tablets to smartphones to e-readers. With the new Google eBooks Web Reader, you can buy, store and read Google eBooks in the cloud. That means you can access your ebooks like you would messages in Gmail or photos in Picasa—using a free, password-protected Google account with unlimited ebooks storage.
In addition to a full-featured web reader, free apps for Android and Apple devices will make it possible to shop and read on the go. For many books you can select which font, font size, day/night reading mode and line spacing suits you—and pick up on the page where you left off when switching devices.

Lava A10 Mobile Announced in India with IPS Display

The IPS screen provides a superior display with clear sharp images both for still and motion pictures. Besides the superior display, IPS Screen allows pictures and videos to be viewed at wide angle till 178 degree. The wide viewing angle is particularly useful when a group of people are viewing the same screen from different angles.

Commenting on the launch of A 10, Mr. SN Rai, Co Founder & Director, LAVA International Ltd., said, “LAVA has always been a trend setter in the consumer insight driven innovations. Introduction of the touch screen phone with IPS Technology will carry the same trend forward. As screen is a very important element in a touch phone we have introduced IPS in A10 to provide a premium display experience to our customers.”

He added, “There is a segment of men who prefer metal and metallic look over plastic and colorful look. The phone has been specially designed to keep this segment in mind. The emerging Indian youth yarns for power packed performance. Lava A10 fulfills both the need.”

Tech Specs:

o         Gunmetal Finish Body

o         3.0” IPS Screen (A special screen which is of high quality and has high brightness screen)

o         3.2 MP Camera with Flash

o         Yamaha PA System

o         Real Gaming

o         Maps by Map my India

o         G-Sensor

o         Micro SD Card support up to 16 GB

o         Privacy lock

o         3.5mm Audio Jack

o         Edge Support

o         Java Enabled

o         Social networking through Facebook, Twitter etc

Rs. 5499/- or 125 USD approx.

Source: moneycontrol

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office Signup

Google based on its Docverse acquisition has announced Cloud connect. Following is the description given in blog.

For those of you who have not made the full move to Google Docs and are still using Microsoft Office, Google has something great to offer. With Cloud Connect, people can continue to use the familiar Office interface, while reaping many of the benefits of web-based collaboration that Google Docs users already enjoy.
Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google cloud, without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed-up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs. And because the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version.
Once in the Google cloud, documents can be easily shared and even simultaneously edited by multiple people, from right within Office. A full revision history is kept as the files are edited, and users can revert to earlier versions in one click. These are all features that Google Docs users already enjoy today, and now we’re bringing them to Microsoft Office.

Sign up here

Airtel New Signature Tune Composed By AR Rahman Download

http://124.247.226.41/download/ringtone.zip

More downloads : airtel.in

How to get Facebook Invite for Messaging

Here is the announcement from Facebook blog regarding their new messaging platform,

Seamless Messaging

Today I'm excited to announce the next evolution of Messages. You decide how you want to talk to your friends: via SMS, chat, email or Messages. They will receive your message through whatever medium or device is convenient for them, and you can both have a conversation in real time.  You shouldn't have to remember who prefers IM over email or worry about which technology to use.  Simply choose their name and type a message.

We are also providing an @facebook.com email address to every person on Facebook who wants one. Now people can share with friends over email, whether they're on Facebook or not. To be clear, Messages is not email. There are no subject lines, no cc, no bcc, and you can send a message by hitting the Enter key. We modeled it more closely to chat and reduced the number of things you need to do to send a message. We wanted to make this more like a conversation.



Conversation History

Messages is built for communicating with your friends, so it made sense to organize primarily around people.  All of your messages with someone will be together in one place, whether they are sent over chat, email or SMS. You can see everything you've discussed with each friend as a single conversation.

I'm intensely jealous of the next generation who will have something like Facebook for their whole lives. They will have the conversational history with the people in their lives all the way back to the beginning: From "hey nice to meet you" to "do you want to get coffee sometime" to "our kids have soccer practice at 6 pm tonight." That's a really cool idea.

The Social Inbox

It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately.

If someone you know isn't on Facebook, that person's email will initially go into the Other folder. You can easily move that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will show up there.

You can also change your account settings to be even more limited and bounce any emails that aren't exclusively from friends.

This kind of message control is pretty unprecedented and people have been wanting to do this with email (and phone calls) for a long time. Messages reverses the approach to preventing unwanted contact. Instead of having to worry about your email address getting out, you're now in control of who can actually reach you.

Go to the following link..request for an invite..

http://www.facebook.com/about/messages/

Project Phoenix by AOL–First Look Video & Screenshots

 

AOL is launching new email aggregation service with features which include:

• Aggregation of Aol, Yahoo, Gmail, Comcast, and other email accounts into one inbox.
• A "Quick Bar" or shortcut bar above the inbox with short email, IM, text, Facebook and Twitter status update capabilities.
• Three inbox views -- "expanded," which allows viewing of the first few lines of each email, "compact" (think traditional), and and the Entourage-like "reading pane."
• Web browser-like tabs for switching between user inbox and messages.
• A Mapquest sidebar adjacent to the email body that automatically detects addresses listed in open emails and offers directions
• A photo sidebar that aggregates photo attachments.
• New optional email domain names  besides "@aol.com", user options will include @ygm ("You've Got Mail"), @games, @wow, and @love.com

What do you think of it?

Source : CNN Money

Project Crescent–A New Business Intelligence Tool

Microsoft’s SQL team just announced a new business intelligence tool built entirely on Silverlight codenamed Project “Crescent”.

Project Crescent allows business users to manage data and show information in a truly innovative and exciting way, allowing people to visualize, interact and report on data using highly interactive visualizations, animations and smart querying and present and share insights with others in the organization through rich storyboard presentation capabilities.

Crescent’s most exciting features is its integration with PowerPoint. Through a feature called Storyboarding, users can embed reports in PowerPoint and manipulate the live data during a presentation. 

Source: Silverlight Blog

Dell launches XCD Series Smartphones In India

Dell entered the smartphone arena lately with its Dell streak. Later with Dell venue pro powered by Windows Phone 7. Dell also has cheap android powered phones in Chinese markets. Now they are in India market too.

Dell today announced the launch of its first high-value smartphones XCD28 and XCD35 in India. Priced starting at Rs. 10,990 for XCD28 and 16,990 for XCD35, these are the first Dell smartphones targeted specifically at addressing key use cases at such price points anywhere in the world (in the open market, that is without any bundling options with a telecom provider). While XCD28 will be immediately available in the market, XCD35 will be available by December 2010.

Powered by Android 2.1 OS, with built-in 3G for high speed connectivity options including WiFi and Bluetooth, the Dell XCD28 offers full internet browsing with native browser, a media player supporting multiple formats for videos, music and photos and features such as location awareness. Additionally, additional features have been added to cater to the Indian market tastes such as FM Radio and access to Microsoft Email Exchange through Activesync. With a 2.8-inch LCD touch screen display and a 3.2 megapixel digital camera that can click images in real quality, the Dell XCD28 is a complete entertainment mobile gadget at an affordable pricing. Access to the multiple applications available on the Android Market makes life more exciting while on-the-go. The phones come equipped with 200MB of internal memory that can be increased up to 16GB using Micro SD memory cards.

Packed with the most popular features of a mobile phone, the Dell XCD35 boasts of a 3.5-inch capacitive touch screen display for a richer entertainment and multimedia experience.

As a first in the Indian market for smartphones at these price points, Dell XCD28 and Dell XCD35 are equipped with one year Advanced Exchange Warranty that assures users with an immediate replacement option if faced with any hardware issue with their Dell smart phone. Available at Dell Stores and leading mobile stores in India, the Dell XCD range aims to put the Indian consumer at the forefront of affordable access to the latest in entertainment, connectivity and mobility.

Source: Dell Blog

MediaPhone’s powered by Intel

Intel to launch Android/Meego powered mediaphones soon. MediaPhones allows to communicate and share with people easily. See the video above for more details

Google Groups losing more features

I got a mail from Google Groups regarding Google Groups update.

Hello,

Since you are an owner of at least one Google Groups group that uses the customized welcome message, pages or files, we are writing to inform you that we will no longer be supporting these features starting February 2011. We made this decision so that we can focus on improving the core functionalities of Google Groups -- mailing lists and forum discussions. Instead of these features, we encourage you to use products that are designed specifically for file storage and page creation, such as Google Docs and Google Sites.

For example, you can easily create your pages on Google Sites and share the site (http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=174623) with the members of your group. You can also store your files on the site by attaching files to pages (http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=90563) on the site. If you’re just looking for a place to upload your files so that your group members can download them, we suggest you try Google Docs. You can upload files (http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50092) and share access with either a group (http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66343) or an individual (http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86152), assigning either edit or download only access to the files.

Starting in January 2011, Groups will no longer allow the creation or editing of welcome messages, files and pages; the content will only be available for viewing and only existing files will be downloadable. If you would like to keep the content currently on the pages and files sections of your group, we highly encourage you to export and migrate it to another product. In February 2011, we will turn off these features, and you will no longer be able to access that content.

To make this move easier for you, we have enabled a one-click method for downloading a ZIP file containing your welcome message and all pages and files. Download these ZIP files by clicking "Download all pages" or "Download all files" on the pages and files homepages of your groups.

Microsoft Windows Product Scout

Here is the Microsoft’s temporary answer to Apple’s Mac App Store.This is what mentioned in the blog about Microsoft Windows Product Scout

Windows Product Scout is a new destination on Windows.com that showcases a selection of products scouted by our team for Windows 7. When I say scouted, I’m quite serious, the products featured on the site are limited to an intentionally selected catalog. Every week, we will feature a new set of products on the home page and will be updating the site every month with more selected products.

Windows Product Scout focuses on products that have earned the “Compatible with Windows 7 Logo”. These products have passed Microsoft designed tests for compatibility and reliability with Windows 7 including testing for common issues to minimize the number of crashes, hangs and reboots. The team also vetted products based on their experience and focused on products that support key features and technologies in Windows 7 – products that make it easy for you to get the very most out of Windows 7 (features like Windows Touch, Play To, Device Stage). We are also working with software developers and device manufacturers to build a pipeline of the new and exciting products coming in the near future.

Definitely take the time to explore the site. Click around to learn more about technologies, discover the great products that our partners have created, watch videos, get downloads, and more. I wanted to quickl7 highlight 3 things about the experience:

• A great experience: Windows Product Scout features an engaging user experience that groups products into “clusters”. It is simple to navigate with a mouse and is also touch-friendly. We have also implemented IE9 support so the site can be a pinned app with jumplist support.

• Access to the products: Windows Product Scout gives you easy access to information about the products and how to get them. For every app, we offer a direct download link from the 3^rd party publisher. In one click, you are ready to start your free trial or access a free version of the application. For devices, we offer a link to purchase the product either directly from the manufacturer or the Microsoft Store. The site also features editorial content from the Windows Blog & CNET about the products.

• Discovering what you can do with Windows: The site gives you an easy way to discover a sample of products that support Windows 7 features. You can also click on the category cubes to learn more about specific technologies like Windows Touch, Play To, and others.

I love the silverlight site design more than the content.

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Launch Presspass

REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 11, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. today joined its partners in revealing nine new Windows Phone 7 handsets that will be available this holiday season from leading mobile operators in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. With more than 60 mobile operators in over 30 countries worldwide committed to bringing Windows Phones to market, the millions of people around the world looking for a phone that plays as hard as it works will have a variety of phones from leading device-makers to choose from.

“We have a beautiful lineup in this first wave of Windows Phone 7 handsets,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Microsoft and its partners are delivering a different kind of mobile phone and experience — one that makes everyday tasks faster by getting more done in fewer steps and providing timely information in a ‘glance and go’ format.”

Global Portfolio

Microsoft and its partners have worked together closely to create a different kind of phone with new experiences that bring together what people care about most. Windows Phone 7 will be available in a variety of sleek form factors from device-makers such as Dell, HTC Corp., LG and Samsung, and from mobile operators including América Móvil, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Movistar, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, Telstra, TELUS, T-Mobile USA and Vodafone. All Windows Phone 7 phones will include the high-performance Snapdragon™ processor from Qualcomm. A broad selection of phones will begin shipping in holiday 2010 with more arriving in 2011, including phones from Sprint and Verizon Wireless. In addition, select models will be available at Microsoft Store locations and from Amazon.

Windows Phone 7, Glance and Go

In today’s busy world we are spending more time heads-down on our phones than interacting with the people we’re sitting next to and missing out on important life moments. Windows Phone 7 was designed to deliver a mobile experience that has the phone working better for people, bringing together the things they care about most and helping them to get things done faster.

Windows Phone 7 breaks the current smartphone convention to help people quickly and easily find and consume data, information and services from the Web and applications. The new phones are distinguished by unique design and integrated experiences built from Microsoft’s deep portfolio such as Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Office Mobile, Zune, Windows Live, Bing and more.

For example, the customizable Start screen with Live Tiles is a personal experience, showing people their own content. The Live Tiles come to life with real-time updates from the Web such as news, appointments or the status of friends. New Live Tiles can be easily created from whatever content a consumer wants, such as applications, websites and music.

Fueling New Experiences

Windows Phone 7 marks a new era in mobile gaming as the first phone¹ to put the power of Xbox LIVE into the palm of people’s hands with a blockbuster lineup of game titles from award-winning publishers. In addition to the titles already announced earlier this year, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) today announced the first wave of EA games coming to Windows Phone 7 this fall. As part of Microsoft’s managed portfolio of Xbox LIVE titles, all EA games for Windows Phone 7 will be Xbox LIVE-enabled. EA will deliver a portfolio of titles that offers something for every mobile gamer, from casual to core, including “Need for Speed™ Undercover,” “Tetris^®” and “The Sims™ 3.”

Windows Phone 7 is also the first to offer the Zune music experience on a phone: People can play their music collection, synced wirelessly from their PC, or stream or download new tunes from Windows Marketplace. An optional Zune Pass subscription is available.

Search is made easier with a dedicated button to help people find what they need, whether in contacts, in Marketplace, in e-mail or on the Web. From the Start screen, the Search button delivers Bing for mobile, delivering Web results, local information, maps, directions and more.

The Windows Live solution helps people manage pictures, Windows Live calendar, Office OneNote Mobile and more. The free Find My Phone service new on Windows Live can remotely ring, lock, erase and show the location of your phone on a map. Complete information about Windows Phone 7 features and capabilities can be found at http://www.windowsphone.com.

New Windows Phones

The following devices will come to North America, Europe and Asia Pacific in the holiday 2010 timeframe.

New SocialGadgets from FUSE Labs

Microsoft's Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs was started by Ray Ozzie and is run by Lili Cheng. The group focuses on real-time and media rich experiences and is located in Redmond, WA, Cambridge, MA, and Cambridge, UK.Their earlier projects include Spindex, Kodu, Project Emporia, Docs, Bing Twitter, Bing Twitter maps. Now they have introduced new project called Social Gadgets.Here is the description of the project.

Visual exploration of Twitter topics

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words. And when analyzing the massive amounts of data generated by Twitter, this adage could not be more appropriate. FUSE Labs’ SocialGadgets are a set of embeddable widgets that visualize Twitter real-time data. Each gadget focuses on a given keyword and displays its volume of usage over time. Mentioned entities such as people, locations, companies and noun phrases are identified and visually represented. The gadgets are interactive, letting users explore the relationships between topics publically shared on Twitter. By focusing on patterns and trends, the gadgets can extrapolate what people find important, and provide a succinct yet effective way to look at events as they are unfolding.

Twitter, 'the pulse of the world,' is an incredibly rich data source used by millions across the globe. People post their thoughts, ideas and whereabouts via text-based status updates. Visually displaying trending topics can help readers better understand content and its context. By using any one of the four SocialGadgets, data flowing through the Twitter fire hose is indexed and semantically analyzed in real-time. Within minutes, major entities are identified and their relationships are displayed. The gadgets are easily configured, allowing users to choose a keyword and a template type, then copy and paste an embed code to be displayed on a website of their choice.

 

You can try and customize it for your site: http://designer.socialgadgets.fuselabs.com/?template=A

BLTWY-A new MSNBC Political Site

The Msnbc Digital Network and BermanBraun  today announced an extension of the popular Wonderwall site into the Political Arena.Site will explore the celebrity side of politics.Visit www.bltwy.msnbc.msn.com/ Its same as Wonderwall with rich media and less text. I loved the site. This is what mentioned in the blog

Politicians have now become part of popular culture, and de-facto celebrities, attracting considerable media attention.  BermanBraun and the Msnbc Digital Network announced a partnership to create an original destination site which will go beyond policy and polls to explore the celebrity side of politics.  The new site, launching later this year, will be an extension of the popular entertainment and celebrity destination Wonderwall.  It will take you inside the beltway to explore the lives of politicians as celebrities, giving politics the Wonderwall treatment.  

Microsoft’s OpenHouse Event on October-11

Microsoft said that it will host events both in London and New York on Oct-11.Everyone expected launch of Windows Phone 7.But Neowin reports that along with WP7,Microsoft will be showing Windows tablets as well. Microsoft will receive the marketing support of AT&T, which will be the initial exclusive US carrier to sell the Windows Phone 7 smartphones," according to The Wall Street Journal. AT&T will initially ship three Windows Phone 7 handsets: one from Samsung, LG, and HTC. Last week AT&T-Windows Phone 7 ads for HTC's Mondrian leaked out . The US will see the actual devices arrive on November 8. Also Microsoft will have all five carriers in UK launching WP7 devices with Orange,a long time Microsoft partner leading the way. So people are really excited about the Open House event. What do you think?

IBM Launches CityOne–An Interactive Simulation Game

The Big Blue today announced the availability of CityOne, the world's first Smarter Planet interactive simulation designed to help business and civic leaders discover how to make their cities and industries smarter by solving real-world business, environmental, and logistical problems. Here are the few points from press release.

Examples of the game scenarios include:

• Water Crisis Management: A city is struggling with water usage increases twice as fast as the population, supplies are becoming strained and possibly polluted, and the municipality is losing almost half of its water through leaky pipes. On top of all that, energy costs continue to rise. To complete the mission, players must come up with a way to deliver the highest water quality at the lowest cost in real-time.
• Smarter Retail:  The player represents the owner of an electronics store that requires a redesign and expansion. In order to increase sales, players must streamline and increase the visibility of their supply chain process to better track items in real time and react to problems and delays.

Creating greater awareness and educating the public about protecting human health and the environment is an EPA priority, and serious games can be useful tools for users to learn about processes and systems reflective of the real world," said Andy Miller, PE, Chief, Atmospheric Protection Branch, EPA Research and Development. "By cooperating with IBM CityOne developers, EPA is helping users by allowing them to more thoroughly investigate environmental issues and better understand complex energy and water interactions presented in the game. EPA's collaboration in this project will help increase awareness and understanding of how different choices that are made in the various game scenarios affect environmental outcomes." 

IBM is not new to the serious games space. Over the years, IBM has released a number of games such as INNOV8, RoboCode and PowerUp that are used by schools, businesses, museums and conferences.  In fact, the INNOV8 series is now being used by 1000 universities and organizations worldwide and is offered for free to schools through IBM's Academic Initiative.

The whole press release by IBM is worth a read. Read it when you have time. Here is a game play video.

Windows Phone 7 Marketplace to Start Accepting Applications From Oct-11

October 4, 2010 Request Early Access to Submit your Windows Phone 7 App On October 11th you and other developers will see a brand new Marketplace developer portal experience that makes it easier to distribute and manage your apps and games. The new portal streamlines application submission and certification; brings together all the resources you need to develop great apps and games for Windows Phone 7; and lets you manage apps you may have created for earlier versions of Windows Phone. The new portal will also be refreshed more frequently to provide you with new resources and updates on a regular basis. Since this is an all-new portal experience we will initially enable early access to a couple thousand developers to submit Windows Phone 7 apps starting on October 11. If your Windows Phone 7 app or game is ready and you'd like to be among the first to go through certification, please tell us by sending an email to myxapnow@Microsoft.com by Twelve Noon, PDT, October 6th, 2010. All requests will be evaluated on a first come, first serve basis. From these requests an initial group of developers will be provided access and guidance on submitting their apps through the new certification process. After the first wave of app submissions we will gradually ramp-up access to additional developers on a weekly basis. Here are a few important details. Your request for early access must come from the email address that received this newsletter; we will only accept requests from registered Marketplace developers Your request must include the title of your app and a description of approximately 75 words Requests that do not meet the October 6th deadline will not make the first wave of early access slots but will be evaluated for later waves in the order in which they were received Optionally, please consider providing a screenshot or link to a video or blog description of your app to assist us in prioritizing the early access program Be sure to check out Todd Brix's post to the Windows Phone Developer Blog later this morning, but important dates to remember are: Today: As a registered Marketplace developer, you are now invited to request early certification access by emailing myxapnow@microsoft.com by Noon, October 6, PDT. Oct 11: The first wave of developers accepted for early certification access will receive instructions on how to submit their xap to the new Marketplace portal. Oct 12-November: Microsoft will expand access to the early app submission process every week until the self-serve submission process is broadly enabled. With more than half a million downloads of the Windows Phone Developer tools, we know we'll see amazing games and apps for customers this holiday season. We look forward to seeing yours early! Final Windows Phone Developer Tools Available Now You may already know, but the final developer tools for Windows® Phone 7 have been available here since late August. You will need to use these final tools, not the beta tool set, when building an app to submit to Marketplace. Make sure you take the following steps to get your games and apps prepped for launch: Download the final Windows Phone Developer Tools from the portal today Compile your app or game using the final tools Have your XAP ready for submission to the Marketplace when it opens Register for Tech-Ed Europe 2010 Tech-Ed Europe returns to Berlin November 8-12 2010, with more than 25 Windows Phone related sessions and labs. These range from introductions to the Windows Phone 7 and Marketplace teams to deep-dives on Silverlight and XNA development for Windows Phone 7. Check out all the Windows Phone sessions by clicking here and selecting the Windows Phone track from the search list. The registration price for Tech-Ed also includes a one-year subscription to TechNet which includes access to the complete stack of full-version Microsoft infrastructure and business solution software. Windows Phone 7 at PDC 2010, October 28 and 29 Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference, PDC 2010, will include sessions on building and selling apps for Windows Phone 7. PDC 2010 has already sold out but you can join the event live on October 28 and 29 at the PDC site. You can also join the PDC email list to get a preview of what's planned for PDC, as well as stay abreast of local PDC events. Visual Basic Comes to Windows Phone 7 You can now download the Visual Basic CTP for Windows Phone Developer Tools. Provided in this download are all the templates, designer support, emulator (and phone!) support and IntelliSense for Visual Basic. A few important caveats: CTP stands for Community Technology Preview, which means we want to give you early access, and are hoping to solicit feedback, but this is not a final implementation. There is no Go-Live license, which means you shouldn't try to release apps built with this version of the technology. You need to be a Visual Studio 2010 Professional (or higher) customer. So if you only have the Express edition of the Windows Phone Developer Tools, you cannot use this version of the CTP. I hear Visual Studio 2010 have a trial download if you are really itchy. You cannot build XNA games. Silverlight apps only. In This Issue > Request Early App Submission Access for Windows Phone 7 > Final Windows Phone Developer Tools Available > Tech-Ed Europe Returns to Berlin Nov 8-12 > PDC 2010 Online > Visual Basic CTP for Windows Phone 7 Questions? Contact Support Follow Us on Twitter! Get to know the people on the Windows Phone team by following them on Twitter: @ckindel @mklucher @cschormann @shawnhargreaves @brandonwatson Microsoft respects your privacy. Please read our online Privacy Statement. Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 USA Update Profile

The above is the mail sent to all the registered developers.