Attention | Windows 7

Microsoft Details Windows Phone Location Info

Corporate, Desktop & Mobile, Developer, Windows 7, Windows News No Responses »

Apr 272011

Apple hasn’t been having the greatest week so far, thanks to some negative attention over its iOS devices storing location data. The company’s facing inquiries from U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who fired off letters to Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking for greater clarification on news that the iPhone and 3G-enabled iPad running iOS 4 have been saving that kind of information to a hidden database file. (Researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden first wrote about iOS 4′s supposed location-sniffing abilities in an April 20 posting on O’Reilly Radar blog, sparking this whole thing off.)

In an FAQ posted on its corporate Website, Apple attempted to clarify its position on location-logging.

“The iPhone is not logging your location,” reads one section. “Rather, it’s maintaining a database of WiFi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than 100 miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.”

Apple goes on to insist that the iPhone only stores a protected subset of that total crowd-sourced database. “The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of WiFi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location,” reads the FAQ, “which can be more than 100 miles away from the iPhone.”

Perhaps anxious to avoid attracting that same sort of negative attention, Microsoft moved to place its Windows Phone location-data policies front-and-center.

“When you allow an application or game to access your device’s location, the application or game will connect to Microsoft’s location services and request the approximate location of the device,” reads the FAQ posted on Microsoft’s corporate Website. “The location service will respond by providing the application or game with the location coordinates of the user’s device (when available), which the application or game can then use to enrich the user experience.”

Microsoft’s location services apparently rely on a database of local cell towers and known WiFi access points to “provide an approximate location of the user’s device.” In addition to WiFi access points, those services can also leverage a device’s GPS (when available) to provide observed longitude, latitude, direction and speed.

The FAQ also insists the location services “will only collect information when you allow a particular application to request location information and that particular application requests location information.” While Windows Phone apparently doesn’t save any location data to a smartphone’s memory, Microsoft also doesn’t mention whether any information transmitted back to the company is encrypted in transit.

In addition, Microsoft also insisted that any location information “is not shared with mobile operators,” and that users can deny applications access to their location information.

Windows Phone users, does that explanation make you feel more secure? Or are you already reaching for the tinfoil hats?

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MIX 11 in a Nutshell

Developer, Windows 7 No Responses »

Apr 152011

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news coming from Las Vegas this week, Microsoft has been revealing much about the future of Internet Explorer and Windows Phone at the developer event. There is a lot to report on, but I figured I’d give a more concise run through of what we’ve learned from the event this week.

Internet Explorer 10 is in the works

Many believed that Microsoft would continue with preview builds that amend the current IE9, similar to the way that Google updates Chrome, but the Internet Explorer team came out with the platform preview for Internet Explorer 10, which you can check out here.

The next version is more a continuation of IE9, with regards to HTML5 and CSS3 standards. Dean Hachamovitch, IE’s Corporate Vice President said in his keynote, “IE10 builds on full hardware acceleration and continues our focus on site-ready Web-standards…This combination enables developers to deliver the best performance for their customers on Windows while using the same, Web-standard markup across browsers.” The move enables Microsoft to continue their push to move software and services to the cloud through IE’s tight integration with Windows 7 and certainly Windows 8.

Windows Phone’s future

MIX has become a developer conference that has evolved with our modern-day computing uses. Much of the tech industry is also now relying and moving to mobile as smartphones and pocket PC’s gain more ability. Microsoft has seized this growing market by making Windows Phone, their new mobile platform, a major part of the event.

Joe Belfiore took the stage on day 2 of the MIX event to talk about future developments coming to Windows Phone and how developers can use these new features to push visibility and usability with their apps in the Marketplace. In showing these future additions, Joe Belfiore also showed us users what’s in store for Windows Phone in the fall update codenamed “Mango”. Here’s what we can expect via Matt Bencke’s post on The Windows Phone Developer Blog:

“Multitasking” meets Integrated Experiences with Live Agents: Superior customer engagement with real time interactions via Live Tiles, Push Notifications, Deep Linking and Background Agents. Multitasking is also enhanced to allow for fast applications switching, as well as background audio and file transfer.
Phone Integration has been greatly improved for developers looking to enable their applications to do more with their apps. The Live Tiles, Extras and push notifications functionality has been expanded to give developers more flexibility to engage with their customers.
Developers will also have access to the Motion Sensor library and the camera, enabling amazing augmented reality experiences. The integration extends deeper into the operating system via sockets and database access now available to apps and games.
A new profiler and emulator for testing
Support for Silverlight AND XNA in the same project
Structured storage that enables access to SQL database
Access to calendar and contacts through apps
And much more
More countries – 35 Mango countries with creation and commerce.
More Reach – Dedicated games Marketplace, beta distribution
More Discoverability – Exposure through Bing Search “Extras,” search functionality and new merchandising opportunities
More Monetization – More MO billing, expanded country support for advertising SDK

Whether we like it or not, both Windows Phone and IE10 will influence what happens to the Windows desktop platform and vice versa, so it is definitely nice to see that Microsoft is going to continue to court developers like they have always done, because the developers are the ones that make these platforms shine.

If you are interested in watching the keynotes from day one or two, I have included links to them below:

Day 1 Keynote with Dean Hachamovitch on IE9 – Click Here

Day 2 Keynote with Joe Belfiore on Windows Phone – Click Here

Attention Apple Critics: Change Your Expectations

Windows 7, Windows News No Responses »

Apr 122011

From time to time, I’ve written commentaries stating my belief that you shouldn’t expect Apple to be number one in every product category.

Microsoft Might be Moving to Xbox IPTV After All

Windows 7 No Responses »

Mar 162011

Being an Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE subscriber and Windows 7 Media Center user I pay alot of attention to anything involving Microsoft and TV solutions. Sure, Microsoft has tried and failed miserably in the past with offerings like MSN TV, but they’ve got this excellent and underappreciated product in Media Center in Windows 7 and finally the media box to deliver it (Xbox 360), so where is the Microsoft IPTV service we’ve been hearing rumors about for so long?

Recently, Tom Warren of Winrumors.com uncovered a job posting talking about the next-gen edition of ESPN sports TV via the Xbox.

Do you like Xbox? Are you a sports fan? Do you like watching TV? Do you enjoy enabling a team to solve big challenges? Do you want to help combine all of these things into Microsoft’s big bet on interactive TV experiences, focusing on ESPN Sports?

We’ve got great content and now we’re building interactive television experiences that will showcase what next-generation TV can look like for sports. Personalized and social experiences that will make watching sports on Xbox the next best thing to being at the stadium. Build the experience that will make people crave their sports fix on Xbox.

So Microsoft is clearly working on the next version of something that already exists, but what about an IPTV service? That’s where codename “Orapa” comes in. According to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft is working on a new project that would combine the Xbox 360 and Microsoft’s Mediaroom IPTV. This could set Microsoft up to deliever a TV service, similar to their current ESPN and Sky Sports options, to your TV using the Xbx console. She notes that eventually this kind of service could make it’s way to Windows Phone and even the Windows PC platform.

When you add the Kinect into the mix, you have a potentially killer TV service that could be controlled from your couch with hand gestures and voice command.

I was recently showing the ESPN on Xbox Live service to a friend a few days ago and he mentioned that if Microsoft could add some other channels and the ability to pull network TV shows which is coming in Hulu Plus for Xbox, this would be a great alternative to current cable and satilite subscriptions.

According to Mary Joe’s article on ZDNet, this is all closer to reality than we think and some believe this offering could come to consumers in time for the holiday season. How about it Windows and Xbox users, could you use a service like this to severe ties with your current TV subscription service?