Author: rich_gibbons

Microsoft Licensing, products, Cloud, and more!
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Windows Phone 7.5 Xbox Controller


Windows Phone just keeps getting better and making itself more important to Microsoft’s ecosystem, as well as introducing itself to new potential users. Today brings the announcement of another great addition:

The Xbox Companion App

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This is a Windows Phone app that will allow you to Find, Learn & Control media on your Xbox console directly from your Windows Phone device!!!

The app isn’t yet available but Ben over on the Windows Team blog has had a play with the beta and gives us some great insight:

  • Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, the Xbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.
  • Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infinite road of interactive content.
  • Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.

This is going to be pretty amazing in so many ways. It will make interacting with the Xbox much easier and also quite futuristic – which is always good! This coupled with the just announced Xbox TV is going to cause a radical shift in the way that people view the Xbox 360 console…no longer just for gaming but a true centrepiece of the living room, a real multimedia hub for the home.

The only reason I have EVER looked on enviously at a PS3 is for the LOVEfilm streaming and now we’ve got that, plus a whole bunch of other services so a real stake in the heart for Sony!

The other side to this is this will surely get the millions of Xbox users looking at Windows Phone devices in a whole new light too. Maybe it doesn’t have a few of the apps you’re used to on your iPhone…BUT IT CONTROLS YOUR XBOX!!! Smile

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Microsoft unveil Xbox TV


Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console has been steadily increasing the various things it offers over the last couple of years adding things such as Twitter, Facebook, Last.FM, Sky in the UK, Netflix in the US. There have been rumours for a while now of “Xbox TV”, with Microsoft adding more TV stations, channels, providers to the console and making it more of a media hub and today is the day of reckoning.

Microsoft have announced a crazy awesome set of partnerships for Xbox media including:

UK

There are some awesome additions there…the one’s I’m most excited about are LOVEfilm & BlinkBox. Streaming movies online is something that I really like the idea of but just can’t quite be bothered to set up the necessary infrastructure to use my PC to get it to the TV! Smile LOVEfilm, for those that don’t know, is like an English version of Netflix (pre-Qwikster!) where you can rent physical DVD’s and games and also stream films online. However I haven’t really been able to make use of the streaming functionality so this will hugely increase my interaction with LOVEfilm and improve the ROI of my subscription!

There are a few sites there I haven’t heard of before, so it’s good to see Microsoft going for a broader range of services…things such as MUZU & VEVO which are centred around music videos for example.

Other services include HULU, but only for the US & Japan and YouTube is simply listed as “Available in 22 markets” so hopefully the UK will be one!

This is a huge leap forward for Microsoft and the Xbox, and with a number of the providers integrating Kinect into the menus etc. this will keep the Xbox as the leading console for a LONG time to come Smile

The list in it’s entirety is:

• ABC iView – Australia
• AlloCiné – France, Germany, Spain, U.K.
• Antena 3 – Spain
• Astral Media’s Disney XD – Canada
• AT&T** – U.S.
• BBC – U.K.
• blinkbox – U.K.
• Bravo – U.S.
• BSkyB** – U.K.
• Canal+* – France, Spain
• Channel 4 – U.K.
• Channel 5 – U.K.
• CinemaNow (Best Buy) – U.S.
• Comcast – U.S.
• Crackle – Australia, Canada, U.K., U.S.
• Dailymotion – Available in 32 markets
• EPIX – U.S.
• ESPN** – U.S.
• Facebook** – Available in all 35 Xbox LIVE markets
• FOXTEL** – Australia
• GolTV – Spain
• HBO GO – U.S.
• Hulu – Japan
• Hulu +**– U.S.
• iHeartRadio (Clear Channel) – U.S.
• Last.fm** – U.K., U.S.
• LOVEFiLM – Germany, U.K.
• Manga Entertainment – U.S.
• Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment/Real Sports – Canada
• MediaSet – Italy
• MSN with MSNBC.com – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, U.K.
• MUZU.TV – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K.
• Netflix**– Canada, U.S.
• Rogers On Demand Online (RODO) – Canada
• RTVE – Spain
• SBS On Demand – Australia
• Syfy – U.S.
• Telefonica – Spain
• Televisa – Mexico
• “The Today Show” – U.S.
• TELUS** – Canada
• TMZ – U.S.
• Twitter** – Available in all 35 Xbox LIVE markets
• UFC – Canada, U.S.
• Verizon – U.S.
• VEVO – Canada, U.K., U.S.
• VimpelCom** – Russia
• Vodafone Portugal** – Portugal
• YouTube – Available in 22 markets
• ZDF – Germany
• Zune** – Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain

* Xbox LIVE Gold membership and/or other subscriptions/fees required. Kinect
functionality varies by feature, provider and region. ** Denotes existing
partners on Xbox LIVE available today

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Office 365 Blackberry Beta Available


Microsoft Office 365, their updated online services offering, added many new features over the previous version known as BPOS. The big changes included using the 2010 servers (rather than 2007, making Office Pro Plus available as a monthly subscription and removing Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) functionality.

The latter wasn’t as well received as all the other changes and was due to RIM (Research in Motion, the developers of Blackberry) taking charge of that piece of the infrastructure. BPOS has just changed to offering the BES functionality free of charge and business continuing on that platform (while they prepped their existing infrastructure such as upgrading from Office 2003) can still use the Microsoft provided BES functionality. Companies taking up a fresh Office 365 subscription and/or upgrading from BPOS to the new offering however, are not able to take advantage of hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server at this current time…from Microsoft or RIM.

This has kept a number of customers from migrating over to Office 365, especially as RIM stated it won’t be available until December 2011! There is now good news and bad news:

Bad News: RIM now say it will be January 2012

Good News: There is now a beta of the service available

To get the beta service up & running:

To enable your Microsoft Office 365 for BlackBerry service:

  1. An administrator must login to http://portal.microsoftonline.com and click on Setting up email on mobile phones under Resources
  2. Click Enable Hosted BlackBerry® services from Research In Motion®
  3. Agree to the information sharing agreement
  4. From the Microsoft Online Services Admin Overview, click Manage under Hosted BlackBerry® services from Research In Motion®
  5. Once the open beta is live you will be able to configure and activate desired BlackBerry devices

Once that is done, and you click on “Manage” in your Office 365 portal, you will be redirected to:

http://www.blackberry.com/beta/businesscloud

to nominate your company for participation in the beta.

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Windows Phone Mango new features


We’ve all heard that there are 500 new features in Windows Phone 7.5 AKA Mango and a whole bunch of them have been all over the internet. Well I’ve just upgraded to Mango (How see here Smile) so here’s what I’ve noticed straight away:

In messaging, it now colours your messages a different shade than the other person…makes it easier to see who said what at a glance

If you’ve scrolled down the live tiles on the front screen…press the <—Back button and it zooms you back to the top. Simple but nice!

Hold the Search button when you’re on the Lock Screen and BOOM, it opens Bing Smile (Can be turned off in settings)

Bing Audio works really well

Windows Phone jumplists now for applications. So if you have over a certain amount, you get the letters to help navigate through like in contacts…very handy!

When in the camera, press anywhere on the screen to take a picture.

Camera settings such as Flash on/off, image quality etc all persist after you exit the camera, so they’re still there next time. That is awesome as this was a big annoyance for me…

These are all great features that have jumped out at me pretty much straight away.

These is one feature that I’ve been looking forward to for ages that seems to be a disappointment though…adding tracks to a playlist on the device.

It’s easy to add 1 track to a playlist but I cannot figure out how to get another one on there! Also, if you’re playing a song that’s part of an album and you select “add to playlist” it appears to add the entire album.

Hopefully someone will work this out and/or future update will make it more intuitive Smile

Well that’s me done for now but rest assured, you’ll almost certainly see more of these posts from me over the coming days/weeks!

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How to make a custom ringtone for Windows Phone Mango


Microsoft’s update to Windows Phone, Mango, brings the ability to create your own custom ringtones from MP3’s etc – which is great.

It’s not quite as easy as Android, where you just long hold an MP3 and “set as ringtone” so here’s a little guide on a good way to do it…via a great Windows Phone site:

1800PocketPC

They recommend doing it the way I’d do it anyway so I find this the best route…however you may have different programs you like to use etc.

Head over to the link above and then get started with some custom ringtone action Smile

ps: If you’ve not got Mango yet – check this post out:

Read How to Get Windows Phone Mango Right Now

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How to Get Windows Phone Mango Right Now


It’s official, Windows Phone Mango AKA Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 has been released and is now being filtered through mobile carriers out to users.

I was most disappointed to discover earlier that T-Mobile have not started this process for Samsung Omnia 7 users in the UK – and most of Europe I believe. Why this is the case I don’t know…but after the mess that was the NoDo update, I was NOT a happy man! However I came across a post on the WPcentral blog:

http://www.wpcentral.com/force-mango-update-early-through-zune-software

This gives a simple, step by step guide on how to “trick” Zune into giving you the update now. At first I was a little unsure but decided to just go for it…and it worked a treat. It took about 1 hour to to do 2 updates, 7304 (pre-Mango) and then 7720 (Mango itself) and now I’ve got all the awesome good stuff like custom ringtones, Bing Audio, Threads, Groups etc Smile

I’d recommend you click the link above so that WP Central get all the clicks they deserve but just in case it falls over though sheer traffic etc, here are the steps:

Steps to force a Mango update on phones for which Mango has started rolling out:

  1. Connect your Windows Phone to a PC and launch the Zune software
  2. Click on Phone > Settings > Update. Allow the software to tell you whether an update is available. If so, skip this guide. If not continue to the next step.
  3. Time to force the update. Click another button (any of the options above or below the word Update). Then click the Update button again, and this time disconnect your computer from the internet after 1-2 seconds. Do this by pulling out the Ethernet cable, disabling Wi-Fi, etc. If it says your phone is already up to date, you didn’t disconnect quickly enough and need to try this step again.
  4. Wait 30 seconds or so and Zune should display a notification that an update is available. This is 7392, the first Mango pre-update.
  5. Now reconnect to the internet and continue with the update process through the Zune software.
  6. After 7392 is fully installed, you may receive a notification that another update is available. If so, install it now. If not, proceed to the next step.
  7. If the second update isn’t popping up on its own, repeat steps 3-5, causing the 7403 update to appear.
  8. Install 7403, brave reader. Speeding right along, isn’t it? 😉
  9. Mango time! At this point, Zune should automatically start installing the last update, 7720, aka Mango. If it doesn’t happen automatically, force it like we did in previous steps.

 

Again, big thanks to WP Central…

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Mango Delivery


Microsoft have confirmed that Mango, the long awaited, 500 feature containing update for the Windows Phone mobile OS will be here “within the next 2 weeks” which means we’ll see it between now and October 7th!

“For months, we and dozens of our partner companies have been laying the groundwork for the Windows Phone 7.5 update—and making solid progress. As a result, we now expect to start rolling it out in the next week or two”

Some more info and advice from Eric Hautala over on the official Windows Team Blog:

“During the official Windows Phone 7.5 update process, every Windows Phone will also receive software from the handset manufacturer. This matched and paired firmware has been painstakingly tuned so your phone—and apps—work with all the new features of Windows Phone 7.5. Since your phone requires the proper firmware to function as designed, my advice is simple: steer clear of bootleg updates and homebrew tools”

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Windows 8 so far


Windows 8 is out in the wild in the form of the Windows Developer Preview and it’s looking pretty awesome!

There are so many little changes as well as the more obvious big ones and my plan is to do a couple of posts covering those off but this post is a bit of a stop gap really.

I spent a good few hours trying to get it to run inside various virtual platforms and was having no luck at all. I eventually discovered (via a blog I can’t remember – sorry!) that you need to have Hardware Assisted Virtualization enabled in the BIOS of your machine for the Windows 8 Dev Preview to run inside VirtualBox!

That done I was able to step through the install process (a look at which will come soon) and boot up into Windows 8 – nice Smile I could see all the lovely tiles for the Metro apps…but clicking on them did nothing Sad smile Thanks to help from Twitter friends it was pointed out that you must have a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. I upped it from the default 800×600 and boom…all the Metro apps were working.

Yesterday (20/09/11) I hooked up a multi touch Acer monitor to the laptop I’d managed to procure and started to experience Windows 8 in all it’s touchy, swipy goodness…and it was great!

However, I came in this morning and the machine completed a bunch of updates. I was happy about that as I hoped that new features might be enabled but no, existing features were broken. The green background of the desktop was gone, replaced with a broken looking white – as were the backgrounds of many apps…annoying but not too bad. I turned the monitor on and was met with a “no signal” error. I unplugged all the cables and re-affixed them but to no avail and now my issue is this…having used Windows 8 with touch for a day…I now find using a mouse…especially a laptop track pad…horribly fiddly and pre-historic! Hopefully this will be resolved in a future update.

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AVG respond to Windows Phone App Removal


Microsoft recently removed the AVG Anti-Virus app from the marketplace over concerns about it’s actions, and now the AV company have responded:

Yuval Ben-Itzhak from AVG says:

“I wanted to take a moment to clarify and respond to some of the questions and comments raised in social media forums.”

“AVG believes that the Windows Phone 7 OS will continue to increase in popularity and, as it does, it will become a high value target for thieves and hackers.

For this reason, we made a strategic decision to deliver a security product to this platform in its very early days – as we did with Android.  Our objective is to start Windows mobile users off on the right foot and help them create a safe and secure community.”

“We worked closely with Microsoft on the development of this product.  Our teams were trained by Microsoft and our software was provided to the company for review and certification prior to release. We did implement a number of requested changes provided to us by Microsoft.”

“All of the data we collect is used solely to offer users an exceptional security service with state-of-the-art GPS tracking.

  • We will not sell your data to anyone.
  • We do not share or otherwise disclose your data to anyone without your permission.
  • We do not mine your data for patterns.
  • We do not use your data to target ads.
  • We do not access your location data without your permission.”

He lists the features of the app as including:

  1. The Safe Web Surfing function helps protect users from social engineering attacks that are intended to drive them to take wrong decisions while online
  2. This protection engine checks the safety of a URL in case the user tries to access a malicious web site.
  3. The Safe Search function allows users searching the web to avoid malicious web sites.
  4. Our file scanning engine scans media files, mp3s, video and play lists and checks against a blacklist of bad files. This is a result of several “proof of concepts” disclosed in public.

However, from everything I’ve seen online, it all it does is scan some EICAR strings and the word “Hebrew” …which seems at odds with the above?

The full post can be found here:

http://blogs.avg.com/product-news/avgs-response-community-feedback-windows-phone-7-app/

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