Hasta La Gadget!

Good news for Windows Phone app developers. Microsoft announced that it will be upgrading its app hub this Friday to implement some changes that they mentioned back in April. The upgrade is said to provide a more robust submission and certification pipeline for your Windows Phone apps. For those of you not in the know, the App Hub has been slowing down over the past few months due to the number of apps available on the Windows Marketplace. I guess Microsoft didn’t expect such an explosive growth in its apps department.

Fortunately, a fix is underway and this temporary inconvenience will provide long term benefits for developers. If you have an app to submit, you should do it today or tomorrow or expect it to be delayed if you submit it during the upgrade process (which will begin this Friday, and the App Hub will be taken offline next Monday morning PT – no word on how long that’ll last but it should be under 24 hours).

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft launches Photosynth for Windows Phone, Microsoft’s plans for marketing Windows Phone apps leaked,

This week the folks at Nokia are bringing on the next generation of their hardware and software integration talks with none other than their own Floris Van-De-Klashorst speaking about the future of automotive. The Connected Car, as they call it, is one which is a futuristic concept – this meaning that though we’ve got cars at the moment that are relatively connected, we’ve not yet scratched the surface. According to Nokia, it’s Points of Interest (POI) search capabilities that are at the center of the future for vehicles that use what they call “Intelligent Technology.”

Built-in phone technology as well as data connectivity is at the center of this concept as well – as Nokia sees the future, anyway. They’ve presented a video showing off some concepts as they sit inside the concept known as the Ford Evos. This vehicle is a blue beast, with no less than cloud services and APIs, search technology, mobile connectivity, and build-in communication technology as well. Have a peek at this concept video and see what the future holds.

Nokia is announcing this week via their Conversations by Nokia blog – or perhaps re-announcing for those of you that’ve followed along with the Evos rather closely- that they’re working with Ford as one of its main integrators of futuristic tech. This partnership will use Nokia’s own Location Platform to support the vehicle’s in-car location-based set of systems. This vehicle will, thanks you Nokia, not only know where you are and what businesses and places of interest are near to you at any given point, it’ll know which kinds of music you like to listen to on certain commutes.

You’ll also be working with Satnav maps to bring on your ability to avoid locations in your city (or wherever you’re driving) with heavy pollution. With detectors and reporting devices such as what we’re seeing here with this vehicle and its connected services alone, we’re hoping for a completely world-environment-aware vehicle in the very, very near future.

Have a peek at our hands-on look at some Nokia Windows Phone mapping technology that we saw back at CTIA earlier this year as well to get deeper into Nokia’s love for knowing where you are at any time – and what’s around you as well.

First have a peek at Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport:

Then get in deep with Nokia Maps, the center of the whole Nokia GPS universe:

Finally check out Nokia City Lens – an amazing next-generation vision on Nokia Windows Phone devices which will allow you to see tags on every business and building of interest around you – it’s fabulous!

Stay tuned for more awesome Nokia location-aware technology, and get ready for awesome Nokia-embedded vehicles as well!

Nokia gets connected with automotive futures is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Windows Phone 8 SDK has escaped to the wild, and some sifting through the device emulator has dug up elements that Microsoft either skipped or only touched on lightly during the big unveiling in June. The most important addition may be the one customers see the least: backup. A WP7.hu search has the new OS replicating apps, settings and SMS messages in the cloud to prevent disaster, and that new SD card support will let WP8 owners shuffle photos from internal storage to the removable kind for safekeeping. There’s also more work on Internet Explorer than we saw before, with MobileTechWorld noticing that DataSense provides an option for Opera-like remote compression to save that precious cellular bandwidth.

Media fans might have the most to gain. If we go by The Verge, both the Music/Video and Xbox hubs are getting fresh coats of paint — both to integrate new ventures like Xbox Music as well as to jive more closely with the SmartGlass visual theme. Shutterbugs will like the long-awaited options to crop and rotate their work, pick multiple photos, and unify third-party camera apps under a Lenses concept. There’s even more clever features in store, such as a Maps update that finds nearby WiFi hotspots, so head on over to the sources to get a full sense of where Microsoft will be going.

Filed under: Cellphones

Windows Phone 8 SDK leaks show quiet upgrades to backup, media and the kitchen sink originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPowerUser (1), (2)  |  MobileTechWorld, WP7.hu (translated), The Verge  | Email this | Comments

Windows Phone 8 isn’t due to launch until the Fall, but it looks like the full SDK has leaked out of China. The 1.35GB download was served up on Chinese forums WPXAP, and includes a whole host of files that will enable developers to get up to speed with the latest version of Windows Phone. Users are still scrambling to download the SDK, although the file is also reportedly available on Microsoft’s own servers, provided you have the necessary login details to get at it.

The brunt of the download is the WPExpress.zip file, containing the SDK. Other files include PDF guides for network monitoring, battery optimization for applications, and a dashboard simulation for apps. Interestingly, a file called “Windows Phone Apollo Release Notes.htm” is also included in the package, which may reveal some more details about Windows Phone 8 that Microsoft hasn’t announced yet.

Developers will probably be the most interested parties trying to get their hands on the download, although it’s not exactly easy. Users have to download a third-party Chinese application due to the size of the file. Even when you do have the SDK, it reportedly only runs on the WIndows 8 preview edition, and Microsoft may restrict the SDK to just Windows 8 when it is officialyl released. If your interested has been perked, hit up the source link for the full details.

[via WPCentral]

Windows Phone 8 SDK leaks out is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It feels like it was only yesterday that Nokia handed its Windows Phone Maps application a complete and quite hefty makeover, which, as we know, brought the addition of reviews and friends’ photos to the app. Regardless, Nokia Maps appears to be ready to hit version 2.5, bringing with it an all-new Groupon integration to help US folks find nearby deals and a route planner service that, well, should be pretty self-explanatory. At any rate, WMPoweruser says the update should be hitting the Redmond Marketplace sometime “soon,” but feel free to let us know if you happen to catch it a little bit earlier than others.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Nokia Maps for Windows Phone updated with route planner and Groupon integration originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPoweruser  |  WP7forum  | Email this | Comments