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LAS VEGAS — Microsoft unveiled its vision of the future, where everything from phones and tablets to big-ass tables runs Windows.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered a somnolescent and nearly news-free keynote presentation on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show here, laying out his company’s strategy for home entertainment, mobile content, PCs and tablets.

“Whatever device you use, now or in the future, Windows will be there,” Ballmer said.

For home entertainment, that means games, video and music delivered via Xbox 360 and its hit wireless, touchless controller, Kinect. Microsoft has sold 8 million Kinect kits since it was first released two months ago.

In one of the keynote’s few bits of original news, Microsoft announced that Xbox 360 users would soon be able to use Kinect to control Netflix via gestures and voice. In addition, Hulu Plus will be coming to Xbox 360 this spring, also with Kinect support.

The Xbox avatar of Steve Ballmer delivers the news about Kinect’s improved facial expression feature, avatarKinect. Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

And Kinect now has enhanced face recognition, so it can identify smiles, eyebrow raises and other facial gestures, mapping those onto your Xbox avatar, which then moves and makes expressions in an odd, artificial mimicry of what your body is doing.

In one of the keynote’s more surreal moments, Ballmer’s avatar delivered the news about the new feature, called avatarKinect.

For smartphones, Microsoft is betting on Windows Phone 7. Ballmer reprised the company’s launch of the platform in late 2010, and announced that it would soon be adding cut-and-paste support to the mobile OS.

Ballmer also showed off a new version of Microsoft Surface, the company’s often-mocked multitouch-capable table. The new version uses infrared sensors instead of cameras, enabling it to be just 4 inches thick (thin enough to mount on a wall for kiosk use). Its “Pixel Sense” technology also detects visual information, not just touch, so it can “see” objects or writing material laid on top of it.

For everything else, however, Microsoft is counting on Windows 7 and its successors.

That means Windows will be the platform of choice for nearly all devices, from tiny slates to full-fledged PCs and even large kiosk devices like the Microsoft Surface.

To make good on that vision, Microsoft is developing versions of Windows that will run on the low-power ARM processors found in many smartphones and some tablets today.

Microsoft demonstrates a version of Windows running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

Microsoft demonstrated Windows running on prototype systems built around chips from ARM manufacturers Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia. (Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip is used in two new dual-core smartphones from Motorola and LG.) The demos included such bread-and-butter Windows features as Internet Explorer, PowerPoint and network printing, all of which seemed impressively fast despite the low-power chips at the systems’ hearts.

The company is also aiming to beef up support for other “system-on-a-chip” devices, by which it means any CPU that incorporates a wider range of functions that are typically found in computer processors. For instance, Intel’s new graphics-enhanced chips and AMD’s Fusion APUs (which combine a CPU and GPU capabilities in one chip) were also featured in the onstage demos.

“Support for system on a chip means Windows will be everywhere, on every kind of device, without compromise. All the power and flexibility of Windows on low-power, long-lasting devices,” Ballmer said.

“You’ll be able to use Windows anywhere you go, from the small screen to the big screen.”

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Photos: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

See Also:

• 7 Reasons You Won’t Want a Windows 7 Slate
• How Microsoft Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on Windows Phone
• Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic
• Microsoft Marshals Dealmakers, Lawyers to Take On Android
• Never Before Seen BSOD Debuts at Microsoft CES Keynote
• Microsoft Touts Home Entertainment at CES Keynote

An award-winning writer specializing in technology, science and business, Dylan Tweney is a senior editor at Wired.com and publisher of tinywords, the world’s smallest magazine.
Follow @dylan20 and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Don’t believe the recent gossip that Nokia and Microsoft are hooking up to make a Windows phone. A soon-to-be-former employee of Nokia claims it isn’t happening.

On his personal blog, Watts Martin explained that a partnership between Microsoft and Nokia isn’t even close to happening, because it’s unlikely Nokia would cede control of an OS to a third party.

“There is no guarantee of that at all, because it is stark raving loony,” Martin wrote. “A lot of the reporting on Nokia Ive seen seems to miss a fundamental fact: they are, in their fashion, just as insistent on control over their ecosystem as Apple is.”

Nokia has bee a diehard supporter of Symbian, an open-source operating system that’s a decade old. For years, Symbian has been the worldwide leader in smartphone OS marketshare, but some analysts say it could soon be dethroned by Google’s Android OS, which has a more modern user interface and several manufacturing partners.

“Market share is an existential threat to Symbian, it imperils the very existence of the platform,” said Gartner analyst Nick Jones. “And the main reason Symbian is losing share is the user experience which isnt competitive with Apple or Android.”

Eldar Murtazin, editor in chief of Mobile-Review editor, claimed last week that Microsoft had begun talks to make Nokia-branded smartphones running the Windows Phone 7 OS. The bleak outlook for Symbian got the tech press wondering if such a partnership would be likely.

Martin’s answer to that question would be a firm “No.”

“Nokia really does have their OS strategy figured out, and its a good one,” he said. “What they dont have figured out is user experience design…. The good news for them is that over the last year theyve started to take all those problem seriously. The bad news is that they needed to have been taking them seriously in 2007.”

Photo of a Samsung phone running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7: Mike Kane/Wired.com

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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This week Brian X. Chen and I get all giddy and excited about the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, aka CES.

CES is a weeklong preview of what kinds of gadgets you’ll see in 2011. We’ll be there from January 4-9, blogging right here on Gadget Lab.

Tablets are likely to big at CES this year, just as they were in 2010. But in 2011, we think manufacturers’ promises might even come true.

LG, MSI, Motorola and Toshiba are all rumored to be releasing tablets. HP, which acquired Palm earlier this year, is also planning to release a webOS-based tablet in the coming year — but we’re not expecting to see it at CES.

Intel and AMD are both working on next-generation processors, including Intel’s “Sandy Bridge” CPUs and AMD’s “Fusion” line of chips that combine CPU capabilities and graphics processing in a single package. What’s that mean for you? Lower power, longer-lasting netbooks and tablets.

Look for dual-core smartphones to boost the processing power in your pocket, largely on the basis of Nvidia’s Tegra processor.

There will be lots of 3-D televisions at the show, but what we’re more excited about is the advent of more 3-D cameras and camcorders, like one that Fujifilm introduced in 2010. If you could actually make your own 3-D pictures and movies easily, you might have a reason to buy 3-D displays like the Nintendo 3DS or — who knows? — any one of the increasing number of 3-D TVs.

Like the show? You can also get theGadget Lab video podcast on iTunes, or if you dont want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out theGadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Labvideo oraudio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio: Gadget Lab audio podcast #98 (.mp3 or .ogg)

An award-winning writer specializing in technology, science and business, Dylan Tweney is a senior editor at Wired.com and publisher of tinywords, the world’s smallest magazine.
Follow @dylan20 and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Microsoft plans to introduce a special version of Windows for low-powered mobile devices like tablets at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, according to multiple reports.

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg claim to have both heard that Microsoft will discuss a version of Windows that supports mobile ARM chips and other low-power processors. WSJ adds that the new Windows OS isn’t expected to be available for two years.

My instant reaction to these reports: WTF?

Microsoft already has a new version of Windows designed for mobile devices: Windows Phone 7. The company hired new executives, spent million of dollars on development facilities, rethought its entire mobile strategy and took an entire year to whip up a touch-friendly mobile OS from scratch.

In terms of power and features, Windows Phone 7 hasn’t caught up with Android or iOS yet, but it’s a solid start. It’s certainly more fit for tabletization than the desktop Windows. There are many reasons why Windows 7-based tablets make no sense.

Windows Phone 7 is also light years ahead of Microsoft’s previous mobile OS, Windows Mobile, to say nothing of Windows CE, Microsoft’s first mobile OS, which lives on as an “embedded” OS powering hospital devices, manufacturing equipment, point-of-sale devices, and the like.

So why in the world would Microsoft throw more money and talent at a new mobile version of Windows when it’s already made great progress on a newer, better one?

I like the well-informed Mary Jo Foley’s skeptical interpretation of the news. She thinks that Microsoft will announce a new version of Windows Embedded Compact, a trimmed-down version of Windows CE made especially for enterprise devices. That OS, which is currently in beta, already runs on ARM, and might make a suitable platform for Windows-powered tablets, especially the kind attached to your UPS driver’s barcode scanner.

Among other points,Jo Foley notes that the timing is right, and that Microsoft announced tablet partners earlier this year who are already in the business of making Windows Embedded Compact devices.

That outcome would make a lot more sense to me, and if Jo Foley’s right, Microsoft’s “tablet” news won’t be as exciting for the average gadget geek aching for a Microsoft-powered iPad competitor (unless you have a urinary tract disorder).

Photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES 2010: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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The early numbers are in for Microsoft’s brand new phone operating system Windows Phone 7: 1.5 million handsets sold to date. However, that number requires some explaining.

Microsoft on Tuesday morning published a faux interview with Achim Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows phones, who says Windows Phone 7 is growing fast.

The “sales” number is a bit tricky:

“Another is phone manufacturer sales phones being bought and stocked by mobile operators and retailers on their way to customers,” Berg said. “We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence.”

To be clear, that means Microsoft has sold 1.5 million phones to mobile operators and retailers to put on their shelves, not 1.5 million phones activated by customers.

Then again, I’d be surprised if 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handsets were activated already: Microsoft is entering a market already dominated by Google and Apple.

Google claims it’s activating 300,000 Android phones a day, and Apple claims 270,000 iPhones are activated each day. Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do before it can start boasting similar numbers.

However, Berg’s statements generally give a modest overview on a fresh, new start. Berg adds thatafter just six weeks, Microsoft has recruited 18,000 developers, and there are 4,000 Windows Phone 7 apps available in its app store. 1.5 million “sales” isn’t the sort of sales we’d usually care about, but it shows that the software giant has a solid foundation of partners to help Windows Phone 7 potentially gain a foothold in the smartphone market in the coming years.

Next year will provide a better glimpse into Windows Phone 7’s performance on the market. A software update introducing copy-and-paste and other new features is due sometime early 2011, and we’ll probably see Verizon getting on board to carry Windows Phone 7 devices as well.

Photo: Mike Kane/Wired.com

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Nokia, known for its religious-like devotion to the Symbian operating system, may be working with Microsoft to develop new phones running the Windows phone OS instead.

Nokia and Microsoft have begun talks to make Nokia-branded smartphones running the Windows Phone 7 OS, according to Eldar Murtazin, editor in chief of Mobile-Review editor. (Murtazin is known for gaining early access to the Nokia N8 phone long before its release, which led Nokia to file a report with the Russian police).

If true, adopting Windows Phone 7 could work well for Nokia, whose Symbian OS is outdated compared to more user-friendly Android-powered phones and Apple’s iPhone. Critics have called the Symbian OS “broken.”

The Windows Phone 7 strategy, as I’ve reported before, is more thought out than Google’s. Rather than simply license the OS to any manufacturer, Microsoft is requiring OEMs to adhere to a standard set of hardware features for any phone running Windows Phone 7. (Each phone must have three buttons, for example, and include a Snapdragon processor.)

What would Nokia get in return for playing by Microsoft’s rules? As part of the negotiation, manufacturers get a few default tiles on the Windows Phone 7 home screen devoted to the OEM’s proprietary applications; the rest of the space goes to Microsoft’s default apps (phone, calendar, etc).

So hypothetically, Nokia could put its own fancy GPS app on the home screen that charges a monthly rate to customers, for example. (Most of us would call this “bloatware,” but proprietary OEM apps are removable on Windows Phone 7, unlike bloatware on Android.)

From Unwired View

Image courtesy of Microsoft

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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In this week’s episode of the Gadget Lab podcast, Dylan Tweney and I analyze Google’s Chrome OS notebook and the idea of a Windows 7 tablet while giving a sneak peek of an awesome new iPad game.

Dylan shows off Google’s stealthy blackCR-48 notebook. The Chrome OS operating system, which is based on a browser, is fast and pretty capable, but Dylan couldn’t get a full day’s work done thanks to his need for Firefox. On the hardware side, the keyboard’s pretty nice, but the trackpad is clunky. Keep in mind, however, that this is a pilot device, so it’s not like you’re going to buy one.

I talk smack about a rumor that Microsoft is planning to yet again announce a Windows 7 tablet at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show. Why am I so pessimistic? Because this has been done over and over again, and Windows tablet PCs have constantly failed. Microsoft would be better off scaling up the new Windows Phone 7 OS to run on a tablet, but it’s unlikely we’ll see that happening next year because the phone platform is just getting started.

On to more fun news, I show off the new iPad version of Pocket God, a game that was a huge hit on the iPhone. You play the role of God, messing around with little creatures called Pygmies by manipulating their environment with your fingers. The iPad version, called A Journey to Uranus, just came out today. It’s even better because you get an entire universe to screw around with the Pygmies on different planets.

Like the show? You can also get theGadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you dont want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out theGadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Labvideo oraudio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #97

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Word on the street is that Microsoft plans to announce a Windows-powered iPad contender at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer waved around a Hewlett-Packard “slate” running Windows 7 at CES 2010. HP later hyped up the device with specifications and a possible price tag, and then killed it before it even shipped.

So it’s a bit like dja vu reading in The New York Times that Ballmer is taking the stage to talk slates again. Mind you, this time he’s going to show off not just one Windows 7 slate, but several, according to NYT’s Nick Bilton.

But increasing the device count isn’t going to make a Windows 7 slate any better. Here are seven reasons buying a Windows 7 slate would be a bad idea.

Windows is not for fingers

Windows 7 is designed for desktop computing, not multitouch tablets. Dragging around windows to switch between applications is not the kind of thing you’d do on a tablet; it’s why we use keyboards and mice.

At CES 2010 there were a few pilot tablets running Windows 7. They were difficult to use because the Windows 7 interface on a tablet was an ergonomic nightmare. Scrolling was laggy, and some devices we tested even froze while we were shooting video demonstrating the products.

Even with a touch-friendly skin on top, there are still going to be times when you wish you had a mouse — like when a dialog box pops up that hasn’t been optimized for touch, and its control buttons are too tiny for your fat digits.

Windows is too bloated for mobile devices

Windows 7 is a big improvement from Vista and XP, but it’s still got a lot of the same Windows headaches. Plug in a peripheral, for example, and Windows 7 has to search a sluggish database for a device driver. The idea behind a mobile device is that you’re on the go and you need apps that keep in pace with your movement, and Windows just isn’t optimized for that.

On top of that, the power management is not designed for an always-on, carry-everywhere-you-go experience. For a tablet competitive with the iPad you need an OS with extremely fast boot times that can run on low power for epically long hours; Windows 7 has neither of those features. (The iPad, for instance, has a standby battery life of 30 days.)

There will be too many unpredictable variations

Microsoft’s M.O. with Windows is to license the OS to any manufacturer that wants it, and the OEMs ship Windows notebooks with their own custom software (aka bloatware). There are a thousand different variations on keyboards, controls, aspect ratios and more. The same would happen with tablets. By contrast, Android and iOS have more-or-less predictable hardware, something that Microsoft itself recognized was important in Windows Phone 7, its mobile OS.

You’ll have to maintain it like a Windows machine

Windows has always been a prime target for the authors of viruses and botnets because of its gigantic userbase. On a Windows 7 tablet you’d have to install anti-virus software, which would inevitably affect battery life and overall performance.

Then you’d probably want to install memory optimizing utilities, a better disk defragmenter, and maybe a registry cleaner. After a year it would start slowing down like Windows machines always do, and you’d have to do a clean install of the OS.

In short, a Windows tablet would give PC users lots of flexibility — but it would be antithetical to the experience of an easy-to-use consumer device that you don’t have to maintain.

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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In what very much appears to be a controlled leak from Microsoft, the New York Times has detailed “rumors” of upcoming Windows “slates” that will be shown off by Steve Ballmer at CES next month. Just like last year. And again like last year, it seems that Microsoft still hasn’t gotten a clue about tablets.

“Microsoft hopes these slates will offer an alternative to the iPad because they move beyond play, people familiar with the tablets said.” And how will Microsoft differentiate its brand-new slate offering from Apple’s hugely successful iPad? By using a tablet version of the highly regarded Windows Phone 7 OS, designed for touch? Nope. By using a desktop OS, and slapping a skin on top. Again.

Microsoft is working with several hardware partners to make machines. One, from Samsung, runs regular Windows 7 in landscape mode and then, when turned upright, draws a finger-friendly skin over the top. It also has a keyboard which slides out in landscape mode, making this otherwise iPad-sized tablet quite a bit thicker. So, instead of offering the intuitive experience of other tablets, you get a jarring two-mode machine that likely doesn’t do either job properly.

And then there’re the apps. Of course there are apps. But there will be no app store. Microsoft is encouraging development of HTML5-based applications for the slates, but these will be scattered all over the web on the various developers’ sites. To find them, you will search, and they will be “highlighted in a search interface on the slate computer.”

The most telling quote from the NYT’s insider is this one:

The company believes there is a huge market for business people who want to enjoy a slate for reading newspapers and magazines and then work on Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint while doing work.

This may explain the company’s inability to make a “computer” which isn’t aimed at business. The iPad’s runaway success shows that the general public wants an easy to use computer which just works, and Microsoft just isn’t willing to – or just plain can’t make one. Microsoft’s future is looking a lot like IBM’s when Microsoft ate its lunch years ago: it’ll still be a big, big business company, but the general public will no longer be buying its wares (Xbox aside).

Microsoft to Announce New Slates Aimed at the iPad [NYT]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Rumors are buzzing about an impending Windows Phone 7 software update that will bring Microsoft’s new mobile OS up to speed with the iPhone.

While we like Windows Phone 7, it seems highly unlikely that it will catch up to the iPhone quite that fast.

Tech blog WP Central quotes Chris Walsh, who worked on an early jailbreak-like hack for Windows Phone 7 called Chevron WP7, claiming that in January 2011, Windows Phone 7 will get a “massive” software update that’s worthy of being called Windows Phone 8.

“MS took 3 months to do what Apple did in 3 years,” Walsh tweeted.

Walsh claims the update will introduce Bing turn-to-turn GPS navigation, custom ringtone support, copy-and-paste and some form of multitasking.

While I believe Windows Phone 7 will soon gain these features, that hardly sounds like a massive update to me. The only major new feature would be multitasking; custom ringtones I’d file under “meh,” turn-by-turn navigation is a thumbs-up but hardly mindblowing, and copy-and-paste is yes, an important tool, but not that big: Android has only partial support for copy-and-paste, and that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the most popular smartphone operating system.

Furthermore, to say such an upgrade would “do what Apple did in 3 years” is an incredible overstatement. To catch up with the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 devices would also need front-facing cameras, something comparable to AirPlay to stream video onto a TV box, and more — not to mention 300,000 third-party apps. Windows Phone 7 is just a month old; it’s got a lot of catching up to do, and it would take a few miracles for the platform to be up to speed with the iPhone by January.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Rather than rush out new features, I think Microsoft is probably prioritizing getting Verizon to hop on board with Windows Phone 7 a move that would boost its growth to compete with its more direct rival: Google Android. I’d place a bet on CDMA Windows Phone 7 handsets arriving before we see devices up to par with the iPhone.

Photo of Windows Phone 7 devices running software tests in a server rack: Mike Kane/Wired.com

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Microsoft is looking to expand its Silverlight web platform to Xbox 360, according to a recent job advertisement placed by the company.

“Silverlight is looking to hire motivated developers with a passion for creating ground breaking multiscreen platform experiences now targeting the Xbox,” the advertisement reads. Silverlight is used in “thousands of applications developed for Windows Phone 7, social network applications such as Seesmic, or powering the largest premium internet movie service through Netflix. With our next wave of releases we are looking to increase by an order of magnitude our usage, customer base and reach.”

Users are probably most familiar with Silverlight as a desktop browser plugin for streaming video. But it’s also Microsoft’s primary development platform for mobile applications on WP7, and rich HTML5 webapps like Office Live.

Xbox 360 already has a handful of third-party rich-media web applications, including Netflix. Leveraging Silverlight could allow Microsoft to develop additional Netflix-like interactive video applications, port popular games and mobile applications from Windows Phone or the web to Xbox 360, or even open up a full-fledged developer marketplace for the console.

In particular, Silverlight’s proven strength with streaming video applications might be attractive to networks looking for a smooth, secure way to bring content to mobile devices, desktop browsers and television screens, reducing development time and offering a more integrated experience.

Less than a month ago, Silverlight’s cross-platform future appeared to be much more limited. Microsoft’s Bob Muglia told ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley that the company’s Silverlight strategy “had shifted.”

Silverlight is our development platform for Windows Phone, Muglia said. “HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apples) iOS platform.”

Muglia did leave himself some wiggle room, however, pointing to sweet spots in media and line-of-business applications where Silverlight would still be useful. And Silverlight is still very much in active development; Silverlight 5 is on the way, and a “Future of Silverlight” conference is scheduled for early December.

Microsoft could have its cake and eat it too: promoting HTML5 as a cross-platform solution for devices outside the Microsoft ecosystem, while extending its use for development within the company’s own devices and operating systems — a perfect application of the Ray Ozzie-coined mantra, “three screens and a cloud.”

It feels like a smart move. Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s most successful gaming and entertainment device. It brings content to the biggest screen in the house. Extending Silverlight extends the range and variety of what that content might look like, and would allow Microsoft to bring products to the market faster. Having that versatility at the very moment when other companies are struggling for a foothold in the living room, and the shape and scope of computing in that space is up for grabs, could be a powerful advantage.

Image: Screenshot of Silverlight webapps from Silverlight.net.

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Spurred on by cash prizes, cool applications and the glory of getting code to work, Xbox Kinect hackers have opened up the camera and have it running on full throttle. Here’s a short list of what’s been done in just one week.

• Hector Martin was the first to post open-source drivers to Github and a proof-of-concept video, winning $3000 for himself and $2000 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation as part of Adafruit’s Open Kinect contest.
• Google software engineer Matt Cutts sponsored another $2000 contest for people who used the newly-found open-source drivers to run a cool application. Because apparently, numeric depth sensor output isn’t very cool. Cutts proposed some potential projects, the first being “A Minority Report-style user interface where you can open, move, and close windows with your movements.”
• Within a day, a user with the handle Flomuc adapted Hector’s code to use multitouch-style pinch-and-spread gestures to manipulate photos with Kinect running on Ubuntu Linux.
• Meanwhile Theo Watson was likewise able to port the now rapidly-developing open-source drivers to run Kinect on Mac OS X.

Pretty cool, if you’re into this sort of thing. Me, I’m holding out for someone to beat Matt Cutts’s second challenge to hackers:

What if you move the Kinect around or mount it to something that moves? The Kinect has an accelerometer plus depth sensing plus video. That might be enough to reconstruct the position and pose of the Kinect as you move it around. As a side benefit, you might end up reconstructing a 3D model of your surroundings as a byproduct.

To paraphrase The Social Network, Kinect on a MacBook just isn’t that cool. You know what’s cool?

Kinect on a robot. Controlled by a junior high student. That’s what this is about.

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Despite entering a crowded market, Microsoft’s brand new Windows Phone operating system seems off to a healthy start. Nonetheless, the estimates aren’t impressing cynical tech journalists.

More Windows Phone 7 coverage on Gadget Lab:

The Street’s Scott Moritz cites a market research source who claims Microsoft shipped a “mere 40,000 Windows Phone 7 phones Monday.”

“The anemic sales number does not include the 89,000 Microsoft employees that will be given free Windows 7 phones,” Moritz quips.

CNET reporters added their bleak perspective based on the performance of a single AT&T store in San Francisco (where every hipster in sight is already fondling an iPhone), which sold fewer than 20 devices by midday.

“If Microsoft hopes to get back in the smartphone game, it had better hope that Windows Phone 7 makes a bigger impact than it appeared to be having at one AT&T store here,” they wrote.

But let’s put this into perspective. Google claims it’s shipping at least 200,000 Android phones every day, and Apple says 270,000 are sold each day. However, comparing these numbers to a Windows Phone 7 launch estimate would be foolish: Android has been on the market for two years, and the iPhone for three; both platforms have reached critical mass.

Windows Phone 7 is two days old.

A fairer comparison would be launch numbers. The first iPhone shipped 250,000 units during its launch weekend, according to an analyst’s estimates. That number seems more substantial, but this was when nothing like the iPhone was already on the market.

I couldn’t find firm launch sales for the first Android phone (the T-Mobile G1), but the more popular Droid smartphone was estimated to ship100,000 units during its launch weekend. That’s a full weekend, not one day and if 40,000 more Windows phones shipped on day two, then Windows Phone 7’s launch would have performed nearly as well as the Droid.

If you consider that Windows Phone is entering a market where everyone and their mother already seems to be cradling an iPhone or an Android phone, a 40,000 day-one estimate isn’t bad. (It’s certainly better than Google’s failed launch of the Nexus One, which sold 135,000 units over 74 days, according to an estimate.)Sure enough, AT&T and T-Mobile spokespeople contacted by Wired.com said their companies were pleased with early demand of Windows Phone 7 handsets, though they declined to disclose figures.

This all makes the pile “doom and gloom” stories about Windows Phone 7 look silly (as was the case with the“iPhone is doomed” stories.)

I personally think Windows Phone 7 is going to be huge in two years largely because Microsoft’s mobile strategy is superior to Android’s, as I argued in a previous piece. But no one should have realistically expected Windows Phone to blow anyone out of the water on day one, this late in the game.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not cheering for Microsoft. But my point is we shouldn’t be projecting failure for anyone trying to push something new into the highly competitive mobile space. I don’t want just two giants with complete domination again, do you?

Photo: Mike Kane/Wired.com

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What is Microsoft’s official line on Windows 7 Phone software updates? Will they be taken care of by Microsoft itself, the way Apple takes care of iOS devices? Or will the carriers and handset makers engage in a free-for-all, confusing the customer and using updates as leverage to force you to upgrade your handset, like Android? Ed Bott of ZDNEt asked Microsoft, and the answer is clear and unambiguous:

Microsoft will push Windows Phone 7 software updates to end users and all Windows Phone 7 devices will be eligible for updates.

Good news all round, unless you’re a cellphone carrier. This fits in with the whole new Win7Phone approach, which sets minimum hardware specs for handset makers and keeps a tight leash on pre-installed carrier bloatware.

What is distinctly odd is that some roles seem to have switched. Android is now the equivalent to desktop Windows, riddled with fragmented OS versions, uncountable hardware options and all the associated crapware and malware its “open” platform brings. Apple now seems to be selling its non-Mac hardware cheaper than anyone else can manage, and Microsoft, despite its insistence on using the Windows name for a non-windowing phone OS, has grown a pair and is now pushing the hardware makers around.

What next? Non-bearded consumers buying an easy-to-use Linux distribution?

Microsoft is in the driver’s seat for Windows Phone updates [ZDNet]

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Windows Phone 7 lets you make Google searches, but only through a back door.

Google’s free Search app for WP7 is available today, according to the Google Mobile team. “Just search the Marketplace for ‘Google Search,’ download, pin to Start, and the power of Google Search is only a click away.”

“Search, download, pin to Start” — doesn’t that seem a little complicated just to load a search engine on your phone?

A distinguishing feature of Windows Phone 7 handsets is their three dedicated hardware buttons. The Windows logo goes home; the left-arrow button goes back; and the magnifying-glass “search” button opens up Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.

That button is permanently tied to Bing. There appears to be no way to change it.

On the iPhone or Blackberry, or nearly every web browser on the desktop (with Google’s Chrome a notable exception), you can pick your default search engine. You can’t do that with Windows Phone 7. On the Microsoft smartphone, you get Microsoft search.

Now, Bing has a lot going for it; it works very well on WP7, and I think Microsoft is onto something by putting search front-and-center on smartphones. The hardware button is usefully contextual, too: if you’re in the Marketplace, it searches the Marketplace; if you’re in Outlook, it searches your inbox, etc. That’s handy, and exactly the kind of behavior you’d hope for.

But that doesn’t change the fact that hardwiring Bing makes Windows Phone 7 much more closed than most other smartphone platforms.

Considering the close ties between internet search, ad revenue and content-sharing with partners like Facebook, the fact that Microsoft is driving nearly all of its mobile search through Bing is no accident.

It’s a feature, but it’s also a problem.

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Over the weekend, a member of the NUI Group hacked the new Xbox Kinect to run on Windows 7, posting proof-of-concept videos, but not the code.

“As a research project, I took a weekend challenge of getting this awesome new Xbox Kinect device to work on Windows,” writes Alex P, who previously hacked the PS3 Eye camera to run on Windows. “Here are the first tests of controlling the Kinect NUI Motor and reading the Accelerometer data from a PC. Outlook looks good for other sensors (ie cameras and microphones) of the device.”

A day later, he posted the following video of the Windows-controlled Kinect with on-screen output from its depth and color sensors:

Open-source hardware company Adafruit has offered a bounty for open-source Kinect drivers, upping the reward to $2000 after Microsoft threatened legal action against anyone opening up their peripheral.

Engadget reports that Alex P isn’t interested in the reward, preferring to use it with Code Laboratories’s $150 video suite CL Studio Live.

DIYers, robots and children all hoping to leverage the Kinect for educational use did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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The prototype for Microsoft’s Kinect camera and microphone famously cost $30,000. At midnight tonight, the company is releasing it as a motion-capture Xbox 360 peripheral for $150.

Microsoft is projecting that it will sell five million units between now and Christmas. It’s worth taking some time to think about what’s happening here.

I’ve used Kinect to play video games without a controller, watch digital movies without a remote, and do audio-video chat from across the room. I’ve spent even more time researching the technology behind it and explaining how it works.

Kinect’s camera is powered by both hardware and software. And it does two things: generate a three-dimensional (moving) image of the objects in its field-of-view and recognize (moving) human beings among those objects.


Older software programs used differences in color and texture to distinguish objects from their backgrounds. PrimeSense, the company whose tech powers Kinect, and recent Microsoft acquisition Canesta use a different model. The camera transmits invisible near-infrared light and measures its time of flight after it reflects off the objects.

Time-of-flight works like sonar: if you know how long the light takes to return, you know how far away an object is. Cast a big field, with lots of pings going back and forth at the speed of light, and you can know how far away a lot of objects are.

Using an infrared generator also partially solves the problem of ambient light, which can throw off recognition like a random finger on a touchscreen: the sensor really isn’t designed to register visible light, so it doesn’t get quite as many false positives.

PrimeSense and Kinect go one step further and encode information in the near-IR light. As that information is returned, some of it is deformed — which in turn can help generate a finer image of those objects’ three-dimensional texture, not just their depth.

With this tech, Kinect can distinguish objects’ depth within 1cm and their height and width within 3mm.

Figure from PrimeSense Explaining the PrimeSensor Reference Design.

At this point, both the Kinect’s hardware — its camera and IR light projector — and its firmware (sometimes called “middleware”) of the receiver are operating. It has an onboard processor which is using algorithms to process the data to render the three-dimensional image.

The middleware also can recognize people: both distinguishing human body parts, joints, and movements and distinguishing individual human faces from one another. When you step in front of it, the camera knows who you are.

Please note: I’m keenly aware here of the standard caution against anthropomorphizing inanimate objects. But at a certain point, we have to accept that if the meaning of “to know” is its use, in the sense of familiarity, connaissance, whatever you want to call it, functionally, this camera knows who you are. It’s got your image — a kind of biometric — and can map it to a persona with very limited encounters, as naturally and nearly as accurately as a street cop looking at your mug shot and fingerprints.

Does it “know” you in the sense of embodied neurons firing, or the way your mother knows your personality or your priest your soul? Of course not. It’s a video game.


But it’s a pretty remarkable video game. You can’t quite get the fine detail of a table tennis slice, but the first iteration of the WiiMote couldn’t get that either. And all the jury-rigged foot pads and Nunchuks strapped to thighs can’t capture whole-body running or dancing like Kinect can.

That’s where the Xbox’s processor comes in: translating the movements captured by the Kinect camera into meaningful on-screen events. These are context-specific. If a river rafting game requires jumping and leaning, it’s going to look for jumping and leaning. If navigating a Netflix Watch Instantly menu requires horizontal and vertical hand-waving, that’s what will register on the screen.

It has an easier time recognizing some gestures and postures than others. As Kotaku noted this summer, recognizing human movement — at least, any movement more subtle than a hand-wave — is easier to do when someone is standing up (with all of their joints articulated) than sitting down.

So you can move your arms to navigate menus, watch TV and movies, or browse the internet. You can’t sit on the couch wiggling your thumbs and pretending you’re playing Street Fighter II. It’s not a magic trick cooked up by MI-6. It’s a camera that costs $150.

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Xbox 360’s long-awaited dashboard update is here, bringing a slew of new features, including a nice bonus from Netflix: an improved search UI and support for Netflix streaming on Windows Phone 7.

Let’s take the Xbox first. Xbox Live’s Major Nelson writes that the 360 dashboard update is available today and rolling out to everyone (regardless of your geography!) over Xbox Live.

That was penned this morning; if you’re reading this now, you’ve probably gotten the update. If not, signing in again might work, but bear in mind this warning: “If you keep signing out and then back in again, this will NOT force the updateit will only anger people on your friends list who will keep getting a notification. every. time. you sign. in…Be patient, everyone will eventually receive the update.” Well said.

The headlining features of the Xbox update are the new ESPN hub and Zune music. You’ve got to be an Xbox Gold subscriber to take advantage of most of them. Zune Music or ZunePass is exactly what it sounds like: subscription-based streaming music, with baked-in search.

The ESPN hub promises 3,500 live, on-demand and DVRed global sporting events from ESPN3.com annually. The selection is arguably stronger than any other digital set-top box: college basketball and football to US pro baseball and basketball and international soccer, golf and tennis, whether they’re in or out of your local market. No NFL or NHL, but sports junkies are one step closer cutting the cable cord. If only it could have rolled out in the summertime: we’d all be watching baseball, tennis and soccer and it would have taken everyone three months to notice.

ESPN also gets to leverage some of the Xbox Live social networking features, including group chat while you’re watching a game. (The chat software itself is also reportedly improved.) English Premier League fans won’t even have to leave home to heckle their friends. That is, assuming you’ve all got Xboxes.

And then there’s Netflix. Xbox Live Gold users have had discless Netflix streaming for a long time now, and it’s only been in the last few months that other consoles have caught up. Now the original Xbox gets an update too, with an improved search UI.

Plus, Netflix put a cherry on top: just like the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 is getting Netflix Watch Instantly too via a free application, which will be available at the phone’s launch.

One last Xbox 360 detail that I think is important: the new dashboard overhauls the parental controls and family programming settings. Netflix, Sports, Chat, Kinect, the casual Xbox games on WP7: all of these together suggest that Microsoft is strongly re-positioning the Xbox as a living room hub for the entire family, not just where college kids and devoted gamers blast away on Halo while their friends and families leave to do something else.

Some of those gamers are already reacting, saying that the new games for WP7 and Kinect are too watered-down, don’t offer enough of what they’re used to. I think it’s a really good thing, based on the premise that the value of any box attached to your television set increases proportionally with the number of valuable things you can do with it.

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Console Wars
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“There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands,” John Cougar Mellencamp wrote in the liner notes to his classic album, Scarecrow.

And so it goes with the handover from the Gamecube and PS2 to the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360: Gaming systems that we once loved are thrown into the dustbin of history, while strange new devices take center stage.

Here’s one way to look at those market shifts: With an interactive infographic from Tableau Software.

In addition to the console trends, you can watch Nintendo gain market share at Sony’s expense (while Microsoft hangs in there at a steady level).

The data, from NPD Group, is not particularly new, but the visualization is. If you ever wondered what a generational shift in technologies looks like, here you go.

What other tech data would you like to see visualized? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks, Ellie!

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

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Amazon keeps rolling out software applications for nearly every device it doesn’t make itself. Next up is the new player in the smartphone market, Windows Phone 7. The forthcoming WP7 Kindle app has virtually the same function as other mobile Kindle apps, but will have Microsoft’s look and feel.

I may have been the only e-reading-focused reporter at the Windows Phone 7 debut event. I asked everyone I could find about e-reading applications for the device. “Just stay tuned,” I was told.

I still couldn’t believe there wasn’t one or more e-reading apps announced at the launch. It’s become an assumed part of app-capable smartphones and tablets in what has to be record time. Having an app for Kindle is like having an app for Facebook or the New York Times.

Think about it: just a year ago, there were only a few e-book apps, some by companies that are dwindling if not long gone. Now nearly every e-bookstore has a reading app on every screen you can carry.

Kindle joins just one other e-reading application that will be in the application Marketplace: Wattpad. Sometimes called “the YouTube of eBooks,” Wattpad is a service where users share their own original writing; half e-book commons, half social network.

Wattpad looks great — but it’s neither an e-bookstore nor an e-book reading application as we’ve come to recognize it from the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Stanza or MobiPocket smartphone apps (this list goes on and on).

The Kindle app for WP7 may not be ready when the phones are officially ready for sale. If history is any guide, this won’t be the last e-reader app announcement you’ll hear between now and then.

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Add the ‘made in China’ tag to yet another gadget: the world’s fastest supercomputer. China says it has the most powerful computing system — a machine called Tianhe-1A.

The supercomputer uses 7,168 NVIDIA Tesla M2050 GPUs (graphics processing units) and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs and is capable of clocking 2.507 petaflops or 2,507 trillion floating point calculations per second.

The Tianhe-1A will take the top spot from the U.S. Cray XT5 aka Jaguar that’s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The Jaguar can clock 1.759 petaflops and is built using 37,376 AMD processors.

The Tianhe-1A is interesting because it combines CPU and GPUs — much like desktop PCs — to create the world’s most powerful machine. In fact, Nvidia, claims if its GPUs weren’t used, then it would have taken 50,000 CPUs and twice as much floor space to create a comparable computer.

The Tianhe-1A was designed by the National University of Defense Technology in China and will be operated as an open access system for large scientific computations.

The use of GPUs in high performance computing is on the rise. Once seen in PCs used largely for multimedia and gaming, GPU-based computing has become more popular among researchers for its ability to offer raw computing power. While CPU are critical to a PC for their ability to interact with the different computing elements such as memory and disk drives, GPUs can perform specialized tasks especially related to graphics and visual computations that working in tandem with CPUs can speed up computing.

The CPU-GPU combination also helps keep up power efficiency. The system consumes 4.04 megawatts, three times less than what it would have if it were built entirely with CPUs, claims Nvidia.

Overall, the Tianhe-1A is a computing monster. It has 262 terabytes of memory and is housed in 140 refrigerator-sized cabinets.

Photo: Nvidia

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This week’s Gadget Lab podcast is packed with brand new, shiny goodies. Apple released new notebooks, and Microsoft launched its first phones running Windows Phone 7.

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Released Wednesday, Apple’s new MacBook Air now comes in two different flavors with 11- or 13-inch screens. We have an 11-inch Aur here in the lab, and we wonder how to justify paying $1,000 for one of these when you can pay $300 for a netbook or $500 for an iPad.

As for Microsoft, Samsung was one of the first manufacturers to create a phone powered by Windows Phone 7. I reviewed the Samsung Focus, and I’m a big fan of the OS, despite some flaws and features it’s still missing.

Wrapping up the podcast on a sadder note, Wired.com’s Priya Ganapati discusses the future of the Symbian foundation, responsible for the OS behind most Nokia phones, whose president recently resigned.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast on iTunes, or if you dont want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #92

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When Microsoft and Facebook announced that they were partnering to integrate Facebook and Bing for social-network-powered search, it confirmed something I thought Monday: Windows Phone 7 is the real Facebook phone.

I don’t know whether Facebook has a secret team working on a phone where they control the OS. But they don’t need one. They’re already deeply integrated into Android and iOS. Now with the Microsoft partnership, they’re tied to the most socially-optimized smartphone ever brought to the market.

“This is, I think, one of the most exciting partnerships we’ve done on the platform so far,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the Bing announcement Wednesday. “Our view is that over the next five years we expect that almost every industry is going to be disrupted by someone building a great product that’s deep in whatever area that industry is, plus is extremely socially integrated.”

The first Windows Phone 7 handsets are due in stores November. The OS is Microsoft’s complete do-over on mobile after its predecessor Windows Mobile tanked in popularity and market share in the wake of more consumer-savvy handsets such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android-powered smartphones.

Every aspect of Windows Phone 7 is geared around social networks: phone, contacts, gaming, photos, even Office. Focusing the phone around Hubs doesn’t just mean that local client apps and cloud apps are grouped next to each other; it means that the local client and cloud work together.

Microsoft tried to explicitly build a social-networking phone featuring Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace with the Kin. The Kin failed and was killed by Microsoft mostly because it wasn’t a full-featured smartphone (it was a fork of Windows Phone 7), but required a smartphone’s data plan.

The Kin’s cloud-backed social and sharing components lived on in Windows Phone 7. They were always there. Only now, Flickr and MySpace are nowhere to be found.

Even before the Bing announcement, Facebook was a conspicuous part of the WP7 presentation. Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore outlined a scenario where users could take a photo on their phone that’s then uploaded to Facebook automatically, without even opening the Facebook app.

In the press release for WP7, Microsoft notes that “the customizable Start screen with Live Tiles provides real-time updates so you can keep tabs on the latest weather forecast, your favorite band, a friends Facebook page and more, all with just one glimpse” (emphasis added).

That wasn’t an accident. The Facebook-Bing partnership was already happening.

It’s the exact strategy that Zuckerberg outlined in his interview with Michael Arrington, where he explained why Facebook wasn’t building its own phone.

Zuckerberg only makes an offhand reference to WP7 in that interview: “If Windows Phone 7 takes off, then Im sure well put resources on that.” But he added, with reference to their efforts with the iPhone and Android, “the question is what could we do if we also started hacking at a deeper level, and that is a lot of the stuff that were thinking about.”

In order to do that, Zuckerberg explained, you need to find a company that was willing to incorporate social networking from the operating system up — not adding a layer on top of what they were doing, but making that the focus of the device and its services.

At least one of those companies is Microsoft.

We started thinking what would social search look like, and we started looking around for partners, Zuckerberg said. Microsoft really is the underdog here and they really are incentivized to try new things.

He was talking about search, but he may as well have been talking about phones.

Microsoft may be the underdog in search and phones, but they’ve actually been ahead of the curve in terms of incorporating social layers into their products. The Zune had song and photo sharing between devices over Wi-Fi before the iPhone was even announced.

But that was a closed network, limited to just Zune-to-Zune, and later Zune-to-Xbox. In order to get outside of itself, Microsoft partnered with Facebook early on — it still owns part of the company — and Facebook helped shape Microsoft’s social strategy.

Microsoft has been quietly building a social network without anyone actually noticing. Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live are all social networks where users work, share files and talk about media together. You use the same identity across all of those services on every Microsoft device.

Facebook is already embedded in all of them: it’s built into Messenger, Hotmail and Outlook; it’s what powers part of the social dimension of Xbox Live. And Bing is already embedded in Facebook, in the form of maps and search results.

Now Facebook’s information is embedded in Bing search. And search is one of just three buttons on every WP7 phone.

Consequently, Facebook’s partnership with Bing isn’t just about Google; it isn’t just about “like” results showing up when you search in a web browser on your PC.

It’s about incorporating a social layer into media on every device in your household, from your phone to your set-top box. It’s about making those devices smarter in how they communicate with each other and from one platform to another.

That’s what stood out to me most at the Windows Phone 7 launch event. The Office people demonstrated how to use Windows Live to stream a PowerPoint presentation from a Windows PC to a Mac. The Xbox people were showing how to chat about a Netflix movie with your Facebook friends on Xbox live. The hardware people were showing off a wide-angle HD webcam to let families chat with families from their living rooms. Deep integration of devices, media and services, using the cloud to power person-to-person interaction, through voice, images and text.

If we think about Apple’s attempt with Ping to bring a social layer to iTunes (which has been criticized, in part, because Apple didn’t partner up with Facebook), Sony’s idea of a multitasking television set or Twitter’s plays to get on the television screen with Google TV, it’s clear that that’s where we’re heading.

The only places where Microsoft and Facebook are “underdogs” are search and smartphones. When it comes to social networking and smart partnering with other companies — including each other — the two giants are way ahead of the field.

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One of the major advantages of Windows Phone 7 is its tight integration with Microsoft’s other devices and software. In a terse statement, Microsoft let Mac users know they can eventually expect a light version: “Later in 2010 Microsoft will make a public beta available of a tool that allows Windows Phone 7 to sync select content with Mac computers.”

The “tool” will probably be a version of the Zune desktop software, if a Microsoft UK marketing head early tweet is any indication: “ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m glad to confirm that Mac users would be able to use Zune on their Macs to sync with #WP7… More details soon.”

This makes sense for Microsoft: not only have they always made software for Macs (notably Office), you’d never want to put too many limitations on what PCs you can use with a post-PC handheld. Imagine if Apple had kept the iPod and iTunes Mac-only. Or if the Zune had never included support for Macs. (Wait, that second one actually happened.)

But why would a Mac user want to use a WP7 phone — particularly when the iPhone works so well with a Mac? Basically, it’s the same reason a Mac user might pick an Android phone over an iPhone. Either you like the physical phone better, or (more often) you’re more tied into Google’s or Microsoft’s software than you are to Apple’s.

Here are some scenarios where that might be true.

1. You’re a heavy user of Microsoft Office. Windows Phone 7 has the full Office suite built-in. iPhone’s Office offerings aren’t as strong; it’s a little better for iPad, but not that much.
   
   Windows Office 2011 for Mac is coming at the end of the month, and it’s the best, most-interoperable Office suite available for the Mac. It’s also finally bringing a real Outlook application, not the baby Outlook they called Entourage. (Entourage the application provided the exact opposite experience of the TV show Entourage.) By default, iPhone on the Mac syncs with iCal, Address Book, and Mail; a phone that synced with Outlook could be a huge upgrade.

   This is where the lack of OneNote on Office 2011 for Mac really bothers me; it’s WP7’s Office showpiece, very smartly implemented on the handset and nearly completely useless to Office users on Macs.

2. You’re also a heavy user of Windows Live. Android users love their experience with Gmail, Google Docs, etc. Some of my friends who don’t love Windows love Windows Live, preferring it over Google’s cloud apps and Apple’s MobileMe. Office 2011 and WP7 are both extremely well-integrated with Windows Live. iPhone and Android aren’t.
3. You’re a gamer who loves Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. Apple may have a set-top box, but it doesn’t play games. The iPhone offers a lot of good casual games for handheld, but WP7 will too. If you have a Google TV, it’ll be better with your Android phone; if you have an Xbox 360, it’ll be better with a WP7 phone.
   
   The whole industry is moving towards greater interoperability between computers, handhelds and set-top boxes. The Xbox – WP7 combo will be one of the most versatile handheld-to-boxtop media combinations available. Add a Mac to the mix, rig it to stream content to your Xbox and that’s a pretty powerful power trio. Particularly if you don’t care about buying movies and renting TV shows through iTunes, which is the only advantage an Apple TV would offer.

In the tech world, Mac users are stereotyped as Apple evangelists and/or fanboys, people who’ve bought into the ecosystem from top to bottom. But think about your average student with a MacBook, or your parents you convinced to buy an iMac. They are usually agnostic about this stuff.

Most Mac users probably don’t think long and hard about Apple’s long-term peripheral strategy, or whether Android’s lack of hardware standards will cause them problems down the line. They use Office on their Macs, use PCs at work, play Xbox in their living room and want to buy the phone they like on the carrier they use for a price they can afford. They bought their Macs for the same reason.

The last piece of this puzzle is really how well Windows Phone 7 and the Mac will be able to talk to each other. History bears this out: for a long time, Blackberry desktop software on PC was fantastic, but the version for the Mac wasn’t anywhere close. In my case, it eventually drove me away from the Blackberry and towards the iPhone.

If Microsoft decides that it doesn’t really need to give Mac users anything more than the bare minimum, or that they can capture more value by trying to pull WP7 buyers to the PC platform, then it won’t work. They’ll keep their current customers and add value within their existing ecosystem.

But if Microsoft begins to see their world as one that doesn’t have to be centered around the PC, where they can make great software and compelling experiences for all platforms, and shift more of their institutional weight towards the cloud and the living room, then even Mac users might have to take a long hard look at those new phones.

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As we’ve seen with the success of iOS and Android (and the disappointments of Palm’s WebOS), applications are essential to the success of smartphone platforms. Customers and developers both want to know what the new Windows Phone 7 will bring to the table.

At the WP7 announcement, Microsoft’s spokespeople were coy about the total number of third-party applications that would be available for the new OS at launch. Instead they touted their own admittedly-impressive integrated applications, including MS Office, Zune for media management, XBox Live for gaming and Bing for search and maps.

Microsoft also spotlighted a few key partners, including AT&T’s U-Verse TV & Video, and cloud service applications from eBay, iMDB, Fandango and Slacker Radio. Major social networking services like Facebook and Twitter, too, are well-integrated into the OS and its applications. It also announced that Electronic Arts would bring The Sims 3 and other games to WP7. Other applications including Netflix and Flixster have already been presented in demos.

When asked directly about the number of apps on the store at launch, an unnamed Microsoft spokesman told Gizmodo, “It’ll be more than iPad at launch. More than the iPhone. “What matters isn’t how many apps we have, it’s that you can find the apps you need.” Of course, the iPhone had zero third-party apps at launch; the iPad about 350. Most rumors have put the total number of apps somewhere in the thousands.

The marketplace for third-party applications is already in place on the new phones. Our Charlie Sorrel reported last week that life-altering music streaming service Spotify will be in the marketplace, at least in parts of Europe where the service is legally available. TeleRead’s Paul Biba reports that e-reading app Wattpad will be ready to go at launch too.

Still, whatever the number, it won’t approach Apple’s 250,000 applications for iOS or Google’s 90,000 for Android. Nor will they have close to as many handsets (or tablets) in the market. Just how quickly can Microsoft rally third-party developers to catch up with Apple or Google?

While Microsoft can’t offer the same number of users right away, developing for WP7 could offer some advantages. Unlike Android, the hardware specs for WP7 phones are more-or-less standard. And while Apple has been criticized for their opaque approval process, Microsoft has promised explicit standards, quick processing and specific feedback to developers whose apps are rejected.

The development tools for WP7 are also well-established. The primary environment for apps will be Silverlight. In March, Windows offered a package of development tools for WP7, including an add-in and express version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, XNA Game Studio 4.0, Expression Blend (a tool for user interface development in Silverlight) and a phone emulator for application testing.

It’s not only new developers and those coming from other mobile platforms who will be picking these up. Part of the struggle current Windows Mobile 6 and 6.5 developers will face is that they will have to port or rewrite their existing applications to work on the new OS. Even though developers may grumble, and it may take longer for their apps to be ready, it’s still a substantial base to draw upon.

There’s an opportunity, too, for developers (particularly for media and gaming applications) to gain access not just to Windows Phone 7 users, but to XBox Live and other platforms in the Microsoft ecosystem. With Windows Phone, Microsoft is aiming for integration of its product line; if it’s successful, integrated cross-platform applications will be an essential part of that.

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Source:wired.com

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