Joyce Huang

Radio is a big part of life here in Singapore. Growing up with Jean Danker and Glenn Ong previously on 98.7fm, I can’t imagine what my school nights mugging would have been like without them dishing our my favourite tunes and reading all our adolescent dedications. Now that they’ve shifted to Class 95fm, it only feels right that I make the move with them as well! If you’re not in Singapore, or in your car or have a radio near you, there are still a few ways to tune in to your favourite stations, such as through XinMSN, but it just got a whole lot easier with our App of the Week! [caption id=“attachment_11500” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“SG Radio is one of the newest apps to hit the Windows Store!”][/caption] SG Radio provides the Internet-based streaming for all 17 of Singapore’s Radio Stations. Streaming will continue in the background allowing you to work on other apps or your desktop while continuing to listen to the Radio! [caption id=“attachment_11505” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Tune in to your favourite music channels on SG Radio”][/caption] You can download SG Radio by quickly searching for “SG Radio” on the Windows Store. [caption id=“attachment_11512” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Just search for SG Radio on the Windows Store to download it.”][/caption] You can view more Windows Phone and Windows 8 applications from Jason, who happens to also be one of our Spiffy.sg writers!

Developers love code samples. [caption id=“attachment_11406” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension allows developers to search and download 3500+ code samples from within Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2010. It is provided by Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework”][/caption] Samples often serve as the starting point for many developers to learn a new technology. They also provide straightforward solutions and helpful references when we as developers need to solve tough programming tasks. Some developers even live by code samples. In partnership with Visual Studio Product Team and MSDN Samples Gallery Team, Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework releases Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension for Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2010 - an effort to evolve the code sample use experience. You can search and download 3500+ Microsoft official code samples and community samples, including over 700 Windows 8 samples and more than 1000 All-In-One Code Framework customer-driven code samples. With its integrated sample search, flexible sample download and more than ten useful features designed for easier access and management of code samples, we hope to put the power of tens of thousands of code samples at developers’ fingertips. Have fun experimenting with the different samples! Download the Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension.

Woohoo! It’s finally open! The Windows Store is now open for app submissions from all developers – individuals and companies – the last significant milestone in the rollout of the Windows Store before general availability of Windows 8 on October 26. If you’ve been waiting for invitation restrictions to lift or waiting for market support, the Windows Store is ready for you to join today. Just go to the Windows Store Dashboard on the Windows Dev Center and sign up. To top it off, all paid MSDN subscribers will receive a Windows Store subscription included, at no additional cost. Please visit the Windows Store Blog for full details. The dev tools are free, the SDK is ready, and we have a ton of great supporting content to help you build your app and submit it for Store certification. Sign up now, reserve your app names, and get your app published in the Store in time for general availability of Windows 8. Good luck!

[caption id=“attachment_11372” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Image Credit: modmyi.com”][/caption] Microsoft, StarHub and the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), announced last week the first series of commercial trials of “Super Wi-Fi” with six other new partners. Super Wifi actually taps on unused television broadcast frequency bands. These low-frequency bands are able to travel longer distances and penetrate more obstacles, which can translate to better coverage, lower power consumption, and reduced network costs. What is Super WIFI Governments create rules designating how radio frequencies can be used and, over the years, have assigned radio and television stations to certain blocks or “channels” of frequency in the spectrum. Limitations in transmission technology and the high costs to cover rural populations have led to gaps in the TV broadcasting bands. For decades, the hiss of “white noise” was familiar to anyone tuning a television from one channel to another — traversing the empty “white spaces” between TV broadcast frequencies. This situation remains today. While some white spaces in the TV band are dedicated for uses such as radio-frequency telescopes, other spaces lie vacant. On the other hand, the radio spectrum used by mobile phones and other wireless communications devices is becoming overpopulated. Growth in demand for applications, such as TV streaming, internet access, voice calling, music services and video downloads, are overloading the spectrum used by wireless communications devices. TV white spaces (TVWS) enable organisations to look at under-utilized spectrum currently used primarily for broadcast services, to be used for broadband more cheaply (up to 1/10 the price) and for longer distances (up to 4x). Just as the title of this email suggests, it enables data to flow without the need for line of sight, to areas where WiFi cannot connect today. This space is currently unregulated by policy and through this SWSPG, Singapore is paving the way regionally & globally to develop exciting commercial opportunities to evolve through close collaboration with IDA. The three projects introduced will explore how this new technology, also known as TV White Spaces (TVWS), can supplement existing wireless infrastructure and maximise spectrum efficiency, in order to benefit consumers and businesses, and introduce a new class of wireless connectivity to Singapore. Key Benefits of Super Wifi StarHub is piloting the use of the technology to provide better offshore communication to the many ships that anchor near Changi, while Power Automation, a joint venture between Singapore Power and Siemens, is deploying it in smart grid solutions in National University of Singapore’s University Town. The explosive growth of wireless data traffic in recent years (just think about all the smartphones you see on the MRT!) has been putting severe strain on current mobile and Wi-Fi network infrastructure, necessitating better management of radio frequency spectrum through policy and technology innovations like TVWS.

Fruit Ninja Developer Dojo, is an exclusive event catered to game developers and those interested in game development. Halfbrick, one of the world’s most successful indie game studios with more than 100 million downloads for acclaimed game Fruit Ninja, will be sharing about their game development strategies, best practices, marketing tactics and much more in this 2 day event. Here are the top 5 reasons why you should attend! ...

[caption id=“attachment_11239” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Play classic Atari games are immortalized now on Atari Arcade”][/caption] Forty years ago, Atari revolutionized entertainment and jumpstarted the gaming industry by releasing its first arcade game – Pong. Besides Pong, you may also remember other classical Atari games such as Missile Command, Lunar Lander and Centipede. Last week, the Internet Explorer team announced the launch of Atari Arcade, a new partnership between Microsoft and Atari to bring all of these nostalgic games to the web through the power of HTML5. Games like Pong, Asteroids, Super Breakout and Yars’ Revenge – all reimagined with HTML5 and new multi-player capabilities – come to life on a Windows 8 touch device and IE10. Of course, it also works great in IE9, or on any other modern browser. Bonus: You’ll be able to play against your Facebook friends. The games are free and, yes, they’re just as addictive as you remember. “What you really want to be able to do is have a series of games that you think, ‘Gee, I’ve got 10 minutes before I need to pick up the kids from school, and of course, an hour later, the kids are waiting on the curb,’ ” says Atari founder Nolan Bushnell in a behind-the-scenes video about the new project, below. Developers, game on! For developers, the team has created an opportunity to build your own games for the Atari Arcade platform. An Atari software development kit is available in the developer behind the scenes section of the site, along with new and updated versions of JavaScript libraries (Create.js, Easel.js, Sound.js) and new tutorials for building HTML5 games. All code is available on our IE GitHub repo here. Check it out!

[caption id=“attachment_11076” align=“aligncenter” width=“580” caption=“Register now for Fruit Ninja Developer Dojo (Cost: $50 for both sessions)”][/caption] Microsoft and E27 are proud to present Fruit Ninja Developer Dojo. When it comes to developing world famous games, no one knows better than the masters at Halfbrick. The senseis are here to show you the way of the ninja for casual game development in the exclusive networking session and workshop. ...

App of the week is a weekly showcase of an awesome app developed on Windows 8 or Windows Phone. Got an app you love that you want us to talk about? Leave us a comment and tell us which app and why you love it! Our app of the week is Photo Monkey, proudly made in Singapore! Photo Monkey a fast, beautiful and fun way to turns your photos into beautiful bits by applying effects to them. We hear it’s already gotten over 10,000 downloads worldwide as well, not bad for an app that’s only been launched a couple of weeks! [caption id=“attachment_10924” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Photo Monkey lets you scroll through your photo albums and quickly apply filters.”][/caption] I first downloaded this application from the store because of the beautiful screenshots. Photo Monkey automatically loads the thumbnails of the images from your Windows 8 picture library. From the albums you can quickly select and apply filters to the images that you like. While there are a ton of photo filtering apps out in the market, the bright cherry interface and great user experience definitely makes Photo Monkey stand out. [caption id=“attachment_10925” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“Select from a variety of filters in Photo Monkey”][/caption] Some of the filters include - lomography, vignette, pinhole, nostalgia and many more. After applying filters, they are automatically saved to your album. No hassle, seriously easy to use! [caption id=“attachment_10926” align=“alignnone” width=“610” caption=“You get to preview the images after applying filters as well.”][/caption] If you’re a photo nerd like I am, download Photo Monkey on your Windows 8 Device and making your photos into frame-worthy art pieces now. *Psst* We hear it’s free for now! So download it now!

App of the week is a weekly showcase of an awesome app developed on Windows 8 or Windows Phone. Got an app you love that you want us to talk about? Leave us a comment and tell us which app and why you love it! EXTREME HANGMAN Hangman is a great game. Not only does it train your deductive skills, but also exercises those vocabulary muscles of yours. Our app of the week Extreme Hangman, developed by Lim Cheng Lei, is here to help you become a master of the game. You get a total of 8 minutes to complete the entire game - which consists of 10 words in each game. You get 8 chances for each word and are allowed to use the total of 3 hints throughout the game. For parents who are looking for apps that can help your children to learn words and their meanings, Extreme Hangman is a fun and interesting way to get them started! The trial version include all features of the application and expires in 7 days after installation. ...

Windows Dev Center RTM updates are now live! Two weeks ago we announced that Windows 8 released to manufacturing (RTM). Since then we’ve been preparing builds for distribution as described in the Windows 8 has reached the RTM milestone post on Windows Team blog. I’m happy to let you know that we are now ready with early access builds for developers. In this post I’ll give you some pointers on the best way to get and install the RTM build and I’ll also point you to resources you can use to get your apps up and running on Windows 8 RTM. ...