Over this past weekend, local game development company Touch Dimensions was featured in an article in TODAYonline. The key part of the report: Microsoft has commissioned Touch Dimensions to create some 20 free casual entertainment applications that run on the Windows Mobile operating system. These range from a digital sketchpad to a Whack-A-Mole-type game that lets you smack mosquitoes to oblivion. This piece of news has gotten a fair bit of coverage over the weekend, and been picked up by both WMExperts and WMPoweruser.com. (Incidentally, is it just me or does it feel like nowadays every article that appears on WMExperts will also appear on WMPoweruser.com, and vice versa?) The TODAYonline report further states: ...

Eighteen months of incubation and one billion printed Tags later, Microsoft Tag is finally coming out of beta. (If you are not sure what Tag is, it’s basically an advanced mobile bar code technology that allows you to use some very nifty custom designs as 2D bar codes.) The basic Tag services are still free of charge, including creating a standard Tag, reviewing standard analytics, and using the Tag Reader application. The Tag team also plans to add other value-added features over time such as advanced reporting and analytics and real-time location services. As part of this launch, Microsoft Tag also offers the following new features: ...

It seems that Christmas has come early for us here at the Microsoft Innovation Centre! Look at what we found last week: Yes, this is none other than the prototype LG Panther devices that have been seen in the wild for the past week or so. Here are some more photos, including the box that it came in: [gallery link=“file” columns=“3” orderby=“rand” exclude=“776,807”] Where did we get these devices from? Well, we wished we could say that we found it at a local Starbucks because someone left it there after a caffeine high, but in reality these were sent to us so we can start testing our Windows Phone 7 applications in Singapore on an actual device instead of only using the emulator. A few early observations: ...

Last night, I was invited by IEEE GOLD to speak at a cloud computing event they organized for their members. They wanted me to share with them about what Microsoft was doing in cloud computing. (For those who don’t know, IEEE GOLD stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Graduates Of Last Decade. That’s a long name!) I didn’t know what to expect, since I was told the audience would be a mix of current students, graduated students, researchers, faculty, alumni and industry people. And being an IEEE event, it meant that most of the audience came from an electrical engineering background, instead of an IT background like the technical audiences we normally reach out to. I mean, do electrical engineers really care about cloud computing? Well, surprisingly (to me), yes! As I sort of expected, the audience got the most excited when I spoke about the massive investment that Microsoft is putting into building data centers all around the world. I spoke about how Microsoft is using 4th-generation data center designs and cutting-edge technology allows Microsoft to achieve an average PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.22 in their data centers. (As a reference, Google’s twelve-month energy-weighted average PUE is around 1.18. We are only a little bit behind. :)) And as expected, the PUE discussion triggered off a flurry of questions and further discussions around how PUE is measured and optimized in data centers. All in all it was a great night of conversation with a very passionate audience that was very engaged. Here are the slides that I used for the presentation last night: [slideshare id=4168237&doc=microsoftandthecloud-jonathanwong-100520005112-phpapp01]

There is a lot of excitement in the benefits that cloud computing promises to bring to society. However, what’s equally important is the notion of cloud interoperability, or the ability of one cloud to work with other platforms and applications and not just with other clouds. This is paramount if we want to realize the full potential of cloud computing and all the benefits that it can bring to us. At Microsoft, our approach to cloud interoperability is based on openness - i.e. documenting the proprietary protocols of our leading products, making sure open source technologies work with our technologies, and most importantly, support popular standards in our products and services. We’ve said in the past that we take a pragmatic approach to interoperability. The same holds true for our approach to interoperability in the cloud. Cloud interoperability is hard work, but we strive to provide the world’s best platforms, not only for Microsoft’s technologies, but for everyone else’s too. To help you understand some of the cloud interoperability scenarios that Microsoft helps enable, here is a nice infographic to illustrate a day in the life of Isabela Interop, a busy environmental studies researcher who like many of us, has busy days juggling work and family. Let’s look how interoperable technology is connecting Isabela to her work, family and community. ...

Last week (May 13), we launched the Windows Phone 7 Call for Proposal with Expara under the i.Match BizMatch program. i.Match BizMatch is a platform that facilitates collaboration opportunities between Media Content and Digital Media (IDM) companies by introducing them to leading industry partners. Aspiring applicants for the WP7 CFP will receive technical guidance/training from the Microsoft Innovation Centre, as well as access to hardware and software resources to support their WP7 development process. The event was opened by Douglas Abrams from Expara, and followed by myself to discuss about the support provided by the CFP. A total of 8 companies did a verbal pitch in front of Microsoft panelists, who are all involved with Windows Phone 7. As promised, we had a hearty pizza and networking session right after. All in all, it was a successful event and we look forward to working with the interested parties we have met. The deadline for submission is June 30th. You can check this previous post here to check out the details of the CFP and upcoming WP7 events. If you are keen to submit, please fill up the form here and send it to the email address indicated in the form. (Tip: We really would love to see some prototypes running on the emulator, so it’s a big plus if you can include snapshots) That’s about it! And for developers out there, we’ve included below some really useful links and tips to aid you on your WP7 development. (Don’t forget to check out the upcoming WP7 events here, and a link to my Source Code folder in this post.) Useful links and tips: ...

With Microsoft Office 2010 officially launching this week, everyone here at Microsoft HQ in Singapore has reason to be excited. According to Forrester Research, 81% of surveyed enterprises are running Office 2007 today with at least a third of the respondents already planning to upgrade to Office 2010 within the next 12 months. The enthusiasm from customers is understandable, since Office 2010 is more than just an evolutionary update, but includes revolutionary new features such as Office Web Apps and the new Outlook Social Connector. At the Microsoft Innovation Centre, we are particularly excited about the Outlook Social Connector feature, because not only has it been useful to us by bringing social networking functionality (from services like LinkedIn) into Outlook 2010, but it also offers an opportunity for our partners to extend the functionality of Outlook 2010 to other online services as well. And one of our Singapore-based BizSpark startups has done just that. Socialwok describes itself as a service which “was created to allow organizations to harness the ease and power of rich media and feeds to improve collaboration and communication.” Winners of the TechCrunch 2009 Demopit Award, Socialwok provides a Facebook-like collaboration and sharing service for both enterprises and SMBs. And with Socialwok’s new (beta) Outlook Social Connector that they released today, Office customers can also now tap into the Socialwok service right from within Outlook 2010 (it works in Outlook 2003 and 2007 as well). Interestingly, Socialwok started out its life as a service specifically designed with Google Apps integration in mind, and even today, it’s running on Google App Engine. However, the Socialwok service today doesn’t require you to be using Google Apps or have a Google ID in order to use their service. Ming Yong, Socialwok CEO describes his commitment to the Microsoft platform: ...

The Singapore user group communities, Professional .NET User Group, SQL Server User Group, and Windows IT Pros User Group, once again, have come together to bring to you a day of in-depth sessions and demonstrations of the newMicrosoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is packed with a wealth of new features and capabilities that can help organizations to scale with confidence on a trusted platform, improve IT and developer efficiency, and enable self service business intelligence. The benefits of the enhanced capabilities extend to application and multi-server management, complex event processing, master data services and powerful BI tools. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is an integrated environment that simplifies the whole development lifecycle, from design to development. Developers can use existing skills to model, code, debug and deploy a growing number of applications types. With SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010, users will be able to create compelling applications that deliver business value soonest while maintaining the quality and integrity of your IT assets. Why should you attend the event: ...

Imagine Cup 2010 for Singapore closes on May 26. Find out how these students worked on solving the world’s toughest problems with the power of technology. Root for the young innovators who will represent Singapore in the world wide finals, join us at an exclusive technology extravaganza. This year, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Singapore, Steve Ballmer will be presenting the prizes to the winners. Make sure you don’t miss this event! Register to Imagine Cup 2010 Award Ceremony Here!

*Updated post with link to Mobile Monday event, see below* Hi guys, following our April events, here’s the schedule for May! We hope to see you all in these events. The April CTP Refresh is also out so be sure to check that out. See below for more info. WP7 events for May: May 13 – i.Match Business Matching May 22 – Community Tech Update May 27 – Developer Garage May 31 – Mobile Monday Singapore Reminder: For the i.Match Business Matching, you still need to RSVP if you are attending as audience. So we know how many pizzas to order. ;) ...