Blog posts related to Handhelds

Why read the book when you can watch the movie?

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There are countless times where a friend recommends a book that there is no time to read. And all of a sudden this book becomes a movie. So many people head to the cinema first and if it’s interesting they go back to the book. And yes I’ve done this many times and yes it is the lazy thing to do, but if someone wants to go deep and feel the real story there is always the hard copy.

Hold on, this does not hold only for movies. What about all these seminars, or webcasts of new technologies, doesn’t it fall roughly under the same scope? I think it does, it is in general much more pleasant to watch something and then decide if you want to go deep.

How about when it comes to writing code for handheld devices like mobile phones? Nah, you need to study, not necessarily books, but tons of documentation, APIs, specifics of programming languages and so on.

Well, not according to Microsoft and the new concept of “Windows Phone 7 development for absolute beginners”. A new “TV Series”, and as Microsoft quotes:

“It teaches beginning developers with little programming experience how to develop applications for Windows Phone 7.  This series assumes that they have absolutely no knowledge of C#, Silverlight, or mobile development.  In just a few hours, they will understand the needed concepts to build applications”.

Microsoft wants by all means to increase the WM7 programming community and stand tall in front of Apple and the Google Android. But will it do the trick? Well, go and find out …

http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/coolstuff/Windows-Phone-7-development-for-absolute-beginners

How about Programming in Windows Mobile 7

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Development, development … oh and don’t forget development. On one hand you have the massive application development for Apple devices, on the other hand the rapidly increasing Android community. It seems I am missing something though …

Oh yes, Windows mobility … Strange it slipped my mind. I can remember Windows Mobile since forever … mmm … maybe 2003. A colleague back then had bought a Motorola cell with Windows running on it ! It looked nothing like the slim fancy devices that we see on the market now but it surely was the subject of the week.

Windows mobile have come a long way since then (version 7 was introduced recently), and yet the OS is not “fashionable” or “trendy” any more. And it is not like you cannot find any tools to develop “stuff”. Visual Studio Express is free to download and use & the Silverlight and XNA 2D frameworks are well supported.

Above all a great gift from the Windows Phone 7 team at Microsoft to the programming community came out: A free e-Book of 1000 Pages. You can download it using the following link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2010/10/28/free-ebook-programming-windows-phone-7-by-charles-petzold.aspx

It seems that the battle of mobility is not going to end. And when it comes to subjects like AR and mobile devices, well, I am not sure I even want to go there. An endless battle which hopefully is going to last for many years.

Google Goggles on iPhone

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Google Goggles are available for iPhone, after Android. Using your smartphone’s camera you can ‘detect’ landmarks and get information about them. Any form of ‘target-less’ traking and landmark detection is imho towards the right way.

Check here…