Weekend Reading: Jan. 28th Edition – Windows Phone 7, the Oscars, NUI and Privacy

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Senior Manager, Corporate Blogs

This edition of Weekend Reading has a little bit of everything for everyone – Windows Phone 7, Bing, NUI, the Oscars and even a funny video of school children trying to decipher some of the technologies of yesteryear.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. That’s “A Little Night Music” to you, courtesy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Speaking of Herr Mozart, check out this Jan. 26th post from Next at Microsoft Blog Editor Steve Clayton where he explores the natural user interface abilities of the HTC Mozart smartphone, which runs Windows Phone 7.

It’s Oscar season and Bing is here to help. The Bing team recently combined Bing search results with a survey to provide insight into which actors, actresses and films got snubbed after the Academy released its list of nominees earlier this week. Check out this Bing Search Blog post and infographic to see the results.

Tweeting on Windows Phone 7. What’s the best Twitter app in the Marketplace for WP7? Birdsong? Twitt? Beezz? Windows Phone blogger Michael Stroh points readers to a roundup on ZDNet that weighs the pros and cons of Twitter apps. Several readers have already chimed in on the Windows Phone blog. Make your voice heard.

Keeping it green. In this Jan. 21st post on the Software Enabled Earth Blog, Tim McDowd writes about how the Portland Trailblazers of the National Basketball Association have updated to Windows 7 to reduce the team’s energy costs. It was also announced this week that Microsoft will participate in the Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps program this year. Read more about Microsoft’s involvement in this Jan. 25th post, also on the Software Enabled Earth Blog.

Online privacy. With Data Privacy Day landing on Jan. 28th, Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch tackled the ins and outs of online privacy concerns associated with location-based services in this Jan. 26th post on the Microsoft on the Issues Blog. In a related Issues Blog post on Jan. 27th, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario, Canada, shared her thoughts on “privacy by design.”

Severstal switches to Microsoft. Russian mining company Severstal announced it has decided to switch from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Office 2010, Exchange Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Lync Server 2010. Severstal has 92,000 employees in 10 countries. Read more about the company’s decision to go Microsoft in this Jan. 27th post on the Unified Communications Team Blog.

Once upon a time… Check out the hilarious piece of video below from the Next at Microsoft Blog where several French school children attempt to unravel the mysteries of yesterday’s technologies, including an old floppy disk, an eight-track tape player, an old video-game cartridge and a Nintendo Gameboy from 1989.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

That’s it for this edition of Weekend Reading. See you next Friday!

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