Weekend Reading: Sept. 2nd Edition–Introducing Two New Windows Phones, More Windows 8 News and a Microsoft Researcher Recognized by MIT

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we bring you news of two new Windows Phone models from HTC, a story on the new Metro user interface in Windows 8 and a slew of other news bits from around the company.

HTC unveils their new global lineup of Windows Phones. HTC just unveiled two new Windows Phones that will be landing in stores around the world later this year, running our latest version of Windows Phone. First up, the HTC TITAN features a big 4.7-inch screen with a slim 9.9mm brushed aluminum shell, and a front facing camera. It’s a great device for working or for playing. The second phone announced was the HTC Radar. The Radar also includes a front facing camera so you can video chat with your favorite people. Read this Thursday post on the Windows Phone Blog by Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows Phone program management, to get the rest of the story. Those are the two phones below – the TITAN on the left and the Radar on the right.

HTC TITAN HTC Radar

Designing for Metro style and the desktop. Earlier this week on Building Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, blogged about the balancing act involved with designing Windows 8 to use both the new Metro style user interface and the traditional desktop interface to which Windows users have grown so accustomed over the years. “We started planning Windows 8 during the summer of 2009 (before Windows 7 shipped). From the start, our approach has been to reimagine Windows, and to be open to revisiting even the most basic elements of the user model, the platform and APIs, and the architectures we support. Our goal was a no compromise design.” Read this Wednesday post on Building Windows 8 to get the rest of the story and this Thursday post that reflects on the Building Windows 8 conversation thus far.

Microsoft researcher recognized by MIT. Andrew Phillips, who heads the Biological Computation Group at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, has been recognized in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s annual list of 35 Innovators Under 35. Phillips was recently profiled by Next at Microsoft Blog Editor Steve Clayton as part of the blog’s “People Week v 2”. You can get the rest of the story in this Wednesday blog post.

Your Windows Phone camera and you. In this Tuesday post on the Windows Phone Blog, blog editor Michael Stroh profiles five essential photo apps for Windows Phone. Stroh’s post followed closely on the heels of this same-day post on improvements coming to photo and camera features and functionality in the next release of the Windows Phone mobile platform. Finally, earlier this week, Next at Microsoft Blog Editor Steve Clayton profiled a Metro-inspired news reader for Windows Phone called Fuse. Check it out.

The Microsoft mouse gets a makeover. After decades of dependable point-and-click service, the humble mouse is getting a makeover. The result is introducing Windows 7 users to a new way of interacting with their PC. The new Microsoft Touch Mouse combines the virtues of the old familiar mouse – which has been continually optimized since the 1960s – with multi-touch gestures. Now available online and in retail stores in late September, the new mouse offers the millions of people who use Windows 7 a natural way to navigate the operating system. Read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center, which has a short video of the Microsoft Research and Microsoft Applied Sciences teams that created the mouse, for more detail.

GINA Software helps rescue teams during natural disasters. When Zbyněk Poulíček participated in Microsoft Imagine Cup last year, his dream to make an impact was already coming true — the project his team created with Windows Embedded technologies was helping relief workers during natural disasters halfway around the world. Today, relief workers in disaster-stricken countries, including Haiti and Japan, use the geographical information assistant (GINA) mobile application that Poulíček’s team imagined. Read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center to get all the details.

That’s it for this edition of Weekend Reading! Thanks for stopping by The Official Microsoft Blog.

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Tags: , , , , , , ,