The Midweek Download: Sept. 14th Edition–Microsoft Shows Off Preview of Windows 8 to Developers at BUILD, plus Windows Phone, Internet Explorer and Windows Live

Anyone who follows Microsoft knows that this week’s news is mostly focused on BUILD, a new event held in Anaheim, Calif. from Sept. 13th to Sept. 16th that outlines for developers Microsoft’s roadmap for the future. Read on for a round-up of all the news made at BUILD so far.

Microsoft presents Windows 8 developer preview. At day one of the developer-focused BUILD conference on Tuesday, Microsoft showcased a detailed preview of the next major release of Windows, code-named “Windows 8.” The company also detailed new tools for developers to help write applications for more than 1 billion people around the world who use Windows every day. Read this press release, which features a six-image slide show of Windows 8 images, on the Microsoft News Center to get the full story. Not enough detail for you? Then check out this Tuesday post on Building Windows 8 from Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division and this feature story focused on how BUILD will outline new opportunities for developers. Below, Steven Sinofsky and Michael Angiulo, corporate vice president of Windows Planning, Hardware & PC Ecosystem, show off a cross section of devices powered by Windows 8. The second image is screenshot of the Windows Developer Preview of Internet Explorer 10.

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Microsoft delivers developer tools at day two of BUILD. Speaking today at Microsoft’s BUILD conference, Server and Tools Business President Satya Nadella outlined a changing world of application development. He discussed the new application patterns across connected devices and continuous services and the opportunity this creates for developers. Nadella articulated why Microsoft’s investments will enable developers to drive greater innovation and creativity with these new application patterns. For more detail, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center and today’s blog post on new Visual Studio tools.

Inside the design of Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011. ZDNet’s Ed Bott penned a very thorough comparison of Photo Gallery 2011 and iPhoto ‘11 in The Ed Bott Report this past week. While he doesn’t go so far as to declare a winner, he highlights some clear advantages to our design approach. In a lot of ways, his experience and analysis reflects what we set out to achieve with the design. We thought it would be worthwhile to provide a little back story on how we ended up where we did so that folks could compare Ed’s analysis with how it really unfolded. For the rest of this story, read this Monday post on the Inside Windows Live Blog.

PhoneGap mobile for Windows Phone “Mango.” We’re very excited to join Nitobi to announce availability of a PhoneGap beta supporting Windows Phone Mango. This new option to build applications targeting Windows Phone gives more choices to developers. In particular, Web developers will be able to easily leverage their HTML5 skills to target Windows Phone. To find out where you can download the beta version of the PhoneGap libraries, read this Sept. 8th post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog.

A more ‘intelligent’ approach to embedded devices. In this Sept. 9th post, Next at Microsoft Blog Editor Steve Clayton reports on how “the Windows Embedded team is working on some pretty cool stuff that will cinch together all of the individual pieces of the Internet of Things into an intelligent system. The idea is that this system – made up of embedded devices, network connectivity, and storage and analytics services – would help businesses gather, analyze and act on data without getting bogged down by the usual gridlock.” Check out the post, which features a really cool infographic.

That’s it for this edition of The Midweek Download – thanks for reading! Stop by The Official Microsoft Blog for more company news this Friday.

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

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