I'm Just Being Manan

Here’s Some Stuff Windows 8 Borrowed From Windows Phone 7

February 10th, 2012

In an earlier post on the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft engineers talked about how the Push Notification infrastructure used for Windows Phone 7 will be implemented in Windows 8. I wondered as to which other technologies and concepts from Windows Phone 7 will be borrowed by the Windows 8 team. Today’s tablet is a mobile OS turned into a tablet; Microsoft’s strategy is the complete opposite. Microsoft is taking a desktop OS and a mobile UI to give us a tablet.

Steve Sinofsky’s prologue to the upcoming thesis on Windows 8 for ARM brought to light some more concepts that have been taken from Windows Phone 7 and will be seen in Windows 8. Here are some:

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Bing Trying New Search Bar & Header

February 6th, 2012

During a lecture my professor asked how many students used Bing, out of a class of 26, I was the only one. Ironically while researching for Amazon’s upcoming store, I did use Bing and stumbled upon a new search bar.

It is big, clean and pulls in your profile picture from Facebook if you have connected the accounts. Here’s a screenshot:

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Microsoft Files For Mysterious “Smartglass” Trademark

January 31st, 2012

It’s as if Microsoft is filing for trademarks that are more interesting than their patents (I’ll get back to finding the fun ones soon). In the meantime, after finding Microsoft & GE’s upcoming healthcare product, I have stumbled on an exciting trademark.

The title and description of the patent are both intriguing. Called, Smartglass, Microsoft describes it as:

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Caradigm: Microsoft & GE’s Joint Online Health Record Management Suite

January 28th, 2012

I was doing nothing this morning so I decided to look around for some new trademarks. And I found two interesting ones. The first one is called Caradigm. The trademark has multiple filings with Microsoft and GE named as applicants. Caradigm deals with managing health records, transferring these records between devices, provide consulting services for health institutes, as well as, creating an online repository to share medical expertise and best practices.

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MSFT Might Use NFC For HP’s ‘Touch to Share’ Like Tablet-Phone Love Making

January 25th, 2012

Unable to justify market economics for products and some hesitation to disrupt markets, Microsoft missed the tablet revolution and in many ways the ebooks revolution too. Microsoft was doing tablets and ebooks before Apple, unfortunately, Apple beat them where it mattered–the markets.

I came across a patent that Microsoft has been granted that deals with NFC based communication. The thing about the patent is, it was filed back in 2006. Like always, Microsoft was working on a technology before it became cool.

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