One of my favorite or frequently used feature on Windows Phone is Bing Local Scout. The app inside Bing Search or stand-alone lets you search for nearby events or places that you can visit. You can search for Art Galleries, exhibitions or restaurants. The app’s usefulness is that not only does it show relevant results but it populates information such as link to the website, contact number, address, and also lets you launch Bing Maps for directions from your current location to the address. It is a handy function that is not highlighted by many.

Anyway, yesterday I forgot my debit card at Olive Garden and to call them I used Local Scout for the number. I clicked the first result looking at the address meta and I landed up on a webpage. That was odd. I hit the back button and saw the A next to the listing and realized that this was an ad placement. The second result was the right one. A very clever placement and use of Local Scout. Nicely done Microsoft.

Here’s a screenshot:

PS: This is the first I’ve noticed the ads.

It seems like Microsoft are already working to dissolve the Windows Live branding in even the littlest details: Moving forward, when tweeting from your Windows Phone, the client used will display as “via Microsoft” instead of “via WindowsLive” as it had in the past. Now, on the basis of the lack of spacing between “Windows” and “Live”, this is already a welcome change. However, in the process of eliminating the Windows Live branding from here, they have proceeded to choose yet another inappropriate label.

I mean what, are they going to phase out the @live.com email address in favor of @microsoft.com email addresses now? When I stumbled upon this in my Twitter stream yesterday, I initially thought that this was some sort of secret ‘Softie client, or some internal beta client that they were using. But nope; as Metro Powered pointed out, they simply changed the client name. I think that ‘via Windows Phone’ would make far more sense here.

This is downright confusing. However, it will give Windows Phone owners the fuzzy, warm illusion that they are actually tweeting from Microsoft’s Redmond mothership.

While the general sentiment amongst most sane people is that the legacy desktop doesn’t belong in Windows RT, there is one man who unsurprisingly holds a different view. Intel CEO Paul Otellini thinks that the limitation of the legacy desktop — where non-sanctioned third-party apps are not allowed to run — is actually a vulnerability of the ARM platform:

“With one button you can get to legacy mode…this is critically important for CIOs who want to preserve all of their investments in software,” he said, referring to “tens of millions” of programs built around Intel’s x86 design.

“We have the advantage of the incumbency, advantage of the legacy support. Not just in terms of applications but devices.”

As you can see, he feels that the support of legacy applications that Intel-based x86 tablets can offer users far outweigh the limitations of ARM. I largely disagree. Obviously, tablet users don’t want the Classic Windows UI or applications; they want something that’s far more suited for touch. However, a part of me does think that Intel has a sales advantage.

Microsoft’s choice to retain the classic legacy desktop in ARM to begin with was a completely idiotic decision, and I’m going to only focus on one reason — reason #5219874, to be exact — as to why that is. Average consumers will be so confused when they find that they can’t download normal software on their ARM tablet. It looks just like their desktop OS, but why doesn’t it work? So, perhaps this problem could be avoided through educated and informative salespeople, right? Well, if they tell consumers that something “doesn’t work”, while it will on another tablet, it may sway some people towards purchasing an x86 tablet, even if it’s more expensive.

They’ll justify the cost just because they want everything to work. And the people who buy an ARM tablet uninformed will be rather pissed at Microsoft when they cannot download MSN games like Belle’s Beauty Boutique to their device.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 stopped being just a gaming console some time back. Ever since, the console has been Microsoft’s ticket into the living room. Earlier today, Peter Kafka writing for AllThingsD covered a report that says Xbox 360 is the most used device other than a PC for viewing videos. (Xbox 28%, iPad comes a close second with 27%.) Cable companies like Comcast are now working with Microsoft on offering cable content through the console.

When news about a $99 Xbox/Kinect bundled came out, I categorically stated that Apple TV and Google TV are a long way from stealing any marketshare from Microsoft in the living room. Going further, Tom Warren at the Verge is reporting that Microsoft is expected to bring feature-full Internet browsing on the Xbox 360 using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Google has Chrome powering the Internet browsing experience on their Google TV platform. According to Tom’s sources, Microsoft is currently testing a version of IE9. It is highly likely that the Metro based Internet Explorer 10 available in Windows 8 will be available on the Xbox 360.

The other interesting tidbit Tom got was that this version of Internet Explorer for Xbox will support Kinect gestures. Thinking about browsing the web with arms and hands does scare me a little, I’ll end up tiring myself going through Facebook, but then again, I will be able to say that I am doing upper-body workout while browsing the Internet. Rumors suggested that Apple will be bringing Siri integration to an Apple branded TV set, if this were to happen, Microsoft isn’t far behind. The company already has voice commands through the Kinect. Turning this into a personal assistant is missing from Microsoft’s implementation of voice commands, but for the company it isn’t rocket science.

Meanwhile, I still believe, an Xbox 360 with Kinect is the best living room entertainment device.

Recently, Bing rolled out an update that de-cluttered the search results page. The designers got rid of the left navigation bar and cleaned the header. The result is a nice search result page with white space. As it turns out, Microsoft will be adding a social bar on the right side of the screen. The new social integration will be powered by Facebook. Announced on their Bing blog, the team has done a demo of the upcoming update. Here’s a video that you should watch before reading ahead:

The social sidebar, isn’t just a running feed but the integration is contextual. The blog post says:

1. You will be able to ask specific friends for what you’re searching for
2. Bing will use “likes” by your friends to determine if they know about a particular topic and you can ask for their inputs from the social sidebar
3. Bing’s integration will also leverage the larger Facebook userbase and in case you don’t have or want to ask your friends, Facebook will suggest people you can ask

Google has been trying to do social & search for a while and Google+ is integral in this. However, Facebook is more popular than Google+ and for Microsoft, this is a good thing. The new social search will let you interact and ask friends for recommendations though the sidebar. Jay Greene for CNet reports that the integration came as a result of hackathons where Facebook and Microsoft’s teams came together at Microsoft’s California office. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg took interest in these hackathons and talked to the engineers working on this product.

In addition to the sidebar, the Bing team talked about “Snapshot” which lies between the upcoming sidebar and the search results. Snapshot will have actionable information.

You can sign up for the new Bing.

ZTE has once again stated that it plans to introduce a Windows Phone device to the United States market, saying that they plan to do so by the end of the year. It’s a fairly tough quest, however, as not only is Windows Phone an underdog platform that’s working hard to get ahead, but ZTE itself is a very unknown brand in the United States (as of now, ZTE handsets largely run the Android operating system, and are sold in the U.K. and China.). They’d have to escape the shadow that is casted over them by HTC, Samsung, and Nokia, all within what is already a considerably niche OS.

Nevertheless, they do want to do it, especially now that the Windows Phone platform is more accommodating of their goals. See, ZTE wished to make low-cost, inexpensive phones, and before Tango, Microsoft’s minimum required hardware specifications only for the most part allowed pricy, high-end devices to exist. But now of course, things have changed. ZTE has already developed a low-cost device for emerging markets called the Orbit.

Given the late 2012 projected release date of their Windows Phone device, it should be interesting to see whether it will be based on Windows Phone 7.5, or the major Apollo update which is set to be available by then. Also, will it be well-endowed on a hardware and functionality level with NFC support, and other Apollo bells and whistles? We’ll see, but that would be nice. It would be unfortunate if they’re trying to sell outdated (and low-end, for that matter) hardware during a time when such a major update to the OS is coming. We also still don’t know about what the hardware requirements will be for a lower-end Apollo device.

We’ll see, but I think that their biggest challenge is building a brand in a place where they’re practically unheard of.

Once again, Microsoft has found itself in the crosshairs of rival web browser companies who are accusing the company of unfair, anti-competitive practices. And somehow, the latest accusation — coming from Mozilla — is even more sensationalist and ridiculous than those of the past. In a blog post from Harvey Anderson of the Mozilla General Council that, in a nutshell is six paragraphs of senseless bitching, Mozilla accuses Microsoft of not allowing third-party browsers to fairly compete with IE as developers cannot build apps in the “privileged” Windows Classic desktop.

While the post did a horrible job at explaining why, Asa Dotzler penned a post with a more technical explanation:

That means that IE on ARM has access to win32 APIs — even when it’s running in Metro mode, but no other Metro browser has that same access. Without that access, no other browser has a prayer of being competitive with IE.

Essentially, Mozilla feels that it cannot build a proper browser without access to the legacy win32 APIs.

Also, I want to point out something that I haven’t seen any tech blog point out as of yet. This isn’t a targeted attack against browsers. Microsoft executives didn’t gather with their monocles and three-piece suits and decide that it was time to ruin competing browsers by eradicating their access to essential APIs. Nope. Instead, for quality control reasons, no third-party developers will be able to create applications that run on the Windows RT legacy desktop. Apart from the apps bundled with Windows — including IE — features of Windows like Windows Explorer for filesystem access, or the “classic” control panel, and an ARM-optimized version of Office, no other applications are allowed.

So no, anti-establishment, Microsoft-hating weenies. Put away your signs and pitchforks, and cancel that #OccupyRedmond protest you were inevitably planning to destroy the evil corporation. For whatever reason, Microsoft wants to offer a crippled legacy desktop for ARM tablet users that shouldn’t even be there. Nobody cares about filesystem access on their tablet. But, they do acknowledge its uselessness, and, for quality reasons, they’re simply not allowing other developers to make stuff on ARM, or access APIs to power Metro apps.

But Microsoft isn’t forbidding third-party browsers. Mozilla are free to go ahead and develop something awesome through WinRT. That is what they would have done if there was no legacy code in Windows 8.

But, I do wonder how Microsoft will handle this situation. Will they begin to allow select partners to have additional access — under their supervision, of course — to win32 APIs, or even worse, the ability to develop full-blown legacy applications on ARM? That would be awful. There’s no need for the legacy desktop, and, like most users likely will, developers need to ignore it.

Image Source: eBaumsworld

In January this year, Microsoft announced Visual Studio Achievements for Developers – a fun way bringing Xbox LIVE-like points to everyday programming tasks. The fascinating program makes sure your hard day’s work doesn’t go unnoticed and after over 80,000 downloads since the initial release, Microsoft has now extended the game to enroll developers working on Windows Azure.

The Visual Studio Achievements Extension has now been updated to include fifteen new achievements, all focused on exercising features of Windows Azure. Using the extension, various achievements are unlocked based on your activity. When you unlock an achievement, Visual Studio lets you know visually with a pop-up. In addition, your Channel 9 profile is updated with any achievements you earn. So, head over to Channel9, sign up for an account and download the plugin.

,There are 15 new Azure achievements, such as publishing to Windows Azure from Visual Studio (Heading into the Cloud), using page blobs (Attack of the Blob), using SQL Azure (Database Darling) and configuring start up tasks (It’s My Party). Two of the achievements – Phone in the Cloud and Game in the Cloud – require use of Windows Azure toolkits.

You might also want to check Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone – a Windows Phone app that allows you to view Visual Studio Achievements on the go.

It appears that sales of the Nokia Lumia are continuing to be rather strong, with sales of the device “outpacing” supply, according to Nokia U.S. President Chris Weber.

Demand has been outstripping supply for the first couple of weeks, and we’ve been working hard to rectify that,” he said. “The demand for cyan [phones] is significantly outpacing supply. When you give people something different from a design perspective—colors, etc. —it really stands out, and consumers want that.”

Like you may expect on an episode of Undercover Boss, Weber has personally visited many AT&T stores over the past few weekends to monitor how the salespeople take to and promote the Lumia. The verdict? Support has been generally “very good”, but it’s overall still a “work in progress”, he said. Whatever the case, the Lumia does seem to be selling out quite rapidly at many AT&T stores; my Twitter timeline can attest to this, with people all over the country saying that their local store was either running low on or completely out of the Lumia.

“Selling out” is definitely a refreshingly new thing to hear with the Windows Phone, platform, however. But despite these not-too-shabby sales — Lumia sales topped 2 million in the first quarter of this year — the launch wasn’t without problem. A data connectivity bug plagued the device initially, resulting in Nokia/AT&T offering a $100 credit to those who purchased defective devices. This in turn prompted Nokia’s share price to hit a 16-year low, unfortunately. Some other quirks seem to also effect the device, such as a purple tint on the screen (as Mr. Rafael Rivera has encountered with two Lumias already.)

It’s also far too early to deem the platform a complete success; Windows Phone still has ways to go before it can catch up to iOS and Android in the marketshare leaderboard. And to help the platform grow and find its way into the hands of more users, Weber commented saying that the company is working hard to join forces with the CDMA carrier:

“We’re not making any announcements, but we understand the importance of Verizon and we’re working hard to make that a reality.”

Verizon did recently admit that it too had a crush on Windows Phone during an earning’s call late last month. Hopefully the two can proceed to copulate and put more Windows Phones in the hands of consumers

When the Smoked by Windows Phone ad campaign kicked off at CES in Vegas earlier this year, it was  a rather well-received and fun contest — our own Parth Dhebar has firsthand experience with this — and thus, it continued. Ben Rudolph, the face of the challenge, went on a quick tour and visited Microsoft stores to conduct the challenge. Microsoft launched a digital ad campaign to show off the victories of the platform, and they even had stores conduct the challenge on their own (which led to quite a fair bit of controversy after a participant claimed that he was wrongfully denied victory.)

But, putting aside the debate of whether the campaign had a positive or negative impact on the brand as a whole, it does seem to have been successful at getting the word out. Microsoft released some interesting statistics of the ad campaign on Tuesday:

8,000,000+ — The total number of views of Smoked by Windows Phone videos since it kicked off in January.

2 — YouTube top 5 most viewed lists in which Smoked videos appeared.

95% — Percentage of viewers who liked Smoked videos on YouTube.

36 — The number of countries running Smoked by Windows Phone.

50,000+ — This represents the number of smartphones that have been Smoked by Windows Phone since CES.

98% — Windows Phone’s global win percentage. This includes everything from CES through today.

100,000,000+ — The estimated number of people who’ve seen, participated in, or read about Smoked by Windows Phone worldwide.

Along with the stats, the team also released a whole playlist’s worth of new Smoked-based ads. This has definitely been an interesting campaign, and it will be interesting to see where Microsoft goes from here with it.