Buienradar, the most used service in the Netherlands to check the current weather in real time, is available for Windows Phone 7. You can see in the screenshots that the used building blocks are the same as Buienradar for Windows Mobile 6.x.
Facebook for Windows Phone 7 in Marketplace
I was a little suprised to see a tweet of Maarten Sonneveld about the availability of a Facebook application for Windows Phone 7 in the marketplace.
Facebook is already integrated in Windows Phone 7 so why a separate Facebook app just like on Windows Mobile 6.5 ? For example sending private messages don’t need to be part of the deep integration.
Some other Windows Phone 7 applications to check out are:
Foursquare for Windows Phone 7 in Marketplace
Zune software 4.7 was released last week and allows you to connect your Windows Phone 7 device to your Windows PC. You can sync multimedia like pictures, music, video or your favorite podcasts. And of course you can download and install applications like Seesmic for Windows Phone 7 or Foursquare from the Zune Marketplace.
Seesmic Twitter client for Windows Phone 7 in Marketplace
Windows Phone 7 is announced last week, and the Zune Marketplace is filled with quality applications. The Seesmic Twitter client is added today to the Zune Marketplace, which means a well known Twitter client available for Windows Phone 7.
IMDb 20th anniversary – Celebrating 20 years of building IMDb.com the worlds largest internet movie database.
Col Needham, Founder & CEO of IMDb, has published an open letter today on IMDb.com:
“[...] on October 17th in 1990 I published a series of scripts which allowed you to search a lists of credits collected by a wonderful USENET group called “rec.arts.movies”. Though the naming was still four years off IMDb was, in essence, born.”
The open letter not only looks back at the birth of IMDb, but also shares recent innovations, strategic directions and opportunities for the future.
“So far this year we have made IMDb available on mobile devices with iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone 7 applications, along with our mobile friendly site at http://m.imdb.com/. On the main web site we have launched many features including: Facebook shares & likes; HD trailers; user lists; and we redesigned our home, name and title pages.”
In addition to the open letter of Col Needham,but via the same link above, you wil find a very extensive history of the Internet Movie Database !
Vodafone Mobile Clicks – An international, high profile contest for the best mobile internet startups
It is your last chance to submit you registration for Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, since the deadline for registration is August 22nd, 2010 at 11.59 PM (CEST). If you are a promising start-up in the mobile industry, register right away on the Vodafone Mobile Clicks website.
What is Vodafone Mobile Clicks ?
“Vodafone Mobile Clicks is an international, high profile contest for the best mobile internet startup. The best mobile internet startup is selected by a professional jury in three different jury rounds.”
I was fortunate to go through a similar exercise as part of the fifth European Masterclass on Corporate Entrepeneurship and Open Innovation. You needed to start and develop your own business and defend the business case for a jury of experts !
For all participating startups this will be a great competition, that helps them to further develop a set of unique skills, and experience in the entrepreneurial field.
“The main reason for the existence of Vodafone Mobile Clicks is to accelerate the innovation in the mobile internet sector in Europe.”
Professor Pieper starts his presentation of the Vision on the Future Symposium with the following statement on the title slide: “Value creation, nothing else matters.”
This value creation, is a true driver for innovation, and therefore my compliments to Vodafone for facilitating competition like the Mobile Clicks.
“After last year’s success in the Netherlands and United Kingdom, this year’s event will be extended with the startups and presence of Portugal and Spain. You will compete against the best of each country for a total prize money of 150.000 Euros!”
On the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 website, you can watch a video with Claire Boonstra founding partner of Layar, the winner of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 competition !
Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar, shares the challenges, opportunities and reconfigurations of business model and strategy in time of Layar, as the fourth speaker on the Android Experience.
Internet Explorer – Microsoft’s browser celebrates its 15th birthday!
The international friends from Neowin reminded me today of the 15th birthday of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
“The web browser, the world’s most used [...] was born on the 16th of August, 1995 when version 1.0 was made available to the public. The first version of IE was based off Spyglass’s Mosaic application — which Microsoft originally licensed but was eventually used to form the code basis for future versions of IE.”
There are some cool articles on Wikipedia: ”History of Internet Explorer” and “Internet Explorer” that provide a great overview of the browser’s history. A compilation of Internet Explorer screenshots gives an idea of the evolution of the graphical user interface.
Internet Explorer 1.0 goes back to my secondary school period, when I was fortunate to develop a website for our school with a group of 5 people.
ActiVision River Raid for the Atari 2600
Leigh Geary, Windows Phone MVP and founder of CoolSmartphone.com, posted a picture of the Atari 2600 on his Flickr PhotoStream.
This reminded me of the good old times when I played River Raid on the Atari 2600, the godfather of today’s game consoles.
“River Raid is one of the truly great Activision games and is a pleasure to play for hours on end. You pilot a plane down a river gorge and shoot enemy stuff, such as bridges, ships, and planes. You must also fly over their fuel depots to refuel or else you’ll crash. Earn 15,000 points and send away for a “River Raiders” patch.”
While I moved to the Acorn Electron, Acorn BBC Micro and Acorn Master over time, I would like to drop a few questions:
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Do you still remember the Atari 2600 ??
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What game(s) did you like to play ?
Robonaut 2 – NASA/GM human-like robot to join space station crew
A tweet from a friend, that I met via Mobile Monday Amsterdam, pointed my attention to the Robonaut 2. The mechanical engineering background immediately kicked-in to conduct some background-research on the Robonaut ! 
“Robonaut 2, the latest generation of the Robonaut astronaut helpers, is set to launch to the space station aboard space shuttle Discovery on the STS-133 mission. It will be the first humanoid robot in space, and although its primary job for now is demonstrating to engineers how dexterous robots behave in space, the hope is that, through upgrades and advancements, it could one day venture outside the station to help spacewalkers make repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work.”
NASA has published an article on their website about the Robonaut 2 project: ”NASA to Launch Human-Like Robot to Join Space Station Crew“.
In this article you will find background information about the role and purpose of the Robonaut, as well as information of both NASA and General Motors (GM) spokesman.
Highly interesting is the Robonaut 2 factsheet in which you can find more details about the design and some historical information in time about the project.
Programming Windows Phone 7 (Petzold, 2010) – A free eBook preview from Microsoft Press!
On the Microsoft Press website you can read:
“Just in time for VSLive in Redmond, here’s a second draft preview ebook of Charles Petzold’s upcoming Programming Windows Phone 7 !”
Download the your copy of the “Programming Windows 7″ eBook preview in various formats:
“Download the PDF here. Download the XPS here. And download the sample code here.”
UPDATE
The final version and sample code sets of Programming Windows Phone 7 (Petzold, 2010) is available for download:
“You can download a PDF here (38.6 MB).
And you can download the ebook’s sample code here (5.03 MB).”