LiveSide - News blog : Mobile

PDC 2009: Day 2 announcements

Sunshine — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:31:09 GMT

Now the liveblogging is over, let’s take a look at what was announced today.

Silverlight

A whole lot was said about Microsoft Silverlight, going through some features of Silverlight 3 but most of all of Silverlight 4! Yes, today at the PDC in Los Angeles, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of Silverlight 4 beta, just four months after bringing Silverlight 3 to market.

More information about Silverlight 4 is available at http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/

Office 2010

Also announced today is the Office 2010 Beta (Professional Plus) availability. You can learn more about all the 2010 productivity apps at www.microsoft.com/2010 or go directly to the site for Office 2010 and download from there after filling in a little questionnaire (it’s meant for business customers, but hey ;) ). Included apps are Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace and Communicator.

Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 beta is available now too, you can download it through the Windows Mobile Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.

IE 9

Besides these announcements, Steve Sinofsky gave some details on the development of the next version of Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer 9. IE9 will support DirectX and other standards, including CSS3 and HTML5. For some videos head on over to Channel 9.

Some more read of interest:
Microsoft Showcases Developer Opportunities for Windows and the Web
Microsoft Office 2010 Reaches Beta, Bringing Productivity Gains to the PC, Phone and Browser
Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP Extends Collaboration and Productivity
Digital Inspiration - What’s New Inside Microsoft Office 2010
Announcing the Outlook Social Connector

“Most, if not all” Sidekick data restored, says Microsoft

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:39:00 GMT

Microsoft is now saying that “most, if not all” Sidekick data thought to be lost in a server upgrade to Danger’s Sun/Oracle platform can now be recovered, according to a press release issued by Roz Ho, Corporate Vice-President for Premium Mobile Services.

We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.

Mary Jo Foley, in her All About Microsoft blog, has more, confirming Hitachi’s role in the upgrade, and including the interesting tidbit that foul play has not been ruled out:

One of my Microsoft sources told me

“(T)he data loss issue was caused by a hardware update on the existing Danger service that had NOT been ported over to a Microsoft platform and the issue was NOT part of a transition to an MS back end. It was an Oracle dB and Sun SAN solution that got a bad firmware update and the backup failed.”

Since then, I’ve heard from others that this scenario seems likely and that yes, Hitachi Data Systems was the company actually doing the maintenance/update for Microsoft. I’ve also heard that foul play has not been ruled out because the failure was so catastrophic and seemingly deliberate. Microsoft is supposedly continuing to do a full investigation.

MobileCrunch at TechCrunch had a report on October 5th that morale was low with Roz Ho’s team, that many Danger employees had been fired, and that the mysterious “Pink” project was close to collapsing. If indeed sabotage was at play, things might even be worse in Premium Mobile Services than described.

“Non-Microsoft technologies” to blame for Danger/Sidekick failure, Microsoft says

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:11:21 GMT

After more than a week of silence on what caused the Sidekick outage with Danger, the Los Angeles Times today quotes Microsoft spokesperson Tonya Klause, not really explaining what happened, but definitely distancing Microsoft cloud services such as Windows Live and Azure from the Danger platform:

“The Danger Service platform, which experienced the outage, is a standalone service operating on non-Microsoft technologies, and is not related to Microsoft’s cloud services platform or Windows Live," Microsoft spokesperson Tonya Klause wrote in an e-mail. “Other and future Microsoft mobile products and services are entirely based on Microsoft technologies and Microsoft’s cloud service platform and software."

and:

Microsoft drew a further distinction between Danger and its other data assets, saying that "it’s important to note that for native Microsoft services such as Windows Live, Hotmail, Azure, etc., we write multiple replicas of user data to multiple devices so that the data is available in a situation where a single or multiple physical nodes may fail," Klause wrote.

Still no word on what caused the loss of data (which may not be a total loss after all, not much news on that either), although there has been speculation that the failure happened in an attempt to move the open source Danger platform to Microsoft technologies. Microsoft still needs to come clean on exactly what happened, and why, in our opinion.

Yes Microsoft is to blame for Sidekick (they own it): was it an open source software failure?

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:54:05 GMT

The story had been brewing for a week or more: TMobile Sidekick users started reporting that their information stored online: email, contacts, calendar, etc., were inaccessible starting around a week ago Friday. TMobile acknowledged the problem that Sunday, but it wasn’t until this past weekend that TMobile posted a message to Sidekick customers portending doom:

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.

Sidekick enthusiast site Hiptop3.com (Hiptop is the name of the Danger developer platform, running on Sun and Java) speculated on the causes of the failure, although we haven’t seen confirmation of this:

Currently the rumor with the most weight is as follows:
Microsoft was upgrading their SAN (Storage Area Network aka the thing that stores all your data) and had hired Hitachi to come in and do it for them. Typically in an upgrade like this, you are expected to make backups of your SAN before the upgrade happens. Microsoft failed to make these backups for some reason. We’re not sure if it was because of the amount of data that would be required, if they didn’t have time to do it, or if they simply forgot. Regardless of why, Microsoft should know better. So Hitachi worked on upgrading the SAN and something went wrong, resulting in it’s destruction. Currently the plan is to try to get the devices that still have personal data on them to sync back to the servers and at least keep the data that users have on their device saved.

Now there is no doubt that the fault here lies directly with Microsoft: they own Danger, they’re responsible, end of story. However numerous tweets and blog posts we’ve seen, including the Hiptop3 post, seem to be taking “owning the company” to mean “running Microsoft software”, and from what we can tell, this doesn’t seem to be the case. On Danger’s developer website, all development is in Java, on Sun systems, using Apache:

All end-user applications are written in Java, as is the overwhelming majority of the high-level operating system. Arguably, Danger has the premiere "Java Operating System" on the market today.

While this isn’t definitive that Danger wasn’t running on Microsoft servers (as opposed to Microsoft owned servers), it would seem to be doubtful that a complete Java shop wouldn’t use open source storage, as well. And not that anything went wrong specifically because of the OS, but it seems premature to suggest that the problem was with Microsoft server architecture or software design, and indeed points a finger at Danger’s (open source) system. Even if, as Hiptop3 suggests, Microsoft “failed to make these backups for some reason”, there certainly should have been an ongoing backup solution in place. Indeed, one could speculate that the supposed SAN upgrade was to get the data onto a system that would/could be backed up more reliably, but went horribly wrong.

We asked Microsoft for comment on the whole ordeal, but only received the message TMobile posted in response. We’re afraid that Microsoft is going to have to do better than that, and no matter what platform Danger was running on, or what caused the outage (and what happened to a backup plan), this reflects poorly on Microsoft.

We need to hear the whole story on this one, Microsoft.

Windows Phones, My Phone And A Sneak Preview Of Bing For Mobile

Sunshine — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:04:00 GMT

Yesterday we told you about Windows Mobile Marketplace going live. Today we can tell you more about which Windows Phones will use Windows Mobile 6.5 and some more about My Phone.

First the phones. Microsoft and its partners now deliver a variety of Windows phones for people to choose from in several regions...

...(read more)

Another LiveSide poll, do you check tech news on mobile?

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:58:00 GMT

While we're working through getting our new mobile experience at m.liveside.net (not done yet, but getting there) together, we thought it might make a good topic for a poll. Thanks for responding to our first poll, on how you check your email!

Do you check tech news sites, like LiveSide, or Techmeme, or TechCrunch regularly from your mobile device? How often? Take our poll and leave a comment on what sites you like best, and how often you check them. Remember to log in and vote (and as long as you're logged in, leave a comment!).

Take the poll

m.LiveSide.net on MoFuse Premium: Mo Betta

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:33:00 GMT

We’ve been using MoFuse to power our mobile experience for about a year now, and have been very pleased with the service. Basically MoFuse takes our RSS feed, optimizes it for mobile on a number of devices, and takes care of all the details. So when MoFuse upgraded their service and offered us an opportunity to try out MoFuse Premium, we jumped at the chance.

Our good friend and Windows Live Platform MVP (and LiveSide contributor) Chris Weeink helped us out with translating some PHP from MoFuse to ASP.net, so now if you go to www.LiveSide.net on a mobile device, you should be directed to m.LiveSide.net, with an experience customized for your phone or device. From there, you can even click through to the full LiveSide site. (We still have a little work to do here, and with images on the mobile site :) We're working on it).

With MoFuse Premium, in addition to our RSS feed, we’re able to add custom links and content, too. We included a slimmed down version of our Blogs We Like feature, and a section with some of our favorite mobile links, like Windows Live for Mobile, Bing for Mobile, and Mini-Techmeme. We even added a Click to Call link for Bing 411. We still have some work to do, but we like the idea of getting the latest from LiveSide, Windows Live on your mobile device, and a quick check on the latest news, all starting from m.LiveSide.net :) Here’s a quick look at what you’ll see:

MoFuse also has a free “MoFuse for Blogs” service, too. Highly recommended if you’re looking for a simple mobile solution.

By the way, while we really appreciate our good relationship with MoFuse, they haven’t asked us to promote them in any way, we just like their service. We even added their logo at the bottom, because we think it should be there, and we kinda like it.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Phones Coming To A Store Near You On Oct. 6

Sunshine — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:17:53 GMT

Microsoft announced today that Windows Mobile 6.5 phones will be widely available at retail stores worldwide on Oct. 6, 2009. The new phones will be offered by the following phone makers and mobile operators:

• In North America: Mobile operators AT&T, Bell Mobility, Sprint, TELUS and Verizon Wireless, and phone manufacturers HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba Corp.

• In Europe: Mobile operators Orange, Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group Plc, and phone manufacturers Acer, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

• In Latin America: Mobile operator TIM Brazil, and phone manufacturers HTC, LG Electronics and Samsung

• In Asia Pacific: Mobile operators NTT DOCOMO Inc., SOFTBANK Mobile Corp., SK Telecom, Telstra and WILLCOM Inc., and phone manufacturers Acer Inc., HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

Windows Mobile 6.5 will offer users an improved, easy-to-use interface, better browsing capabilities and access to valuable services, including Windows Marketplace for Mobile and Microsoft My Phone. Yes, you read that correctly, Windows Marketplace for Mobile (apps) and My Phone (free back up and sync) will be released at Oct. 6th too!

What else to expect from Windows Mobile 6.5? As mentioned, better browser capabilities. The redesigned Internet Explorer Mobile browser includes a new engine and built-in Adobe Flash Lite support for better rendering and completion of tasks (where’s Silverlight?). Also included is Microsoft Office Mobile and with Windows Live, you can keep track of friends in one place, no matter which social networking sites you belong to — Facebook, Twitter or MySpace Windows Live. You will also be able to change the look and feel of your phone with designer themes or a personal background and customize the home screen with widgets so the information you need is always easy to find.

SMS For Windows Live

Sunshine — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:55:23 GMT

If you live in the US or the UK then you can SMS to see and update your information on Windows Live. No need for a mobile browser or data plan! The SMS feature was announced in November already but it’s here now, finally.

To use these services, you’ll first have to register your mobile number with Windows Live. Once you’ve done that you can:

Update your personal message
Command: update followed by your personal message
Check your Windows Live Calendar
Command: today or tomorrow
Invite people to join your network
Command: invite followed by their email address
Get contact info for people in your Windows Live contact list
Command: srch followed by the name of the person you’re looking for

just by sending an SMS with a command to the shortcode:

If you’re in the US and your mobile operator is AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, or Nextel, your shortcode is MyLive or 695483.
If you’re in the UK and your mobile operator is Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2, or Virgin, your shortcode is 88804.

Standard SMS messaging costs apply in both the US and UK, there is no additional charge from Microsoft for the use of this service. More detailed information about how to register and the usage of these commands can be found in this post on the Windows Live Team Blog.

It is not known when SMS for Windows Live will be available outside the US or the UK at this time.

Bing Search Bars are now everywhere!

damaster — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:43:53 GMT

Today when you visit any of the Windows Live Wave 3 properties (with the exception of Family Safety and Agents), you’d have noticed the search bar on the top have been replaced with a new orange magnifying glass icon with Bing’s logo inside, like the one shown below:

Not only this, but also for Internet Explorer 7 or 8 users who usually use Live Search as their default search provider in the search box up the top-right, the new Bing search provider add-on is now available. Click here to get it and make it your default search engine!

On a side note, Bing Mobile has now been completely rolled out. Simply visit http://m.bing.com and you’ll be able to see the new interface (you may have to refresh your browser cache to view the new logo)! Visit it on your iPhone or iPod touch and you’ll also get an optimised interface like the one shown below:

View LiveSide’s coverage of Bing here.

Hotmail shuts down mobile browser access, for now

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:09:00 GMT

Hotmail has shut down access to mail through a mobile browser via m.mail.live.com, a service that we told you about when it debuted in February. According to a short post on the Hotmail team blog, the service is undergoing maintenance and they “will bring back the service shortly once maintenance has been completed”. Attempts to reach the service are greeted with

Hotmail

There’s a temporary problem with the service. Please try again later

We’ll keep an eye on it and let you know when service returns.

UPDATE: Well that didn't take long. We were just alerted to an update to the blog post:

We have completed maintenance on Hotmail’s mobile browse service in the majority of geographies. For the few remaining customers we are working to bring the service back in the near future.

Find Video Clips, Baseball Scores On Live Search Mobile

Sunshine — Fri, 08 May 2009 09:29:17 GMT

Now you can also find your favorite videos and the baseball scores for your favorite baseball team on your mobile. The Live Search Mobile team just launched these two features:

- MSN Video search

Looking to fill some time while you’re on the go and feel like grabbing a video news clip from Obama’s First 100-Days event? Now you can! Type “obama” in the search box on your mobile phone, and scroll down to the “MSN video” section of the results page to tune in.

- MLB Dashboard

Trying to keep track of the latest statistics for your favorite baseball team when you’re away from home and missing the big game? Just search for “mlb,” and we’ll give you a dashboard where you'll quickly find the latest scores, news, and standings for your favorite team.

All this* (and more) is available on m.live.com. Just point your mobile phone’s browser to it and give it a go.

*Disclaimer: features may or may not be available in your country.

More Windows Live Mobile Wave 3 Updates for Hotmail, Messenger and Home

damaster — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:17:49 GMT

Last time we told you about the new Windows Live Hotmail Mobile beta. Yesterday the team on Windows Live Wire announced that the new Windows Live Hotmail for mobile is now final! Together with the announcement, the team also mentioned the new updates for Windows Live Home Mobile and Messenger Mobile – finally including the new Wave 3 Mobile look for Messenger Mobile! Here’s what they announced:

Windows Live Messenger for mobile has a new look and feel and now links directly to Windows Live Home, so you can easily navigate between services.

Windows Live Home for mobile has an improved What’s new list, with ten items appearing in the list instead of five. You can also see the things your friends are doing online at places such as Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, and more. And you can always read the full text of your friends’ personal messages.

I just went to the Windows Live Messenger for Mobile website on http://mim.live.com and although I’m seeing the new pips (instead of the old buddy icons to display your contact’s status), ~~the overall theme hasn’t yet been updated to the new look~~. Update (April 23): The update has been fully released! What I really hope they’ve implemented is the support for multiple places sign-in, as currently it’s quite annoying that Messenger will sign you out as you’re logged in to the mobile web version. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Check out http://mhome.live.com on your mobile browser for the updated Windows Live Home for Mobile.

Live Search for Blackberry updated

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:03:18 GMT

Word is getting out that Live Search for Blackberry was updated recently, and now supports many more Blackberry devices, including the Bold, the Curve 8900, and the Blackberry Storm. If you have a Blackberry (or another mobile device that Live Search for Mobile supports) you can go to http://wls.live.com and download or update.

Of course what you can’t do is get any information about the update on the Live Search for Blackberry website at http://livesearchmobile.com/blackberry.htm. That site now resolves to possibly the most awful looking site on the internet -http://www.loco4local.com/blackberry.htm:

(luckily you’re spared the animation, it’s bad enough as a screenshot) Vern Fonk must be rolling over in his grave.

The Blackberry sites are all over the update, which is getting good buzz on Twitter (as is the Live Search for TMobile Sidekick app). However we can’t find a mention anywhere on a Microsoft site or blog – are we missing something?

Introducing the new Windows Live Hotmail Mobile beta

damaster — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:10:21 GMT

You may have noticed that the Windows Live Mobile Wave 3 upgrade previously did not include any updates to Hotmail. As part of the new Windows Live Hotmail upgrade, one thing that went unnoticed was that together with it came the new Windows Live Hotmail Mobile beta release!

This new Hotmail Mobile beta currently runs side-to-side with the existing Hotmail Mobile. There hasn’t been any official announcement as yet, however we did notice several features new to this update:

New header and theme that matches it more closely with the other Wave 3 Windows Live mobile services
First page shows the Inbox straight away
Search box for fast email searching
New collapsible Email message header
Emoticon support
Views entire email message in one page (the original one breaks a long email message into several pages)
Less images used for navigation, meaning less mobile download usage and saving cost
No ads (unsure whether this will be in the final version)
Simplified address: http://m.mail.live.com

The new version of Hotmail Mobile is looking great! To try it out visit http://m.mail.live.com on your mobile devices. If you’ve found any additional new features as part of this release, let us know in the comment below and tell us what you think!