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digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/microsoft/Microsoft_tells_its_Windows_Phone_7_Series_developer_story’; At its dev-focused MIX10 event kicking off today, Microsoft’s closing the loop on some of the Windows Phone 7 Series third-party development details it started sharing in the days leading up to GDC last week — and as you might expect, Silverlight and XNA are the stars of the show. XNA will naturally be the core, critical element of Redmond’s gaming story while Silverlight is serving as a catch-all for the “rich internet applications” that make up much of your other mobile activities for those rare moments when you’re not… you know, blowing up aliens or navigating a race course littered with your opponents’ destroyed vehicles. To that end, Microsoft is kicking things off on the right foot by offering a free package of developer tools to would-be WP7S coders that includes both Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone and the Silverlight-focused Expression Blend for Windows Phone, pretty much everything you need to start building apps in preparation for the platform’s anticipated launch toward the latter part of the year. The beta dev tools are available today.

Developers are going to be treated to a host of must-have services out of the gate, including accelerometer support, location-based APIs using Microsoft’s own Location Service, a newly-announced Microsoft Notification Service for pushing notifications regardless of whether an app is running (sound familiar?), hardware-accelerated video with integrated DRM and support for Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming tech, multitouch, and camera / microphone access.

On a related note, Microsoft has shared some important details on the revised Windows Phone Marketplace (notice the subtle name change) for WP7S-based devices today. The revenue split remains unchanged — 70 percent goes to the publisher, 30 percent to Microsoft — but the developer portal for managing submissions has been “streamlined” and some of the incremental costs associated with it have been killed off; what’s more, students enrolled in the DreamSpark submission will have their registration fees waived altogether. The Marketplace has evolved from an app store to a content “destination,” housing apps, casual and premium Xbox Live games, music, and customized carrier stuff in one spot. We’ll be wandering MIX10 throughout the day, so stay tuned as we get more of the story.

Microsoft tells its Windows Phone 7 Series developer story, tools available today originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As a web developer, you’re probably among the earliest adopters of new browser technologies. Google’s relatively new Chrome browser is one of those products that developers jumped all over as soon as it became available, but its initial lack of extensions was a dealbreaker for many.

Now extensions are supported in Chrome and some of the tools you’re accustomed to using in Firefox have become available, plus a few unique to Chrome. We’ve compiled a list of ten of the most useful Chrome extensions for web developers right here; if you use these extensions, you might even be able to make Chrome your main workhorse. Maybe!

Look at the list and give it a try — and if there are any great ones that we missed, be sure and share them with us and the other readers in the comments.

1. Firebug Lite

Arguably the most popular Firefox extension for web developers, Firebug lets you look at and edit the HTML, CSS and JavaScript of any page on the fly without leaving your browser. Firebug Lite is a scaled-down version of Firebug made for Chrome. You can inspect a page for errors then quickly edit to fix them.

Though Firebug Lite doesn’t have all the same features as Firebug, it has most of the essentials, and there’s a console interface for power users.

2. IE Tab

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser is not at all popular with web developers, but it’s by far the most popular browser for the general population. With IE Tab you can open any website in a tab that’s actually running Internet Explorer instead of Chrome. You can make sure your website runs correctly for those millions of people who aren’t using Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera.

3. Eye Dropper

With EyeDropper, you can find useful information on any color on a website you’re viewing in Chrome. Click the extension button and a color wheel interface drops down. From there, you can click the color picker button, then click anywhere on the site to see where the color for that pixel falls in the wheel, what its RGB levels are, and what its HTML color code is.

4. Chrome SEO

Tapping the Chrome SEO button after the extension has been installed will give you website information that’s important for search engine optimization. You can check backlinks, traffic measures like the Alexa Rank and Google PageRank, popularity on social bookmarking sites like Delicious, and more.

5. Lorem Ipsum Generator

The Lorem Ipsum Generator extension will generate filler text for your websites so you can make sure your formatting works well without wasting time typing several paragraphs of text. This extension is lightweight and minimalistic, so it’s easy to use and it won’t take up a lot of memory. That means it’s easy to pop in and out of as needed.

6. Resolution Test

Resolution Test’s purpose is right there in the name — it re-sizes the browser window to show what your website will look like at various popular screen resolutions. As a web developer, you probably have a very high-resolution display. Good for you! But most of the visitors to your site don’t; this extension will help you make sure the site’s formatting looks ok to them.

7. Speed Tracer

Speed Tracer uses the browser’s built-in metrics tools to record how much time your web application is spending on various tasks so you can find out what the hang-up is if your site is running slowly. It can tell you how much time the browser is spending interpreting layout, Javascript, and other details.

The only downside to this useful tool is that for it to work, you have to run the browser with the command line flag “–enable-extension-timeline-api.” But if you’re a developer, that’s probably not a big issue, right?

8. MeasureIt!

MeasureIt! is pretty straightforward — it gives you the dimensions (pixel width and height) of any element present in a website you’re looking at. Like a lot of the other extensions on this list, it was previously available for Firefox.

9. Pendule

Pendule pops up an easy-to-use, well-laid-out control panel full of miscellaneous tasks helpful to developers. Examples include reloading or disabling CSS, viewing JavaScript scripts, hiding images, a color picker, a display ruler, viewing source, and several script validators. It works well as your basic, catch-all web developer’s extension.

10. BuiltWith

BuiltWith gives you a profile of the website you’re hanging out at, including a list of all the technologies it can find there. It will tell you what widgets the site is using, which analytics tracker the webmaster is using, which frameworks are present, which advertising platforms are in use, and so on.

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Reviews: Chrome, Delicious, Firefox, Google, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari

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We expect to learn a lot more about Microsoft’s plan to entice developers to Windows Phone 7 at the MIX 2010 developers conference. Until then (March 15-17), aspiring WP7 devs have to rely upon rumor and innuendo to feed their curiosity. So here you go: three purportedly official Microsoft docs from January that provide a glimpse into Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS 7.0 Application Platform. First up, the docs claim that WPOS 7.0 is built around Silverlight, XNA (like the Zune HD), and the .NET Compact Framework — a mostly clean break from WinMo’s past as far as developers are concerned. Native apps are restricted to OEMs and mobile operators in order to extend the experience and functionality specific to a phone or network. Even then, they’ll be limited to a set of managed APIs that Microsoft will audit during the app submission and provisioning process. Sound familiar?

As you’d expect, the OS supports preemptive multitasking — not that Microsoft will necessarily allow its devs (OEMs, mobile operators, and independent software vendors) to send their apps to the background. The primary development tools include Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010 and Express Blend used in combination with a Windows Phone emulator. Check the docs in the gallery for the full read and be sure to hit up XDA-Developers if you want to commiserate with your like-minded peers.

Windows Phone 7 development policies and guidelines leaked? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Big doings over in Barcelona today. Twenty-four telecom operators, with the support of the GSMA and three major hardware manufacturers, have formally announced they will come together to form the Wholesale Applications Community. Essentially, the goal of the alliance will be to create a viable, cohesive and open industry platform for mobile app developers. Members of the Community will include AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, TeliaSonera, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone among others, and they’ll be supported in their endeavors by LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. The total customers of the group is about 3 billion, giving WAC (our name) some considerable — albeit theoretical for the moment — power. The group plans to work on coming up with a standard for working across platforms over the next twelve months. WAC’s website just went live a bit ago — there’s a link to it below — and the full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community

Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re going way out on a limb here and guessing that Creative’s X-Fi 2 doesn’t exactly have an insane amount of the PMP market share, but for those obsessed with its boyish good looks and world-beating user interface, we’ve got some thrilling news to share. The company has just made public its ADK (Application Development Kit), a Lua-based system where devs are able to “code their own interesting applications and customize the ZEN X-Fi 2.” You’re also able to “create and debug games and applications right from one’s Windows PC,” so any Mac loyalists in the house will have to fire up Boot Camp (or similar) in order to dive in. Hit the source to get your download on, and be sure to drop us a line when your riveting new title is ready for public consumption.

[Thanks, Gavin]

Creative rolls out X-Fi 2 SDK, developers now free to craft games and apps originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back on the 21st of January when Amazon announced that it would release its Kindle Development Kit, A/K/A KDK, we heard it would begin rolling out in limited beta this month, with a wait list of people getting access to the kit as space was available. Well, that moment has arrived, and you can now sign up to receive said KDK. Our tipster wasn’t able to get the software in hand yet, but we’ll keep on the lookout for it. Hit the read link to sign up, and to check out Amazon’s FAQ, as well.

[Thanks, Mark]

Kindle dev kit now rolling out in limited beta originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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