Better late than never…
Taken from: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/feb10/02-15MWC10PR.mspx
Windows Phone 7 Series Website
BARCELONA, Spain — Feb. 15, 2010 — Today at Mobile World Congress 2010, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the next generation of Windows® Phones, Windows Phone 7 Series. With this new platform, Microsoft offers a fresh approach to phone software, distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that bring to the surface the content people care about from the Web and applications. For the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile phone, exclusively on Windows Phone 7 Series. Partners have already started building phones; customers will be able to purchase the first phones in stores by holiday 2010.
“Today, I’m proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.”
Designed for Life in Motion
With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft takes a fundamentally different approach to phone software. Smart design begins with a new, holistic design system that informs every aspect of the phone, from its visually appealing layout and motion to its function and hardware integration. On the Start screen, dynamically updated “live tiles” show users real-time content directly, breaking the mold of static icons that serve as an intermediate step on the way to an application. Create a tile of a friend, and the user gains a readable, up-to-date view of a friend’s latest pictures and posts, just by glancing at Start.
Every Windows Phone 7 Series phone will come with a dedicated hardware button for Bing, providing one-click access to search from anywhere on the phone, while a special implementation of Bing search provides intent-specific results, delivering the most relevant Web or local results, depending on the type of query.
Windows Phone 7 Series creates an unrivaled set of integrated experiences on a phone through Windows Phone hubs. Hubs bring together related content from the Web, applications and services into a single view to simplify common tasks. Windows Phone 7 Series includes six hubs built on specific themes reflecting activities that matter most to people:
•People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. It also provides a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one step.
•Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone 7 Series also brings together a user’s photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person’s entire picture and video collection.
•Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.
•Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video. Users can turn their media experience into a social one with Zune Social on a PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers. The playback experience is rich and easy to navigate, and immerses the listener in the content.
•Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.
•Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world’s leading productivity software to the Windows Phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents. With the additional power of Outlook Mobile, users stay productive and up to date while on the go.
Availability
Partners from around the world have committed to include Windows Phone 7 Series in their portfolio plans. They include mobile operators AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, and manufacturers Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc. The first phones will be available by holiday 2010. Customers who would like to receive additional information about Windows Phone 7 Series and be notified when it is available can register at http://www.windowsphone7series.com.
To watch the full replay of Steve Ballmer’s press conference at Mobile World Congress, and to experience Windows Phone 7 Series through an online product demo, readers can visit http://www.microsoft.com/news/windowsphone.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.
Over the last several weeks, I’ve been testing Glympse. Glympse is a location based program that currently runs on iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android. I’ll have to admit it’s one of the coolest location based mobile packages out there. You send your “Glympse” to family members, coworkers, or friends the next time you are traveling and with no additional software needed by them, they click a web link and it not only sends them your location, but sends them a “moving” tracking link where they can watch your exact location on the map and a GlympseWatch timer to know exactly how much time you’ll take to arrive.
Check out the video. You really need to see it to understand the cool technology.
You can get Glympse from Windows Marketplace, iTunes App Store, or Android Market. Or, if you have Windows Mobile, you can download from here: http://www.glympse.com/get/winmo. The next time someone calls, emails or SMS text you and asks “where are you?”, send them a Glympse. You’ll be glad you did, and so will they.
If you use Twitter or Facebook, you can also follow them here:
http://twitter.com/glympse
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Glympse/102072880714
I generally don’t do this type of thing, but in this case, I can’t resist. The company (store) will remain anonymous. As most probably do, or attempt to do, we try to pay down our credit card balance each month and not carry over existing balances. In this particular instance, what we didn’t count on was additional finance charges so we ended up owing an additional $9 in additional fees. To that, they added an additional $2, with nothing noted other than “Fees charged”. So, $11 total additional charges.
Here’s the “funny” part…our total balance owed is $11. Our minimum payment is only $5. Seriously? A $5 minimum balance on an $11 total account balance? I scan down the page…there are additional notes. “If you make no additional charges using this card and each month you pay only the minimum payment, you will pay off the balance shown on this statement in about 4 months, and you will end up paying an estimated total of $17.”
Are they serious here? I really wonder how many people would do that. Take four months to pay off $11, while eating up another $6 in fees over that time? You do the math on how much additional money this store would make and the interest rate charges they get away with. Why they are able to get away with stuff like this is confusing (down economy or not). It’s way more than highway robbery and the fact they think this is “reasonable” deserves no additional comments.
Just for giggles, I looked up the history of loan sharks. Here’s what I found:
Today loansharking tends to be associated in the popular mind with organized crime. The stereotypical loan shark is often thought to be a gangster who extorts repayment of the debt with threats of physical brutality. Such loan sharks do exist, but the first loan sharks were not linked to crime families and they did not beat up delinquent debtors. The phrase was originally applied to salary and chattel mortgage lenders who operated at the turn of the twentieth century. These creditors dealt in small sums (most loans were less than $100) and they charged high rates of interest (between 10% and 20% a month, and sometimes more).
My how far we’ve come…how many credit card companies, particularly department stores, charge higher than 10%-20%, and why are they not considered “loansharks”. I’ll remember this the next time I walk in to a store and they offer me a “free credit card application”.
Rant over…