The amount of apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace
Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace has now reported to have passed 25,000 apps by one site tracking comings and goings within it. (source: WindowsPhoneAppslist, July 2011)
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First, a word on the article -- I'm sure that the author meant "As much as we like THE CURRENT VERSION of MCE...."
kballs,
Yes, MCE knows what cable system you're on and it knows what channels it has. However, it doesn't know *where* those channels are. You see -- unlike analog cable where these placements remain constant, cable companies have the ability to move digital channels around. The STB (set top box) tracks the movement and the end-user is unaware that anything has happened. One of the key advantages of a cable card is that it translates a table of channel placements (where in the frequency spectrum each channel is). "Mapping QAM channels manually" means that a user must first find the correct channel in the digital spectrum and then "tell" MCE that a certain frequency is a certain channel.
Now -- to answer the question that will SURELY come up later. NO -- MCE will not (IS NOT ALLOWED TO) use the CableCARD mappings to populate the guide. This is part of the Cable Labs specification. This is not a Microsoft decision. Their hands are tied there.