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Microsoft talks up plans for government cloud services
All of this assumes the government ever reopens, of course. That's inevitable, right? When it does, Microsoft's upcoming Windows Azure U.S. Government Cloud will offer up some heavily secured services to state, local and federal agencies in the US, hosted in "specially constructed" datacenters in Virginia and Iowa. Redmond guarantees that all of the hardware, data and support systems will be physically located in the continental United States, and that all people involved with be "US persons screened for PPT-Moderate clearance." All that government data will be isolated on servers that only host data from other American government agencies. Lockheed Martin will be involved as well, helping Microsoft meet stringent government-imposed requirements for such data storage. More information on the cloak and dagger cloud storage can be had in the source link below.
Microsoft announces Build 2013 to be held June 26-28 in San Francisco
Developers, virtually mark your Windows Phone calendars: Microsoft announced that Build 2013, the company's developer conference, will be held from June 26th to 28th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Specifically, Microsoft announced that it will be sharing details and future plans for Windows, Azure, Visual Studio "and more," so there'll be plenty of goodies to be had during the event. Registration opens on April 2nd, but in the meantime, head to the official sites below for more information.
AT&T announces API Catalog: U-Verse, payments, wireless and more
We're live at AT&T's Developer Summit keynote here at CES, where the carrier has just announced a revamped U-Verse API catalog. According to the company, the new U-Verse catalog features APIs that support payments, MMS/SMS, location, device capabilities and AT&T's mHealth app. The payment API utilizes HTML5, with revenue split 70 / 30 between developers and AT&T. The entire collection will be available through cloud services like Windows Azure, and developers will have to pay a $99 registration fee to get started, giving them unlimited access to the catalog through the end of 2012. The APIs will also allow devs to build apps that let you check out what's playing on TV, and use them as a remote control. There's also support for the Twonky Beam Browser app, which allows users to beam content directly from their tablets to a U-Verse equipped TV.
Microsoft reveals Data Explorer tool, gets into the sorbet business (video)
Redmond houses quite a few little teams beavering away on quirky projects and one of those has just gone public with its latest creation. It's codenamed "Data Explorer", which perhaps isn't an ideal codename since it describes exactly what the enterprise-focused service does. Instead of manually searching and copying data into a report, Data Explorer pulls information from SQL databases, spreadsheets and other "random sources" that could be relevant, and then attempts to "clean it up, transform it, merge it together and then publish it out" as a coherent report. You can learn more and sign up for the beta at the source link, or click past the break to watch a Microsoft exec demo the tool using a real-world case study -- we found it a bit dense, but you'll be fine as long as you remember that kids love frozen yogurt.
Windows Server 8 and Azure platform introduced, Metro-style app building starts today
Server and Tools Business President Satya Nadella, amongst others, took the stage at Build today in order to showcase something a bit less consumer-facing: Windows Server 8 and the revised Windows Azure platform. Fret not, though -- this all plays a vital role in how you'll be enjoying Windows 8 in the months to come. A Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview will be made available to coders starting today, enabling devs to concoct Metro-style applications with HTML 5, JavaScript, C#, Visual Basic and C++. We're told that the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview is available today for Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers and will be made available to the public on Friday. Microsoft also announced that Server 8 would provide multi-tenant infrastructure for cloud services, while the Azure Marketplace would expand to 25 new nations in early October. Those hoping to dig deeper can head on past the break (and visit the source links below). %Gallery-133730%
Toyota premiers smart charging G-Stations in Japan, world instantly jealous
Recharging tired EVs and plug-in hybrids in Japan just got a little more exciting thanks to Toyota's upcoming G-Station charger, which relies on contact-less smart-cards to identify vehicles and owners. Toyota's Windows Azure-powered Smart Center drives the machines, which allows users to connect to the internet and use smartphone apps to find chargers, receive notifications, and check usage history. The G-Station will be coming this July in two flavors, creatively named Type A for the standard and Type B for the more advanced model. Pricing for the aforementioned units will be 280,000 yen ($3,469 USD) and 448,000 yen ($5,549 USD) respectively. Toyota is expecting to sell around 3,000 units by the end of 2012, making these stations available to its retail car dealers, shopping malls and restaurants. Soon the outside of pachinko parlors will be just as electric as the inside.
Microsoft announces Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS
Microsoft has released a developer's Windows Azure toolkit for iOS. The toolkit contains resources which make it easy for iOS developers to use Azure, the cloud-based building and hosting platform that allows developers to create apps and host them on Microsoft's datacenters. The iOS toolkit includes a compiled Objective-C library for services like push notifications, authN/authZs, and storage, as well as full source code for the objective-C library. Interested developers can download the toolkit through github here. The goal of the iOS Azure toolkit (Microsoft is also planning an Android toolkit) is to "make it easier to target Windows Azure by offering native libraries for non-Microsoft platforms," according to Microsoft. Let's see how that works out for them. [via MacStories]
Microsoft lands its largest ever Surface order... from a karaoke bar (update: new video)
There's not much to see right now, but it appears that Red MR is well on its way to becoming one of the most advanced (and probably the most amusing) karaoke bars in the world. Ahead of its Hong Kong debut this Saturday, said company has already installed six Surfaces in its two bars, and is aiming to fit more to fill up all 80 rooms -- and that number could go up to 300 in the near future -- once Microsoft has ramped up production. With Red MR's customized software (still under wraps), customers will be able to pick songs, order food, watch TV, and play games on the Surface while listening to a drunk rendition of My Heart Will Go On. Oh, and there'll also be a few Kinects dotted around the bars, but it's not exactly clear whether they'll be in the rooms as well. Anyhow, we'll be flying out to Hong Kong to check it out later this week, so stay tuned. For now, you can watch a demo of the Surface's Liar's Dice game after the break. Update: Our friends over at M.I.C Gadget found a video from Apple Daily that teases the karaoke UI. Have a look after the jump.
Microsoft gets official with Windows Azure cloud OS, platform
Steve Ballmer himself first dropped word of this one earlier this month, but Microsoft has now finally gotten official about its new cloud computing operating system, and its name: Windows Azure. What's more, the OS is apparently just one component of Microsoft's larger Azure cloud computing platform, which will eventually be fully rolled out alongside Windows 7, and will encompass Microsoft's existing Live services, SQL services, and .NET services, among other things. If that's got you excited, you can find plenty more details at the link below, and even a few SDKs ready for downloading.[Via Pocket-lint]
