New Opportunities for Windows Phone

The MIX11 Day 2 keynote put the spotlight on devices, as Microsoft announced new opportunities and capabilities for the Windows Phone.

Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows Phone program management, announced a new set of Windows Phone Developer Tools. Before launching into a discussion of new features in the upcoming “Mango” version of the Windows Phone operating system, Belfiore offered a mea culpa for problems Microsoft has experienced in pushing out updates of the OS to customers.

Belfiore welcomed Brandon Foy, creator of a popular Windows Phone video, to the stage and issued a challenge to the audience.

Belfiore demonstrated new features for Windows Phone that take advantage of HTML5.

Windows Phone 7, Android and iPhone went head to head in a demonstration illustrating what Microsoft officials said was the superior agility of Windows Phone applications.

Belfiore demonstrated the Layar app for Windows Phone.

During his MIX11 keynote, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET developer platform, announced the availability of Microsoft Silverlight 5 beta.

Microsoft Technical Evangelist Clint Rutkas demonstrated a Kinect-powered drivable lounge chair.

University of Konstanz students Stephan Huver and Michael Zollner joined Laura Foy onstage to demonstrate “Navi,” a Kinect-enabled demo of augmented reality that provides “eyes” for a visually impaired person.

Foy and Guthrie demonstrated “Wall Panic 3000” on Kinect.