The Microsoft Windows Phone 7 “VIP Preview” happening on May 24th
Microsoft has declared a special screening for their Windows Phone 7 announcement on May 24th 2011. In all likelihood, it is about the much awaited “Mango” update that was announced in April.
“Mango” is touted to be a major upgrade for the Windows Phone 7 platform — possibly to be released as Windows Phone 7.5 — with inclusions like true multitasking, performance improvements and suggested upgrades to the browser along with some possible UI tweaks, the Mango update will go a long way in improving the Windows Phone experience.
Fresh reports of the addition of two new features to the Windows Phone 7 platform were released via the Windows Phone developer podcast yesterday. Microsoft plans to add “Bing Vision” and “Bing Audio” to the Windows Phone platform and it might just be a part of the “Mango” update when it is finally released. Bing Audio is a music app that can listen to the song being played on any device and identify the track for the user. We don’t expect it to support Bollywood music for sure, but none the less, an interesting feature that reminds us of the popular app based service “Shazam” that does exactly the same.
Bing Vision is the other new feature to be added, and it seems to be a response to the Google Goggles tool that allows one to search on the web visually instead of via text. Google Googles is capable of detecting monuments that it is pointed at, recognizing contact cards and storing them on the phone, recognizing barcodes, translating text written in one language to another and more. One can expect similar things from the Bing Vision functionality. Apparently this feature will also allow plugable “Vision Recognizers” that might allow third-parties to extend the scope of the objects that can be detected, recognized and searched for using Bing Vision.
Coming before the “Mango” update is the SDK for the upcoming Windows Phone version, which is likely to come later this month. Using the SDK developers will be able to start developing applications for Windows Phone “Mango” before it releases. Apps have become crucial in this battle of mobile platforms, and the early release of the SDK (especially with an emulator for the upcoming OS) will give developers the time to develop new version of their applications that can utilize the new multi-tasking and other features that are new to “Mango”.