In this 10 minute interview, Brandon Watson asks Program Manager Steve Cosman about the Bing Audio engine that he’s been working on covering the development and testing audio search for Windows Phone.

The audio recognition engine queries more than 10 millions songs made up from the Zune library and other content. This is all stored in the cloud and a match is returned as soon as a match has been made rather than waiting for a 15 second sample to complete. Steve talks about fierce reduction (part of the Windows Phone 7 design philosophy) of functionality and how they used feedback from the test community to build functionality. This is only the start of the project, there’s a lot more features that they’re working on and Steve confirms how through scientific test routines, Ricky Martin is better than Britney Spears – I can almost sense Bill Hicks turning in his grave.

More in this series:

• Mango Tooling Update Overview
• Push & Live Tiles
• Communications
• Search
• App Platform

Download Developer Tools for Windows Phone Mango Now >>

This interview covers new features such as Search Above Lock, Local Scout and Bing Vision.

Reduce, reduce, reduce.

More in this series:

• Mango Tooling Update Overview
• Bing Audio
• Push & Live Tiles
• Communications
• App Platform

Download Developer Tools for Windows Phone Mango Now >>

There is no-doubt in my mind that Bing is the most visually pleasing search engine going, with beautiful photography featuring each day on both the desktop and the beautiful Windows Phone version.

Savvy Bing using readers may have noticed something a little different recently, with a little ‘Dizzee Rascal’ logo in the bottom right corner of this week’s photos. This is because Bing has teamed up with the platinum-selling UK musician to exhibit photos of his Britain.

Each day this week, the Bing homepage will reveal a stunning photo from the artist himself of his journey around Britain. Head over to Bing to take a look at the photos he has taken so far.

Feel like getting your photo groove on too? Fancy having your pics featured on Bing? Well no problem, Dizzee isn’t the only one having the fun – enter Bing’s competition to have your image featured and to win £10,000 on your-britain.com.

At the Drupal 7 Release Party just over a week ago, Mark Birbeck gave a presentation on RDFa and the Semantic Web, as Drupal 7 has just launched with native RDFa support. To be honest, I had little understanding of what RDFa actually was before I saw Mark speak, and after the talk I was nerdishly excited by the prospect of what RDFa can do.

RDFa expands out to mean ‘Resource Description Framework in attributes’. With me so far? No, I got lost about there as well. However, Mark went on to explain RDFa in context (which, funny enough, is what RDFa is about)…

The internet is meant to be consumed by people. That is, for the most part, people can cope with differences in layout, spelling, design and words and still absorb the meaning. However, machines have a harder time extracting meaning. This is where frameworks like RDFa step in to create what is known as the Semantic Web, which is boiled down to information marked up in a way that machines can easily understand it by giving that information context.

The main advantage of the Semantic Web is improved search, which pulls in information from across the internet and surfaces it in a way that is useful to users. Examples of this are already being seen in major search engines like Bing, Google and Yahoo! using RDFa to surface information in searches that provide more information than just a result.

For one such example, we did a search for Empire Records on the three mentioned search engines, with each returning rich results thanks to RDFa tagging…

Bing - Includes rich data about Empire Records

Google - Includes collated ratings from users

Yahoo! - Includes collated user rating and pricing information

However, one of the issues with RDFa is how do you make sure you are using the same attributes as everyone else? This is handled by RDFa vocabularies. Most search engines use a list of well known vocabularies, including Dublin Core (standard and academic), FOAF (people), hReview (reviews) and GoodRelations (products), with Yahoo! providing a decent list of accepted vocabularies and uses on their site (that is relevant to most major search engines). However, Google goes out of their way to use another system, based on their data-vocabulary.org site and is outlined on their support site. (UPDATE: As on November last year, Google have started supporting the GoodRelations vocabulary for products. Thanks Martin!)

Over the next week I’m going to boning up on RDFa tagging and having a play within our favourite CMSs. I’ve already found a list of plugins, extensions and native support (as mentioned with Drupal 7) and am going to report back on how to implement RDFa tagging in your site in the most painless way possible. In the meantime, head over to Mark Birbeck’s rather indepth articles ‘Introduction to RDFa Part I‘ and ‘Introduction to RDFa Part II‘ on A List Apart to read indepth about RDFa.

If you have any tips or hints to help out with RDFa in WordPress, Joomla, Umbraco or Drupal then comment or drop me a tweet at @Ubelly.

The reason being, that I am more likely to rearrange my social life around a date that is close to me, than go see a band in a different country. Later, I’ll show how this can also work on a city level and how it can be used to plan your night, not just your gigs.

This initial example suggests tour dates for a fictional band called The Evangelists to show how this can work across Europe. You can view the Bing map I created for this demo here:

http://bit.ly/adKTJm

In this demo I plan to show you how simple it is to plot a tour onto Bing maps, add additional information and then link back to your website.  A later post will work on a city level using real tour dates from Iain Eccleston & The Blue Horizon.

Here’s a video showing you how.

So that’s an example of how you can socialise your map content. The same approach could be taken by your local football club to plot the various away grounds that they will play at in a season (also an opportunity to take advantage of the Bing directions) or you could use it to plot a trip round the world adding pins, photos and links to your blog from the places you visit.

I hope you found this useful, I hope you are able to use these techniques in the future.

OnePage wants to make business cards a thing of the past. Hmmm… heard that one before! Looks OK but not sure it’ll make everyone throw their business cards away. Prove me wrong, but it’s a ‘not’ from me.

Software might know if you’re depressed – researchers used Bing to analyse word patterns to identify depression. Think it’s a good idea but wouldn’t want to be in the 22% that were wrongly diagnosed, particularly by my boss. Another ‘not’ I’m afraid…

Microsoft’s Home of the Future: A Visual Tour – technology that gives me recipes on my kitchen work surface depending on ingredients, charges my phone automatically and gives me interactive walls in my bedroom? Hmmmmn let me see… hot! No brainer.

Working Toward a Smarter, Faster Cloud – different types of cloud applications have different needs, so computer science researcher Vytautas Valancius has developed Transit Protocol, a system that lets cloud users choose that path their data takes through cloud computing platforms. Definitely ‘hot’ I reckon.

Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr Robot Would you be happy with a robot teaching your child? Depends on how good/bad the human teacher is, but regardless, I don’t think this one will catch on – not.

Hotmail overhaul fixes spam issues, adds new features, giving better integration with other Microsoft services like Windows Messenger, Bing, and Office Web Apps

Integrated systems management suite RHQ 3.0.0 final has been released – features include pluggable alert senders and improved search capabilities

Next stop Facebook – Facebook Buys NextStop, Shutting Down Site and API. The city guide and restaurant review site will shut down 1st September. Existing users must export all guides by 1st September

GWOS Gets Revamped Java Monitoring – the enterprise network monitoring and management software releases GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 6.2 bringing a new Java monitoring agent, improved VMware ESX and vCenter monitoring, and new dashboard customization options

It’s Tuesday 22nd June, it’s 4.30 and it’s time for the BizSparkCamp for Windows Phone 7 pitches to commence. Eight companies were ready and waiting to pitch their mobile phone application idea to a panel of ‘dragons’.

Helen Keegan              Oded Ran                      Carlos Espinal             Joe N

MoMoLo                         Microsoft                        Doughty Hanson          M8 Capital

Company: 21apps

Application: 21scrum

This two man SharePoint consultancy has become a micro-ISV and are ‘putting the scrum in SharePoint’. It’s an application that allows the user to easily manage scrum cycles and sprints using SharePoint 2010 and is accessible via browser, phone and of course on the PC.

21apps are talking about taking the application to the user – taking it out into large plasma / touch-screens and also to the phone so that developers can check what they need to do that day, wherever they are. The application will cover more than just the specific Scrum Development scenario and enable organisations to manage different types of task lists and projects.

Pitch Number 2

Company: Cortexica

Application: WINEfindr

Cortexica are an Imperial College London spin-out founded in 2009 and now generating revenues. They’re looking at the evolution of visual search from bar codes / tag codes through to taking a picture and understanding what you’re looking at.

WINEfindr on the iPhone was the no.1 lifestyle application on launch, displacing Jamie Oliver.  The application works by taking a picture of a wine label and uploads it to the Cortexica vision system. This returns a wine, or a list of candidates, and enables you to compare prices. It’s hosted on Azure to scale and respond quickly.

WINEfindr differs from Google Goggles in that the user gets a 1 for 1 match rather than loads of data you then have to sift through. With Google you simply get back a picture of the world that Google has already built, whereas with this app many wine producers and retailers have been involved to create the library and metadata. This requires business partnerships – there is much scope for crowd-sourcing in this.

Pitch Number 3

Company: Intelligent Touch Solutions Ltd

Application: Mobile client for Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint.

Founded in October 2009, Intelligent Touch is a Microsoft Solutions Provider specialising in Windows Phone 7, Microsoft Surface and SharePoint 2010.

Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint enables you to connect to multiple systems and allows a user to render the data within the portal, as well as taking it off-line.  This includes ERP Data, e.g. modifying HR records off-line.

There is no mobile client for this and Intelligent Touch have built mobile integration to enable the reading and management of the information on Windows Phone 7.  It can actually run on any platform running Silverlight.

Pitch Number 4

Company: ParcelGenie

Application: Instant gift messaging service (iGMS)

Parcel Genie enables anyone with a Facebook, Twitter or Linked In account to send a real gift instantly without knowing where the recipient lives – you just need an email address/social network ID/mobile number and the recipient adds their address in to get the gift – which means the giver never sees the recipient’s address.

ParcelGenie is also on iPhone which allows instant sending from within the application without needing extra credit card information.

You can select a person from Linked in, Facebook or Twitter, select a person from that account, choose a gift and place your order. No subscription/credit card necessary. Gifts include fun retro style sweets like Fizz Whizz, Wham bars or candy necklaces to coasters, key rings and badges and you can get them wrapped in a picture of you from your social network data. ParcelGenie monitors the sales of gifts and regularly asks for customer feedback to ensure the gift list is appropriate.

It’s not only aimed at consumers but also businesses for B to E (business to employee) rewards, e.g. rewarding staff with real gifts rather than a gold star.

Pitch Number 5

Company: Realtimerace

Application: An immersive 3D driveable experience

Realtimerace is a privately owned company. The application takes the Streetside View from Bing and creates an immersive 3D driveable experience, allowing the user to do anything from racing a car around the M25 to ski jumping/downhill skiing or joining a Formula 1 race. It’s delivered through video stream and is very quick.

Using a 360 degree camera on top of a car (yeah it looks like scaffolding) and laser units at each side, the result enables the user to ‘drive’ the vehicle left and right and also find out what happens when they drive it into the side of the track, for example. The BBC covered the application on BBC Click last year – you can watch it here.

The company want to take the application to Windows Phone 7, ideally giving it to the user for free.

Pitch Number 6

Company: Replify

Application: Optimiser and SyncStor, to make networks faster and synch more easily between remote and local applications.

The company aims to help people by reducing the time wasted waiting for their computer or network. By learning patterns, protocol manipulation and caching, the applications can improve network speed by 10 times.

Replify see the applications being used mainly for businesses rather than consumers, with companies cutting down the time it takes to manage caseloads by starting the process as soon as they’re with the customer.

Pitch Number 7

Company: Richmond IP Ltd

Application: Auditing products for multiple platforms.

The auditing products created by Richmond IP help auditors (small companies/freelancers etc) to quickly and easily scope the audit, for example with inspection, evidence gathering and compliance checking.

For example:

• Client management – including company details, audit calendars, reference methodology library, audit dashboard
• Audit fieldwork – the auditor would take a picture which will have a date/time stamp and also has note style audio recording to tie in the image with the inspection. They can upload the data directly from the field.
• Glanceable reference data.

The application includes a desktop offering and a cloud-based offering which would be used for the application on Windows Phone 7.

Pitch Number 8

Company: Touchnote

Application: Takes your digital photos and post them anywhere in the world as postcards.

Why? Because you can’t stick an MMS on your fridge

The application is currently live on Symbian phones (Nokia and Sony Erickson), Android, iPhone and Blackberry and Touchnote want to bring it to Windows Phone 7, so are looking for developers to help them do that!

The applications uses a WYSIWYG front end and hooks into the native address book so you only see people who you have a physical address for and therefore can send the postcard to. The postcard is sent same or next day and is printed and sent locally so your postcard will actually get delivered before you get home for a change! It costs £1.49.

And the winner was…

Cortexica!

Congratulations guys! And thanks to Bindi at BizSpark for a great day.

Find it hard to learn a foreign language? Online Language Learning Company Babbel Adds Voice Recognition Tool

Following Bing search for the iPhone, Microsoft debuts latest iPhone app: Windows Live Messenger

Madpixel launches its advertiser-friendly interactive video solution – users see hotspots to click on when they run their cursor over the screen.

What’s New in WordPress 3.0 for Developers? Craig Buckler from SitePoint tells it like it is.

Bing to be search option in Opera browser – it started with Apple’s Safari 5 browser and now it’s Opera. Extending the choice of search engines to users is a good thing, right?

Cleaners, beware! Robot porters invade Scottish hospital. Well, not exactly invade, they were specifically ‘asked’ to join the team at Forth Valley Royal Hospital to clean, dispense medicine and food and carry clinical waste. They’ll even have their own network of corridors beneath the hospital, while on board sensors will tell them if they need to stop or if anything is in the way. When can I get one?

Gulf Restoration Network Uses Joomla – blog provides regular updates on the consequences of the oil spill

Microsoft Partners See Kinect Going Beyond Games, with potential uses extending to healthcare, biometric security applications, virtual reality scenarios and replacing the remote control.

Calling all Catholic tekkies! Priest develops Mass app for iPad. It’s shiny and means you don’t have to go to church to be a good Catholic.