Yesterday the beta of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDK for Windows Phone was released, making the Amazon S3, SimpleDB, and SQS Cloud Services directly available to Windows Phone 7 Developers via C# APIs. The SDK is published as open source code under the Apache 2.0 license.

Why do this? Microsoft designed Windows Phone to be a Cloud-friendly phone across vendor boundaries. There are various Cloud platforms available on the market today and Windows Phone developers should be able to efficiently and rapidly get their Windows Phone applications connected and integrated with the Cloud services they want.

This release is aimed at gathering feedback from the developer community to deliver the right support in the SDK. The Windows Phone team is keen to improve it and deliver the right features based on the feedback.

Developers can download the SDK , along with the complete source code under the Apache license. A Getting Started guide can be found on the Windows Phone Interoperability Bridges site along with other resources.

Windows Phone Porting resources and API mapping:

• How to port your Android, iPhone or Qt apps over to the Windows Phone platform
• Leveraging your iPhone development expertise to build Windows Phone applications
• Leveraging your Android development expertise to build Windows Phone applications

Image courtesy of wordle.net

“Never make predictions. Especially about the future.” Yogi Berra’s advice applies to the tech sector more than most but that’s not going to stop us fearlessly speculating. We’ve covered design trends – now let’s take a look at overall tech trends.

“The continued trends toward consumerisation and cloud computing highlight the movement of certain former IT responsibilities into the hands of others,” said Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and Gartner fellow, highlight the driving forces behind the behind the biggest changes: consumer technology and cloud computing.

Here are broad technology trends that may affect developers in the next twelve months:

Consumerisation. 95% of employees are already bringing their own smartphones and computers to work, according to a recent IDC study, but only 49% of businesses say they support it. Only one of these numbers is likely to change.

Cloud. Everyone’s writing about it and perhaps we’re now moving to a new stage in the hype cycle on cloud computing; from inflated expectations to the slope of enlightenment. Or perhaps the trough of disillusionment. However, it is technology that underpins most of the other predictions in this post, so something is definitely going on.

Appification. Whether it’s a web app, a phone app or a desktop app (Windows 8 is on its way), expect fast, light, responsive applications to supplant more traditional installed applications.

Gamification. The use of game-like rewards to motivate behaviour has profound consequences for UI design. Examples include such achievement badges, leader boards and progress bars.

Social media in business. In a recent survey, 78% of executives polled said having a social strategy was critical to future success. Embedding social media into applications and using interface conventions derived from market leaders like Facebook, will be important in 2012.

Elancing. 42% of SMEs plan to hire freelancers in the next year, according to Regus research and 27% of the UK workforce is now, effectively, ‘flexible workers’. Traditional methods of recruiting and employment will still continue of course, but sites like vWorker and Elance.com will be viable alternatives for employers and contractors alike.

Hybrid organisations. Changes in technology and working patterns mean changes in management and organisation design. Microsoft’s work on The Hybrid Organisation offers an interesting peek into the how and why.

Everyday AI. Search engines will get smarter using your search history and massive databases to provide ever-better results. Voice recognition technology such as Apple’s Siri will allow devices to respond to spoken commands (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL!”) and Microsoft Kinect for the PC will bring gestural interfaces to desktops.

Videoconferencing comes of age. Yes, this is another traditional prediction that goes back decades. But with the widespread availability of broadband and web cams, it could finally take hold this year. Especially when companies are looking to cut back on travel.

What tech trends do you think will come of age in 2012? Drop us a comment and let us know.

I’ve been having many conversations in the last few weeks about mobile browsing, reminiscing about WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) and how for a short while we were led to believe that this was the language that we (developers) needed to use to get our content onto mobile devices.

Part of the problem with WAP was the lack of standardisation from device manufacturers. For many years, (cue Scooby Doo style wavy lines…) Nokia decided that all their devices would ignore @media queries targeting type=”mobile” which meant that Nokia devices forced the same content upon mobile users that desktop ‘screens’ did. ‘Screen’ media was meant to indicate that you were looking at a large (desktop) screen, and whilst they might have had grandiose opinions that their devices were somehow ahead of the game and could accurately replicate the desktop experience, those opinions were far from reality. What this actually meant was that developers were unable to truly target mobile devices as the proposed standards of the time intended – mobile web browsing on Nokia devices was an awful experience which was a shame as the rest of their device experience was mostly rather lovely.

Whether Nokia were alone in this misconception I don’t recall, but that was the experience that I had. It was frustrating. This was a time when developers were struggling against bloated content management systems for the implementation of semantic structure – clients were demanding splash screens and spinning logos, designers were clinging to print methodologies, trying to apply them to the screen when browser technology just wasn’t capable of delivering the creative concepts we were coming up with.

Web developers were faced with 2 options. Jump down the WAP route degrading the visual experience forcing developers to solve the problem with server side delivery, or decide to strip away any visual formatting using CSS @import methods so that raw yet semantically correct content was delivered to the mobile browser. I decided to opt for the latter. It seemed to me at the time that mobile devices were being updated and upgraded at a faster rate than the languages we were using to code our sites – consumer mobile contracts were 12 months and you could be pretty much guaranteed that you’d get a new handset within that time, the thought was that software development would accelerate faster than hardware. We were almost right. Some mobile operators even tried to create their own WAP specifications, but these quickly became obsolete as mobile browsers became more capable.

It’s not the first time we’ve turned round to a language or framework and decided that we don’t need it anymore and it’s oftentimes the toughest decision to make. Many of us had invested effort, time and money into learning the nuances of WAP implementation and hacking it’s structure to perform the tasks we required of it, but it was definitely time to let it go, it had become obsolete. I enjoyed it’s simplicity and uncomplicated deployment, but not as much as I now enjoy fuller and richer mobile experiences. My brief flirtation with WAP is not one that I regret.

HTML5 vs Native

Now, back in 2011 we are now faced with 2 options. Use the native language of the platform or go with HTML5. Later this year Microsoft will release the Mango update for Windows Phone 7, part of this update deploys IE9 onto Windows phones. We will then no longer have to make do with sub-optimal experiences on our mobile devices and across WP7, Android and iOS, developers can build for the screen and assume that the HTML and JavaScript they’re writing for the desktop is replicated pretty accurately on the devices in our pockets – in some instances, the increased resolution on modern mobile devices can deliver a visually superior experience.

But as consumers, developers and designers we would much rather consume content through applications that are native to the devices we use. Using a native app means there is less chance of anything going wrong. To quote Dean Hachamovitch from MIX11 “Every library, every layer, every abstraction between your site and the device challenge performance, reliability and the overall experience.” He was referring to HTML5 in IE9 on Windows but the same can be applied to mobile app experiences.

There will always be a consideration for native applications. Silverlight and XNA on Windows Phone 7 can provide superior experiences in some applications (see 3D seating plan on the British Airways WP7 app) but HTML5 threatens to give us a better experience as developers building applications across all mobile operating systems. Yes, I expect we will have to tweak for some devices but the re-use of code and logic is going to save us a great deal of time.

HTML5 is here, you can use it today and to quote Bruce Lawson ‘”it wants you to go to the pub”. I for one intend to be there enjoying a Guinness with him and I hope you’re all coming along. The reason it wants you to go to the pub is that it makes developer’s lives easier. By simplifying and standardising the creation of common consumer needs and developer tasks it is less likely to break and therefore quicker for you to implement and test – giving you back time. Guinness for Bruce, continental fizzy lager beer for me please.

Where do you want to go from here?

The world wide web is never going to go away. And if it does, hopefully the last thing on anyone’s mind is going to be, ‘where’s Spooner? I need to tell him he was wrong’. Our life styles and cycles have changed so much in the last 10 years that we will never be able to go back to the disconnected lives that we used to lead unless dictated by a phenomenal global change to humankind. I shudder at the actual realisation of peak oil, but when it comes, we will have solved the issue by other means or be too busy quarrelling for any of this to be any longer meaningful.

My call to arms to you, as developers is to try and future proof your application. The data. The logic. Place trust in the cloud and grow to accept that everything is always going to be always on – you can’t turn off the cloud. Gather your pitchforks, gather your lanterns and we’ll meet at the bottom of Client Hill and together we will march their applications and data to the cloud.

We. Are. Developers.

And the future of the web will be our idea.

Yesterday I and my colleague Jim had the good fortune to attend The Cloud Hack at the Brewery in London. I found out about the event just two days before, it was my first hacking event and I really enjoyed it.

For those who haven’t been to such an event before here is a quick overview of the concept. A group of programmers, developers and designers get together at a venue and are given access to various API’s. Prizes are offered to the best apps produced after a set time limit.

The Cloud Hack’s API partners were National Rail Enquires, Bing Maps, PayPal and Huddle (a people management API). The prizes ranged from £500 to £1000 and an Xbox 360 was given to one lucky participant at random.

After arriving at The Brewery at about 9:30am the first task of the day was to register, get some coffee and find a spot with excellent wifi. Before the event I was concerned that with the key sponsor of the event being Windows Azure I might not be able to find fellow PHP developers to work with and chat to. This turned out not to be the case, at registration badges where handed out and participants were asked to attach stickers with their languages and skills on. Jim and I soon found a good spot and some others with similar skills to talk to.

After registration an introduction took place and all the API partners gave a quick introduction to their products. The most interesting introduction came from National Rail Enquires. They made both their journey planning and live departure API’s available for the day (this API is normally private). After this Bing introduced both their javascript maps control and also their location based web services. PayPal showed off their new payment workflows and Huddle demoed their group and file management API.

After the introduction the assembled developers piled out into the hacking area and worked either in pre arranged groups, impromptu teams or as individuals. There was a great buzz at this point, we had about four and a half hours to produce something with the APIs demonstrated earlier.

Jim and I had talked through a few concepts on the way to the hack and decided to work on the National Rail API and mash it together with some of the route planning features of the Bing Maps API. Our concept was called ‘Can I Catch It?’. The idea was to tell users if they could feasibly catch the train they wanted based on their current location. The app displayed how fast a user would have to drive in order to get to the train on time, when they should set off, distance to the station and also the train departure time. The app was to be accessed from a mobile device. We also wanted to change the colour of the background from green to red as the time of departure approached. With an idea firmly in hand we spent the next four hours trying to implement it. The NRE API was SOAP, it had been a very long time since I had to use one so this took some time to ‘hack’. On the other hand Jim found that Bing Maps was a ‘quick win’ and spent the majority of his time working on javascript and HTML5 necessary to display the page.

About half way through the day a truly sumptuous dinner was served. The cloud hack team really surpassed themselves here. Sushi, bargies, lamb pies, sandwiches, beef stew and king prawns. All the food was served by waiters so it wasn’t necessary to stop coding. A good call as timings were very tight!

The second part of the cloud hack challenge was to launch the application onto Azure. For the .net developers in the room this was a piece of cake for the other languages it was a little more difficult. Throughout the day I helped a number of people set up PHP on IIS to develop on and later gave some pointers on launching PHP apps to Azure. There were some comments on how easy it was to get PHP running on IIS but there were also some grumblings about the time in which it took to actually launch an application onto Azure using the Windows Azure Command Line Tools for PHP.

By 4:45 the majority of applications were on Azure. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to this point, we had an issue with the NRE API which took too long to solve. Jim later completed the app – you can take a look at it here (best on a mobile device). All the participants were asked to go and watch the presentations in the main auditorium. The cloud hack team handed round beers and six short listed teams presented their applications to the rest of the attendees.

The winners of the event were a team called ‘The Governor’ and they made an app called ‘Train vs Car’. They aimed to answer the question of whether it would be faster to complete a journey by train or by car. After the event we joined the Huddle team in a pub down the road where we talked about the API’s, hacks and the event.

I really enjoyed Cloud Hack, I hope they run the event again in the future. The atmosphere of creativity, the people involved, the great venue and food all combined into a really successful event! My only criticism of the event is there wasn’t enough development time. In the future I’d like to see a 24 hour ‘all nighter’ with team members working in shifts through the night to get bigger projects working. Thanks to the Cloud Hack team, API partners and for the team at ubelly for sending me to my first hacking event!

If you fancy doing some cloud hacking yourself, here’s where to start:

Azure

PHP on Azure

Last week we covered the Windows Azure SDK for PHP announcement, and it’s nice to know the train isn’t stopping there. Microsoft has announced the release of the Windows Azure toolkit for iOS, containing resources and services designed to make it easier for iOS developers to use Windows Azure.  This release makes it easier to tie mobile devices with the cloud by offering native libraries for non-Microsoft platforms.

the iOS announcement

I use a PC at work, a phone on the go, and a slate when I’m lounging around. Those three devices have three different operating systems. The toolkits being announced make it easier for developers to simplify the complexity of supporting multiple devices, with a common back-end that uses cloud services to share common requirements like device notifications, authentication, storage and even higher-level services like leaderboards. At the same time, developers can maximize the performance of each mobile device by writing client code that exploits each platform. As more and more mobile applications rely on back-end services, the cloud can become increasingly useful and strategic for developers.

The Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS works in two ways: you access Windows Azure storage directly, or alternatively, can go through a proxy service. The proxy service code is the same code as used in the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 and negates the need for the developer to store the Azure storage credentials locally on the device.

What about android?

Work is already underway; look for more information in the summer…

and Windows Phone 7?

Originally released last month, new features include integration with the Windows Azure Access Control Service (e.g., a wizard, automatic setup, tooling and code), full support for Windows Azure Storage Queues and an updated user interface for the supporting Web application.

• Integration with the Access Control Service (e.g. a wizard, automatic setup, tooling, and code)
• Full support for Windows Azure Storage Queues
• Updated UI/UX for the supporting web application

all the goodies

Blog posts

:

• Getting Started with the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS : Details how to get started using the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS
• Updates Coming Soon to the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 : What’s coming with the v1.2 release of the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7
• Using Windows Azure for Windows Phone 7 Push Notification Support : Details on how v1.1 of Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 provides out-of-the-box support for Push Notifications
• Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 1.2 will Integrate with ACS : Vittorio has blogged about upcoming details related to the Access Control Service 2.0 integration in v1.2

Screencasts:

• Getting Started with the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS : Webcast showing where to get the bits and how to get started
• Deploying the Cloud Ready Packages for Devices : Webcast showing how to deploy the cloud ready package to Windows Azure

Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS:

• https://github.com/microsoft-dpe/watoolkitios-lib
• https://github.com/microsoft-dpe/watoolkitios-samples
• https://github.com/microsoft-dpe/watoolkitios-doc

Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7:

• http://watoolkitwp7.codeplex.com/

Cloud Ready Package for Devices:

• https://github.com/downloads/microsoft-dpe/watoolkitios-lib/cloudready.devices.zip

The wonderful world of the web enables us to do many things and there are a few sites I’ve noticed recently that can place you in some pretty remarkable situations. See below, it appears that not only do I own a restaurant but also a car park and car rental operation.

Supermarmite

http://www.super-marmite.com/

This is a location based social network for discovering great food in your area. “I was leaving the office late, I was hungry and I knew my fridge was empty.” says founder Olivier Desmoulin in a heavy French accent, “I thought about my area and all the people cooking in the neighbourhood, there were without any doubt hundreds of meals being prepared around me” and so SuperMarmite was born.

It has a fair number of users in Paris but fewer in London – but be fair to the service and check those links around mealtimes, not the middle of the night. See what’s cooking up now near you – http://www.super-marmite.com/meals – or even better, offer up your culinary skills next time you put the oven on.

ParkatmyHouse

http://www.parkatmyhouse.com/

When founder Anthony Eskinazi saw an empty driveway a stone’s throw away from the stadium he realised that there was a great opportunity for both homeowners and drivers if only they could find a way of making the initial contact.

I used this service recently when a London hotel said it was going to charge me £30 a night to park there. I had a quick look around the web and found ParkatmyHouse.com where a nice chap called Ed allowed me to leave my car in his garage (a 2 min walk from the hotel) for just £10 a night. I asked Ed how the service was for him “Apart from having to be here to meet people when they first park, it’s ok, I have a permit so can put my car on the street anyway. Kind of a no-brainer.”

WhipCar

http://www.whipcar.com/

If you already own a car that don’t use too often and like a wheelie good deal, then you might want to register with WhipCar, the online service that allows you to rent the car next door. Your car must be in good condition, be no more than eight years old and have a valid MOT, road tax and insurance. WhipCar provide insurance so you don’t need to worry about losing your NCB and you can set your own mileage restrictions. A quick search in my postcode shows that I can rent a car for £4 an hour only half a mile away from me. And now I’m thinking again about putting that pile of rubbish in my own car and taking it to the dump this weekend.

One of the founders of the company, Vinay Gupta of Camden, has said: ‘Our vision is that, in time, someone will be able to step out of their front door and have four or five neighbours’ cars within striking distance for hire.’

Last week Gmail had a data outage where some customers logged in to find their inbox to be pretty bare; this isn’t a new phenomenon and has happened to other email providers upon service upgrade. But it does beg the question: after years of promise, is the cloud finally a safe place for consumers?

Firstly what’s the connection between email and the cloud? I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘the cloud’ but to me it basically means off-premise: accessing files and folders whose natural residence isn’t on a device I own. Facebook pictures? The cloud. Music I bought with my Zune Pass on my Windows Phone 7? The cloud. I’ve begun storing presentations I give in the cloud so anyone can access, and edit (if I provide correct permissions) as a primary store so I’ve got the latest version in one place, and don’t have the hassle of adding “v2/v3/v4/v5/DRAFT/FINAL” at the end of the file name. The nature of ever-increasing inbox size means email is frequently used as storage – sending a presentation to yourself as backup, simply attaching photos to an email to share, the years of priceless correspondence all building up on some server down in Silicon Valley or somewhere similar.

But the service-delivery method means you’re basically agreeing to updates, patches, physical server moves and other things you may never be aware of that the provider deems necessary, at any point in time. Compare that with the decision you make to install a new OS, add some new storage or if you’re on a PC the simple action of clicking to Agree when a Windows Update occurs means you retain some semblance of control over the potential risk to your data. Got a big presentation coming up and you don’t want to risk anything happening to those 3 months of work? Steer clear of the “Yes I would like to upgrade” button man…

With the cloud you don’t get this. You just try to log in and – uh oh – a blank screen.

Then again, let’s be clear that email isn’t supposed to be online backup. Backupify, Carbonite and Mozy are examples of companies who do just that. However – these come at a cost and most people want free, free, free.

But the scenarios really fall into two use cases: Storage (push) and Synchronisation (Push/Pull). If I want my stuff to permanently reside in the cloud, or simply get pushed there as a backup for whatever I do on my device, I use Windows Live SkyDrive for that – 25GB of free storage really is a hidden gem – where I manually upload the files I want saved/backed up to the cloud. It’s now become the backend for Hotmail’s approx. 300m users. But the real thing for me is just making sure I’ve got the latest version of my files no matter where I access them – which is where Windows Live Mesh comes in. I’ve got a work PC, a home PC and a netbook; they all run Mesh so I don’t need to mess about with a memory stick or emailing files to myself to make sure I get the latest.

The thing about synchronisation is the cloud acts as a proxy for simply pulling the files then pushing back down to a device. So I don’t need to log in exclusively to a web service to get my stuff, copies are still on other devices and the cloud is a complement to my use case, not the dependency.

Will these outages lead to consumers fearing the cloud? I don’t think so. But that’s kind of missing the point – the real question is when will synchronisation across devices and the cloud get to the point where such outages don’t matter as much.

What’s your take – do you trust in the cloud and use your device as simply a terminal, or old-school and prefer to keep everything physically to hand? Let us know…

I had a chance to chat with Thom Robbins, chief evangelist for Kentico CMS at the #WhatYaLike stall at Le Web.

Did you know Kentico CMS 5.5 R2 has launched? Or that they’ve embraced the cloud by building on Windows Azure?

Check out Thom’s view on this announcement plus what are probably the best 4 CMS vendors, what flavour macaroons are available and what he thinks of the Paris weather in one word:

Visit WhatYaLike.com for special offers on Kentico CMS.

What actually happened?

Umbraco took a two-phased approach. First, to accommodate existing customers, Umbraco created its Windows Azure Accelerator for the Umbraco CMS. The accelerator—which integrates the Windows Azure web role, Blob Storage, and authentication—makes it possible for users to run the Umbraco CMS software in a hosted web role on the Windows Azure platform without any modifications. The second phase is the introduction of Umbraco CMS 5.0, a cloud-based version that will operate natively on Windows Azure and is scheduled for release in 2011.

This first release of the accelerator is targeted at web developers, but there is no complex code to understand and only configuration is required in order to use the accelerator to run Umbraco on Windows Azure.  There is a detailed usage guide available along with the accelerator which can be found on CodePlex.

Why did they do it?

“We wanted to find a way of reducing the technical requirements for great web design so that Umbraco can be used by a much wider audience, including hobbyists and other users who are not professional web developers,” says Paul Sterling, Partner with Umbraco. “The work required to get Umbraco implementations hosted and configured can be technically complex, particularly for potential users who do not have the time or expertise needed to deal with the IT infrastructure.”

Effectively they removed the administrative overhead and managed to get on improving the actual app itself.

What are the benefits?

First off this opens the door to huge markets as it removes the requirement for users to configure and deploy their own web server infrastructure. Second, enterprise customers can add features and benefits without needing to constantly assess its server strategy; as their application scales so does the unit that processes and supports it. Finally it reduces the need for constant licensing and other underlying IT infrastructure efforts.

Check out this site for more information from Umbraco themselves on the integration, or here to view more information on deploying Umbraco on Windows. Paul Sterling did a great video interview which you can also watch here

Windows Azure Platform introductory special – try out Windows Azure for no charge

Like what you see about Umbraco and the cloud? Then take advantage yourself! When you subscribe you’ll receive a base level of Windows Azure compute hours, storage, data transfers, and a three-month trial for Microsoft SQL Azure database software. You will also get access to the Windows Azure Platform AppFabric, providing service bus and access control services. Click here to get it now.

On October 8 2010 there’s a free days worth of content on Windows Azure beautifully titled Microsoft Online Cloud Conference: the TechDays team goes online.

The day runs in 3 different tracks, each geared at people with different levels of understanding. Track 1 provides and entry level overview of Azure. Track 2 and 3 dive a bit deeper. So, no matter your level, if you want to know more about cloud computing on the Azure Platform, there will be something for you here.

Go check out the schedule > > >