Microsoft is giving away away a total 30,000 USD in cash prizes for the Microsoft Mobile Challenge. The them behind the contest is creating software that contributes towards the 8 United Nations Millenium Development Goals.A panel of 5 judges selected by Microsoft at the N2Y4 Mobile Conference (May 26-27) will decide on the winners. You can find more information about the rules of the contest here. BTW: You only have until 15 May 2009 to get your contest entry in. In case you were wondering the 8 United Nation Millenium goals they are as follows:
- Eradicate Extreme Hungar and Poverty
- Achieve Universal Primary Education
- Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
- Reduce Child Mortality
- Improve Maternal Health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, Maleria, other diseases
- Ensure Environmental Sustainability
- Develop a Global Partnership for development
Source:@lokeuei
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I had been wondering why I could never find an announcement page for the winners of the Mobile Development contest from Codeproject.com a little while back. Turns out it was in an announcement in their weekly annoucements. Here they are.
1. Overall Best Article – Tyler Brinks
Learn How to Find GPS Location on Any SmartPhone, and Then Make it Relevant
2. Runner-up: Most Popular Article – Dr. Luiji
iPhone UI in Windows Mobile
3. Runner-up: Most Discussed Article – Joel Ivory Johnson
Windows Mobile Development Without Visual Studio
Update - the day after posting this I got an e-mail from CodeProject.com notifying me they just updated the contest page.
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Last night a student asked me a question on how she could acquire the Expressions Suite software. Being a student she can't afford to get it herself. Her question reminded me of something I had known about but hasn't come to the front of my mind until now. Microsoft allows students to have free access to Expressions and Visual Studio 2008 Professional at no cost through the DreamSpark program. I had registered for the program while I was still a student so that I could tell other students of Southern Polytechnic State Univerisity how the program works. Having been reminded about the program I decided to bring it to attention one more time for any of you that may be students.
So what does this have to do with Windows Mobile? If you wanted to begin programming with Windows Mobile there are two paths that you can take. One is the path without Visual Studio. It is not a path I would ever sugest unless you have no other option. The preferred path is to acquire a Professional version of Visual Studio. But this path cost money in most cases. If you are a student and would like to engage in Windows Mobile development you can take advantage of the DreamSpark program to go down this pathway without paying money (just remember to read the terms and conditions. I believe software acquired this way cannot be used for commercial purposes). If you are not a student and would still like to get your hands on Visual Studio Professional for experimenting then you can get it at a discount. As described on the Windows Mobile Team Blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2007/07/30/visual-studio-beta-2-professional-available-for-download.aspx
If you're concerned about the cost of Visual Studio Professional, you should consider joining the ISV Empower Program which is designed for Independent Software Vendors and provides limited Microsoft software licenses – including Visual Studio – for internal use, development and testing and technical support. Registration with the program costs around $375 for companies in the United States. Please consult https://empower-isv.one.microsoft.com/isv/Help/en/rsc.htm for a list of other countries which have an ISV Empower Program.
ISV Empower Program Overview : https://empower-isv.one.microsoft.com/isv/programguide/Default.aspx
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This isn't the first observation of this type that I've seen, but Apple has filed for a patent for adjusting phone volume based on ambient noise. As the noise in the environment goes up so will the phones volume. Oddly enough I've seen a similar system published in an MSDN magazine for Windows Mobile phones.
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In case you've missed it the
Windows Mobile Programming Contest at CodeProject.com comes to an end tomorrow night at 11:59:59 EST (thats only about 35 hours from now!). In looking over the contest entries I see a lot of good entries. Here they are in no specific order:
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The new year is around the corner and the upcoming presentations for "24 hours of Windows Mobile" are on the calendar. After these presentations there should be able 8 more which puts the presentation series as completing in March.
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The third Windows CE related contest to come up in the past several weeks is titled "Spark Your Imagination." The grand price is $15,000 and a trip to TechEd 2009. The contest is divided into three rounds. In the first round you must submit a 1 to 3 page paper describing a home automation project. If you are one of the 50 chosen finalist you will receive a Via Artigo Pico-ITX hardware kit to construct your idea, write a 4-5 page paper on it, and make a three minute video about it. The three top finalist receive $1,000 and a flight to Silicon Valley to demonstrate their idea at a Microsoft Keynote.
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Microsoft is having a competition for the best mobile development article at TheCodeProject.com. To enter all you need to do is submit a project between October 14th and January 14th. More information can be found here.
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