J2i.Net

With more that 13,000 applications in their Marketplace Microsoft came out on stage today to make some new announcements about what's coming to Windows Phone 7. We'll see a major upgrade on all Windows Phone devices by the end of the year and developers are getting access to a lot of new APIs enabling new application scenarios.

Here is a summary list of the new features.

• Multitasking - in addition to faster application switching multitasking will allow applications to continue processing in the background.
• Live Tile Functionality Enhancements -
• Sensor Library Enhancements - You'll have enhanced access to the sensor library and
  Access to the camera and compass-! Reality augmentation is possible!
  • Sockets - This needs no explanation
  • Database -
  • IE9 - with hardware acceleration
  • Silverlight+XNA - you can use Silverlight and XNA in the same application
  • Twitter in the People Hub
  • Background Transfers
  • Profile
  • Silverlight 4 Runtime
  Several new countries are being added to the Marketplace. This brings up the total count from 17 to 35. The new countries are listed below with *.
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Brazil*
  • Canada
  • Chile*
  • Columbia*
  • Czech Republic*
  • Denmark*
  • Finland*
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece*
  • Hong Kong
  • Hungary*
  • India*
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Japan*
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands*
  • New Zealand
  • Norway*
  • Poland*
  • Portugal*
  • Russia*
  • Singapore
  • South Africa*
  • South Korea*
  • Spain
  • Sweden*
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan*
  • UK
  • USA /

  Tags: Windows Phone, Windows Phone Development, MIX

If you have Expressions Blend 3 you are in luck. Microsoft will be allowing you to upgrade to Expressions Blend 4 for free.

Tags: MIX, Expressions, Silverlight