Kraig Brockschmidt has a nice intro to the async model for Windows Store apps, focusing on JavaScript: All about promises (for Windows Store apps written in JavaScript) . Here’s the kind of code you’ll be writing: var promise1 = someOperationAsync();...

Antoine Leblond has a quick summary of new features in Windows 8.1 (aka Windows Blue): Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1 . Here are a few fun new features. “ Search Hero ”: The Search charm will provide global search results powered by...

Ross Heise has a quick walkthrough on adding geolocation to your Windows store Apps. Here’s a bit of code to whet your appetite: The Windows.Devices.Geolocation namespace is used for retrieving your location. Whether you use GPS, a WiFi network, or an...

Check it out here . It’s much more colorful and engaging, and hopefully it’s easier to find the development and design guidance you need to create beautiful Windows Store apps. Get the details at the Windows 8 app developer blog: Introducing a new Windows...

The indispensable Windows 8 app developer blog has a nice overview of programming NFC in your Windows Store apps. Priya Dandawate walks you through the deets in this excellent post . Here’s a little C# snippet to whet the appetite: 1: private void InitializeProximityDevice...

Sign up here . From unity3d.com : Be one of the first Unity developers to port your content to tablets and PCs running Windows 8 and Windows RT and publish it on Windows Store. As a participant in our open beta for the Unity Windows Store apps port, you...

Check it out here . Now you can browse the treasure trove of MSDN videos known as Channel 9 from your Start screen. If you’re using Microsoft technologies, Channel 9 probably has video content that will speed your development efforts. The Channel 9 app...

From the Windows 8 app developer blog : If you’ve already done some web development, it’s likely you’ve used the open source JavaScript framework jQuery. And if you’ve tried building Windows Store apps using jQuery, you might have run into errors related...

Here’s the site: BUILD . If you’re developing apps with Microsoft technologies, this is the conference to attend. Registration opens at 09:00am PDT, April 2, 2013 Early bird (first 500): $1,595 // Full: $2,095 See you there! Technorati Tags: Windows

The MSDN Sample Gallery is the gateway to Microsoft’s software development technologies, from close-to-the-metal programming with Win32 to higher levels of abstraction with XAML and WinRT. Now there’s a Windows Store app that brings the Sample Gallery...

Following up on Shai Hinitz’s post, Developing Windows Store games , the Dev Center is hosting new guidance for creating Windows 8 games , in time for GDC 2013 . You’ll find: Prepare your Windows Store DirectX game programming environment Add Windows...

Get it here . This release is very exciting, because it includes the amazing Kinect Fusion feature, which enables high-resolution 3D capture in realtime: Also, you get gesture recognition out of the box:   I can hardly wait to hook up the Kinect...

Exciting stuff : We are happy to announce we are releasing the Kinect for Windows samples under an open source license.  You can find everything on CodePlex: http://kinectforwindows.codeplex.com/ .  We have posted a total of 22 unique samples...

If you’re writing a Windows Store app, you may want to display the user’s location on a map. This two-minute video shows you how to do it with C#/XAML: How to display your location on a Bing Map. Even if you’re using JavaScript or C++/CX to write your...

Yours truly has been using Windows 8 on a Samsung Series 7 slate since May 2012, and it’s been my main machine the whole time. I do all of my productivity work on it, including code authoring with Visual Studio. I haven’t used a mouse in any serious way...

Martin McClean has long been the Keeper of the Posters over in the Windows Server business unit, and now he’s teamed up with Brian Lich to produce this beautiful Windows Store app, Server Posterpedia . They make C#/XAML sing and dance, bringing a sleek...

Download: PDF (17.9 MB) EPUB (37.3 MB) MOBI (69.5 MB) Are you a web developer who wants to get your code into a Windows store app? Kraig Brockschmidt’s excellent new book is for you, at the right price: $0.00. From the introduction: This book is about...

From the Windows 8 app developer blog : Windows Store App Labs are in more than 30 cities around the world for all app builders – developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. Check out and test the newest Windows 8 devices. Get technical guidance from Windows...

Download here: Windows Dev Center download page . The word from Ian LeGrow on the product team : Two weeks ago we announced that Windows 8 released to manufacturing (RTM). Since then we’ve been preparing builds for distribution as described in the Windows...

Five questions, five minutes here . If you’ve done any Windows 8 development, we want to hear from you. If you’ve dipped your toes, or if you’ve shipped Metro style apps in the store , we need to know what you think of the SDK. That is all. Windows 8...

The indispensible Windows 8 app developer blog has a new post that shows the nuts and bolts of background tasks, maintenance triggers, and the lock screen . The lock screen is a particularly neat scenario, because your app gets to share a highly visible...

Download here . Craig Eisler of the Kinect for Windows team has the latest . For me, the most interesting new features are tracking for the seated skeleton and Near Mode, which brings Kinect into the sphere of productivity applications: Seated Skeletal...

In a serendipitous coincidence with my post from Monday, Microsoft and climate science , KT announced today that Microsoft is committed to going carbon neutral in the next fiscal year: […] Beginning in fiscal year 2013 (which starts this July 1), Microsoft...

Longtime readers of Learning Curve know that I have a great deal of interest in climate science ( Visualizing Climate Data in Phase Space ). So it was with great dismay that I saw the recent Heartland Institute billboard campaign comparing climate scientists...

Sweet: Limited time loyalty offer More on the new SkyDrive features: Making personal cloud storage for Windows available anywhere, with the new SkyDrive