With the announcement that you can run Hyper-V on the Windows 8 client. I have had a lot of  questions regarding this? I did do a post back in August explaining the process of checking your PC estate for SLAT Support see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/uk_faculty_connection/archive/2012/08/31/if-your-thinking-of-installing-windows-8-are-your-labs-machine-capable.aspx

A number of people have reported simple having problems running Hyper-V on  a Windows 8 client as it requires SLAT to run Hyper-V.

Running Hyper-V on Windows Server 2012 does *not* require SLAT but most institutions don't want to install a server OS as a desktop operating system.  SLAT is a feature of the CPU. It is called “Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI)”, and has been called Extended Page Tables (EPT) by Intel and Nested Page Tables (NPT) by AMD.

You can use Wikipedia to  look up Intel Nehalem and AMD NPT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Nehalem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD-V_Nested_Paging

Processors that support SLAT

• Intel processors whose names start with 'i', e.g. i3, i5, i7, i9. (There may be exceptions, but I'm not aware of any.)
• Any Intel CPUs based on Nehalem, Westmere, or Sandybridge micro-architectures. (There may be exceptions, but I'm not aware of any.)

For AMD machines you can look up the supported models at http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU120AMDRVICPUsHyperVWin8.aspx

Tools for testing for SLAT

Microsoft’s Mark Russinovich has also created a really nice utility coreinfo.exe  You can simply run coreinfo.ext and it will  detect EPT and NPT (SLAT) support on your CPU. 

To test your machine, simply download coreinfo.exe from Microsoft Sysinternals http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722  and use the coreinfo -v switch to list the features. An asterisk * next to a feature indicates that it is supported. A minus sign - indicates no support for that feature.

Note: Coreinfo must be executed on a system without a hypervisor running for accurate results and under a administrator account on Windows 8.

For example here is a screenshot from my Lenovo X200 series tablet

“*” means the feature is present   

“-“ means it is missing

Alternatively, you can use Windows PowerShell to capture your specific CPU model this could be scripted to report the state of your entire PC labs or cluster estate the PowerShell command is gwmi win32_processor

NOTE: Be sure to include the specific family/model/stepping since different processor revisions may have different feature sets.

Basic considerations

Typically, you develop an application for Windows Phone 7 by using Microsoft Silverlight  and one of the managed programming languages—usually C# or XNA.

There are two main Windows Store app development approaches that you can use when migrating your Windows Phone 7 app: XAML, and JavaScript with HTML5. You develop Windows Store apps using C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using one of those languages with XAML, whereas you develop Windows Store apps using JavaScript with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5 along with the Windows Library for JavaScript.

Porting to a Windows Store app using XAML

A Windows Store app using C++, C#, or Visual Basic, using XAML, is the preferred model for ports from Windows Phone 7. If you are familiar with Silverlight, you can port to a Windows Store app using XAML by using familiar languages like C# or Visual Basic, and a similar set of UI elements and APIs.

For more detail about porting a Windows Phone 7 application to XAML, read Migrating a Windows Phone 7 app to XAML.

Porting to a Windows Store app using JavaScript

A Windows Store app using JavaScript is another model for Windows Phone 7 ports, and may be better suited for simple UI-based apps or to full-screen web apps or clients.

However if your a game developer then you can move your existing Windows Phone XNA using Monogame.

Porting to Windows Store app using MonoGame

For some background you can read these posts:

• Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame – Part 1, Overview
• Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame - Part 2, Getting Started
• Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame - Part 3, Getting Windows 8 Store Ready

During the ThreeThing Game event, Dean Ellis @InfSpaceStudios  talked through the porting of a one of the teams Windows Phone game, Shear Carnage to Windows 8, the initial port took 7mins 47seconds, which is pretty impressive stuff!

Some of the key features, the team now need to work on now to get the app store ready is..

• In app advertisement
• Windows 8 Store app contracts and charms settings to allow the tweeting and sharing of results
• Development of a online leader board
• A ensuring the app functions is both landscape and portrait modes.

Overall this is pretty stunning for existing Windows Phone developers taking existing or new phone apps to both the Windows Phone Marketplace and Windows 8 Store.

So you want to build a game for Windows 8?

Well we want to make it as easy as possible for you to do so. That’s why we thought it would be a good idea to compile all the resources you could use to develop a short course for your school, college or University students using Scirra Construct 2 and HTML5.

Example Course Schedule

HTML5 Game Starter Kit for Windows 8

This is a great starter kit developed by one of my colleague Petri Tapio Wilhelmsen who is a member of the Microsoft Western Europe team.

As you can see from my previous posts were aware many of the apps that are submitted to the Windows Store are failing certification because they didn’t know that a Privacy Policy was needed, or that the game/app had to implement a snap view and so on. This kit will help you with the most important things.

Petri has created an excellent HTML5 Game starter kit that will help you set up a new Windows 8 game project in short time, this is ideal for schools, colleges and University who teach game development with HTML5.

By using this starter kit you can get most of this functionality ready, for more details see http://digitalerr0r.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/html5-game-starter-kit-for-windows-8/ or look at the following quick guides below.

Here is a quick video to using the HTML5 Starter kit

5 Step Guide to Bulding HTML5 games with the HTML5 Starter Kit

Step 1a. You need to have Visual Studio 2012 installed on a Windows 8 device to use this. If you are a student and have access to Dreamspark.com (MSDNAA) or a MSDN Subscription you can download both products from there.

You can use the free version of Visual Studio 2012 (express) and can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads

The Release Preview can be downloaded for free here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/release-preview

Step 1b. Download HTML5 Game Starter Kit for Windows 8

Step 2. Start Visual Studio 2012 and create a “Blank App” Windows 8 JavaScript project:

Click on File->New->Project…

Choose JavaScript as the language and the template “Blank App”:

Give your project a name (here: Mitt Spill) and press OK.

A new project is generated and the structure will look like this:

Step 3. What we will do now is to add the HTML5 Game Starter Kit files to the newly created project. We just copy the content of the HTML5 Game Starter Kit folder to the project folder.

So, copy thse files from the HTML5 Game Starter Kit:

Navigate to your new game soludtion and open the project folder. Paste the files here, and replace if asked:

The project folder will look somewhat like this:

Step 4. Go back to your Visual Studio 2012 project and update if needed:

Step 5. Include the new files in your project.
The last thing you need to do is to include the new files in your project structure from Visual Studio 2012.

Click on the button highlighted in the red circle below. It will show the files that exist in the filestructure but not in the project structure(dark gray).

Select the following files (hold control and click them):

Right click one of the files and select “Include in project”:

6. Test if it works.
Congratulations, you are now having a working game project! Run the app and test that it works.

Whats in the starter kit?

Tiles

Full screen mode

Snap view mode

Full screen with other app in snap view.

About page

Privacy Policy

Remember!   The example game is using CreateJS. It’s located under js/CreateJS. You can remove this folder if it’s not needed in your project. But if you do so, the example game will not compile.

Stay tuned, because Microsoft's BUILD conference is rapidly approaching, and Windows Phone will be there. BUILD sold out in record time this year, and if you weren't one of the lucky few who got a spot, don't worry, because the entire event will be streamed live. We're looking forward to going in depth with you on what's new in Windows Phone 8 for developers. Watch Channel 9 for session content 24-48 hours post-event.

1. Build a single, flexible app vs. many replicated apps. - For example, a book publisher should not publish 100s of apps, one for each book. Rather, the publisher should deliver a single app that allows the user to browse their full book catalogue.

2. Check privacy requirement (Certification Requirement 4.1).  This is by far the most common reason for failure – well over half of submissions fail on this requirement.  The good news is that in the vast majority of cases, this is simply a documentation issue that does not require code changes, i.e., providing a link to the apps privacy policy on the Description page. 

3. Another very common reason for failure that is simple to fix is inappropriate Age Rating.

4. Ensure all app builders run the WACK before app submission.

5. Take advantage of App Fast Track (AFT) review where appropriate.

6. Familiarize yourself and app builders you engage with App Certification Tips on the Dev Center:  Common Certification Failures and Guidance for Resolving Certification Failures.

7.  Review apps locally before app submission with Store certification requirements in mind.

Further Resources

Windows 8 App Store Requirements – http://aka.ms/storereq

Resolving certification errors – http://aka.ms/storefix

Microsoft OEM (for "original equipment manufacturer") hardware partners are about to unleash a wave of new Windows 8 devices in all shapes and sizes. For consumers and businesses, that breadth offers you the chance to find just the right PC no matter what your needs.

With the launch of Windows 8 rapidly approaching, a new wave of tablets, convertibles, hybrids, notebooks, Ultrabooks, and all-in-one PCs are set to hit the shelves later this month here is a quick run down of what Windows 8 devices will be available in the UK.

Windows 8, breadth of technology bounty boils down to one thing for students and educators: choice.

On Oct 26th Microsoft will be releasing Windows 8 and our OEM Partners will be releasing a number of new devices from small and slim tablets to big and beautiful all-in-ones, the new capabilities in Windows 8 have opened the door for a huge array of new and reimagined devices.

So what types of devices will there be?

The tablet

For anyone on the go and far from a desk, tablet PCs provide a comfortable, versatile, and convenient computing experience. Support for multitouch is already giving Windows 8-based tablets a big boost. While consumers are looking for the convenience and flexibility of tablets such as the ASUS Vivo Tab RT, major OEMs are also designing tablet PCs with specific features to suit enterprise scenarios for example, the Dell's Latitude 10 tablet, which features fingerprint capabilities and a smart card reader for heightened security requirements.

Convertibles and hybrids

Touch is a convenient way to interact with a PC, and there are also times when people want the speed of a keyboard and the precision of a mouse. With new convertible PCs such as the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro and hybrids such as the HP Envy X2, users don't need to make an either/or decision. Both feature a traditional clamshell laptop design plus a touch screen that separates from the keyboard and transforms into a tablet.

All-in-ones

All-in-ones such as the Acer Aspire 7600U feature large, touch-sensitive displays that can either detach from the desktop station or rotate to lie flat.The Sony VAIO L Series that feature the X-Reality proceeding engine found inside BRAVIA TVs. Select models offer latest-generation "glasses-free" 3-D technology, turning your office PC into cutting-edge entertainment device.

Notebooks and Ultrabooks

For anyone who needs to combine portability with power to compose and create using traditional keyboard and mouse input, today's notebooks and super-slim Ultrabook computers still offer a premium PC experience. Those who want a big display for movies or design work may want a full-size notebook such as the Toshiba Satellite U845W, with its true HD wide screen that is perfect for getting a great view of the action. Ultrabook form factor, such as the sleek new HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 or the razor-thin ASUS Zenbook PRIME UX21A Touch.

Want to learn more?

Do you want to learn more about all these new PCs? Check out the  Microsoft OEM newsroom highlights the latest hardware innovations, product news, reviews, events and other press materials for Microsoft products across a variety of devices.See http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/oem/

Science@Microsoft, an e-book that commemorates our many years of Microsoft Research activities with the academic research community.

This celebration of collaboration, demonstrates the breadth of our collaborative research and the potential of computer science to address some of the world’s problems. These stories demonstrate the amazing power of technology to impact areas far afield from traditional computer science.

Science@Microsoft is available as a PDF at microsoft.com/scienceatmicrosoft. It is also available for the Kindle at Amazon.

Learn more:

· Download the PDF

· Get the Kindle version

· Read the blog

· Read more

Windows Azure  makes it incredibly easy to connect your client and mobile applications to a scalable cloud backend.

New features include:

• iOS support – enabling you to connect iPhone and iPad apps to Mobile Services
• Facebook, Twitter, and Google authentication support with Mobile Services
• Blob, Table, Queue, and Service Bus support from within your Mobile Service
• Sending emails from your Mobile Service (in partnership with SendGrid)
• Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service (in partnership with Twilio)

iOS Support

This initial support for connecting iOS based devices (including iPhones and iPads) to Windows Azure Mobile Services.  Native iOS libraries to enable this under an open source (Apache 2.0) license on GitHub.  We’re excited to get your feedback on this new library through our forum and GitHub issues list, and we welcome contributions to the SDK.

To create a new iOS app or connect an existing iOS app to your Mobile Service, simply select the “iOS” tab within the Quick Start view of a Mobile Service within the Windows Azure Portal – and then follow either the “Create a new iOS app” or “Connect to an existing iOS app” link below it:

Clicking either of these links will expand and display step-by-step instructions for how to build an iOS application that connects with your Mobile Service:

Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple iOS “Todo List” app that stores data in Windows Azure.  Then follow the below tutorials to explore how to use the iOS client libraries to store data and authenticate users.

• Get Started with data in Mobile Services for iOS
• Get Started with authentication in Mobile Services for iOS

Facebook, Twitter, and Google Authentication Support

The preview of Mobile Services supported the ability to authenticate users of mobile apps using Microsoft Accounts (formerly called Windows Live ID accounts).  This week we are adding the ability to also authenticate users using Facebook, Twitter, and Google credentials.  These are now supported with both Windows 8 apps as well as iOS apps (and a single app can support multiple forms of identity simultaneously. Therefore offering far more choice to you app user.)

The below tutorials walkthrough how to register your Mobile Service with an identity provider:

• How to register your app with Microsoft Account
• How to register your app with Facebook
• How to register your app with Twitter
• How to register your app with Google

The tutorials above walkthrough how to obtain a client ID and a secret key from the identity provider. You can then click on the “Identity” tab of your Mobile Service (within the Windows Azure Portal) and save these values to enable server-side authentication with your Mobile Service. You can then write code within your client or mobile app to authenticate your users to the Mobile Service.

For example, below is the code you would write to have them login to the Mobile Service using their Facebook credentials:

Windows Store App (using C#):

var user = await App.MobileService

.LoginAsync(MobileServiceAuthenticationProvider.Facebook);

iOS app (using Objective C):

UINavigationController *controller =

[self.todoService.client

loginViewControllerWithProvider:@"facebook"

completion:^(MSUser *user, NSError *error) {

//...

}];

Learn more about authenticating Mobile Services using Microsoft Account, Facebook, Twitter, and Google from these tutorials:

• Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for Windows Store (C#)
• Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for Windows Store (JavaScript)
• Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for iOS

Using Windows Azure Blob, Tables and ServiceBus with your Mobile Services

Mobile Services provide a simple but powerful way to add server logic using server scripts. These scripts are associated with the individual CRUD operations on your mobile service’s tables. Server scripts are great for data validation, custom authorization logic (e.g. does this user participate in this game session), augmenting CRUD operations, sending push notifications, and other similar scenarios.  

Server scripts are written in JavaScript and are executed in a secure server-side scripting environment built using Node.js.  You can edit these scripts and save them on the server directly within the Windows Azure Portal:

You now have the ability to work with other Windows Azure services from your Mobile Service server scripts.  This is supported using the existing “azure” module within the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js.  For example, the below code could be used in a Mobile Service script to obtain a reference to a Windows Azure Table (after which you could query it or insert data into it):

var azure = require('azure');

var tableService = azure.createTableService("<< account name >>",

"<< access key >>");

Follow the tutorials on the Windows Azure Node.js dev center to learn more about working with Blob, Tables, Queues and Service Bus using the azure module.

Sending emails from your Mobile Service

We have also added the ability to easily send emails from your Mobile Service, building on our partnership with SendGrid. Whether you want to add a welcome email upon successful user registration, or make your app alert you of certain usage activities, you can do this now by sending email from Mobile Services server scripts.

To get started, sign up for SendGrid account at http://sendgrid.com . Windows Azure customers receive a special offer of 25,000 free emails per month from SendGrid. To sign-up for this offer, or get more information, please visit http://www.sendgrid.com/azure.html .

One you signed up, you can add the following script to your Mobile Service server scripts to send email via SendGrid service:

var sendgrid = new SendGrid('<< account name >>', '<< password >>');

sendgrid.send({

to: '<< enter email address here >>',

from: '<< enter from address here >>',

subject: 'New to-do item',

text: 'A new to-do was added: ' + item.text

}, function (success, message) {

if (!success) {

console.error(message);

}

});

Follow the Send email from Mobile Services with SendGrid tutorial to learn more.

Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service

SMS is a key communication medium for mobile apps - it comes in handy if you want your app to send users a confirmation code during registration, allow your users to invite their friends to install your app or reach out to mobile users without a smartphone.

Using Mobile Service server scripts and Twilio’s REST API, you can now easily send SMS messages to your app.  To get started, sign up for Twilio account. Windows Azure customers receive 1000 free text messages when using Twilio and Windows Azure together.

Once signed up, you can add the following to your Mobile Service server scripts to send SMS messages:

var httpRequest = require('request');

var account_sid = "<< account SID >>";

var auth_token = "<< auth token >>";

// Create the request body

var body = "From=" + from + "&To=" + to + "&Body=" + message;

// Make the HTTP request to Twilio

httpRequest.post({

url: "https://" + account_sid + ":" + auth_token +

"@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/" + account_sid + "/SMS/Messages.json",

headers: { 'content-type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },

body: body

}, function (err, resp, body) {

console.log(body);

});

The above features are all now live in production and are available to use immediately.

Access to Azure for FREE for students and educators

If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a FREE academic educators pass at http://www.windowsazure.com/education and start using Mobile Services today.

Curriculum Resources for Windows Azure

See http://www.microsoft.com/faculty for teaching materials for Windows Azure

Development Resources

Development Resources Visit the Windows Azure Mobile Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with Mobile Services.

For details as new features become available soon http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/community/blog/

Developer Tools for developers using the cloud in the public sector

• Windows 8 and SDK – Windows 8 and SDK samples
• DreamSpark – Developer and Platforms tools for students including Visual Studio Professional, Visual Studio Express 2012 – Visual Studio 2010 for Windows 8, Windows Phone and Windows Azure 
  Windows Azure SDK – All tools you need to create cloud apps with Microsoft Visual 2010
• Windows Phone SDK – All tools you need to create Windows Phone apps
• Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone – Build mobile apps for Windows Azure
• Windows Azure Toolkit for Android – Windows Azure toolkit for Android Developers
• Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS – Windows Azure toolkit for iOS Developers
• WebMatrix – Free web development tool

Learning and Training for developers using the cloud

• Windows Azure Student and Educator Trail – Create a free trial account and launch your first cloud app!
• Generation App - - Start with an idea. Code that idea. Then market it to the masses.
• Windows 8 Sign Up - – How to develop a Windows 8 app in 30 days
• Windows Phone Sign Up - - How to develop a Windows Phone app in 30 days
• Windows Azure Training Kit – Learn and get started with building cloud apps
• Windows Azure Team Blog – Find the latest from the Windows Azure team
• Windows Azure Real World Guidance – Learn tips and tricks from other Windows Azure users

Online Resources

• Windows Azure MSDN Benefits – Activate account through your MSDN benefits
• Windows Azure Feature Voting – Share and vote ideas on Windows Azure
• Cloud App Development – Free books by Microsoft Patterns and Practices
• Windows Azure QA – Post questions and get answers at StackOverflow.com
• SharePoint and Windows Azure Development Kit – Cloud and SharePoint integration
• Windows Azure Pricing Calculator – Windows Azure pricing calculator
• Windows Azure User Group – Attend current or past Windows Azure presentations virtually
• Windows 8 Design Assets – Download design assets for Metro style apps

Open Data and Big Data resources and links

• The UK Open Government Data website - provides an easy way to find, access and reuse public datasets from the UK Government and Local Authority data.
• Windows Azure Marketplace – a one-stop shop for premium data and applications
• Microsoft Big Data – information and tools for Microsoft's Big Data solution
• Hadoop on Windows Azure – Apache Hadoop-based for Windows Azure