Windows Phone App of the Week: Mixtapes Stream Custom Mixes from Other Users Onto Your Windows Phone
Rather than act as a typical Internet radio station, Mixtapes allows DJs to upload their custom mixes, which can be accessed and streamed by Windows Phone users. By creating an account, users can track favorite songs, DJs, or mixes. You can also check out who else is following your favorite DJs, so you can poke around their favorites and find new songs or mixes.
Mixtapes can play in the background, and track skipping can be controlled from the lock screen.Mixtapes is available now on the Windows Phone Marketplace for free.
Culled from ChipChick
For Developers, Metro Studio 1: Thousands of Metro icons, FREE
A company called SyncFusion has created a product called Metro Studio 1 which looks to be invaluable to developers and designers alike. The companytraditionally develops .NET components for ASP.NET, WPF, WinForms, Silverlight, WP7 and others.
Metro Studio 1 comes with 600 unique metro icons that can then be customized through the interface. You can change the size, padding, background shape, and colors of any icon. Plus, the XAML source is provided for the icons, or you can save the PNG. Every icon is vector based (hence why the XAML source is available), so exporting at any size is possible.
Best of all, the studio is totally free, and every icon is royalty-free and can be used in commercial projects.
So go on, download it now.
via wpcentral
Microsoft Shows Off Interactive Wearable Multitouch Projector
Microsoft Research is continuing its efforts into Natural User Interaction space. The latest project they demoed is a Interactive Wearable Multi-touch Projector. The project is in its early stage, but you can see the potential from the video above. People can project their computing interfaces over any surface and start interacting with it. Microsoft Research has done similar projects in the past with the name of wearable computing.
Read more on this at Microsoft.com/next
via Microsoft News
Windows Phone App of the Week: Augmented Colors
Augmented Colors does one thing well. Boot up the app, aim the crosshairs at the scenery around you using your phone’s camera from within the app, and fire away. Whatever color is in the center of your crosshairs will be saved, shared, or pinned to a live tile. That’s about all there is to it.
Augmented Colors is available as a trial for free, which limits sharing and saving. Otherwise, the app costs $0.99 on the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Culled from ChipChick
Windows 8 for keyboard users
Image credit: ZDNet
So you’ve got your Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and you are the physical keyboard type? Here’s a list of some helpful keyboard shortcuts.
| Shortcut | Action |
| Windows key + spacebar | Toggles between input languages and keyboard layout |
| Windows key + , | Peeks at the desktop |
| Windows key + Enter | Starts Narrator |
| Windows Key + PgUp | Moves full screen window (i.e., the new Metro UI) to the monitor on the left in multi-mon situations. |
| Windows Key + PgDn | Moves full screen to the right |
| Windows Key + Shift + .Windows Key + . | Snaps application and/or moves the snapped app to left/right |
| Windows Key + c | Opens charms bar |
| Windows Key + i | Opens Settings |
| Windows Key + k | Opens Devices charm |
| Windows Key + h | Opens Share charm |
| Windows Key + q | Opens Search charm |
| Windows Key + w | Opens Settings search |
| Windows Key + f | Opens Files search |
| Windows Key + z | Toggle AppBar |
Credit: timheuer.com
One Day later..1 Million Downloads Of Windows 8 Consumer Preview!
Microsoft today announced that Windows 8 Consumer Preview was downloaded over 1 million times since yesterday. “One day later…one million downloads of the consumer preview,” a Microsoft spokesperson posted on the company’s Building Windows 8 Twitter account. Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its upcoming desktop and tablet operating system during a press conference on Wednesday, and response has been generally positive. Windows 8 marries a Metro-based touch-friendly tablet platform with a Windows 7-like desktop experience, creating a single operating system that is both versatile and powerful. Microsoft said it plans to launch Windows 8 later this year.
