Midweek Download, May 16: Bing Updates Begin Rolling out, New Apps/SDKs for Windows Phone and Deep Dives on Windows 8 Features<p><strong></strong>In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got stories on big updates for Bing, some new apps for Windows Phone and some previews of what you'll see from Windows 8 and IE10. </p>
<p><strong>Bing Updates Available for Test Drive. </strong>You may have <a title="heard last week" href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2012/may12/05-10Bing.aspx">heard last week</a> about some big updates coming to Bing that we think will provide you a new and exciting way to search. The new features began to roll-out Tuesday here in the U.S. You can check out some of the new features at <a href="http://www.bing.com/new">http://www.bing.com/new</a>.</p>
<p>You can also learn more about the updates from the video below, which provides a nice overview of what you'll find in the new Bing some and background on the new features. With a refreshed design, the new snapshot feature for instant access to action-oriented information, or get advice and recommendations from friends and experts with the new social sidebar, it's a big release for the Bing team, and we hope you like it.</p>
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<p> <strong>Aviary SDK available for Windows Phone ... </strong>Steve Clayton reported some <a title="interesting news for developers" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2012/05/14/aviary-photo-editing-platform-lands-on-windows-phone-with-photo-genius-feature.aspx">interesting news for developers</a>, as the folks from Aviary have issued an SDK for Windows Phone, making it easy for a developer to integrate Aviary's <a title="impressive photo editing tools" href="http://www.aviary.com/wp7">impressive photo editing tools</a> into mobile apps.The editor itself can be integrated into a web site or app with a few lines of code, so well worth checking out.</p>
<p><strong>... and LinkedIn too... </strong>Another exciting piece of news for Windows Phone customers. LinkedIn has released a really <a title="nice new app for Windows 7" href="http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/bdc7ae24-9051-474c-a89a-2b18f58d1317">nice new app for Windows 7</a> phones. It's one a lot of us have been looking forward to, and <a title="early reviews" href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/hands-on-linkedin-windows-phone-app-better-than-ios-android-versions/">early reviews</a> of the design and functionality are positive.</p>
<p>You can read more about the app from the <a title="LinkedIn blog" href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/05/14/introducing-linkedin-for-windows-phone/">LinkedIn blog</a>, or <a title="download it" href="http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/bdc7ae24-9051-474c-a89a-2b18f58d1317">download it</a> today.</p>
<p><strong>Security Advantages Emerge in Cloud Computing. </strong>While at first blush, many companies may see a move to cloud-based systems as creating potential security issues, <a title="a new study " href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2012/may12/05-14SMBSecuritySurveyPR.aspx">a new study</a> commissioned by Microsoft shows that many companies are finding the opposite to be true. For many small and mid-sized companies, cloud services can offer a great deal of security benefits and expetise that can be difficult and costly to achieve otherwise. Survey respondents report spending nearly one-third less time managing security issues than those not using cloud services.</p>
<p><strong>Windows 8 Utilities and Disk Health. </strong>In a recent post on the Building Windows 8 Blog, Kiran Bangalore, a program manager on the Windows team, reviews in detail some of the <a title="changes being made to the chkdsk utility" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/09/redesigning-chkdsk-and-the-new-ntfs-health-model.aspx">changes being made to the chkdsk utility</a>, used for detecting and repairing issues of disk corruption. While such issues occur rarely, the time it takes to run can be a source of frustration to Windows users. The changes are designed to make this process more transparent and less intrusive. It's one of the many behind-the-scenes improvements the Windows team is making that promises to save Windows users and IT Administrators a good deal of time and trouble when issues come up. </p>
<p><strong>Windows 8: Sharing Works like a Charm. </strong>One more from Windows 8 - and IE10 - but on the features side. The IE blog has a nice post explaining how the team has made <a title="sharing links faster and easier" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/05/14/sharing-links-from-ie10-on-windows-8.aspx">sharing links faster and easier</a>. Today, sharing a link from a Web site you like involves copying the link, opening or toggling over to another app, and then pasting it in to share or email that link.</p>
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<p>With the share charm, you can share links to Web sites in a much more useful and visually-appealing way. Rather than use cryptic URLs, Windows 8 and IE10 create a rich link preview, using Web page titles, descriptions and thumbnail images to display and share, much as you share items with many social media sites. And Windows 8 and IE10 both support the <a title="OpenGraph protocol" href="http://ogp.me/">OpenGraph protocol</a>, so site owners can control how their web sites and pages show up in Windows 8 as well.</p>
<p>That's all for this week ... thanks for stopping by!</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.technet.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=3498231" width="1" height="1">
Source:
Midweek Download, May 16: Bing Updates Begin Rolling out, New Apps/SDKs for Windows Phone and Deep Dives on Windows 8 Features
