Windows Phone 8 is great!

In the summer I switched to using Windows Phone 8 and Outlook.com using a Lumia 820.
So far I am very satisfied with the phone and the software. Windows Phone provides a great customer experience!

Here is a quick list of positive and negative aspects:

Positive:
- people-centric interface - finally, the contacts are all in one place
- Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn integration
- pin anything to start screen - including the pictures of your friends to keep track of what they're up to
- make notes and share them with PC, Mac and iOS with OneNote with cloud sync
- free Adobe Reader allows PDF comments

Negative:
- interface relies too much on text - a few more icons wouldn't hurt
- too few official apps - Dropbox, etc
- some interface disconnects - for instance, in the SMS menu there is no way to call the person

I recommended the following (paid) apps:

Pocket scanner: Handyscan

RSS Reader: feed me

Amazon Price Check

Amazon Price Check, an Android app that allows a customer to check how much a product costs at Amazon.com.

This can be considered a mainstream Internet of Things application. Watch out for many more in the coming years, as the borders between physical and virtual world become more blurred...

Viewtyful

LG GC-900 Viewty Smart

Starbucks ordering table

There's a Starbucks prototype table being tested in Korea.


Read the full story and enjoy your Frappuccino!

John C Dvorak's phone of the future wish list

Here it is, John C Dvorak's wish list for the phone of the future:
- Smart screens and keyboards
- Voice command and speech recognition
- Clear voice technology
- Situational awareness
- Ownership awareness
- Induction charging
- Broadcast TV reception
- Built-in projector
- Point-to-point walkie-talkie
- Extensible

Of all these wishes I agree particularly on "Smart screens and keyboards". I would like to be able to wirelessly connect my iPhone-like device to a proper workstation with full-size screen, keyboard and mouse.

Read the full story on PC magazine's site.

The future of mobile

Andy Rubin, Google's Engineering Director, points out the following topics as possibilities for the future of mobile computing:
- Smart alerts
- Augmented reality
- Crowd sourcing goes mainstream
- Sensors everywhere
- Tool for development
- The future-proof device
- Safer software through trust and verification

You can read the full blog post for more details.