It's
been a while that we talked about Microsoft's Windows Vista
SideShow feature
and while SideShow is still not too popular, finally there are some good chances
we might see it officially coming to Windows Mobile as well. Windows SideShow is
a new technology which was introduced with Windows Vista and so far it's
mostly used to support a secondary screen on mobile PCs, even if the developers
also had remote control support for Windows Media Center, and digital photo
frames in mind.
With this additional display you can view important information whether your
laptop is on, off, or in sleep mode.
However, so far there isn't too much SideShow compatible hardware available
and even HTC's Shift
UMPC isn't utilizing SideShow to display received E-Mails and PIM data but HTC
decided to use its own technology called
SnapVUE, which is
based on Windows Mobile. One problem is, that SideShow requires dedicated
hardware instead of utilizing exisitng hardware - namely Windows Mobile.
Anyway, in the
Windows
SideShow Team Blog a new SDK Beta was recently announced which adds some new
features like:
- Portrait QVGA UI designed for remote controls
- New Universal driver for Windows SideShow that supports USB and Bluetooth
communication
- New Bluetooth menu commands
QVGA and Bluetooth? Exactly - two feature nearly every Windows Mobile devices
sports today. Imagine if you could use your Bluetooth connected Windows Mobile
smartphone to remote control your Windows Media Center as well as getting
information from your Media Center delivered to your smartphone, like the EPG,
playlist, etc.
This would be cool and - even more important - it would definitely makes
sense. Microsoft constantly launches interesting new technologies, features and
services, however - in most cases these technologies and services are not
working with each other.
Anyway, a Windows Mobile SideShow support isn't confirmed today but with the
new SDK, there are some real chances we will finally get a broader support of
it.
Cheers ~ Arne
