Since Sunday Night Football is over, have you watched NBC on Sunday night in the interim? If not, here is a reason to tune in, the Microsoft Surface is on America's Next Great Restaurant. I watched my first full episode last night and it turned out to be an interesting –in a good way– twist on the reality-contest genre. The show is looking for the next big, yet healthy, fast food chain fast casual restaurant. To my surprise, towards the end of the episode, I saw the judges, known as investors on this show, using a bit of technology that that was also interesting in a good way. To be sure I saw what I saw, I asked Twitter. Fortunately, I received a response, from the Microsoft Surface team. Thanks!

Microsoft’s Surface (v1.0), the multi-touch table that set the bar for multi-touch tables, is the centerpiece of the judging table. The PC appeared briefly towards the end of episode I watched. One of the judges investors appeared to be using it to sort through some of his notes. In earlier episodes, the Surface is present, as it is built into the judges’ table, however it is not being used in its primary role as a touchable PC table. This is unfortunate, as there was an episode that featured the budding restaurateurs branding their restaurant ideas. To me, that episode had a lot of potential to give the food/PC/graphics exposition a natural tie-in with the Surface but the show did not flow towards that type of cohesion.

Featuring Surface on TV is cool. However, letting it sit there and not be used is an issue. I wonder if NBC, can find a way to integrate more use of the Microsoft Surface into future episodes -perhaps looking at the menus of the contestants or pictures and videos of the the food that was prepared. Though lack of post production for a given contest might prevent it, I think video or slideshows, with playback controlled by the Surface touchscreen, could be used as a learning tool for the contestant restaurateurs. Having a giant touch screen seems it would provide the investors with a number of opportunities to –literally- circle something that appears wrong, for example giving better feedback on a menu layout, logo, or uniform design. As it stands the use of the Surface shines in web exclusive clips on Hulu (sorry mobile users). These clips feature the investors talking more about the happenings of a particular show with the Surface being used as a visual aid in their conversation. Below is one of these clips that shows the Surface in action. Here the investors use it to show some of the restaurant proposals that did not make it into the show.

If you watch America’s Next Great Restaurant, it is on NBC at 8pm ET on Sundays. It features the creator of the Chipotle chain! Full episodes are availabe on Hulu as well. Apart from wishing you could sample what they were cooking for the first forty-five minutes you will be able to see the Surface during the judging portions of the show. Perhaps a Windows laptop will make an appearance down the line.

In this age of smartphone music subscription services and media players, do you still listen to the radio? If so, you are not alone. In fact, more people listened to the radio in 2010 than 2009. According to an Arbitron report released on Monday, known as the RADAR 108 survey, the number of people who listen to the radio increased in 2010. Arbitron is a media research company. RADAR stands for Radio’s all Dimension Audience Research. 56 radio stations operated by 7 radio networks make up the audience research group. According to the RADAR 108 survey, just over 74 percent of people 12 years old or older heard at least one radio advertisement during an average week within the survey period. This translates to an increase in the estimated listening audience of just under 7 million people, or 3.4 percent overall,  to 193.1 million people. Arbitron’s survey period lasted from January 7, 2010 to December 8, 2010. During that period they surveyed a total of 395,382 people. To see how Arbitron’s numbers break down for people 18 an above, check out their breakdown of radio network ratings.

Even though more people listen to the radio it may be they listen to the radio for a shorter amount of time. In 2010, Edison Research completed a smaller 875 person study that concluded people spend less time listening to the radio. In particular, this part of its study focused on people aged 12-24 and saw that listening to the radio as a morning activity declined 33 percent from 74 to 41 percent over a 10 year period from 2000 to 2010. Though people spend less time listening to the radio, the report found that it was still their primary source for discovering new music, with 51% frequently learning about new music over the air waves. For those with cell phones within the same age group, online radio stations, like Slacker and Pandora, beat out traditional radio usage at 18 and 16 percent respectively. Check out Edison’s entire report here (pdf). One (of many) interesting fact is that only 42 percent of those surveyed had heard of HD radio, a feature built into the Zune HD. Another is the appeal of Pandora’s custom stations and fewer commercials being seen as an advantage over traditional radio. Smart DJ, with Zune Pass, provides a similar feature. Do you think the trend of more people listening less frequently will continue to increase in 2011? Or are internet radio providers going to take over?

Whoa.. It's been a minute since I've posted anything. You can blame Life for that one.

Why they moved the Indie Fest elsewhere might have to do with parking. You can let me know on that one.


Amy and I wanted to the Indie Fest early because she is friends with the manager of Vokab Kompany. But for this reason and that one, we ended up being fashionably late and we missed them. However, I keep insisting that we've seen them before, at the 2009 Kick Gas Festival.


Once at Liberty station, Amy and I find that there are little hippie booths in one direction, so we walk over. There's a small stage where a band is prepping and I spot Coconut Jewelry. If you have gauged ears, you should check these guys out. They have very cool earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, you get the idea. Hell, you can buy earrings from them even if you don't have gauged lobes. Like how I do.. Or is it don't? Point is, Amy blew all her cash there. That's how lovely Coconut Jewelry's products are. I also got in on some of the earring action. Woot.


After that, we walked to the next booth and Amy got us some really nice hats. I'd share the proprietor's name and website, but I already looked them up and there wasn't anything to be found. Damn pot heads..


We then checked out some artwork and toured the restroom facilities.


Once all that was said and done, Amy and I made our way to the Durga Sound Main Stage as presented by 91X . But first, we bought the $22 (for students) tickets (full price was $25). Since Amy won't be 21 until the end of July, we both had to kick it in the <21 area. After a little while, Amy says that she's thirsty. No problem 'cause there are some food vendors in the fenced off area. But! They're cash only. Come to find out that the only ATM to be found is in the 21+ space. So after thinking it over for two seconds, Amy and I decide that I'll go in (since I'm 24) and I'll withdraw some cash from the ATM that's 20 feet (..give or take) from the beer garden entrance.  I go through the flashing-my-CA-license procedure, getting braceleted (yes), and I walk over to the ATM. All for not. The machine doesn't seem to work. I slid the card a couple times and the screen didn't even flicker. "Amy's gonna be maaaaad," I say out loud (because I talk to myself and everyone there was drunk anyway). I walk back to the awkward age area and let Amy know what happened. We end up having to leave the Main Stage and buying some Boba Chai Tea (mine) and Raspberry Green Tea with Jelly (Amy's) right outside the fenced off area. Yes, I let the Indie Fest people know that they may have boo-booed on that one; I don't pointlessly rant. I Tweeted them the predicament and they agreed with me.
Once quenched, we head back inside the fenced off 91X Main Stage and get to watch Jorge and Alexa Narvaez perform their four song set. After all that cuteness, we discover what had already existed: AWOLNATION. Amy and I both really liked what they have to offer. They used like three different genres within each song; punk, reggae, screamo. I thought it was really awesome. I'm still getting to know AWOLNATION, so I'm not entirely sure what songs were in their set. But you should definitely check them out.


After that, we decided to call it quits for the night since we had to head home via public transportation. And it was really cold.


If you're in the San Diego area some time around Indie Fest season, I think you'll really enjoy what San Diego has to offer in that respect. I'm bummed that I wasn't able to show up earlier in the day.
I can't wait for next year's.. Where ever in San Diego it may be.






¡LOS LINKS!

• San Diego Indie Fest
• NTC Pronemade
• Liberty Station
• Vokab Kompany
• Coconut Jewelry
• Durga Sound
• 91X San Diego
• Jorge and Alexa Narvaez
• AWOLNATION
• The pictures I took. Not a lot, I know. It's just so you get a feel for the event.
• Video: "Home" and "Be My Baby" covers by Jorge and Alexa Narvaez

The lovely individual who runs the official MicrosoftKB Twitter account sent me some links to a couple of guided walkthrough sites for people who may be having troubles with their Zune device. Check them out!

Zune Device Detection Solution (guided support)

Zune Sync Solution (guided support)

Rhapsody is available for your Windows Phone 7 device, download the Rhapsody app here. After Zune Pass and Rdio, this is the third music subscription service to become available on the Windows Phone 7 platform. While the app is free, the subscription service starts at $9.99 a month. At that price point you can download and stream music to one mobile device. Rhapsody also offers another level of service at $14.99 a month. This pricing tier, known as Rhapsody Premier Plus, is similar to Zune Pass in that it allows downloading and streaming to three mobile devices per month. Similar to Zune on Xbox, Rhapsody is available on other devices such as certain TiVo set top boxes and Vizio TVs.

Now with Rhapsody you can listen to the same catalog of 11 million subscription music tracks on an Android, Blackberry, iPhone, or Windows Phone 7 smartphone. With its addition of a Windows Phone 7 app, Rhapsody can be seen as completing the major mobile device ‘quadfecta.’ This music service goes up against other subscription services such as Rdio, MOG, and Spotify. These services provide a similar cross platform music subscription service, albeit with smaller music libraries. Some believe Zune should follow a similar cross platform track. Others wonder if Zune Pass could have more success with a similar hardware-agnostic plan. If Zune were to move to a cross-platform smartphone strategy (a.k.a. horizontally integrate), I believe the quality of Zune's music experience would suffer. Consider the functional difference between music playback on a Zune HD and Zune on Windows Phone 7. Either way, Rhapsody is the second service to move in on one of the selling points of a Windows Phone, what do you make of this news?

Thanks to (the soon to launch) Entertainment Connected for breaking this news. Be sure to visit when they launch in the next few days!

Even though it is Sunday, Rebecca Black’s hit song, Friday, is available on Zune. Download it here.

And now, my thoughts on this: Gotta get this post out, gotta download this song now, gotta play this track while kicking out a Zune tweet. Gotta make my mind up, on which Zune will it play? On my Zune, my Zune, gotta play it on my Zune!

I wrote this you read this this, now you know it’s available from Zune. I’m, I’m I’m so excited! I’m so excited. After you read this you download this, you play this, you share this. Then you gotta ask on which Zune will it play? On your Zune, your Zune, gotta play it on your Zune! Zunetunin’, Zunetunin’ yeah! Fun fun fun looking forward to those song plays.*

In case you have not seen the music video everyone is talking about (and a helpful context to the last two paragraphs I just wrote), watch it below:

 

*That’s pretty much how the song went if you wanted a condensed Zune-ified version of it (nobody?). Also anyone notice how she’s broken Twitter trending topics, like Justin Bieber did back in the day?

From the official Microsoft News Center:

Microsoft and KEXP have teamed up to give the station a “technological makeover” from the inside out, employing software and services such as Windows Azure and Microsoft Dynamics to streamline everything from the way employees and volunteers communicate internally to the way listeners worldwide interact with music. The makeover will take place over the course of three years, though some of the improvements will launch this spring, and fans of the station will soon see changes in the way they can interact with the music the station plays and a wide-range of supporting content that has been hard to find up to now.

Click here for the full, complete story. It's always great to see radio stations attempt to do more with reaching out to listeners and helping them use the power of radio to not only listen to music, but use that as a springboard to find out about other great artists that they might be interested in.

Remember, it was KEXP who helped Microsoft launch the Zune brand back in 2006.

Many people have made it known that they think the price of going to concerts are too high, especially when you're really just paying for a seat that's practically on the roof and music that's more drowned out by sound effects and the noise of 1000s of dancers on stage. Many wish that there was more to the concert experience, they want to be able to tell a really awesome story about the show and have memories that last a lifetime.

Live Nation hopes to create those memorable experiences with their "Premiere Marquee Club". This club allows you unprecedented access to select shows/concerts throughout the year. Here are some of the other benefits of membership into this club:

• Both venues set aside tickets specifically for PMC members to purchase before the general public throughout the season.
• PMC Perk of the Month email offering tickets to bonus shows and sporting events, as well as discounts at local restaurants and theatre events.
• VIP Club Access normally reserved for guests of artists. We are thrilled to offer access to these areas as a way to extend your PMC membership's VIP experience. Admission to the VIP clubs is subject to capacity limitations. Once the PMC registration window closes on April 9, you'll receive an email within 1 week asking you to select the shows at which you wish to utilize your VIP Club Access.
  • Platinum members receive VIP Club Access at 3 shows
  • Gold members receive VIP Club Access at 2 shows
  • Silver members receive VIP Club Access at 1 show
• VIP concession lines specifically for PMC members so you can save time and see more of the show!
• New this year, all-in ticket pricing. The price you see is the price you pay.
• A convenient partial payment plan is available.
• No membership fees.

Taking a look at the pricing sheet for these shows, they still cost a pretty penny (and you have to purchase a minimum of 3 shows in order to reap these rewards). But tell me, does this look like the type of program you would be interested in taking advantage of?

Not everything I do with my Zune is a success. I had grand ideas for the title of this post. Two that came to mind were ‘Zune does NFC’ and ‘Zune HD: Movie Music, Bus Ticket?’ Neither of them came to be. This is a look into my thought process behind wanting to use my Zune to pay for the bus while living in Boston. In the process of trying to remove some plastic from my wallet (i.e. make my Zune RFID capable) I learned something about electrical engineering and RFID chips in the process.

A CharlieCard is Boston’s stored value transit card that the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, affectionately known as ‘the T,’ uses to collect fares on its bus, train, and subway network. This card exists thanks to a radio frequency identification chip (RFID) built into the card. See that square outline illuminated in the light spot from the picture above? That is the chip. It is manufactured under the MIFARE brand. When you hear people talking about NFC (near field communication), they are typically referring to the use of RFID chips. One current example of RFID use in a consumer device is how Google’s Nexus S Phone has an RFID chip built in to the phone, thus giving it NFC capabilities. When it comes to paying to ride mass transportation, the idea behind using a CharlieCard  is that waving the card with an RFID chip over a RFID card reader should be faster than inserting money into a machine for tokens, waiting for a ticket from a human being, or using a coin machine on the bus or train. Overall the idea works pretty well. Not having a Nexus S Phone, I wanted to see if I could pull off the same type of magical RFID wizardry using my Zune HD.

As you can see in the picture above, the CharlieCard, being the size and thickness of a normal credit card, is almost the size of the Zune HD. Simply removing the back cover of my Zune, placing the entire card inside the device, and covering it back up was not going to work. First, the sides of the Zune are tapered. Secondly, if put behind enough aluminum (like say the back panel of a Zune HD), an RFID chip’s ability to be read can be severely diminished.

Try #1:

Going off of the square outline, plus bits of reading about smart cards and RFID interference I had read up to this point, I set out to remove the chip from the card. I wanted to put the extracted chip into my Zune. I had a rough idea about the size of the chip and knew to give the square indentation some leeway when extracting the chip. For the most part, I could see where I needed to cut.

Looking at the above photo, the marks you see at the end of “Autho” are parts where I nicked the seating area of the RFID chip as a result of my cutting. The raised shadow, seen on the left side of the right-most card piece is another indication where I nicked the RFID chip. This time, the peeled-back plastic is on the bottom side of the card piece. I did not make the best first cut. Still, with the RFID chip liberated, it was time to find a place to put it inside my Zune HD. Realizing the aluminum-backed portion of the Zune HD would be off limits I looked up ‘Zune HD disassembly’ and followed the first result.

Thanks to Anything But iPod I learned how to remove the back bottom cover on my Zune HD. Before this, I had only gone as far as removing the aluminum panel of my Zune. the  In doing so, I found the perfect place to put the RFID chip. See the lower left corner? Those of you who know about MIFARE RFID cards can already see where I jumped off the rails when it comes to hacking this CharlieCard. Bear with me, this is a story.

With a little effort I replaced the back bottom cover and aluminum panel on my Zune HD. Now, to test my the RFID chip and gauge my success. One thing about any mass transit system be it, Boston, New York, or LA, you do not want to be ‘that guy’ holding up the line to use the T, MTA, or Metro. As a result my test needed to be quick so my test was: Swipe my Zune HD with the RIFD chip inside over the card reader, check to see if anything registered on the fare box, no? “Oops silly me, this music is really good! Oh, yeah it’s a Zune…” Pull out my wallet, swipe with a known working CharlieCard in my wallet, get on the train. --In short, the test did not work. My Zune was not recognized so I had to use a backup, uncut, CharlieCard in my wallet.

Try #2:

You would be surprised how often in searching for information about the CharlieCard I came across articles on the MIT students who reverse engineered the card in 2008. I was not trying to hack the CharlieCard. I just wanted to hack the CharlieCard. I knew I had some adjustments to make, namely with my cutting ability. Foremost for Try #2, do not nick the chip. To that end I wanted to know, just how big was the RFID chip inside the CharlieCard. Based on experience with Try #1, Wikipedia articles discussing MIFARE, and more articles talking about ISO standards, I had a pretty good idea about the size of the chip. Even though I had seen pictures of chips in smart cards, read articles discussing the frequency those chips used and physical size of the cards in which the chips resided, I did not know the dimensions of the actual RFID chip. As a result, I guessed that the chip could be at its smallest the size of a SIM card.

After trimming the top of the RFID chip I used in Try #1 (hence those two thin strips in the Try #1 photo) I came up with chip dimensions of roughly 9/16” x 7/16” or 14.4mm x 11.1mm. I thought these dimensions would help me make more precise cuts in Try #2. At this point I was all set to make a second set of cuts on a second CharlieCard. Unfortunately, I did not get past the first cut as I came across as issue that ultimately stopped this project.

See the wire sticking out the chin of the person on the right of the card? To my knowledge at the time, it should not have been there.

One thing I learned by reading some of what the MIT students did was that the type of RFID chip in the card they hacked was a MIFARE Classic version. After searching for ‘MIFARE Classic chip size,’ and looking through links on the first page of results, I realized my mistake. The result in particular that helped the most was, from SmartCardSupply.com. Speaking technically, my project ended when I cut the antenna built-into the ISO-7810 ID-1 sized card that allowed the ISO 14443 RFID chip embedded within to communicate with any ISO 14443 card readers. Even though my second attempt made sure to have proper clearance around the RFID chip, there was no way I could remove the chip from the CharlieCard without cutting though the card’s antenna. In both pictures above you can see five tiny dots just to the inside of the outer edge of the CharlieCard. That is the card’s antenna. Because I could not remove the chip without cutting the antennas there was no way for this project to work. The RFID chip was more like an RFID unit. After seeing the first wire, the subsequent cuts you see in the Try #2 pictures confirmed what I learned about the antenna coils running the perimeter of the CharlieCard.

 

Final Thoughts:

[Image Sources, from left to right: SmartCard Supply, iFxit, Patently Apple]

In writing this post I did some subsequent searches, namely for a ‘teardown of the Nexus S’ phone. How did that phone incorporate its NFC chip? Looking at the Nexus S iFixit teardown guide and noting Step 3, you see the RFID chip and its antennas are placed as close to the edge of the device as possible. In particular, the RFID chip and antenna sit on the inside of the rear battery cover, between the battery and the back cover. My guess is this is done to improve RFID signal reading ability.

My question then moves to how does one incorporate RFID into any device? Thinking about device building materials and RF interference, it makes sense that the back of the Nexus S would be plastic. Considering the potential for aluminum interference putting the RFID unit as close to the edge as possible makes sense. But, what if you wanted a metal-backed device and wanted to incorporate RFID? Perhaps you could do something similar to what Apple patented and pack the RFID unit and other antennas behind a logo-window in a hallowed out cavity on the back of an otherwise metal encased device. Another thought is building the RFID antennas around the face of the device, into the bezel, below the glass/plastic front and around the display panel.

In thinking about adding RFID to an existing product, such as my Zune HD, it seems that I needed something more stripped down than a CharlieCard and something smaller than the patch in the back of the Nexus S. Since I could not use a CharlieCard, it is my understanding I would need my own RFID chip writer so that I could program the stripped down unit to function as a CharlieCard. This idea is similar to how a person turned their HTC EVO 4G into a security badge. However, I am sure I do not have the money to put together my own off-the-shelf solution. On a tangent similar to modding a Zune and EVO, one XDA member managed to get the RFID unit in their Nexus S to read their Seattle-based ORCA RFID transit card, via a homemade app known as FareBot.

After reading the FareBot blog post and remembering that Boston uses the hackable MIFARE Classic, the potential for fare evasion is there. Even though Seattle uses a newer card technology known as MIFARE DESFire, the same potential for unauthorized rides remains when you have the ability to tell your RFID chip what to do via software. However, I would argue that the potential to have one less card in my wallet and the ability to use a device I already have in my hand when using public transit is more salient than trying to rip off the T or Sound Transit. Among other uses, hopefully this use as a stored value transit card, is something the next Windows Phone or Zune device could incorporate via the addition of an RFID chip and antenna. RFID has potential. It would have been cooler to say “I can pay my subway fare with my Zune, here are the steps” than sharing this story as to why it is not possible. For the time being, this awesomely informative post will have to do.

Just a quick note, folks.

You can now traverse through zune.net and Facebook Like or Twitter Share interesting artists that you find going through the site. This is nice if you want to use the bookmark-method (as you find artists you want to find a place to store them to come back later) or to let your friends know about great artists that you think they should be listening to.

Actually, it's more than music -- it applies to pretty much any media featured on zune.net.

When going through zune.net just look for the Twitter/Facebook icons at the upper right of the page.

Happy Sharing!

Over the course of a three TV shows, two years, and one movie (or what I know of so far) there has been this laptop that has appeared on TV. To say seeing this laptop on TV is interesting would be an understatement. It looks like it comes from a company that you do not usually associate with laptop manufacturing, Microsoft. If you follow me on Twitter you will remember I have asked about and tweeted some of this before. If not, my question is, where can I get this laptop that looks like a the antithesis to a MacBook and a Lenovo ThinkPad rolled into one? You will have to excuse the quality of some of the pictures as this is live television/cinema I was dealing with.

30 Rock:

Psych:

Chicago Code:

Valentine’s Day:

Have you seen this laptop in other shows? Feel free to share.

3/3/11 Update: Thanks to a comment from coffeeshrk, it looks like Tom’s Hardware has written about the Windows laptop seen in 30 Rock. According to the post, the laptop is a ThinkPad W500. Keep the articles and sightings coming in!

[Image Source: deviantART - ~djsoundwav]

Over the last few weeks the game ‘Words With Friends’ has been popping in and out of my Twitter stream with various friends mentioning, 1) they have the game and 2) their user name, should followers want to play with them. The fact that cross-platform casual social gaming is becoming popular gives me pause. As someone looking in on the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem (my phone is a Droid Incredible), this is one point where quality trumps quantity. If I had a Windows Phone I would want ‘Words With Friends’ to be available for me right now. Thinking about the the ecosystem, if I do not have the opportunity to play against my friends who (at this point) likely have a smartphone other than a Windows Phone we have one less thing we can do together, especially when we are apart.

I know Windows Phone is just getting off the ground. I know it supports asynchronous multiplayer gaming. Lastly, I know live multiplayer gaming is coming some time in the future. However, this is not so much a question of wondering when multiplayer gaming will come so much as wondering what form it will take. Will asynchronous and live cross-platform multiplayer mobile gaming come to Windows Phone 7? To clarify I am wondering if I will be able to play games against friends who have smartphones with a non-Windows Phone OS, as opposed to playing a smartphone game with friends who use an Xbox or PC.

[Image Source: OpenFeint Developers]

Among others, there is a gaming service called OpenFeint that serves both the iOS and Android platforms. Think of it like a smaller version of Steam, specifically for smartphones. It provides a way for developers to enable cross-platform mobile gaming from within their apps. Recently, OpenFeint announced a private beta for a new API that supports cross-platform score comparisons. This API includes support for Windows Phone 7. ‘Fruit Ninja’ is a decent example of an app that looks to benefit from this API, as the game is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Currently, if they have iOS or Android, I can see how my scores stack up against my friends. However, if I had a Windows Phone, Xbox Live would be the only place I could compare top scores. Will this change with the new API? Open Feint seems to coexist well with Apple’s online gaming service, Game Center. Some features are Feint-only. Could the same happen with Xbox Live-ready Windows Phone games? Remember Xbox Live is mostly for Windows Phone and the Xbox 360, with some integration with Games for Windows Live. As far as the multiplayer gaming on the PC is concerned, games support either Games for Windows Live or Steam, not both.

Outright, I am not saying the phone-console-PC integration is a bad thing. It has the potential to be awesome and unique. I would consider this vertical  integration (i.e. within the Microsoft ecosystem). In looking at a smartphone ecosystem, partially I am inclined to choose a phone that gives me the opportunity to play with my friends on their terms, not Apple’s, Android’s, or Microsoft's. I would consider this horizontal integration (i.e. gaming across smartphone OSes). I do not want to convince my friends they need a Windows Phone just to play with me. That is arrogant. I want to play with my friends and not feel punished for choosing one smartphone ecosystem over another. I want to be horizontally integrated. Imagine if Twitter or Facebook were only available for iPhone and Android. To expect everyone to use the same smartphone ecosystem when there are multiple compelling options is ignorant.

Thinking about Windows Phone 7, I realize this post puts the ‘cross-platform’ cart before the ‘multiplayer’ horse (there are only a handful of cross-platform games now) but If examples like Fruit Ninja are an indication of a future dichotomy between Xbox Live and Open Feint (or any similar service), then I wonder if mobile multiplayer will be limited to one platform per app when it comes to Windows Phone 7, with developers choosing their alliances. If so, as far as cross-platform mobile gaming is concerned, that feels more like a punishment for choosing Windows Phone 7 over iOS or Android. Even with a score-sharing API the larger question of cross-platform multiplayer mobile gaming remains unanswered.