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Google showed off on December 7 a prototype of its mobile tagging technology. The company is “QR” barcodes to more than 100,000 local businesses in the U.S. Mobile users can snap a picture of the bar codes and obtain information about that business — including reviews, coupons, and other information. (Smartphone users need an app on their phones that can read the QR codes.) In January 2009, Microsoft launched a beta of its own bar-code search technology, known as Microsoft Tag. It also introduced a free mobile tag reader. Microsoft, being Microsoft, couldn’t simply rely on the QR standard. Instead, it announed it was creating its own bar code technology that stores more information, more dynamically, offering more user choice. It’s cool that Microsoft Tag allows developers to determine the content and experience users will have by allowing choices of text, video, maps, discounts, promotions. But the lack of QR support is a deal breaker for some.

mHealth Summit: Held Oct. 29-30 in Washington, D.C., the event explored the use of mobile technologies to improve public health.

At PDC 2009, Microsoft demonstrated Silverlight video streaming to an iPhone.

If Microsoft is looking for a differentiating feature for a mobile platform, promoting .NET makes a heck of a lot of sense…particularly if Silverlight is supported in the next version of Windows Mobile (which based on this year’s PDC, seems to be turning into a development platform in its own right).

XBOX is confusingly closed. For the only true TV-attached device in the Microsoft product catalog, it is perplexing to me that XBOX isn’t trying to encourage third-party developers to make non-game network-capable apps that run on the XBOX (well, unless you are Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, or another “big” company).

“Every Google phone works differently, and you have fragmentation,” he said. And indeed that is a common worry among developers who don’t want their applications to be incompatible with certain phones that have unusual screen sizes or features. But then again, Windows Mobile, which has been around for nearly 10 years, already has that same problem, and one of Microsoft’s chief goals in upcoming versions is to rein in the variations between Windows Mobile handsets.

If the iPhone didn't finish off Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, the Motorola Droid may. Windows Mobile is losing the last vestiges of its mojo

In August, according to AdMob, Windows Mobile had only a 4 percent share of the mobile OS market worldwide, down from 7 percent in February

So the Droid may not be the iPhone killer but rather the Windows Mobile slayer. Microsoft, of course, will always have the unassailable PC franchise. But, wait, isn't Android coming to Netbooks next year? Maybe the real battle royal for Microsoft is yet to come.

Researcher Gaetano Borriello won the three-year grant, which includes $900,000 up front and $450,000 per year. An engineer from the company will work directly with Borriello. His project is called "Open Data: Data Collection from Mobile Devices."

Several technology firms targeting retail segment such as Microsoft, Cisco and Google and leading retailers are already testing ideas with this AR concept. Although none have been successful yet, few of the products / concepts such as high capacity mobile computing (e.g. iPhone & DROID) and Microsoft’s ‘Project Natal’   seem to be promising to take this technology mainstream in the near future.