University of Southampton: ASTRA Program

> [!VIDEO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/95e41360-3199-4af8-a96c-108f6278e90b]

Windows Phone 7 at the Edge of Space A team of researchers from Southampton University's ASTRA Projectrigged up a Windows Phone 7 to a helium filled meteorologicalballoon and sent it skywards. It travelled at 90mph to a height of18,237 meters (that's over 60,000 feet) then fell back to earth tobe successfully recovered in a flight that lasted 1 hour and 16minutes. University of Southampton : ASTRA Program Develop for the Cloud Develop for Windows Phone

A team of researchers from Southampton University's ASTRA Project rigged up a Windows Phone 7 to a helium filled meteorological balloon and sent it skywards. It travelled at 90mph to a height of 18,237 meters (that's over 60,000 feet) then fell back to earth to be successfully recovered in a flight that lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes. This flight was a test in payload retrieval technology. An application developed by Segoz allowed the phone to transmit data over the GSM network until it went too high to make contact. As the payload started to fall back to earth and came into contact with the GSM network once again, the application off-loaded the computational requirements and data to Windows Azure (Microsoft's cloud computing platform). Researchers on the ground could watch the balloon on its journey via the Segoz application as it logged location and altitude information with Windows Azure finally crunching the data to work out the probable landing site.   Other stories How a German-based Startup revolutionized mobile learning When Vela CEO, Sebastian Witzman wanted to get his boating permit in Germany a few years back he he noticed that the licensing bureau's instruction was an outdated index-card based learning model. He decided to change the game by taking learning into the mobile world to allow consumers to learn anytime, anywhere they want. Chronorace Offers Athletes Seamless Access to Race Results ChronoRace electronically times competitors in sporting events and publishes the results on its website. But during large competitions, its web servers could not cope with the high volume of traffic. Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner RealDolmen, ChronoRace migrated to Windows Azure cloud services. The site now easily meets sudden peaks in demand and makes results available online immediately, enhancing the customer experience.