LAS VEGAS--Silverlight was born as a alternative to Adobe Flash, but it's grown beyond the desktop browser and now (finally) finds a home on Windows Phone.

For developers, it's a new way to create fluid (and very attractive) mobile apps. In conjunction with Microsoft's new "panoramic" paradigm for Windows Phone, what you get is an extremely fluid way to move within an app. Swiping left and right is seamless and very fast. The bullet points:

• Hardware-accelerated video with multicodec digital rights management (DRM) and Internet Information Services Smooth Streaming support
• Vector and bitmap graphics with perspective 3-D
• Multitouch support with Accelerometer, an intuitive control that responds to motion
• Deep Zoom support for rich reading experiences
• Camera and microphone support
• Notification Service for pushing information to the phone, regardless of whether or not an application is running
• Integration with the core Windows Phone 7 Series experience features such as hubs

For end users, it means an immersive experience that's long been missing from Windows Mobile. Examples shown today at MIX10 included the new AP Mobile app, the stock Windows Phone photo gallery, and -- believe it or not -- an honest-to-goodness 3D Xbox Live game, running right on the Windows Phone.

LAS VEGAS -- We were promised more answers at MIX10, and now we're getting them. Microsoft this morning announced its developer tools for Windows Phone 7 Series.

Front and center is Silverlight. The Silverlight 4 Release Candidate is now available, "which will enable developers to create and deploy even more robust applications and rich interactive experiences." It finally brings what was born as a Flash alternative to the mobile space -- and not just as another way to view content in a browser. Silverlight's a major player here, folks, along with the XNA framework that's already been discussed.

Developer tools are free, including Expression Blend, and a preview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express is part of the download. What, you're not up on your Expression Blend? It's a "development workflow tool which includes features such as Path Layout to enable developers and designers to build and animate innovative UI design via ground-breaking visual layout mechanism, without the need to write code. The beta also supports Silverlight 4, .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010." Think of it as more of a visual tool, rather than coding line by line.

Windows Phone Marketplace replaces the Windows Marketplace for Mobile (finally, Microsoft manages to find a shorter name for something), which brings "a new merchandising tool that will enable developers and designers to bring applications and games to market and increase the discoverability of applications with customers while supporting one-time credit card purchases, mobile operator billing and advertising-funded applications."

There's tons more to come this week, and we'll dive deeper into things as the week progresses.

MSFT Kitchen has once again done all the dirty work by shifting through LinkedIn profiles to find little cherries of information on Windows Mobile 7.  Check out the last summary of such an adventure.

Nothing too extraordinary though we do see that, as we've said in previous podcasts, Silverlight will play a major role on the device.

Other tidbits:

• Mobile Entertainment/Zune Group is working together on gaming for WM7 (foreshadow?)
• IE7 exists
• USB On-the-Go support (nice)
• Bing in Silverlight
• DirectShow support
• Motorola, Motorola, Motorola--they are not out
• Mirage = codename?

Read all the nerdy details at MSFT Kitchen.

So at this point we're ready to accept the fact that Windows Mobile 7 probably is further along than we thought. One recent slide leak by UX Evangelist shows it going to testers later this year, with a launch in April 2010.

Bolstering that argument are a couple more of those slides decoded by ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley, who dives into the architecture of future versions of Windows Mobile. The slides show what may be the next version of Windows CE, from which Windows Mobile is built. This new version of Win CE may prove to be "Cashmere" (named for a city in Washington state).

What's that mean to you, the end user? We point you to Slide No. 2: Built into Cashmere would be support for FlashLite (and beyond, Foley says, the Flash support currently built into the new versions of Internet Explorer). An improved connections manager (huzzah!), built-in Live Messenger (finally) and support for those non-touch gestures Foley previously wrote about would all be onboard.

So will all of this end up in Windows Mobile 7? Foley doesn't know for sure, and Microsoft isn't telling. If Cashmere isn't used to build Windows Mobile 7, it's possible, she says, that the "Chelan" version of Win CE is being prepped. And with it would come IE7 support, Silverlight (which it's been said before would be in the next version of Windows Mobile), better ActiveSync (um, yay), and a host of other features.

Basically what we have here are a bunch of possible future features spilled onto a table, albeit wrapped up in nice little packages. What exactly will make it into Windows Mobile 7 is still anybody's guess. But we've got a good look now at what the future may hold.

Looks like Ars Technica has done a nice summary of the TechEd 2009 and depending on your thoughts and feelings about the new UI layout in WM6.5, you may find this admission from Senior Project Manager Loke Uei Tan either remarkable for the talent or shocking due to the obvious time constraints, which resulted in an uninspiring UI layout:

The reason why we couldn't complete the interface on Windows Mobile 6.5 is because of time. We only spend what, eight months, nine months, to build 6.5 from ground up and it's actually an amazing engineering feat. But, in order to do that, we had to do some prioritization and we had to cut certain features. Eventually, we will make sure that the UI capabilities are carried out throughout the whole platform.

This pretty much confirms what we already knew: WM6.5 was not really suppose to happen, that in effect it was a stop-gap till WM7 gets released.  Just how old is WM7?  Anyone remember a thing called "Photon" mentioned at the end of 2005?  Yeah.

Anyways, being WMExperts, we're going to be less snarky than Gizmodo and give the WinMo team a little pat on the back, with a firm, violent shaking saying 'you better not let us down with 'Photon' er WM7'!

The Silverlight news just keeps on a'comin, this time in the form of Deep Zoom. No, it's not some sort of Apple mole feeding inside information back to Redmond. To put it simply:

Silverlight Deep Zoom allows users to explore collections of super high resolution imagery, from a 2 or 3 megapixel shot from a digital camera to gigapixel scans of museum pieces, all without waiting for huge file downloads. The simple zooming interface allows users to explore entire collections down to specific details in extreme close-up, all with fantastic performance and smooth transitions.

Couple Deep Zoom with the multitouch capability in the latest Silverlight beta, and it could have the makings of a pretty slick mobile browsing experience. And Microsoft basically says it intends to do just that. Microsoft VP Scott Guthrie told The Register that what you see in Silverlight on the desktop is what we also should eventually see on mobile phones.

"Deep Zoom will be in. Our goal is to keep the experience between desktop and mobile basically the same."

Read more about Deep Zoom here, and check it out in action with Hard Rock Memorabilia.

Thanks to theog for the tip!

All of the sudden, it seems that Microsoft and YouTube are all buddy-buddy.

Most of note for Windows Mobile users is that a native mobile app has finally been released. Just head to m.youtube.com in your favorite mobile browser and hit up the link therein.

Also worth a mention is that YouTube, which as every smartphone owner knows uses Flash to feed its Web content, apparently is using Silverlight for its dedicated March Madness college basketball channel. Or, as el jefe put it, "You got Silverlight in my YouTube!  You got YouTube in my Silverlight!" Point, Microsoft! Now, if MS will finally get Silverlight on our phones ...

Silverlight, Microsoft's Flash competitor, may finally be coming to Windows Mobile, at least according to a recent Twitter post. [via the:unwired]

As you can see above, "Just got word that Silverlight will be available in the next release of Windows Mobile." OK, that's not nearly the same as an official news release from Microsoft or anything, but it's certainly a glimmer of hope.

First widgets, and now eventually Silverlight? A lot of that trash talk about WM6.5 not having enough new features may soon enough one day be going by the wayside, huh, folks?

Update: As noted in our comments (thanks, guys!), the news out of MIX09 is that Silverlight missed the 6.5 window and is now targeting Windows Mobile 7. That's Twitter rumors for ya.

We've been waiting for Microsoft's Silverlight since, oh, April of 2007. Since then, we've seen demos, had our expectations raised, brought back to earth, and raised again. Well now it seems that the mobile version isn't too much further off. Turns out it was slipped in sideways inside a Windows Live photo gallery 'Community Technology Preview' that leaked out.

Silverlight seems to have lost some of its initial momentum of late and nobody is claiming that it's going to take down Flash. However, as we said back in June (seriously, a long time we've been following this stuff) when we saw a WeatherBug demo, Silverlight has the potential to bring some whiz-bang UI to WM. Would be nice to see it.

Well how about that. Silverlight's getting the upgrade to the big 2.0. (Guess these guys won't be coming to the party.)

Says Mary-Jo Foley at ZDNet:

Microsoft officials said Silverlight 2 will be available for download from the company’s Silverlight site starting on October 14. They also said that anyone using a beta version of Silverlight 2 or Silverlight 1 will be “automatically upgraded” via Microsoft’s various patching systems to Silverlight 2 in the coming months. (However, users will be able to block the Silverlight 2 download if they decide to do so.)

Microsoft's alternative to Adobe Flash has had its share of ups and downs, but it's still alive and kicking and hopefully a step closer to actually making its way onto a mobile device. And for proof that they're actively working on it, we again turn to Ms. Foley, who updated an earlier blog post stating that Silverlight for mobile would be a topic at this month's Professional Developer's Conference.

“In this demo-filled session learn how to extend your existing Silverlight 2 applications to work on Windows Mobile and how to build rich mobile Silverlight apps that access device peripherals such as camera; GPS or WiFi or the radio stack for location; as well as mobile web services. We also talk about tooling enhancements in Microsoft Visual Studio that support Silverlight app development on Windows Mobile, what to consider when delivering eye-popping UI on mobile, and help you understand the key differences from developing Silverlight apps for the desktop.”

That sounds like it's a lot farther than tinkering around in the ol' garage. Anyhoo, while we wait for the mobile goodness teased to lo' those many moons ago, snag the updated Silverlight on Tuesday and keep your fingers crossed that we'll see something when Windows Mobile 7 finally sees the light of day.

Update: It's heeeeere. Have fun.