This week at Microsoft: Windows Phone, Surface, and Ray Bradbury

Happy Friday folks, I do trust you had fun last night. It’s time for the classic TNW roundup of all things Microsoft from the last week, our lovely and enduring post about Redmond’s doings, happenings, and leaks.

If I ever die, you will know as this post will cease. Now, do positively ensure that you are following TNW’s Microsoft channel on both Twitter, and Facebook, and let’s crawl right into it.

Windows Phone

There are two important Windows Phone stories out this week: the first being that the Windows Phone Marketplace will now be known as the Windows Phone Store, and the second that Instagram may be coming to Windows Phone.

Both bits are somewhat self-explanatory. The first is simply a naming shift to fit Microsoft’s larger ‘Store’ branding, and has been long hinted at and awaited. TNW expects that other, non-‘Store’ names will shift in the future to the nomenclature, including the Xbox Marketplace.

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The Instagram news is more fun. From our coverage:

[The Verge’s Tom] Warren’s sources say Instagram is coming to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system as a standalone app before the end of 2012. This is great news for both Microsoft and Windows Phone fans alike.

Instagram is a terrible photo app – we all know it – but that doesn’t stop it from being popular; its introduction would help Windows Phone beat back a bit of its app shortfall that keeps folks from the platform.

Surface Graffiti

Microsoft wants the Surface line of tablets to be so cool that they essentially need a hip replacement. But, it doesn’t want to dump oodles into advertising of the traditional sort because it is probably too early, and the company might not want to piss off its OEM partners any more than it has already.

So, as they say online, ‘wat do?’ Simple. Paint things. The company is putting up a number of scrawled adverts for the devices, in a quasi-minimalist fashion, sporting a new tagline: Click in. Enjoy:

If you want more, TNW has you covered.

The Holodeck

Watching patents is a bad idea, generally speaking, if you are trying to track news, but it can be an exercise in success if you want to get your mind around where a company sees a certain product segment heading; much like reading tea leaves, you can get lucky, if you are fortunate.

So, to the holodeck! Microsoft had a patent approved recently that builds a gaming room of interesting comport. A primary screen is employed – a larger TV, for example – but the room’s walls have been turned on in a way that extends the display environment. And it uses the Kinect. Here, let me blow your mind:

Oh, and sci-fans, you know what that is quite like, right?

Odds and Ends

To cap this post, we I turn to TNW’s Patented Listing of Other Things technique. Let’s go:

• September’s soft Patch Tuesday is more than worth understanding.
• The Windows Store is now accepting apps, openly, from 120 countries. Microsoft wants to that marketplace populated, so if you are a developer, Ballmer would love it if you start your coding engine.
• Windows Phone 7.8 may be a desultory stopgap that is doomed to the ash-heap of technology, let alone history, but Microsoft is trying to engage the community on its form.
• Skype’s new audio codec is a go, command, I repeat, a go.

Now go pour a scotch, put your feet up, and then get off the damn computer. Top Image Credit: Robert Scoble