It's been a while that we talked about Microsoft's Windows Vista SideShow feature and while SideShow is still not too popular, finally there are some good chances we might see it officially coming to Windows Mobile as well. Windows SideShow is a new technology which was introduced with Windows Vista and so far it's mostly used to support a secondary screen on mobile PCs, even if the developers also had remote control support for Windows Media Center, and digital photo frames in mind.
With this additional display you can view important information whether your laptop is on, off, or in sleep mode.

However, so far there isn't too much SideShow compatible hardware available and even HTC's Shift UMPC isn't utilizing SideShow to display received E-Mails and PIM data but HTC decided to use its own technology called SnapVUE, which is based on Windows Mobile. One problem is, that SideShow requires dedicated hardware instead of utilizing exisitng hardware - namely Windows Mobile.

Anyway, in the Windows SideShow Team Blog a new SDK Beta was recently announced which adds some new features like:

• Portrait QVGA UI designed for remote controls
• New Universal driver for Windows SideShow that supports USB and Bluetooth communication
• New Bluetooth menu commands

QVGA and Bluetooth? Exactly - two feature nearly every Windows Mobile devices sports today. Imagine if you could use your Bluetooth connected Windows Mobile smartphone to remote control your Windows Media Center as well as getting information from your Media Center delivered to your smartphone, like the EPG, playlist, etc.

This would be cool and - even more important - it would definitely makes sense. Microsoft constantly launches interesting new technologies, features and services, however - in most cases these technologies and services are not working with each other.

Anyway, a Windows Mobile SideShow support isn't confirmed today but with the new SDK, there are some real chances we will finally get a broader support of it.

[Via the::unwired]

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)