Microsoft adds 11 Windows Phone mystery sessions to its Mix conference lineup

Microsoft finally has published the list of all 123 planned sessions for its upcoming Mix '11 development/design conference in mid-April... sort of.

While there are blurbs for most of the planned sessions, there are 11 Windows Phone sessions that still are "TBA" (to be announced). Many of these sessions include other tags, such as "Silverlight," "tools" and "XNA." My (not so crazy) guess: It sounds like there will be more to say around Silverlight 5 features that are unique to Windows Phone, and perhaps specifically targeting the "Mango" Windows Phone update, due out later this year.

Microsoft execs have said they will provide more information on features that will be delivered with the "Mango" Windows Phone release -- beyond those they've already outlined. (The already promised Mango features: Inclusion of the HTML5-compliant IE9 Mobile browser; third-party application multitasking; Twitter integration directly into the People Hub; and support for Office documents in the cloud beyond the current OneNote integration. Microsoft execs also have said to expect Nokia execs to be demo'ing during the conference, which kicks off on April 12.

Among those presenting the 11 unspecified Windows Phone sessions at Mix are Thomas Fennel, a Progam Manager in charge of Windows Live on Windows Phone Deployment; Adina Trufinescu, Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform; Andrew Clinick, Lead Program Manager for Windows Phone Developer Platform; and Mark Paley, Principal Lead Program Manager, who is responsible for DRM on phones, Xbox, IPTV and embedded.

Another of the "mystery" session presenters is Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Istvan Cseri, who is a dev manager on Windows Mobile. Before that, Cseri was lead architect of SQL Server Data Services.

Coming back to the present, if you're a Windows Phone 7 user who still hasn't yet gotten notification that the first two Windows Phone updates are available for you to download, developer Chris Walsh (of ChevronWP7 fame) has created a workaround. ZDNet's Ed Bott tried it himself and had success getting the February and NoDo updates on his Samsung Focus....