NEWS

Mads Torgersen and Dustin Campbell on the future of C#
Mads Torgersen is the Program Manager for the C# Language and Dustin Campbell is a Program Manager on the Visual Studio team. In this two-page interview, The Register explores how open source has changed Microsoft.
Why tooling is moving from .xproj / project.json to .csproj / MSBuild
Last week Microsoft announced the death of the project.json initiative. In this post, Bertrand Le Roy shares some insights as to why it had to happen.
Miguel de Icaza was this weeks guest on "On .NET"
Miguel de Icaza provides an update on the Microsoft acquisition of Xamarin, provides confirmation that the M&A transition will be complete by July and that mscorlib is coming back. Yes, you read that right.
mscorlib is coming back!?!
CoreCLR/CoreFX was to be the only way forward representing an absolute line in the sand in terms of legacy and progression in software development with .NET. In these series of tweets, it is revealed that mscorlib (legacy) will be doing a comeback tour. What the... Nick Craver is feeling a little disenfranchised and I don't blame him as I've also spent a lot of personal time trying to help advance .NET Core over the last year.
Miguel does not want what happened to the Python community to happen to us
Python 3.0 was a major, backwards-incompatible release that was released on December 3, 2008. Eight years later and the majority of the community is still using Python 2. Ouch.
Immo Landwerth (.NET Program Manager) has a honest heart-to-heart with the community
"I may get in trouble for saying this, but I'll say it anyway"
Miguel De Icaza promises that .NET will take over the world and will be amazing
Immo Landwerth reminded the community to trust Miguel, as he literally bet his life on .NET and that you won't find anyone with more passion and devotion for .NET than him.
Move over Javascript, Miguel reveals a plot to have Mono in the web browser
In the world where you download megabytes of ads to read four paragraphs of text, downloading a full runtime for .NET on WebAssembly will be peanuts. Miguel De Icaza remarks that he just needs WebAssembly to wrap up.
A recap on .NET Core's purpose
App local deployments, cross-platform runtime, and design time support as well as evolving .NET away from being JIT based. Statically linking the world is the future.
APP OF THE WEEK

I use and recommend Toggl to anyone and everyone, even more so now that they have added support for Phabricator tasks. Anyway, Toggl is a time tracker that is built for speed and ease of use. With Toggle, time keeping is so simple that timesheets are no longer a dirty word.
Why are they app of the week? Well here's the thing - I've been using their apps for a while now, and it turns out that the source code of their Android and iOS applications are open-source on GitHub. Additionally, the entire roadmap/development is done out in the open as well. Finally, both apps are-developed with Xamarin and MvvmLight!
CODE

Bluetooth LE plugin for Xamarin released
Sven-Michael Stübe and Adrian Seceleanu have released their Bluetooth low energy plugin for Xamarin and MvvmCross. Binary packages are available on NuGet, and the source code is on GitHub.
ANDROID
What’s new in Google Play
Google has improved the Play console with better betas, the pre-launch report, benchmarks, a new Play Console app, and more.
Introducing Android Instant Apps
Google announced Android Instant Apps, and it evolves Android apps to be able to run instantly, without requiring installation. With Instant Apps, a tap on a URL can open right in an Android app, even if the user doesn’t have that app installed.
WINDOWS UNIVERSAL

Introduction to Composition
Robert Mikhayelyan, from the Windows User Interface (Composition) team introduces you to the concepts of how the user interface is rendered in Windows 10 and how to use the API in your Windows Universal applications.
XAMARIN FORMS

Xamarin Forms XAML Previewer design time data
James Montemagno demonstrates how to properly bind up your View Model to get design time data.
Xamarin.Forms, I have you now.
Frank A. Krueger, famous for his live coding plugin for Xamarin Studio has taken it one step further. It is now possible to prototype a Xamarin.Forms user interface by programming C# on an iPad.
Xamarin Forms on Mac
Miguel de Icaza is working on an experimental branch that ports Xamarin Forms to Xamarin Mac!
REALM

Cross-Platform Development with Xamarin.Forms and Realm
A special guest post on the official Xamarin blog by Kristian Dupont and Yavor Georgiev from the Realm engineering team that demonstrates how to create a basic Xamarin.Forms app backed by Realm using Xamarin Studio on OSX.
MVVMCROSS
Swipe to dismiss with MvvmCross
Sven-Michael Stübe demonstrates how to implement swipe to dismiss with MvvmCross.
MVVMLIGHT

An In-Depth Study of the MVVM Light Databinding System
Laurent Bugnion, the creator of the MVVM Light framework, provides an overview of the MVVM pattern and how to leverage data binding to synchronize a user interface automatically with its data source.
Building X-Plat Apps with Xamarin, Xamarin.Forms and MVVM Light
In this talk from Xamarin Evolve 2014, Laurent Bugnion runs you through end-to-end how to create an MVVM Light based Xamarin application.
WHO'S HIRING/LOOKING
Work for Toggl (From anywhere)
We believe great people will make awesome stuff anywhere. New York, São Paulo, or a quiet village near Florence. No need to move for your dream job. We hire globally. You work locally.
As a talented iOS hacker and Xamarin guru, you'll be part of our mobile team to develop and improve our open-source mobile apps. It doesn’t matter where you are located, as long as you can communicate clearly in English and are proficient in a Github based workflow.
Mobile Developer in New Zealand (relocation available)
We're looking for a Mobile Developer to help take our apps to the next level. In this role, you will be working in a self-managing, cross-functional agile team using the latest cross-platform technology (Xamarin) to create awesome apps. We’ll provide you with the latest tools and technology, an outstanding working environment and expert mentoring and development to help you become the best mobile developer you can be.