Category: Microsoft

Windows Phone ‘Mango’ released to vendors

Microsoft confirmed on its Windows Team Blog on Monday that it has released the RTM build of Windows Phone “Mango” to manufacturing partners.

This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimize Mango for their specific phone and network configurations,” explained Microsoft’s Windows Phone corporate vice president Terry Myerson.

Microsoft has said Mango will deliver more than 500 new features to the Windows Phone platform, including Internet Explorer 9 and deeper social network integration. Mango is also set to release sometime in August to all existing devices.

Microsoft also plans to release Nokia, HTC, LG, Samsung, Dell, Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE branded Windows Phone ‘Mango’ devices.

[Microsoft]

July 27, 2011
Fujitsu Toshiba au IS12T is the world’s first Mango phone
Fujitsu Toshiba mobile communications have just announced the au IS12T, world’s first Mango phone. The device is not only waterproof but also packs in decent specs including a massive camera.
- 3.7″ WXGA screen
- Qualcomm’s MSM8655 CPU
- 13.2 megapixel camera with autofocus
- 32GB of flash storage
- Bluetooth (2.1 + EDR) and WiFi (802.11b/g/n)
The device was just launched in Japan so don’t expect an Indian version anytime soon.
July 27, 2011
ChevronWP7 Labs will Unlock your WP7 phone, allow Side Load of Apps, All with Microsoft’s Blessings

Remember Chevron WP7, the first tool to allow jailbreak of WP7 devices, the makers later met with Microsoft and now have come out with a tool that will allow custom homebrew on your Windows Phone 7 for a mere price of $9. So unlock the potential in you WP7 device. The tweets from Chris Walsh (Chevron team) suggest that the Mango Update will re lock the device. So you better think twice before spotting that $9 for a quickie. Either way the tool will be out soon.

[@ChrisWalshie, (2)]

July 20, 2011
Facebook also comes to Skype

Skype has also added Facebook live chat to their windows client. Skype 5.3 for windows enables people logged into Skype to talk to their Facbook friends via an easy interface.

Import your Facebook News Feed to keep up with the latest from your friends. Comment, Like and call them direct from Skype. Update your Facebook status from Skype, too.

Get all the latest Skype features plus send instant messages direct to Facebook chat. See when your friends on Facebook are online and get in touch in one click.

Its only available for Windows Right now, But expect a Mac client soon. Hit the link below if you rock a PC.

[Skype for Windows]

July 7, 2011
Facebook Brings Group Chat and Video Calling – Targets Google +
Facebook has just announced Facebook Video calls, in partnership with Skype. The Video feature embeds directly into Facebook chat and is a free to use service.

There were three major announcements today.
- Group chat(“an easier way to find someone who is online”)
- Skype-enabled video chat
- 750 million Facebook members
In a direct approach the Member downloads a tiny Skype applet .jar file and Facebook Video chat becomes available. Users can now click the video button in the chat module to initiate a video call. The user on the receiving side, get a popup, much like a Skype call. The video camera on either side is turned on only when the recipient accepts the call.

As Mark pointed out, the interface is buggy. we tested it out and after several repeat failures we were able to get a stable connection.

The popup is pretty simple and is always on top. The video chat can be made full screen and minimized or muted. Mark also noted that more developments will come as and when improvements are done to the system.

Tony Bates from Skype noted that over 150 million video calls are made each month through Skype, and now this feature will be available on Facebook.

visit the link below to get started

[Facebook Videocalling]
July 6, 2011
Hotmail now 15 Years Old, Still Strong as ever

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]otmail was launched 15 Years ago on 4th of July to mark the independence from generic emailing services. The most popular email website ever was acquired by Microsoft and made a bigger and better service.

About 10 years ago Hotmail’s biggest challenge came from the likes of email services like Google Mail (GMAIL) and Yahoo Mail. Despite all the tough competition Hotmail rebranded itself as Windows Live Hotmail in 2007. It continues to be one of the most used email services online.

July 6, 2011
Windows Phone Market Place Crosses Target 25,000 Apps in June

Microsoft said in January, that the marketplace will cross the 25,000 Apps target in June and so it has. The marketplace, relatively slow, but has managed to cross the the 25,000 apps number . That’s a rapid jump from the 18,000 applications that were available in May but it is still far away from the number of apps offered by iOS and Android.

Android has over 200,000 Apps, whereas the Apple App Store has over 500,000 Apps and growing. Thats a huge target to close up and Microsoft thinks it can achieve a significant reduction in gap in the coming year thanks to the Mango update.

The top 5 downloaded apps are games including the recently released Angry Birds at number one follwed by Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, Plants vs. Zombies at two and three.

July 4, 2011
Microsoft unveils Office 365 In India

Microsoft has announced the launch of Office 365 business productivity solutions on the cloud in India. Office 365 takes aim at cloud based enterprise and small business word processing and document editing and storage. This will enable an enterprise to have their solution available for easy access on the cloud.

The Office 365 plan for Small Businesses is optimized for organizations with 25 users or less and includes Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online at approximately $6 per user per month.

With Office 365 Microsoft is attempting to target those users who were using Google apps for business by giving more comprehensive solutions at a selectable pricing. Getting partners and a huge database on board may be the real challenge for MS in OFFICE 365.

July 1, 2011
Skype – Cross Platform Video Calls Now on Android

Skype announced that its Android client now supports cross platform video calls, so desktop users can now see mobile users and vice versa. At the moment, this functionality is limited to only four Android handsets, the Desire S, Xperia Neo and Pro and the Nexus S. If you have one of these phones, you can now make video calls to your friends over WiFi and 3G both.

Video Calls between android devices have been possible for a while now, but the option to make video calls to desktops/laptops has been limited. Most Android users won’t be affected by this update although Skype promises to add other handsets “soon”.

The new Skype client can switch between front and rear facing cameras, so you can show people your face as well as what you are seeing. It can connect to all Skype clients including the iPhone as well as many Skype enabled TV’s.

the Desire S, Xperia Neo and Pro and (of course) the Nexus S

July 1, 2011
Angry Birds – Now on Windows Phone 7

For those of you who own a Windows Phone 7 Smart-phone, there’s some good news! You can now download Angry Birds from the Marketplace onto your phone. The first time we heard that this game was coming to the platform was in October 2010, even before the mobile OS was launched. A few days before its launch, Microsoft included an image which hinted at the game being a part of the platform. However, Rovio, the company behind the physics game, had not developed a version for the platform.

Microsot and Rovio later made up and the software giant hinted at a 2011 release. The game was scheduled for mid May and then pushed back to 29^th June. On Wednesday, users from around the world could download the game from the Marketplace.

June 30, 2011
Internet Explorer 10 Preview 2, holds upcoming strength for Microsoft

Microsoft has released a new Internet Explorer 10 preview, the second pre-release of Internet Explorer 10 designed to give developers access to the new technologies that Internet Explorer 10 will deliver.

Still in preview mode the explorer does not grant access to technologies and structure that will be available in the final build, but it does give a preview of the browsers capabilities.

Preview 2 also includes support for the new Web File API, Web Worker API, HTML5 Test, Javascript test and Acid 3. All of which show that Internet explorer is making good progress with its new capabilities. As it is Microsoft is ahead of schedule in releasing beta updates for the IE platform. It shows the ability MS has in bringing its primary browser up to speed with the competition sometimes even leaving it behind.

Features like Web worker and Web Sockets will make developers really happy, and the end product which is just a fast paced internet experience would do the same for end users.

June 30, 2011
Microsoft will launch a new Xbox at E3 2012

According to a source close to BGR, Microsoft intends to unveil its next-generation Xbox console at E3 2012 next summer. The rumored console has been in development since 2006 and has been carefully kept under wraps. Earlier it was speculated that the next revision will be called XBOX 720, But that really seems unlikely.

With Kinect already doing better than expected, It makes sense for the Gaming department at Redmond to improve the hardware in the XBOX to bring on the next generation of Consoles which will be ready to handle next-gen Gaming.

[via]

June 28, 2011
Microsoft gets Green Signal from Antitrust for Skype Acquisition

Microsoft has been given the US antitrust approval for the large acquisition of Skype for its VOIP integrations within all of its offerings including, and not limiting to, Windows, Xbox and Zune. The total cost of this is set at US $8.5 Billion and the transfer of funds will commence and end in one single sweep.

Microsoft will be updating the Skype APIs to make them usable within their own infrastructure, and should be updating the end user clients very very soon. Microsoft has constantly repeated that existing Skype users will and should not be affected by the new changes.

June 18, 2011
Microsoft releases SDK for Kinect for Windows

A huge number of developers rejoiced as Microsoft on Thursday announced the new SDK for Kinect on WIndows. What this means is that the already hacked and exploited Kinect will now bring a full Sdk to be used for gestures and computations while in an open framework officially supported by Microsoft themselves.

This will also begin a new era of Gesture controlled PC games . If you want to download and develop using the SDK head on over to the link mentioned to kick-off.

[Microsoft Blog]

June 17, 2011
Xbox 720 Coming in 2012?

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been around for many years. It’s successor, dubbed the Xbox 720 is rumored to be released during E3 in 2012. A high level source from Crytek, the makers of Crysis, claims that:

[quote]Microsoft will announce the existence of a new Xbox within the next 12 months, hinting that an E3 2012 reveal is likely. [/quote]

Although no console specs have been confirmed, DirectX 11 – which includes tessellation, multi-threaded rendering and compute shaders – which has had a hugely positive effect on visuals, will probably be included. The Crytek source also claimed that Microsoft was likely to launch the new Xbox 720 before Sony launched the PS4.

Both Microsoft and Crytek have declined to comment on the matter.

June 15, 2011