Disk Inserted

Hey! Microsoft debuted two new phones earlier this year! Remember that? Okay, so there’s a fair chance that Microsoft actually moved fewer Kin One / Two handsets than Fusion Garage did JooJoo tablets, but we’re pretty confident that a few of you fell for the whole “my life is so social, so I’m buying in” thing. We’re still personally trying to figure out why the full Windows Phone 7 wasn’t used here instead of an OS that’ll likely be forgotten by the time you finish reading this, but enough of our rambling — this space is all about you. Did you pick up one of the Kin brothers? How’s the experience? Are you still kosher with paying the same data plan price as future Droid X users? Have you gained more friends than you know what to do with? Starred in your own commercial? Tell us below, tweeps.

How would you change Microsoft’s Kin One and Two? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you tuned in to this month’s Engadget Show (and you did, right?), then you caught a glimpse of our recent jaunt to Bristol, Connecticut where we toured the inner workings of the world leader in broadcast sports. ESPN’s got far more technology going on than you might imagine, with an entire “emerging technology” group dedicated to sprucing up the content you see on screen. We couldn’t quite squeeze everything into The Show, so here we’ve cut up an extended version of our tour that shows off even more of the magic behind the scenes. Ever wonder if a place like ESPN would rely on common toys like an Xbox 360 or iPad to control on-screen play demonstrations? Curious to know what kind of sensor tag technology is being worked on to give viewers a real-time look at how high skateboards (and eventually snowboards) are getting in halfpipe? Hop on past the break and mash play — there’s a lot more to ESPN than just homers, World Cup equalizers and Not Top 10s.

Host: Darren Murph
Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm and Nina Sokoler
Executive Producer: Joshua Fruhlinger
Filmed by: Chad Mumm
Edited by: Chad Mumm and Michael Slavens
Music by: Glomag, Nullsleep
Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec

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Continue reading The Engadget Show: Xbox 360 and iPad on the clock at ESPN’s headquarters

The Engadget Show: Xbox 360 and iPad on the clock at ESPN’s headquarters originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has released the new beta version of Windows Live Essentials for public beta testing. Windows Live Essentials comes with lots of new features in Windows Live Messenger, Live Mail, Live Writer, Windows Live Sync, Photo Gallery and Skydrive. The new beta requires Windows Vista or Windows 7 for installation. You can download the beta version from here. We have already covered some of the features of the new version on this blog.

The new betas of Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, and Messenger connect to photo and video sharing (SkyDrive, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, SmugMug), social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin), email (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), blogging (Spaces, WordPress, Blogger), and document productivity (Office Web Apps) services. And the new Windows Live Sync keeps your files synchronized across multiple PCs and in the cloud.  You can even directly access your PC over the web with Sync’s new remote desktop feature.

Download Windows Live Essentials

“I’m gonna ask rock star Kostas… to come on. And Kostas has brought with him Windows Phone 7, which we launch this October.” So sayeth Microsoft VP for Marketing Mich Mathews in introducing GM of Live Labs’ Kostas Mallios, who was at the Cannes Lions advertising conference to show off the advertising capabilities of the upcoming smartphone platform. Of course, last we heard, the official company line on WP7’s release was “holiday 2010,” so this would definitely narrow the launch window quite a bit, as well as corroborates earlier Telstra roadmap leaks. Not an official statement, but Mathews would definitely be someone in the know here. Don’t expect the folks in Redmond to go ahead and confirm — they work on their own schedule, thank you very much — but should someone ‘fess up, can we also talk about that $150 Kinect price? Video after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Windows Phone 7’s October release casually mentioned in Microsoft ad presentation

Windows Phone 7’s October release casually mentioned in Microsoft ad presentation originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If Steve Ballmer’s still pumped eight months later, there’s a good reason — Windows 7 has reportedly sold its 150 millionth copy, just two months after crossing the 100 million mark. If you run the numbers — and we have — that translates to roughly seven licenses sold per second since launch, a very convenient number for Microsoft to tout in their marketing communications from here on out. Perhaps execs can celebrate with a nice Windows 7 Whopper, topped with a fresh .dll pickle.

Windows 7 hits 150 million licenses: that’s seven copies a second originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bing, Microsoft’s “decision engine,” is wading into the entertainment realm today with the revelation that searches for music, lyrics, games, TV shows, and movies will get a new special sauce treatment from here on out. You’ll now be able to play 100 basic games right in your search results, along with full-length streaming of songs (first time only, 30 seconds thereafter) from a 5 million-strong catalog. The latter is augmented with “one-click” purchases from the Zune Marketplace (directly through the web, no need to launch the app), Amazon, or iTunes music libraries. Movie tickets are promised to be similarly easy to buy, though the biggest new feature might well be the Bing.com/entertainment page, which acts as a portal into your media consumption with a selection of the most popular content in each category. It doesn’t look terribly different from the iTunes storefront, but given its partnership with Apple’s digital music shop, we doubt Bing’s Entertainment section is perceived as much of a threat — not yet, anyway. As to that other search giant, Google’s been said to already be putting together a music store of its own. Man, all this integration and interconnectedness — just where will it end?

Continue reading Bing Entertainment integrates Zune Marketplace purchases, improves Microsoft’s media swagger

Bing Entertainment integrates Zune Marketplace purchases, improves Microsoft’s media swagger originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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