Windows Mobile

Microsoft announced late Monday the first wave of Xbox Live games that will be made available for Windows Phone 7 when the first smartphones running the new operating system hit the market later this year.

Although games are just one part of Microsoft's app strategy when it comes to Windows Phone, Redmond is counting on games--and Xbox Live tie-in in particular, to be a key selling point for Windows Phone. The Windows Phone 7 devices will be the first products outside of a PC or the Xbox itself to connect to Xbox Live. Gamers will be able to see … Read more

Ahead of the launch of Windows Phone 7 later this year, Microsoft has started hiring for a new mobile games unit.

As noted by Neowin and other sites, there are open positions on the business and technical side.

"Interested in driving content acquisition for our first-party mobile games portfolio?" reads one listing. "Then, come join the Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) Business Development Team. Our mission is to source independent game developers and content licensors to develop next blockbuster first-party franchises for all our gaming platforms. Your goal will be to identify potential content partners and game concepts … Read more

Microsoft's beta release of its Windows Phone 7 Development Training Kit offers several new labs designed to let developers get their feet wet in the new platform.

Described Tuesday in a Microsoft blog, the new beta of the training kit keeps up with the changes found in the Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools, which also hit beta status this week.

Microsoft has revamped the existing labs in the training kit and added a few new ones.

The lab dubbed "Using Windows Phone Launcher and Choosers In Your Applications" exposes the APIs that developers can tap into when … Read more

Developers interested in creating apps for Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform can now play with the newest beta of the development tools.

Graduating from community technology preview status in March to near-final status on Monday, the Windows Phone Developer Tools offer several new features designed to intrigue developers thinking of building games and other apps for the platform.

Microsoft has now integrated its Expression Blend 4 development tool directly into the Windows Phone 7 environment. Using Expression Blend, developers will be able to build graphical interfaces for their mobile apps using a drag-and-drop approach. Expression Blend 4 joins … Read more

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer insisted on Monday that Microsoft is still serious about tablets.

Ballmer reiterated that there will be Windows 7-based slates on the market this year, while Windows Vice President Tami Reller showed off a couple of models, including the dual-screen Libretto that Toshiba has in the works as well as a slate from Chinese computer maker Hanvon.

"Over the course of the next several months, you will see a range of Windows 7-based slates that I think you'll find quite impressive," Ballmer said, speaking at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.… Read more

It turns out that a memorial site for Microsoft's short-lived Kin turned out to have an even shorter life than the device to which it paid tribute.

The site, KinRIP.com, was built on top of the ForeverMissed.com platform, which allows people to create an online tribute to departed loved ones. Well, apparently a significant number of the bereaved were none too pleased to see a gadget memorialized in the same way as their departed loved ones.

ForeverMissed.com's Oleg Andelman said that he got more than 60 complaints after the Kin memorial site went up last week. … Read more

Microsoft's Kin only survived a few weeks, but a tribute Web site has been set up to make sure that Redmond's phones are not soon forgotten.

The KinRIP.com site features pictures of the twin phones as well as places for people to leave their own testimonials and light a virtual candle to the social-media oriented phone that Microsoft discontinued earlier this week. And be sure to have the sound turned on to hear the incredibly sappy rendition of "Gone Too Soon."

"It was the Pontiac Aztec of cell phones," wrote Mark Cordova in … Read more

Well, it looks like the Kin's kin is also getting the ax.

T-Mobile confirmed to CNET on Thursday that it plans to stop selling the two existing Sidekick models.

"As T-Mobile looks to further innovate and raise the bar for the next generation of the T-Mobile Sidekick, as of July 2, the Sidekick LX and Sidekick 2008 will no longer be available through T-Mobile, including retail stores, care, telesales and online," the company said in a statement.

Existing customers will still be supported and the company seems to suggest that it is not done with the brand, … Read more

Microsoft's Kin isn't the only phone project from Redmond whose fate is uncertain.

The software maker announced last year a project called OneApp, which was aimed at putting applications on a variety of not-so-smart phones. The idea was to create a software layer that could run on the kind of basic phones popular in emerging markets. Developers could then write software that would run on top of OneApp and thus run on a wide range of phones.

The company tested OneApp with carrier Blue Label Telecom in South Africa last year and also conducted some evaluation programs with … Read more