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Nokia Messaging comes to the Nokia 5800 in May

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

In conjunction with the Web 2.0 Expo and shown in action at CTIA 2009, Nokia announced that it has added Windows Live Hotmail support to Nokia Messaging.

Nokia Messaging is a free, downloadable application that lets you access up to 10 personal e-mail accounts on a Nokia device, all of which organized under a single icon. The app also supports Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL Mail, among others.

In addition, the Hotmail integration, the company also said it will add Nokia Messaging support to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic starting in May. Currently, the app is available on 20 Nokia models worldwide, including the Nokia E71, Nokia E65, and Nokia N79, and will work on the upcoming Nokia E55, Nokia N97, and Nokia N86 8MP.

(Credit: Joystiq)

Game for Windows - LIVE (GFWL) is an online gaming service for "Games for Windows"-branded PC games. It functions much like an Xbox Live, but for the PC. On Tuesday Microsoft announced a couple of updates to the service.

In an effort to prevent game piracy, Microsoft will be implementing zero-day piracy protection and server-side authentication, that hopefully will help prevent game piracy before a game's street date, and include added protection for publishers and users by requiring authentication for online play.

To help users access additional game content in the most seamless way possible, GFWL is implementing a new marketplace API that, once implemented, will allow users to purchase additional game content while in-game, apparently without necessitating a restart.

For those of us that call many places our gaming home, lastly on the list is Roaming. Users can now save their personal settings back to their GFWL account in the cloud, providing access to their settings on any compatible and connected Windows PC.

Check out the Steamworks announcement made by valve today to see if you can pick out the similarities.

We give Microsoft credit for finally understanding that what works on a console won't necessarily appeal to PC gamers. First, it stripped away the much-derided, fee-based Games for Windows Live Gold membership level. Now the entire Games for Windows Live interface has received an update. The Xbox 360-style "blade" interface is gone, replaced by a fully mouse-driven drop-down menu system. If it only worked as well as it should.

To clarify, you're not intended to download a GFW Live client for your PC, at least not yet (technically you can). For the moment, you're instead supposed to launch any GFW Live-enabled game, log in to the Live service, and from there follow the update prompt. Microsoft says a separate downloadable client is coming, along with a PC gaming-oriented Marketplace that will sell updated content for GFW Live-supported games.

The main Games for Windows Live menu (GamerTag redacted).

(Credit: CNET)

For now, you can use the GFW Live service to socialize and find people to play with from your Windows or Xbox Live friends lists. It also includes an achievement system, as well as an update monitor, which can be both a blessing and a curse. For example, the recent Fallout 3 patch has its share of problems, but GFW Live requires you to update, or else it will log you out (the same is true of Valve's Steam service, GFW Live's primary competition).

Favorites, groups of contacts, and background themes are new to Windows Live Messenger beta.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you're an avid Windows Live Messenger user, now's the time to convince your friends to make the switch to the new Windows Live Messenger beta. If they don't, you'll be wondering what the hubbub is about.

Unveiled on Wednesday, the new beta offers a bundle of fun, fresh features, the best of which can be taken advantage of only when you're chatting with another beta user. As a beta, there are a few known bugs, and probably more to discover, but the adventurous early adopters who aren't afraid of leaving Windows' Messenger 8 behind will be rewarded with functionality that improves on basic tasks and new baubles to color the chatting experience. We've got a few complaints, too.

A field to drag-and-drop favorite contacts and the ability to create chat groups of up to 20 participants are available in the newly-designed interface, which has a much lighter look that some may see as more cramped and less defined. Changing the color and background theme (or "scene," as it's called here) helps--if you know where to look. A paintbrush image appears when you scroll over its hidden position in the top right corner.

The chat window repositions pictures and gets some manners you may or may not like.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The chat window has also gotten a new coat of paint, but it may look off-kilter if your buddy is using an older version of Messenger. Contact images have been scooted over to the left, but when I first began chatting, they were hidden from view (if this happens to you, hover your cursor near the left edge of the window). The contact who initiates the chat defines the scene, so don't become confused if your interface and windows appear mismatched. Microsoft has done this in a bid to let you dictate the way you appear to your pals.

In chat behavior, you'll notice that conversations no longer snap you to the incoming message when you've scrolled up to review the chat, and that each new line is defined by bullet points. I see the logic in both changes, but am not won over by either and hope they're soon made optional, or that you'll at least be able to choose between marks. That incoming dynamic emoticons were often cut in half is an issue known to Microsoft's Messenger team.

The new, more dramatic look is just one of the new beta's customizing features. You can also set up a signature chime that plays for other friends on the beta client when you sign in, and even more lasting, you can create dynamic pictures or short videos with the Webcam that map your recorded moods with certain emoticons.

If you've got a Webcam, you can get moody.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The feature, called mood tiling, changes your profile picture to one of you smiling, winking, or looking sad or cool whenever you enter that emoticon. It's a fun and engaging trinket for socialites using the beta app, but the images are only stored locally. If you open Windows Live Messenger beta on another computer--simultaneous sign-in is yet another new capability--you'll need to reset your profile image, nevermind your dynamic one.

Less engaging, but certainly more practical, is the ability to drag-and-drop multimedia from a desktop folder into the chat window.

This beta upgrade would have been an excellent opportunity for the Windows Live Messenger team to overhaul the emoticons, which appear all the more coarse compared with the chat window's juicy new looks. It's also lamentable that the new beta doesn't switch the chat window to your theme when it detects you're talking to someone on a different version--instead you'll see the app's default blue.

If you give the program a try, let us know what you think. Love it, hate it? Leave your views in the comments, or rate Windows Live Messenger beta here.

Microsoft's Kevin Unangst

(Credit: Microsoft)

Q&A If you missed our earlier post on Microsoft's announcements from the GameFest 2008 conference, here's a brief recap:

• Games for Windows Live is now free at all membership levels
• In the fall, Microsoft will launch a digital distribution service called the Games for Windows Live Marketplace
• DirectX 11 is official, and it will include support for GPU programming, among other new features.

We had a chance to talk to Kevin Unangst, Microsoft's Senior Director of Global Gaming, and he provided some more details.

What was the deciding factor that lead Microsoft to drop the Gold-level membership fee for Games for Windows Live?
Since we introduced Games for Windows Live we've listened to developers and to PC gamers and they said look, there's a baseline expectation that multiplayer is a service that is just free on Windows; that is just how it works. Looking at it from a competitive angle, it makes sense for us to deliver on that expectation and to go above and beyond. We're confident we have the best matchmaking service on the planet with TruSkill matchmaking and we want to make sure that's available to the largest group of Windows gamers. Making this decision really was a natural part of focusing on what gamers want and what game developers told us what they wanted.

Do you expect Xbox Live will remain a fee-based service?
This announcement in no way has an effect on our Xbox Live plan. If you look at what we announced at E3 there's innovation happening on the Xbox side that's going to deliver great value to Xbox Live subscribers. That's not going to change. What's interesting for us is looking at these two services as connected yet different. We're acknowledging that the needs of PC gamers and PC developers are different and we're going to meet those needs. And there will be unique features that show up on Xbox and don't go to Windows, and there will be unique features that go to Windows and that don't go to Xbox.

What kinds of unique features do you mean?
The business model clearly now is a differentiator. Cross-platform is something the two have in common, but there may be different types of content between the two. Now that we'll have the Marketplace that we'll distribute content on, the content does not have to be identical, the game types may be different. Pricing models, which we're not going into detail on today, may be different as well, based on what the expectations and needs are of the PC market versus the console market. If you look at some of the things announced at E3, it is not a foregone conclusion that some of the things that are uniquely designed for a console will come to the PC and vice versa.

Do you have agreements with any publishers to sell their games through the Games for Windows Live Marketplace?
We haven't made any announcements and aren't at this point talking about who's going to be in the store, but you can imagine our goal is to offer the widest range of content we can to our consumers, whether that's free content or paid content. We have great relationships on both platforms with publishers, and we'll certainly be working with all of them to encourage them to take advantage of what we're going to offer in the new Marketplace.

You can expect to see additional announcements moving ahead as we get closer to that fall release, both in games that take advantage of Games for Windows Live, as well as content that may be available through the Marketplace.

How do you intend to differentiate Games for Windows Live from Valve's Steam service?
We're not focused on how we compete with Steam. We're focused on what kind of value we can deliver to gamers and PC games that make them more desirable. We have a lot of experience on things like achievements, both for single player and multiplayer games. We've got the cross-platform connectivity. There's a lot of community features built-in, things like in our matchmaking being able to choose to prefer or avoid players. The feedback system I think is unmatched, and that's what you get from having experience with many millions of Xbox Live users. Really our focus is on making the games better, and the publishers will decide for themselves. I think what Steam's doing is a good service.

Can you get more specific than "fall" for the Marketplace release date?
I have no more specifics other than we have a developer's kit available for game publishers and developers. The release will coincide with the initial games that take advantage of the Marketplace when it first ships. "By the end of the year" is as specific as we can get, but we're targeting fall to release to developers the full, final kit.

And public availability will happen after that?
The way people will be able to get Marketplace content will be from the Web or from a standalone client. When the first games ship that take advantage of Marketplace, that client will be available from Microsoft for download to consumers.

What issues regarding Games for Windows that developers asked you to address?
The biggest was the technical requirements that we had for developers to meet in order to be part of the Live Network on Windows. We've reduced those by nearly a third in terms of the hurdles and the technology they needed to include for testing.

On to DirectX 11. When is that due out?
The final, commercial release will be available for both the next version of Windows and for Windows Vista at the time that the next version of Windows becomes available. We'll of course have developers kits and other things prior to that. We want to make sure that folks know, we made a big leap with Windows Vista in terms of having to rewrite the graphics pipeline for performance and for new capability. Because we made that leap with Windows Vista, we don't have to make that kind of change moving ahead in terms of backwards compatibility. DirectX 11 will support both Windows Vista and the next version of Windows. We'll also be compatible with DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 hardware in addition to new DirectX 11 hardware that comes out.

And because we have to ask, when can we expect the next version of Windows?
There's no announced timing for any follow-ons to Windows Vista at this point.

How does DirectX 11 work with the other GPU computing software out there, like Nvidia's Cuda?
There are different methods to implement similar goals. If you're going to do things like parallel programming for GPUs, the advantage with DirectX 11 is that the compute shader will be part of what we've done and have very similar functionality to the rest of the shaders and the rest of the language that we use in DirectX. We expect significant adoption, but that's a choice developers will make and how they want to implement it.

Is the goal similar to the streamlining that Direct3D achieved for 3D graphics drivers?
The goal is really about adding the tools and functionality into the DirectX API that developers tell us they want. If that's multicore support or allowing more programmability on the shaders, all of those things are just about extending a known API that's trusted and used by literally millions of apps over the lifecycle of DirectX and extending that in a way that leverages the investment they already have.

Update:

The release also features the official announcement from Microsoft of DirectX 11. Features include support for GPU computing, and better use of multicore CPUs, among others.

Original post:

Free admission.

(Credit: Microsoft)

We have an interview with Microsoft's Kevin Unangst in a few hours, so we'll be able to find out more shortly, but the basic news is that Microsoft has announced that it will be adding digital distribution to its Games for Windows Live program. It also plans to shed all user fees connected to its Games for Windows Live, whose Gold membership level previously required a $7.99-a-month fee for some advanced services.

Microsoft hinted at its plans to sell online game downloads a few months ago. Combined with no more user fees (which we're not sure anyone actually paid to begin with), Games for Windows Live becomes a more direct competitor to Valve's Steam service.

Thanks, Shack, for the heads up.

Kevin Unangst, Microsoft Senior Global Director, Games for Windows

(Credit: Microsoft)

Q&A Kevin Unangst, Microsoft's Senior Director of Global Gaming, hit the interview rounds starting in April, with the goal of working to dispel the myth that PC gaming is in trouble.

That idea came about in the beginning of the year following a report from NPD research showing that U.S. retail sales of PC games trailed those of games for the various consoles. As Unangst and others have pointed out since the NPD report, those figures do not take into account subscription-based PC gaming, like the World of Warcraft juggernaut, nor do they factor digital distribution from services like GameTap and Valve Software's Steam.

Over the course of Unangst's interviews, he made some interesting points about the perception of PC gaming, the adoption of DirectX 10 hardware, and Microsoft's plans for its Games for Windows Live program. We followed up with Unangst earlier this week.

When you spoke to the game blog Kotaku, you mentioned perception as one of PC gaming's biggest problems right now. Valve Software's Doug Lombardi said the same thing in an interview with Shack News. Can you elaborate?

The perception is really what's being written about in the press since the console battle began anew with the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii. When the PC's written about it's "oh, wow, the PC's not selling as many copies at retail so it must be dying." That's the story that's been written about for so long and that's where the root of this perception issue comes from. And it does get a bit frustrating for folks like Valve and Microsoft, and Intel and Nvidia and others who are investing time and money and seeing new gamers and seeing PC sales increasing and seeing Direct X card sales increasing and seeing these huge revenues in online. We've seen a growth in casual games. MSN Games and PopCap are doing incredibly well on the PC, but you're not seeing a lot of coverage about that. So that's where I think the history of the perception point comes from and it's not true.

Has there been any progress towards more balanced reporting of PC gaming's financial landscape?

NPD has a new study. They're actually taking an assessment of the online space and starting to aggregate. DFC (Intelligence, a video game market research firm) has done a bunch of work there. As you look at the DFC numbers for 2007, the PC is ahead of any other platform, with $8.2 billion in worldwide game sales, with about $5 billion of that online. So in terms of raw numbers, we think the PC is still by far the leading platform when you look at the entire picture.

What do you make of the fact that 2007 was the same year Microsoft's Games for Windows retail branding program was in full swing?

I'd be interested to see what the decline might have been had we and our partners not invested. I think there is a natural shift to online that we're seeing in the PC space, and I think we still feel like with a billion-dollar opportunity sitting at retail we needed to continue to invest in building out dedicated, branded shelf space. I can't peek into what could have been, I certainly think that our investment has kept publishers and retailers devoting shelf space to the PC that they may not have otherwise, or at least attention on the PC that they might not have otherwise.

You mentioned the installed base for Direct X 10 hardware earlier, and in your interview with Kotaku you said that there are 60 million DirectX 10 parts in the marketplace right now. Is that discrete graphics cards?

That is discrete as I understand it. And potentially laptop chips, as well.

Yet the numbers on Valve's PC Hardware Survey (which catalogs system information from users of its Steam PC game download and community software) indicate that of the 1.7 million systems it sampled, 80 percent still use Windows XP, and 90 percent do not have Direct X10-capable hardware.

That like all the others is just one more stat to look at when you're measuring adoption. You have to take into account that Steam and its installed base has been very focused on Half Life and other games that are Valve's first-party IP, and we believe those survey results skew heavily towards those customers. I don't believe that any of their titles take advantage of Direct X 10 at this point, so it doesn't surprise me that they haven't seen a strong adoption rate among their core consumers. I think the (hardware) sales numbers speak for themselves as well as the numbers of titles that are shipping and the investment that the publishers continue to make.

Speaking with the game developer trade site Gamasutra, you said that Microsoft would be working to compete with Valve's Steam software by way of Games for Windows Live. You also pointed to a public development document on MSDN.com outlining the requirements for Games for Windows Live. We didn't find that, but we did find a PowerPoint presentation from this year's Game Developers Conference called Games for Windows Live: Just the Facts. That document outlines features like digital downloads, automatic game patching, and remotely storing saved games, all of which are currently available in Steam. What kind of time table does Microsoft have for adding those features to Games for Windows Live?

I don't recall the document that you're referring to, but I can speak in general that things like automatic updates are available in Games for Windows Live offered today. Those features are all part of the infrastructure that we built and it's something that we're going to build on over time. It's really been our focus to bring over as much of the platform as we can. And then build on top of that the unique experience we think Windows gamers and Windows developers are going to want. So you're going to see even more significant investment from us on Games for Windows Live. Digital distribution and things like that are certainly areas that we have talked about, that we're looking at how we build on the infrastructure and support. But today the focus is on having an identity, having a common friends list, and being able to offer in-game updates. We also have things that other services don't offer like cross-platform support with Xbox 360.

In some ways, over time, there will be competition there as we both continue to deliver on feature sets that we think developers and consumers are going to want. That said I think what Valve is doing for the PC is a great service. They're delivering great games, they're delivering an interesting set of digital content to millions of people. They've done great things for the Windows gaming ecosystem and we hope that they continue to do that.

(Credit: RIM)

In addition to the BlackBerry Bold debut, Research in Motion also announced this morning an agreement with Microsoft to bring its Windows Live services to BlackBerry smartphones. Specifically, this partnership will allow BlackBerry customers to access their Windows Live Hotmail accounts as well as Windows Live Messenger.

(Credit: Microsoft)

For Hotmail users, you can opt to have e-mail automatically sent to a dedicated in-box on your device or combine them into a single in-box with your other messages. As usual, you will get BlackBerry's push technology for real-time delivery and synchronization, and there will be full HTML support. Meanwhile, Windows Live Messenger for BlackBerry will provide an almost PC-like experience with the ability to send and receive pictures and files; customize status messages; view avatars and display images; use emoticons; and more. RIM and Microsoft expect to deliver these services to BlackBerrys starting this summer.

It's a good thing Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger Santa is just an AI-powered chat bot. You'd probably want to think twice before sitting on his lap.

According to The Register, the now-disabled Santa bot that was once IM-able at northpole@live.com was prone to off-topic suggestions about oral sex. Microsoft has acknowledged the claims and disabled the chat agent.

While this feature might have had appeal to a limited portion of adult users, the Santa bot was unfortunately designed to be used by children. According to The Register, Santa made a reference to oral sex when chatting to two preteen girls...about pizza.

Register writer Chris Williams claims the Santa bot replied, "It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else," when he repeatedly asked the bot to eat a slice of pizza. The full transcript of the chat is in this post, and it's meant to replicate the original chat with the two young girls.

Gizmodo was unable to replicate the Register's results, according to this follow-up post. As one Gizmodo commenter with the screen name Cajunguy points out, the slightly off-color background that appears behind the Santa bot's text can be a sign of image-editing tools being used.

Microsoft did confirm that the bot used inappropriate language in a message sent to Network World, and added that the company had discontinued the bot altogether after being unsatisfied with fixes it made to the agent's automated script. According to this AP story, Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the bot could be fooled into repeating phrases or manipulated into saying things it wasn't supposed to.

As anyone who's chatted with an automated IM bot such as SmarterChild knows, that's feasible. AI-driven bots sometimes repeat the words you type into them, but it looks like the words "oral sex" were introduced entirely by the chat bot. Santa bot's ElfBots need to work on a better filter for something designed to be used by kids.