Xbox LIVE

Barcelona’s MWC has been buzzing as to what Microsoft was going to bring to the stand.

Even though the Project Pink hasn’t been officially outed yet the Windows Phone 7 Series has.

“Smart design and truly integrated experiences” is how the big M describes it.

What is cool is the Xbox LIVE games and Zune music and video marketplaces that will drop content directly to your Windows Phones.

Microsoft already has partners building phones with Windows Phone 7 Series inside, in Europe the first to confirm its involvement is Orange, which says it’ll be making handsets with all of Microsoft’s new gaming and media skills inside, as well as Orange TV and Orange Navigation services.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted those ‘Live Tiles’ that replace the usual shortcuts on the homescreen on the Windows Phone 7 Series. These clever tiles actually update to show content from the web automatically.

Microsoft’s LT’s lets you create a Tile for a friend and then you’ll automatically see that person’s latest pictures and posts, just by glancing at that Start Screen (stalk you much?).

Windows Live is integrated as is Facebook so there’s no excuse as to why you don’t know what your ex had for lunch.

Windows Phone 7 Series is rocking the multitouch so now WinMo is going toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPhone.

Anyone making a handset and wants it to run Windows Phone 7 Series will have to include a real button to that takes the user straight to Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Microsoft says that Bing is getting cleverer and on the Windows Phone 7 Series it will deliver “intent-specific results”. This means that the results will be more tuned to the things you type in – which might/might not be embarrassing depending on what you usually type about.

Another new feature is Windows Phone 7 Series’ hubs. The hub themes cover: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace and Office.

They’re kinda like homescreens for specific areas.

• The ‘People‘ hub is where you’ll find your contacts. The first screen sorts your most popular friends (those that you’ve contacted most recently) in a mosaic of photos.  Just swipe through to the next screen to see all your mates, then a list of their recent status updates in Windows Live, Facebook and an as yet unknown number of other similar services.
• The ‘Music + Video‘ hub syncs music from your PC using the Zune software – people of the UK may be confused by this (click here) as we’ve never seen a Zune – but imagine iPhone and iTunes but more Microsofty.
• The ‘Pictures‘ hub pulls in photos from the phone’s camera, from online photo-sharing services including Facebook and perhaps Flickr, and galleries you’ve synced from your PC.
• The ‘Office‘ hub is exactly what you’d expect from a Windows phone.  Here you’ll find support for OneNote, Office docs and SharePoint.
• Most interesting is the ‘Games‘ hub, which offers the “Xbox LIVE experience on a phone,” says Microsoft. It includes Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see friends’ avatarsr, achievements and gamer profile. You’ll be able to buy games and earn gamer points.  The best bit has to be the possiblity of interacting with proper Xbox or PC games.

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