Video: Hasty hacker hobbles together a Windows Phone 7 skin for older WinMo phones

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Wowza. Consider me impressed. It took Microsoft 3 years to develop Windows Phone 7 Series — but its only taken 2 weeks for some far-too-talented dabbler to recreate the look and feel of the new OS as a skin for older Windows Mobile handsets, relying on nothing but screenshots and demo videos. Get ready for tons of fake Windows Phone 7 videos and people saying “No! Seriously! I swear my buddy has Windows Phone 7 on his 3 year old WinMo handset!”. While impressive as heck as a user-made mod, it’s important to clarify that this is just an interface tweak, built on top of Lakeridge Software’s WisBar Advance Desktop — it’s not a port of a Windows Phone 7 ROM or anything of the sort. Think of it like HTC’s TouchFlo interface: it’s fun to look at — but deep down, it’s still Windows Mobile 6.5 (in this case, running on a Toshiba TG01). The man behind the mod, LeSScro, hasn’t released the mod for public consumption just yet – keep an eye on this thread at XDA Developers for its eventual release. [Via PocketNow ]

Microsoft: No, WinMo 6.5 devices will not be upgraded to Windows Phone 7

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Cue the sad trombone , folks. If you were waiting around with your Windows Mobile 6.5 device with hopes that Microsoft would one day bless it with a new chance at life in the form of Windows Phone 7, it’s time to move on. APC Magazine just got the full spiel from Microsoft themselves: Windows Mobile 6.5 devices won’t be upgradable to Windows Phone 7 series. (You hear that? Five hundred XDA hackers just scoffed and said “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”) Why? Standards. Microsoft has a very, very, almost ridiculously strict set of hardware guidelines that they want manufacturing partners to follow when building Windows Phone 7 Series handsets — and for the most part, old handsets just don’t fit the bill. They either lack one of the three mandatory keys (search, back, and Windows key), or — get this — they have too many keys. A while back, a shot of the HTC HD2 allegedly running Windows Phone 7 Series hit the net. We were quick to debunk it here , with our reasoning being that the HD2 lacked the mandatory search key. Sure enough: Microsoft’s GM of Mobile Communications in the Asia-Pacific, Natasha Kwan, says the HD2 won’t be getting the upgrade “because it doesn’t have the three buttons”. Of course, this just means that they won’t be getting the upgrade treatment from Microsoft . As we mentioned above, there’s probably a mighty army of hackers just waiting to get their hands on Windows Phone ROMs for the sake of down-porting it to older handsets; if it’s feasible, it’ll probably happen.

Wacom’s new Cintiq 21UX pen display ups the sensitivity, skips the multitouch and ‘affordability’ options

Monday, March 1st, 2010

We’d sell any number of our children and internal organs in exchange for a Wacom Cintiq pen display , but unfortunately we’re not sure any of them are quite valuable enough. The holy grail of drawing on you computer has just upped its game with the newest Cintiq 21UX. First and foremost is a new level of pen sensitivity, with support for a “near-zero” starting pressure and a total of 2048 levels of sensitivity. The 21-inch LCD display also has rear mounted “Touch Strips” running along the sides that let you adjust different parameters based on what you select with the thumb-convenient Touch Strip Toggle button. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of that rumored finger-friendly multitouch (or even finger touch of any sort) on this new display. It’s hard to blame Wacom, it has a priority to serve artists first and Microsoft Touch Pack dabblers second, but hopefully we can get a second, multitouch version of this display that’s a little less extravagant on the pen end and a little more affordable than the $1,999 pricetag affixed to this display. The new Cintiq 21UIX should ship later this month or early April. PR is after the break. Gallery: Wacom’s new Cintiq 21UX pen display Continue reading Wacom’s new Cintiq 21UX pen display ups the sensitivity, skips the multitouch and ‘affordability’ options Wacom’s new Cintiq 21UX pen display ups the sensitivity, skips the multitouch and ‘affordability’ options originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

The Ten Most Likely M&A Deals In Online Video

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Editor’s note : Guest author Ashkan Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of video site WatchMojo . Below are his picks for the ten most likely M&A deals in online video. Previously, he wrote a series if posts about the state of online video (Part I , II , III , and IV ). Which online video companies will get bought in 2010?   Venture capitalists are desperately looking for exits while the usual suspects are sitting on more than $80 billion in cash: Microsoft ($20B), Apple ($40B), Google ($15B), Amazon ($3B), and Yahoo! ($3B) just to name the cash positions of a few potential acquirers.  Theoretically, it should be a match made in heaven, but the sheer number of venture-backed video startups is staggering so when the music stops, not everyone will find a dancing partner. Once you assess what drives companies to merge or acquire one another, however, it seems like we’re about to enter a period of mergers between video competitors and see a series of acquisitions by larger companies looking to accelerate their video strategies, with a common theme being increasing both monetization and margins. Right now, as the chart above shows (click to enlarge), there are two types of online video companies: those with sky-high ad rates but fairly limited inventory (company A) and those with huge inventory but woeful monetization (company B). Companies can extend profitability through technology, ad solutions or content. With that in mind, let’s look at those 10 potential deals. 1. Demand Media will acquire Tremor Media Demand Media has raised $355 million but to this day still generates the bulk of its revenue from its domain registrar unit, eNom. However, it is trying to move into the content business, with its “Content Farm” strategy getting a lot of attention . Demand Media’s existing content lends itself better to an arbitrage strategy built around Google marketing and monetization, but over time it will want to do a better job entering both display and video advertising and it will do that by buying one of the many, many video ad networks out there. Brightroll, which is focused on brands, is one option.  Tremor is another, focusing on reach.  That strategy should fit well with Demand Media’s modus operandi.  Tremor Media’s ads reach 177.6 million uniques, or 85% of internet users. 2. Lagardere Groupe will acquire Dailymotion At first glance, French media conglomerate Lagardere seemingly sees no value in communities as a marketing platform: “There is no clear business model because you have a huge, massive audience, but it is not a marketing community,” says to Lagardere’s Chief Financial Officer Dominique D’Hinnin. Monsieur D’Hinnin might be right, but never underestimate France’s sense of nationalism. Dailymotion is France’s answer to YouTube and it has taken steps to reduce its share of user-generated and pirated content in favor of professional videos. (Disclosure: Dailymotion is also one of WatchMojo’s distribution partners). With $68.5M in funding—including a tidy sum from Le Fonds Strategique d’investissement, which is an investing arm of the French State—you can imagine that one of the pillars of the French media landscape, Lagardere Groupe could eventually step in and acquire Dailymotion despite its admitted monetization problems: “At the moment, we are poor at monetising our audience,” admits Dailymotion CEO Cedric Tournay. Lagardere could help with that provided Dailymotion can continue to de-emphasize its less advertiser-friendly content. Additionally, Lagardere will be able to leverage Dailymotion’s audience to promote its own content: the company owns Hachette along with numerous other media entities. 3. Scripps will acquire 5Min When 5Min (another one of our distribution partners) launched, it focused on user-generated how-to content. Thankfully for them, they have since moved away from that and currently mesh a) aggregated premium and super premium content with b) their monetization engine, a strategy which has propelled 5Min to become a Top 10 comScore video company. Scripps is a producer of super premium content, and like Discovery Holdings, it might prefer to distribute its programming through TV and cable. But, with consumers viewing more and more videos on the Web, it will need more content for its sites and will look for more inventory online. The two companies already have a strategic deal in place, so they have some familiarity with each other. 4. Google will acquire Ooyala Last year it was rumored that Google was going to acquire Brightcove for $500-700M. That was always unlikely because many of Brightcove’s financial backers are the very same media companies that view Google as the bane of their existence.  Moreover, Google makes a lot of acquisitions but rarely are they large (YouTube, DoubleClick and AdMob being the exceptions). A more logical fit to expand its video foothold would be Ooyala , which competes with Brightcove and includes Glam Media and others as clients… and was founded by a former Google executive. Google has the consumer video market cornered with YouTube.  Iit could leverage Ooyala to go after the corporate market by undercutting Brightcove. 5. Microsoft will acquire Brightcove The consolidation in ad services peaked with Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick and Microsoft’s $6B acquisition of aQuantive. After selling ad agency unit Razorfish, today aQuantive is Microsoft Advertising , and as advertising continues to move into video, MSFT will probably want to offer a video content management to go along with the Atlas ad serving platform.  That is where Brightcove fits in. If you think about it, Google owns video search by way of its YouTube acquisition. Microsoft wants to push into cloud computing and at least conceptually, owning Brightcove would give it a legitimate cloud computing foothold in professional video content with no real threat to any of its core businesses. It could also better integrate Brightcove (which increasingly powers media companies’ videos) into Bing’s video search, helping it kill many birds with one (albeit expensive) stone. 6. Yahoo! will acquire Freewheel After acquiring Blue Lithium and Right Media, Yahoo! got a shot in the arm and grew its advertising reach across the Web, outside of the Yahoo.com property. Freewheel is founded by former DoubleClick employees but Google (which bought DoubleClick) might have less interest than one would think in augmenting its video advertising reach across the Web considering it owns YouTube which accounts for 40% of online video consumption. YouTube only monetizes a small share of the billions of videos on the site. Freewheel, which allows marketers and publishers to manage campaigns across a variety of distribution sites, would be a nice fit with Yahoo!, which might want to extend its Audience Network in video offerings. 7. Gannett will acquire Livestream Gannett already invested $10 million in Livestream (then known as Mogulus). The fit is a natural: print media will want to bolster its video offerings (be it content or technology). The main challenge here is that media companies have grown wary of buying technology firms, but news organizations will have a natural predisposition for all things live and the investment sets the stage up for an all-out acquisition. 8. Nielsen will acquire TubeMogul TubeMogul provides analytics to countless marketers and publishers (we use them at WatchMojo). Nielsen and comScore are both looking at adding video capabilities and TubeMogul has done a good job of getting wide adoption, providing Nielsen with a quick entry into the burgeoning video space. Also, David Toth, former president, CEO, and co-founder of the NetRatings service joined TubeMogul’s board. 9. AOL acquires Howcast AOL’s recent acquisition of StudioNow is a sign of things to come: When AOL was spun off from Time Warner, it was shackled with restrictions on its use of cash and thus the size of the deals it could complete. But AOL wants to create content, lots of it. AOL’s Tim Armstrong is an investor in Howcast ; he was also an investor in Patch, a local startup Armstrong acquired after joining AOL (to his credit, he simply recouped his initial investment and did not participate in the capital gain). Howcast creates videos themselves, lets users create and upload videos and aggregates other professional content (Howcast is one of our distribution partners as well). While Howcast might have proven redundant with the StudioNow acquisition, AOL has a history of doubling up when it focuses on a space (think ad services: Tacoda, Advertising.com, and Third Screen Media) and Howcast is more focussed on how-to videos. 10. News Corp. acquires Break Media from Lionsgate, spins off NewCo News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch is in the process of divesting from the Web: first selling Photobucket , then chucking Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster while retaining a stake in the new venture.  I see something similar happening with Acquisition #10. Break Media is one of the so-called YouTube clones who has managed to differentiate itself by focusing on the men’s 18-34 market and creating content, be it videos and now video games.  Back in 2007, Lionsgate invested $21 million in stock for a 42% stake in Break.com. At the time, it also got a call option (basically, the right to buy) which is “exercisable at any time from June 29, 2007 until the earlier of 30 months after June 29, 2007 or a year after a change of control, to purchase all of the remaining 58% equity interests (excluding any subsequent dilutive events), including in-the-money stock options, warrants and other rights, of Break.com for $58 million in cash or common stock, at the company’s option.” The 30 month window expired on December 29, 2009, and despite Break’s momentum, I don’t see any major incentive for Lionsgate to exercise its call option. I do, however, see the following happening (well, maybe…). Lionsgate might be more willing to trade its 42% stake in Break Media for a smaller share in a NewCo. that houses both Break Media and News Corp.’s IGN Entertainment, another leader in the men’s 18-34 space. (again, bothh Break and IGN are distribution partners).  This NewCo. would then be a more likely candidate for an IPO and would allow both Lionsgate and News Corp. to focus on their core businesses and cash out their investment over time. Needless to say, all of the above deals are idle, if informed, speculation on my part.  What do you think are the most likely video exits this year? CrunchBase Information Ashkan Karbasfrooshan Information provided by CrunchBase

The Ten Most Likely M&A Deals In Online Video

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Editor’s note : Guest author Ashkan Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of video site WatchMojo . Below are his picks for the ten most likely M&A deals in online video. Previously, he wrote a series if posts about the state of online video (Part I , II , III , and IV ). Which online video companies will get bought in 2010?   Venture capitalists are desperately looking for exits while the usual suspects are sitting on more than $80 billion in cash: Microsoft ($20B), Apple ($40B), Google ($15B), Amazon ($3B), and Yahoo! ($3B) just to name the cash positions of a few potential acquirers.  Theoretically, it should be a match made in heaven, but the sheer number of venture-backed video startups is staggering so when the music stops, not everyone will find a dancing partner. Once you assess what drives companies to merge or acquire one another, however, it seems like we’re about to enter a period of mergers between video competitors and see a series of acquisitions by larger companies looking to accelerate their video strategies, with a common theme being increasing both monetization and margins. Right now, as the chart above shows (click to enlarge), there are two types of online video companies: those with sky-high ad rates but fairly limited inventory (company A) and those with huge inventory but woeful monetization (company B). Companies can extend profitability through technology, ad solutions or content. With that in mind, let’s look at those 10 potential deals. 1. Demand Media will acquire Tremor Media Demand Media has raised $355 million but to this day still generates the bulk of its revenue from its domain registrar unit, eNom. However, it is trying to move into the content business, with its “Content Farm” strategy getting a lot of attention . Demand Media’s existing content lends itself better to an arbitrage strategy built around Google marketing and monetization, but over time it will want to do a better job entering both display and video advertising and it will do that by buying one of the many, many video ad networks out there. Brightroll, which is focused on brands, is one option.  Tremor is another, focusing on reach.  That strategy should fit well with Demand Media’s modus operandi.  Tremor Media’s ads reach 177.6 million uniques, or 85% of internet users. 2. Lagardere Groupe will acquire Dailymotion At first glance, French media conglomerate Lagardere seemingly sees no value in communities as a marketing platform: “There is no clear business model because you have a huge, massive audience, but it is not a marketing community,” says to Lagardere’s Chief Financial Officer Dominique D’Hinnin. Monsieur D’Hinnin might be right, but never underestimate France’s sense of nationalism. Dailymotion is France’s answer to YouTube and it has taken steps to reduce its share of user-generated and pirated content in favor of professional videos. (Disclosure: Dailymotion is also one of WatchMojo’s distribution partners). With $68.5M in funding—including a tidy sum from Le Fonds Strategique d’investissement, which is an investing arm of the French State—you can imagine that one of the pillars of the French media landscape, Lagardere Groupe could eventually step in and acquire Dailymotion despite its admitted monetization problems: “At the moment, we are poor at monetising our audience,” admits Dailymotion CEO Cedric Tournay. Lagardere could help with that provided Dailymotion can continue to de-emphasize its less advertiser-friendly content. Additionally, Lagardere will be able to leverage Dailymotion’s audience to promote its own content: the company owns Hachette along with numerous other media entities. 3. Scripps will acquire 5Min When 5Min (another one of our distribution partners) launched, it focused on user-generated how-to content. Thankfully for them, they have since moved away from that and currently mesh a) aggregated premium and super premium content with b) their monetization engine, a strategy which has propelled 5Min to become a Top 10 comScore video company. Scripps is a producer of super premium content, and like Discovery Holdings, it might prefer to distribute its programming through TV and cable. But, with consumers viewing more and more videos on the Web, it will need more content for its sites and will look for more inventory online. The two companies already have a strategic deal in place, so they have some familiarity with each other. 4. Google will acquire Ooyala Last year it was rumored that Google was going to acquire Brightcove for $500-700M. That was always unlikely because many of Brightcove’s financial backers are the very same media companies that view Google as the bane of their existence.  Moreover, Google makes a lot of acquisitions but rarely are they large (YouTube, DoubleClick and AdMob being the exceptions). A more logical fit to expand its video foothold would be Ooyala , which competes with Brightcove and includes Glam Media and others as clients… and was founded by a former Google executive. Google has the consumer video market cornered with YouTube.  Iit could leverage Ooyala to go after the corporate market by undercutting Brightcove. 5. Microsoft will acquire Brightcove The consolidation in ad services peaked with Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick and Microsoft’s $6B acquisition of aQuantive. After selling ad agency unit Razorfish, today aQuantive is Microsoft Advertising , and as advertising continues to move into video, MSFT will probably want to offer a video content management to go along with the Atlas ad serving platform.  That is where Brightcove fits in. If you think about it, Google owns video search by way of its YouTube acquisition. Microsoft wants to push into cloud computing and at least conceptually, owning Brightcove would give it a legitimate cloud computing foothold in professional video content with no real threat to any of its core businesses. It could also better integrate Brightcove (which increasingly powers media companies’ videos) into Bing’s video search, helping it kill many birds with one (albeit expensive) stone. 6. Yahoo! will acquire Freewheel After acquiring Blue Lithium and Right Media, Yahoo! got a shot in the arm and grew its advertising reach across the Web, outside of the Yahoo.com property. Freewheel is founded by former DoubleClick employees but Google (which bought DoubleClick) might have less interest than one would think in augmenting its video advertising reach across the Web considering it owns YouTube which accounts for 40% of online video consumption. YouTube only monetizes a small share of the billions of videos on the site. Freewheel, which allows marketers and publishers to manage campaigns across a variety of distribution sites, would be a nice fit with Yahoo!, which might want to extend its Audience Network in video offerings. 7. Gannett will acquire Livestream Gannett already invested $10 million in Livestream (then known as Mogulus). The fit is a natural: print media will want to bolster its video offerings (be it content or technology). The main challenge here is that media companies have grown wary of buying technology firms, but news organizations will have a natural predisposition for all things live and the investment sets the stage up for an all-out acquisition. 8. Nielsen will acquire TubeMogul TubeMogul provides analytics to countless marketers and publishers (we use them at WatchMojo). Nielsen and comScore are both looking at adding video capabilities and TubeMogul has done a good job of getting wide adoption, providing Nielsen with a quick entry into the burgeoning video space. Also, David Toth, former president, CEO, and co-founder of the NetRatings service joined TubeMogul’s board. 9. AOL acquires Howcast AOL’s recent acquisition of StudioNow is a sign of things to come: When AOL was spun off from Time Warner, it was shackled with restrictions on its use of cash and thus the size of the deals it could complete. But AOL wants to create content, lots of it. AOL’s Tim Armstrong is an investor in Howcast ; he was also an investor in Patch, a local startup Armstrong acquired after joining AOL (to his credit, he simply recouped his initial investment and did not participate in the capital gain). Howcast creates videos themselves, lets users create and upload videos and aggregates other professional content (Howcast is one of our distribution partners as well). While Howcast might have proven redundant with the StudioNow acquisition, AOL has a history of doubling up when it focuses on a space (think ad services: Tacoda, Advertising.com, and Third Screen Media) and Howcast is more focussed on how-to videos. 10. News Corp. acquires Break Media from Lionsgate, spins off NewCo News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch is in the process of divesting from the Web: first selling Photobucket , then chucking Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster while retaining a stake in the new venture.  I see something similar happening with Acquisition #10. Break Media is one of the so-called YouTube clones who has managed to differentiate itself by focusing on the men’s 18-34 market and creating content, be it videos and now video games.  Back in 2007, Lionsgate invested $21 million in stock for a 42% stake in Break.com. At the time, it also got a call option (basically, the right to buy) which is “exercisable at any time from June 29, 2007 until the earlier of 30 months after June 29, 2007 or a year after a change of control, to purchase all of the remaining 58% equity interests (excluding any subsequent dilutive events), including in-the-money stock options, warrants and other rights, of Break.com for $58 million in cash or common stock, at the company’s option.” The 30 month window expired on December 29, 2009, and despite Break’s momentum, I don’t see any major incentive for Lionsgate to exercise its call option. I do, however, see the following happening (well, maybe…). Lionsgate might be more willing to trade its 42% stake in Break Media for a smaller share in a NewCo. that houses both Break Media and News Corp.’s IGN Entertainment, another leader in the men’s 18-34 space. (again, bothh Break and IGN are distribution partners).  This NewCo. would then be a more likely candidate for an IPO and would allow both Lionsgate and News Corp. to focus on their core businesses and cash out their investment over time. Needless to say, all of the above deals are idle, if informed, speculation on my part.  What do you think are the most likely video exits this year? CrunchBase Information Ashkan Karbasfrooshan Information provided by CrunchBase

Breakdancing Is No Match For Project Natal’s Sensors [Natal]

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

It’s possible that you’ve been reading reports of Microsoft’s body-capturing Project Natal with some skepticism, wondering, “how well can this cockamamie setup possibly work?” Well, going by this video of it perfectly tracking a guy breakdancing, pretty damn well. As best we can guess, Natal will be making its way to Xboxes sometime this fall . That’s still a good deal of waiting we’ve got ahead of us, so every once in a while it’s nice to have a reminder of why we’re so excited. February’s reminder: this video of Natal perfectly tracking a dude dancing during the requisite playground ball demo game. We’ll have to wait and see how Natal’s 1/10th second lag affects game play, but as seen here, the motion capture itself, even in low light situations, is undeniably smooth. [ Project Natal Games - Thanks, Jordan! ]

Quantcast: Apple share of OS growing while Microsoft shrinks slightly

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Filed under: OS , Odds and ends , Internet , Leopard Research released today indicates that in North America, Apple’s Mac OS X is gaining traction, while the Windows share of the OS market is shrinking ever so slightly. That’s the report from Quantcast , a company that measures and analyzes web traffic. They say that the market share for Mac OS X is up 7% from December to January. Microsoft held steady for the last 3 months of 2009 with the release of Windows 7, but started a slow decline again in January. According to Quantcast, Apple has a 10.9% North American share as of January, while Windows has 86.8%. An interesting note is that the largest group of users is on Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6, while Windows XP dominates on the Microsoft side. Apple’s relative share in North America is up 29.4 % in a year, while Windows share is down 3.8%. These figures measure web consumption, so if you’re not web connected your OS choice doesn’t count. Quantcast measures ad supported sites, so huge traffic sites like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others don’t supply statistics. TUAW Quantcast: Apple share of OS growing while Microsoft shrinks slightly originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read

LG hopes to launch their first Windows Phone 7 handset around September or November

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 just a few days ago at Mobile World Congress, the only sort of time frame they’d give for release was “by the Holidays”. As it turns out, they may have meant Labor Day . Engadget Chinese met up with LG during some sort of Chinese New Year celebration, and got hit with a nice little knowledge bomb: LG’s hoping to launch their first Windows Mobile 7 phone by September. Alas, they also said that it might slip back as late as November — which is about the time we’re expecting much of the first batch of WP7 phones to launch. [ Via Engadget US ]

Windows Phone 7 devices will come in three flavors

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Microsoft is doing a complete 180 and reinventing the way it handles its mobile presence. When the iPhone was first announced, Steve Ballmer quipped that Windows Mobile was on hundreds of devices all over the world while the iPhone was one operating system on one handset on one carrier. It looks like he and the gang are thinking differently these days. Windows Phone 7 has been such a stark departure from Windows Mobile, which is a good thing, and we’re happy to see that the devices are following suit. Instead of slapping a clunky and cumbersome operating system onto a smörgåsbord of devices, Microsoft has decided on three models or chassis for its new OS. Chassis 1 is basically what we’ve seen so far. It will be a large touchscreen-only device with a 1GHz processor and is slated for release around the 2010 holiday season. Chassis 2 will include slide-out QWERTY keyboards reminiscent of Windows Mobile devices, which is particularly good for folks who still want the clickety-clack of physical keys. Chassis 3 is still a mystery, so let your imagination free. Will it be a slider? Candybar? For Apple and Palm, it seems this strict ecosystem has been a recipe for success. And while I’ve always had an aversion to Windows Mobile in the past, I’m looking forward to what Microsoft has in store for its future handsets. [via ZDNet ]

Windows Marketplace tweaked, installs to storage cards now possible (Android, take note)

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Microsoft has released an updated version of its Marketplace for Mobile application for WinMo 6.0 and up recently that makes a few key changes — nothing that’s going to shake you to your very core the same way that Windows Phone 7 Series did last week, certainly, but there’s some good stuff in here nonetheless. Most importantly, Marketplace will now allow for app installs straight to memory cards, a critical capability for devices that don’t have gobs of storage built in (and something that Android tragically still lacks). We’ve also got deep links to app product pages, user-selectable regional stores, Russian support, and the list goes on, so it seems like a must-have upgrade for anyone on a 6.x device. Just don’t break the bank going on a wild, Red Bull-fueled app buying rampage now, alright? [Thanks, Stair] Windows Marketplace tweaked, installs to storage cards now possible (Android, take note) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink