Microsoft and Windows Round-up – 15.7.2010

With all the tech blogosphere’s attention being centered around a momentous Apple announcement tomorrow there wasn’t a heck of a lot on Microsoft news that bubbled up.

Microsoft:

• Microsoft’s “Office Social Connector” (aka Facebook Connect for Outlook) is Great – Ryan Spoon
  But tying together the web’s most visited site (Facebook) with arguably the most important communication platform (email) is both natural and a long time coming.
• Microsoft Applies To Patent A Touch Gesture – Manan
  Anyway, the title isn’t misleading, in a patent filing Microsoft has indeed applied to patent a touch gesture known as the “Rubber-Band Gesture”
• Microsoft Research Redmond to get new leader – The Microsoft Blog
  Microsoft is bringing in a new leader for its Research operations in Redmond: Peter Lee, a computer science researcher who most recently worked at the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Windows Live & Bing:

• Windows Live Movie Maker receives PCMAG.COM Editors Choice – LiveSide
  This week PCMAG.COM gave Windows Live Movie Maker Wave 4 Beta an Editors’ Choice Award.
• Yahoo begins testing live Bing results (both paid and organic) this month – LiveSide
  Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land is reporting that an email sent out to Yahoo! advertisers

Windows Phone 7:

• Windows phone 7 voice command features demoed – WMPoweruser
  Pocketnow.com have uploaded this video of the new voice command features in Windows Phone 7, which uses a combination of on-device speech recognition and also their Tellme service.
• Will Microsoft come back strong with the Windows Phone? – MobileBeat
  Many pundits have written Microsoft off in the mobile platform wars, but based on what I heard during a Windows Phone 7 session at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco at the beginning of the week, I am here to tell you that Windows Phone looks promising.

Xbox:

• Images of new Xbox 360 dashboard leaked – SlipperyBrick
  French site Logic-Sunrise has posted shots of what appears to be a new version of the Xbox 360 Dashboard interface.
• Xbox 360 outsells Wii in June, but industry sales down – The Microsoft Blog
  It’s only happened five times since the 2006 holiday shopping season: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold the market-dominating Nintendo Wii in June, according to NPD Group.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft and Windows Round-up – 9.7.2010
2. Microsoft and Windows Round-up – 2.7.2010
3. Microsoft and Windows Round-up – 30.06.2010
4. Microsoft and Windows Round-up – 8.7.2010
5. Microsoft and Windows Round-up – 13.7.2010