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After Windows Phone and iOS, Xbox Live comes to Android

Xbox fans with Google's Android phones can now keep up – or at least begin to keep up – with their fellow gamers using Apple's iPhones and Microsoft's Windows Phone devices, now that Microsoft has released an Xbox Live app for the Google Operating System (OS).

The XBox Live app for Android went live on Google Play Wednesday, and requires an Xbox Live account as well as Android 2.2 Froyo or higher – and a WGVA screen resolution or higher.

"Take your Xbox LIVE experience wherever you go with the My Xbox LIVE app. Track and compare your achievements, connect with your Xbox LIVE friends, and change up your 3D Avatar," read the description on the app's page on Google Play.
Review all the recent great games you and your friends love to play and compare achievements with them. Access Xbox Spotlight feeds, get breaking news from Xbox LIVE, game tips and tricks, gamer spotlight and much more."

Get Microsoft's Kinectimals now also from Google Play

As Google's Android continues its attempt to chip away at the Apple's iOS audience bit by bit, it received quite the boost in confidence this week, as Microsoft published its first game for the Google Play store.

OK, so Kinectimals has already been on Windows Phone and iOS for ages, and no doubt iPhone and iPad users will be using lines like "I was playing that game before it was cool" or whatever the kids say these days.

But it's a notable move by the big Microsoft, as the company essentially shows that it has faith that Android games will sell.
It also no doubt signals the start of a relationship between Microsoft and Android devices, as other Microsoft games are bound to follow.

Groupon for Android gets a much needed new look

Popular deals service Groupon has had its Android app facelifted, resulting in a new look, as well as a couple new features and services.

Take a look at the brand-new User Interface (UI) after the break.

As you can see, the app now looks looks decidedly more Google's Android Ice Cream Sandwich-y, has added a universal share button, and swipeable categories.

You'll also notice new categories for Pets and Rewards (spend enough money at certain businesses and you get loyalty rewards).

Overall, this was a much-needed refresh.

Amazon adds support for children books, comics to its Kindle eReader app

Amazon on Thursday released updates for its Kindle for Apple's iOS and Google's Android apps, as well as its Cloud Reader, adding support for children's books, comics, and graphic novels.

More than 1,000 children's and comic book titles are now available on the Kindle Fire, Kindle for Android, Kindle for iPad, and Kindle Cloud Reader, Amazon said.
Children's titles Brown Bear and Curious George are available, along with comics such as Batman and Superman.

The new additions will feature a "beautiful layout and full color," Amazon said.
Supported children's books, for example, utilize the Kindle Text Pop-Up feature to magnify text for easy reading on any size screen.
Supported comics and graphic novels are presented in Kindle Panel View, "showcasing the artwork in a panel by panel experience that reads as the author intended," Amazon said.

Apple OS X Mountain Lion new features preview

We were able to see an in-depth preview of Apple's next Mac Operating System (OS) - OS X Mountain Lion - this year at WWDC 2012.

Here are the big changes coming to your Mac this July.

 

Game Center

Perhaps the biggest news for gamers is the Mac's integration with Game Center - the gaming hub for iPhone and iPad.

Game Center allows you to play friends online, compare achievements ("points") and add friends - it's the Xbox Live of the mobile world, and now it's making its way to Mac with OS X Lion.

iOS users prefer gaming apps while Android owners favor utilities

Are Google's Android users more practical than Apple's iOS device owners?

If you compare the top 10 free apps in the Google Play store to the same list in Apple's iTunes, you can’t help but see differences between the two smartphone camps.

Of the top 10 free apps in the Google Play store right now, six are by Google, including Gmail, Street View on Google Maps, YouTube, and Voice Search.
The other apps: Facebook for Android, Adobe Flash Player 11, Pandora and Instagram.

All told, the bulk of these apps add functionality to Android devices.
None are games.

Sony partners with HTC to bring its 'PlayStation Mobile' gaming platform to all

Sony revealed on Monday at E3 that it is partnering up with Taiwanese handset maker HTC for the first non-Sony devices to feature its newly-renamed "PlayStation Mobile" Android gaming platform.

During a keynote presentation at E3 2012 in Los Angeles, California, Sony announced that it was changing the name of its fledgling PlayStation Suite platform to PlayStation Mobile to "reflect the mobility of the PlayStation experience." 
The company first unveiled its plans for the Android game store last January.

Popular travel app WorldMate comes to Windows Phone

Popular travel organizer app/service WorldMate is about to enter Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace.

While we’re not sure when that will happen exactly, we do have few screenshots to show you (as you can see from the images left and after the break).

Expect all (or at least most) of the features users on other platforms have learned to love, including itinerary viewer, ability to see full trip items’ details, and one click to call and open location maps.
Moreover, there’s the social media integration with Facebook and LinkedIn accounts for sharing travel plans and seeing who’s nearby to the trip destinations.

Of course, all this is packed into a Metro-style User Interface (UI) to make the experience familiar to the Windows Phone community.
And it’s (will be) free to download.

PicPlz, Instgram main competitor, shuts down

Early Instagram competitor PicPlz has notified its users that the service will be shutting down indefinitely within a month.

The site made the announcement on its blog Friday, and followed up with an Email to all users yesterday.
In it, the message reads:

“It has been a pleasure bringing PicPlz to our users, but we have decided to move on to other projects and have made the tough decision to shut it down.”

The service itself will be officially shut down as of 3^rd July 2012.
It’s users have been instructed to log in and begin downloading whatever photos they’ve uploaded via a button next to each picture.

Microsoft wants you to be able to start playing a game on your Xbox 360 and finish it on your mobile

According to a reliable source, Microsoft plans to unveil a new feature known as Xbox Live Companion.

Not to be confused with its social and marketplace app Xbox Companion, Xbox Live Companion is a system where developers of Xbox 360 console games can stream content directly to a mobile phone or tablet.

This source says the feature was internally known as Smart Glass, lending some credibility to rumours of an ability to stream content from your console to a phone or tablet.
From what the source tells us, though, it appears Microsoft's ambitions for such a feature are a little more focused on games.

Nokia launches another new app available exclusively to Lumia Windows Phone devices owners

Nokia has brought in another exclusive apps for its Lumia device owners, and this time around as well, it is an entertainment app.

It is the new Nokia Trailers app that we are talking about, and yes, you guessed it right, it is for Microsoft's Windows Phones only.

The Finnish company has been putting a lot of efforts to make the lives of its Lumia customers more enjoyable.
This dedication, for sure, worth a mention.

In its efforts to get the attention of the customer base of the smartphone industry, Nokia has been trying out a lot of new things.

Microsoft to launch new 'Xbox Music Center' together with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

The gradual removal of the Zune branding from Microsoft's service has sparked speculation over how Microsoft will replace the service, if at all.

Rumors from around the net claim Microsoft is developing a new service, called the "Xbox Music Center."

Job openings for a Paris-based development team call for applicants to help build "a massive catalog of music content from multiple vendors and development of innovative users interfaces for music consumption on Xbox Live, Windows, mobile phones and the Web."

Skype CEO believes Lumia Windows Phones are going to be big due to the OS 'people-centric nature'

"Skype is excited about integrating its service with Windows 8", the Operating System (OS) yet to be released by Microsoft, its leader said during a conference this week.

Tony Bates, the CEO of Skype, said during The Wall Street Journal's D10 conference that there would be some "great integration points" with Microsoft's new platform.

That Skype and Microsoft might collaborate to some extent on Windows 8 is no revelation:
Microsoft last year closed its US$8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, the software company that enables people from around the world to chat for free over the Web and see each other while talking.

After iOS, Photosynth is now available for Windows Phone

Microsoft Photosynth made a big impression when it was released four years ago.

The photo-stitching software allows users to create 360-degree panoramas and “synths” by putting together many photos of a location.
It turns out that Microsoft has been quietly working on the technology ever since its release, and today the company is announcing the Photosynth app for Windows Phone.

The announcement came on the Bing blog, where the Bing Team showed off the app’s features.
Photosynth for Windows Phone will allow users to stitch together panoramas in the same way the Apple's iOS Photosynth app does.

Mostly games prove to be incompatible with low-memory Windows Phone Tango devices

We've seen several instances where low-memory Windows Phone devices like Nokia's Lumia 610 (picture), which has just 256MB of RAM, simply can't run certain high-profile apps.

But just how bad is the problem?

AAWP crunched the numbers and found that of the 86,292 apps currently available in the Windows Phone Marketplace at time of running the experiment, only 1.6% aren't compatible with 256MB phones — which is less than Microsoft's claim of five percent.

However, that number does increase a bit when you look at the more popular apps.
Of the top 10,000 downloads in the United Kingdom, 4.6% are incompatible with low-memory devices, while 6.4% of the top 1,000 apps won't work.

The Xbox to become Microsoft's entertainment hub

Microsoft has said that it plans to make the Xbox 360 the heart of its entertainment offering across all platforms moving forward.

In a blog post by Yusuf Mehdi
, Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer for the company's Interactive Entertainment Division, ahead of the company's annual press conference at the E3 gaming conference on Monday, Mehdi has said that the console will move away from being just that.

Samsung launches the Music Hub in Europe for Galaxy S III owners

Samsung on Tuesday announced the arrival of its new Music Hub service.

The all-in-one mobile music service launched in various European markets with the Galaxy S III smartphone.

Music Hub is based technology from mSpot, whom Samsung recently acquired, and allows users to store, purchase, and stream millions of songs in one place.

Music Hub also has the ability to scan and match a users music in a method similar to Apple's iTunes Match.
Not only will the service rival Apple’s iTunes, but it will also compete directly against Google Music.

Rumors that say that Facebook is readying its own smartphone are back

This is a topic that has been going on and off, but here it goes again:
Facebook is said to be hiring smartphone hardware and software engineers in order to build its own smartphone.

That’s what Nick Bilton from the NYTimes has just published, and looking at our own circles here in Silicon Valley, the hiring seems definitely real.
Facebook has been hiring a number of engineers who have nothing to do with social networks, Web development or network infrastructure, and it has done so for some time now.

The question is:
What is their mission?

BlackBerry Messenger will not be licensed to Google and Apple after all

It looks like the Research In Motion (RIM) Blackberry Messenger (BBM) will not be landing on your favorite Google's Android or Apple's iOS handsets any time soon.

According to reports, Thorsten Heins, RIM CEO, pulled the plug on licensing BBM to its rivals after realising that users may let go of their Blackberry handsets altogether since the IM can be used on rival handsets.

Due to the popularity of the Blackberry Messenger, RIM has managed to stay afloat.
It is highly popular among the youth, and RIM claims there are 55 million BBM users out there.

Sony Xperia Play will not be upgraded to Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Sony has posted an update on its Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades.

More 2011 devices will start getting their Android 4.0 Over-The-Air (OTA) updates starting next week, and everything is going as planned with the Xperia S,P and U.

But there is also some sad news in the same blog post – it seems the team has decided to cancel the Android 4.0 update on the Xperia Play.

“In regards to Xperia Play, after extensive in house testing with our developer teams and working with our partners, we have concluded that a consistent and stable experience, particularly with gaming, cannot be guaranteed for this smartphone on Ice Cream Sandwich - therefore, we will not make the Android 4.0 upgrade available for Xperia Play.
This decision was also verified when we received similar feedback from the developer community; both experienced developers and advanced users, along with game content providers following our Ice Cream Sandwich beta ROM for unlocked Xperia Play smartphones.”