The first tease of Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7 piqued my interest, sure. But after I had a little hands-on time with some of the games planned for launch, Microsoft’s officially got my undivided attention.

 

Microsoft’s trotting out over 50 titles today, all of which and more will be available by the time Windows Phone 7 devices go on sale this holiday season. When I spoke with Kevin Unangst—the company’s PC and mobile gaming big boss—he repeatedly mentioned that this list was just a taste. But even with more titles expected before launch, there’s already a lot to like here: casual favorites like Bejeweled and Oregon Trail, Xbox exclusive fare from the Halo and Crackdown franchises, three games with "Zombie" in the name. Good times.

How’s the interface? In a word: familiar. Once you tap on the Xbox Live tile, you’re met with what Matt saw when he took an in-depth tour Windows Phone 7. There’s your avatar waiting to greet you. There’s the last achievement you unlocked, whether it was on your console or the phone. This is where you see game invites from friends, games you’ve downloaded. There’s a Spotlight area that wasn’t up and running yet on the handset I saw, but it serves the same purpose it does on your console. It’s Xbox Live on your phone, as promised.

There are also some clever ways Microsoft has optimized the experience for mobile. Your 3D avatar will get dizzy and fall down if you shake the phone, and if you unlock an avatar item on Xbox Live anywhere it’s usable on the phone. And your avatar can invade the rest of your phone, too, with Avatar Gadgets, which are simple productivity apps like a flashlight, coin toss, ruler, and leveler that your avatar interacts with on screen.

Every Xbox Live game on Windows Phone 7 has a 200 gamerscore, just like Xbox Live Arcade games, and will accrue to your overall gamerscore. That integrated experience is reflected in your Avatar as well: any customizations you make on the phone will be reflected immediately on the console, and vice versa.

Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7 Hands On: Mobile Levels Up

It looks like the Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse that was rumored months back is close to becoming official. German website notebooksbilliger has the fabled mouse, complete with pictures, available for pre-order for 70€ ($90) with an available ship-date of October 13th. The sleek mouse is — as the name suggests — arched for ergonomic navigation but can also be bent flat for storage or travel. The device runs on the 2.4 GHz frequency and comes with a “ultra-compact Nano-transceiver” that can be stored in the device’s battery compartment when not in use. To be honest, the device looks pretty sexy. Thoughts? We’ve got a few more images of the device after the break

Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse breaks cover on German website « Boy Genius Report

 

Jailbreaking is stupidly simple.  Now adding Flash to your iPhone is just about as easy.  Benm.at, that site that used to add tethering to your iPhone, now has Frash in its repository.  One you’ve jailbreakme‘d,

1. Open Cydia > Manage > Sources
2. Edit source and add http://repo.benm.at
3. Search Frash and install it.

Also, you might want to pick up some external iPhone batteries for your new space heater.  Works on iPad too but not on iPhone 3G or less. via Giz/iThinkDif/9 to 5 Mac

Benm.at adds Frash (Flash) to repository, makes installation stupidly simple. | 9 to 5 Mac

Microsoft guru extraordinaire Mary Jo Foley has retweeted a company employee boasting of a commitment to hand out Windows Phone 7 devices to each and every one of Redmond’s 90,000-plus employees around the world. That’s certainly one way to spread the word — and realistically, the cost to Microsoft is a drop in the bucket if they can really take advantage of the word-of-mouth advertising effect here. Of course, step one in that process is going to be making sure the product is absolutely rock solid by the time those gratis units start getting handed out. 

Microsoft to employees: ‘everybody gets a Windows Phone 7!’ — Engadget

 

Today the planets aligned for a pretty amazing set of Unibody MacBook Pro updates.  If you want to literally max out your MacBook Pro, both RAM and hard drive have sunk to great prices in the 9to5mac Toys section.  Oh, this works in Mac Minis too but removing the HDD might not be your best move.

• On the hard drive, Dell has the $99 1TB Toshiba Canvio which has a 12.5mm high internal hard drive that can be pulled (According to this thread) and placed into most newer Unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros (check your specs).  It isn’t a speed demon @5400RPM, but it will likely double or triple the amount of disk space you have.  Bonus: You get a USB enclosure for your current Hard Drive and for transferring your data.
• Updated: A Commenter found 4GB DIMMs at a lower price – 2x$99.  I can’t speak for the RAM manufacturer, but OWC ($28 more total) has been extremely reliable in our dealings with them in the past.  Here’s Apple’s RAM installation instructions.

These upgrades are pretty trivial and even a novice can do them.  There are lots of tutorials out on the net.  But as always, no guarantees – if you don’t trust yourself, take it to someone who you do trust!  Here are a bunch of YouTube videos on upgrading.

How to juice your MacBook/Pro to 8GB RAM and 1TB HD for $299 (w/free USB HD enclosure) | 9 to 5 Mac

Oh, Steve — you should’ve known better. You show up and remove a laptop from a manila envelope, and Earth’s most creative go and create a case fashioned out of one. You go and suggest that Eminem could "come out with a band-aid that goes over the corner" of your controversial iPhone 4, and well… this happens. You could wait for a free case, or you could buy six of these Antenna-aids for five bucks. The choice is obvious.

Antenna-aid bandages your iPhone 4 reception issue, hopes for role in next Eminem video — Engadget

Those of you who run dual monitor setups know it’s a godsend for productivity with the freedom it gives for multitasking. Granted, some might find it hard to justify buying a secondary display for their day-to-day computing needs. But if you already have a laptop to complement your main rig, or perhaps you do have another monitor but want to keep it attached to a secondary desktop, then there’s another solution for you.

Synergy+ is a cross-platform, open-source application that enables you to share a single mouse and keyboard with multiple computers — somewhat similar to a KVM but without special hardware. Once installed on all systems, you’ll have to pick which keyboard and mouse you want to share (server) and configure the secondary screens (clients) — detailed instructions are available here. The initial setup can be a little confusing, but after you have everything up and running you’ll be able to simply move your mouse to the edge of one screen and watch it seamlessly jump to another.
Of course, it’s not the same as having a multiple monitor setup as you can’t move programs or windows from one PC to the other, but you’ll be able to multitask using two independent systems at once with the same mouse and keyboard combo. Another cool feature that Synergy+ offers is the ability to copy and paste data between your computers.
The program is based on and implements many bug fixes to the original Synergy project by Chris Schoeneman, which hasn’t been updated in a few years. It’s free and available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems.

Here is it installed on my Dell Mini 9 with Snow Leopard, PC with Windows 7, and my PPC G5 with Leopard. 

 

Download of the Week: Synergy+ – TechSpot News

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the company missed the mobile phone software curve and is now playing catch-up. However, mobile “is a dynamic market” and Microsoft could make a comeback.

 

All Things Video | AllThingsDDuring his interview onstage at D8 today, Steve Ballmer talked about how the company’s smartphone business.

I sound a bit like spock in this, sorry. If you Jailbrake, please backup, and do it at your own risk.

I will try to put a video out on my favorite JB apps. Some are:

- Backgrounder

- DisplayOut

- WinterBoard

- SBSettings

- FullForce (This may be my next post)

- Mouse (MUST HAVE if you have a keyboard dock)

- Themes (These work with WinterBoard)

 

YouTube – Mirror Everything on your iPad to VGA with DisplayOut

Of all the great DIY projects at this year’s Maker Faire, the one project that really caught my eye involved converting a regular old $60 router into a powerful, highly configurable $600 router. The router has an interesting history, but all you really need to know is that the special sauce lies in embedding Linux in your router. I found this project especially attractive because: 1) It’s easy, and 2) it’s totally free.

After a relatively simple firmware upgrade, you can boost your wireless signal, prioritize what programs get your precious bandwidth, and do lots of other simple or potentially much more complicated things to improve your computing experience. Today I’m going to walk you through upgrading your router’s firmware to the powerful open source DD-WRT firmware.

For an alternative to DD-WRT with a simplified interface and fancy charts and graphs, check out another guide to turning your $60 router into a user-friendly super router with Tomato.

Hack Attack: Turn your $60 router into a $600 router

Seesmic has just released a preview version of their Seesmic Desktop Twitter application, Seesmic Desktop 2, the app that runs on Silverlight on both Mac and Windows PC. The most notable thing about this release is the built in support for Seesmic’s new plugin architecture. With the new platform, every tool, feature and service can be integrated into the app as a plugin, which allows for complete user customization of the app.

By default, the app supports multiple Twitter accounts and Facebook, plus it offers support for lesser known services like Google Buzz and Socialwok. You can add in even more plugins, too, like Bit.ly and Bing Maps, for example.

Also new to this version of Seesmic are unique backgrounds provided by Red Bull (and more will arrive later, we’re told). Directory and channels like those supported in Seesmic Look are now available too.

You can download the preview version of Seesmic Desktop here.

Seesmic Desktop 2 Preview

Prior to the iPad’s release, we posed a question to the readers: "why jailbreak an iPad?" Jailbreaking, the act of hacking an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to install unapproved, third-party applications, is a popular pastime for many Apple mobile device owners. It provides more control over the hardware and software, offers new settings to tweak and delivers more features to what was formerly a locked-down, closed device.

But with the launch of the iPad, the reasons to jailbreak seemed, at first glance, limited. Tethering, for example, one of the most popular hacks for iPhones (it turns phones into computer modems) is no longer necessary on an iPad. You can buy an iPad with 3G built in. Apps that let you hack the camera aren’t needed because the iPad has no camera. Apps for hacking the phone or providing VoIP access are also unnecessary because the iPad isn’t a phone. And so on.

So we asked: is there still a good reason to hack an iPad via jailbreaking? As it turns out, there are several.

For details on how to jailbreak an iPad, go here.

1. Multitasking

An app called "Backgrounder" turns your iPad into something that more closely resembles a "real" computer. With this app, you can run programs in the background while you switch between apps. For now, this app is a must-have for iPad jailbreakers, but it’s worth noting that a coming software updated – iPhone OS 4.0 – will deliver multitasking to the iPad later this year.

2. Dashboard

The Dashboard app allows you to download and install widgets from Apple.com, just as you can on Mac OS X computers. Although not entirely bug-free and some widgets don’t work, most of the ones we tried did just fine.

3. Rock

Rock, the third-party app store filled with paid apps that deliver more features and functionality works well on the iPad. Here, you can download things like My3G which tricks apps into thinking you’re using a Wi-Fi connection and not 3G (helpful for restricted video apps) and MyWi, which turns your iPad into a Wi-Fi hotspot others can use. (Note: not all Rock apps will work on iPad).

4. SBSettings

One of the most popular tweaking apps, SBSettings lets you put toggles for various settings on your iPad’s springboard – even toggles for settings that don’t have toggles – like re-spring or reboot. For iPad users suffering from Wi-Fi woes (yes, that’s still not fixed), you could put a Wi-Fi toggle on your springboard to reset the Wi-Fi – the only workaround that actually works for 100% of users.

5. Peripherals!

Devoted hackers have come up with ways to use peripheral devices with the iPad, including, most recently, an Apple Magic Mouse. Others have set up external hard drives to work with the iPad and have even used a Wiimote to play Super Mario World using the jailbreak app, SNES4iPhone.

6. "Depixelize" iPhone Apps

One of the more disappointing things about the iPad is how iPhone apps look when launched on the slate device. We knew they wouldn’t look great, but when Steve Jobs said all iPhone would work on the iPad, we expected something better. They look just awful. However, the combination of a jailbreak app and some slightly more advanced hacking skills will allow you to scale iPhone apps for the iPad to run them in fullscreen without pixel doubling.

7. And More…the Complete List

If your favorite app isn’t listed here, you can check its status in the "iPad JB Compatibility" spreadsheet, maintained here on Google Docs. This crowdsourced report lets you see what apps are compatible, what features work and what, if anything, is being done to update the app for iPad compatibility. – Snippet from ReadWriteWeb.com

Spirit JB Software Download

Windows Mac OS Linux

Spirit

 

For I.T. departments tasked with supporting a wide range of mobile handsets, providing connectivity to internal resources, like SharePoint sites for example, becomes a larger challenge. That’s especially true for handsets that are more consumer-friendly as opposed to enterprise-ready.

But luckily for iPhone owners, there’s an app that can connect you to your company’s SharePoint sites via your device: Moshare. With this application, you can browse documents, send links, docs and texts, access contacts, view calendars and search across all data. Plus, you can access multiple SharePoint sites from the app, too.

Although you can’t edit or upload files using the app, it does provide quick access for read-only, file viewing…and sometimes, that’s all you need. Moshare is affordably priced at $1.99 and is available for download here.

Moshare: SharePoint for iPhone | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10

It seems like every week we learn about a new tip to enhance the Windows 7 taskbar, and it’s hard to keep them all straight. Here’s the complete power user’s guide to tweaking and using your taskbar like a pro.

 

Before you even get started trying to tweak your taskbar, you should make sure that you understand how to use all of the features, and there might be more than you think—check out our complete guide to Windows 7 shortcuts to learn useful basic maneuvers, like how you can hold down the Ctrl key while left-clicking to cycle through a group of taskbar buttons, or hold down Shift while right-clicking to show the regular window menu. Here’s the full list of Taskbar-specific shortcuts:

• Win+number (1-9): Starts the application pinned to the taskbar in that position, or switches to that program.
• Shift+Win+number (1-9): Starts a new instance of the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
• Ctrl+Win+number (1-9): Cycles through open windows for the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
• Alt+Win+number (1-9): Opens the Jump List for the application pinned to the taskbar.
• Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.
• Win+B: Focuses the System Tray icons.
• Drag+Drop taskbar buttons or System Tray icons: to reorganize them.
• Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program or quickly open another instance of a program.
• Ctrl+Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program as an administrator.
• Shift+Right-click on a taskbar button: Show the window menu for the program (like XP does).
• Shift+Right-click on a grouped taskbar button: Show the window menu for the group.
• Ctrl+Click on a grouped taskbar button: Cycle through the windows of the group.
• Drag a File to a taskbar button: to pin the file to the current application’s Jump List.
• Shift+Drag a File to a taskbar button: to open a file with the current application.
• Middle-Click on a taskbar button: to open a new instance of the application.
• Middle-Click on a Aero Thumbnail: to close that application instance.
• Left-Click + Drag upwards: to open the Jump List for an application.

The Power User’s Guide to the Windows 7 Taskbar – Taskbar – Lifehacker

Where do you find the largest iTunes user base? On Windows. A large number of those users own an iPod touch or iPhone, and a similarly large number still use Live Messenger for chatting… so it really wasn’t a surprise when news get around late last year that Microsoft was working on a Live Messenger app for the iPhone.

Now it looks like the app could be arriving soon. NeoWin’s Tom Warren has posted a handful of images showing Live Messenger in action, and it looks pretty slick. Just about everything you can do on the desktop version you’ll be able to do on your iPhone: chat, send files, check your social stream, browse photos, and more.

Yes, you can already chat with your Live Messenger from your iPhone using an app like Meebo, but Microsoft has some serious brand recognition. That and the familiar interface will no doubt be enough incentive to attract a lot of users to the app.

Warren seems optimistic that this will hit the app store some time in June, when Windows Live Wave 4’s first public beta downloads are expected to arrive.

Microsoft Live Messenger app for iPhone [EXPOSED] | My Mac News