In his keynote address at the Mobile World Congress 2010, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer unveiled the next generation of Windows phones called the Windows Phone 7 Series. These phones are going to feature Zune like UI with full Xbox LIVE integration for rich experience.

Windows Mobile 7 / Windows Phone 7 UI has been leaked just a few hours before the official announcement. These shots were captured when the sheets covering these banners were lifted for a very brief moment on Microsoft’s booth at Mobile World Congress. Without any further delay, here is how the latest version of Windows Mobile/Windows Phone is going to look like.

The year 2010 started in a big way with major technology events starting from Google’s Android Conference in January where Nexus One was unveiled. International Consumer Electronics Show was the next to follow where devices like HP TM2 and HP Slate were announced. Then came the BIG Apple Tablet event which was held on January 27th where Steve Jobs announced the much hyped iPad.

Some Photoshop magic on the Windows Phone logo posters hanging across the streets in Barcelona has unveiled the name “7 Series” underneath the main logo. This hidden name probably refers to the upcoming Windows phone handsets, which will be powered by Windows Mobile 7.

Opera has just released a new beta version of their popular web browser for mobile – the Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3. New to this version is added support of Flash Lite 3.1 for Windows Mobile which enables Windows phones to run some lite Flash stuff right in the browser itself. The option however is disabled by default, you will have to enable it by going to Tools > Settings > Advanced and set plug-ins to “On”.

A new version of the official Facebook app for Windows phones has been released on OpnMarket. This latest version 1.1.0.14 brings the ability to Like/dislike, comment, view comments, notifications and search functionality to Windows phones running Windows Mobile OS.

Folks at PPCGeeks have grabbed first exclusive details on the upcoming Windows Phone 7 (or Windows Mobile 7) related announcement ahead of this month’s MWC (Mobile World Congress). Without any further delay, here is what Windows Phone 7 is rumored to feature.

Sony Ericsson Aspen is the first Windows phone which is powered by the newly released Windows Mobile 6.5.3. Sergey Kuzmin over at Mobile-review has got hold of a pre-release test unit, which he has lovingly demonstrated running WinMo 6.5.3. He has also nicely put it up against various different handsets from Sony Ericsson, Nokia and RIM to give us a good idea on how does it actually size up against different handsets.

Last month, we informed you about an emulation software named Haret which enabled Windows phones to run Android OS side by side with Windows Mobile 6.x. This solution required booting into Windows Mobile first, before you could run Android using Haret. But now, some folks at XDA-Developers have released a new software/tool named Gen.Y DualBOOT which enables Windows phone users to dual boot Windows Mobile and Android OS on the very same handset.

A Chinese site by the name of QQ (QQ.com – English translated version) claims to have got hold of the specifications for the successor to HTC HD2. According to them, HTC HD3 will launch in November 2010 (exactly one year after HD2) and will be powered by Windows Mobile 7. Moreover, it will feature Qualcomm’s 1.5Ghz Snapdragon processor, a 4.5’’ HD display, HDMI port, support for 4G, WiFi and WIMAX, 8 megapixel camera with support for 720p HD recording, 16GB internal memory and 32GB external via microSD card.

Most of you who are either following me on twitter, or are subscribed to our facebook fanpage may already know that I bought Nexus One today and just to make it a bit different, I decided to unbox it side by side with another similarly spec’ed phone – the HTC HD2. Both Nexus One and HTC HD2 are powered by 1Ghz Snapdragon processor.

The Windows Mobile enthusiast site named WMPoweruser has learned that HTC Obsession, which we reported about earlier is set to launch later this year on AT&T and T-Mobile US as HTC Diamond3. Their report confirms that the smartphone is scheduled to ship sometime in June this year, however this date is likely to slip to Q3/Q4 launch in 2010.

John Starkweather from Microsoft surely couldn’t keep his words when he said: “Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone”. A number of speculations took our attention in the last one year or so when Microsoft was rumored to release ‘Pink phones’ with Zune services and an App store.

According to the latest Windows Mobile 7 findings by WMExperts, HTC Obsession could very well be the first Windows phone which will ship with Windows Mobile 7 come this fall. Microsoft may even show it off at the upcoming Mobile World Congress, where they are highly expected to unveil Windows Mobile 7 for the very first time.

Last week, HTC released a capacitive stylus for HTC HD2 which is specially designed for capacitive touch-screens like the ones found on iPhone, Nexus One and HD2. Since capacitive screens can only respond to naked finger touch, old resistive stylus shipped with many Windows Mobile phone didn’t work with HTC HD2 and the likes. The biggest benefit of using a stylus is in very cold conditions, where you have your gloves on and are unable to interact with your device. With this capacitive stylus, you can operate your HD2, iPhone and even Nexus One with more precision and ease of navigation.

The highly respectable blogger Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-review.com in a twitter conversation has revealed that he got his hands on one of the earlier production builds of Windows Mobile 7. According to him, the OS has been built from scratch, the UI is simpler than Zune HD and that none of the existing Windows Mobile apps worked on it. It has got these horizontal navigational movements which seems to have been heavily inspired from Android 3.1/3.2 (?) and iPhone OS.

According to the sources at Digitimes, Microsoft is set to launch Windows Mobile 6.6 (codename Maldives) sometime in February of this year. If this rumor regarding Windows Mobile 6.6 turns out to be true, then we could see it debut as early as next month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Just came across this thread on XDA-Developers forum where a forum member got a reply from HTC regarding Windows Mobile 7 upgrade for HD2. The member in question enquired HTC via email on whether or not HD2 will be getting the upcoming Windows Mobile 7 as a free upgrade. This was the reply he got from a representative at HTC.

It was only last month when we informed you about an emulation software named Haret which enabled Windows phones to run Android OS side by side with Windows Mobile 6.x. The initial release was not stable enough with lots bugs and broken functionality. But now, folks over at XDA forums have released a more stable version of Android OS for HTC Touch HD – which was one of the most popular Windows Mobile based device before HD2 dropped in.

Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Live for Windows phones running Windows Mobile Professional and Standard operating systems. This new version 10.7.0061.0500.2000 brings lots of new changes which includes new and improved UI which is finger friendly, Bing search bar, complete integration of Windows Live Home and lots more. I have installed it on my HTC HD2 and so far the experience has been quite satisfying.