Looks like PlayStation Network, 2K Games and Windows Live accounts have been hacked and it's gotten every online gamer in a twist.
When I adopted the internet as a part of my life back in the early years of this millennium, one of the biggest things in town used to be chatting – instant message based conversations that were the new “in”. In fact, if I recall even further back, chat rooms were even a bigger hit, making it possible to meet new people and make new friends using the power of the internet in a very public environment. While that edge may have rubbed off in the last few years, even today, IRC rooms remain popular amongst certain specific communities. The advantage that IM clients held over these chat rooms, however, were the privacy, and the fact that you could control who can contact you etc. There was more customization in how your messages appeared, too, and quite a few other distinctive features.
So, what has been foreshadowed and rumored over the past couple of months was recently officially announced by Microsoft in yet another fairly lengthy post on the Building Windows 8 blog: The company will be ditching the Windows Live brand. The products will continue to exist, of course, but they will no longer be under the umbrella of the Windows Live branding; instead, everything will be unified through what is called a Microsoft Account, formerly known as a Windows Live ID. We'll have SkyDrive, Hotmail, and Messenger as services, which will be accessible on Windows 8 via the SkyDrive, Mail, and Messaging apps, respectively (this begs the question; is the future bleak for the actual Windows Live Messenger client?)
As I noted in my editorial about what Microsoft should do next with SkyDrive, something that the Windows Live set of services are in dire need of is a redesign. I never was a fan of the current design that they have adopted: With design, it's often the details that make a world of difference - padding, margins, text - and all of these things are off, resulting in a set of products that lack finesse. So, what can Microsoft do to solve this problem?
If you've watched Microsoft concept videos over the years, you probably know how fond the company is of the idea of "Software Plus Services". Microsoft has always painted it as the ability to preserve local software, while still have it interact with online services in real time. While Microsoft has made quite a few achievements in that area in the past few years, isn't Apple about to nail it with iCloud?
It’s been a long time since Microsoft has had a major update for their Windows Live Essentials suite, but now it looks like we don’t have to wait anymore! Microsoft has just made the beta version of the new Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 available for public download. This release has tons of new features and updates over any of the previous releases we have seen.
This one was due for a very very long time. Hotmail (aka Windows Live Hotmail) users can now push their email straight to any phone like iPhone, Android or Windows Phone as long as they have option to support Microsoft Exchange.
Microsoft has been rolling out updates for Windows Live services to provide better and new functionality over any of the previous versions. Hotmail’s new makeover is a huge leap to take on different email services, and now Microsoft is taking that even further with their new Windows Live Essentials suite.
Microsoft is set to bring the largest instant-messaging network to the iPhone platform. Neowin has grabbed exclusive screenshots of an early build of Windows Live Messenger for iPhone, which will be released in June as part of Windows Live Wave 4 launch.
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.
