Much like Gmail’s five year-long beta period, expect Google Glass to be a “work in progress” for some time.

Google today released the first major update for Google Glass after it finally began rolling out to early adopters, Phandroid reports. The “XE5″ update includes a bunch of notification updates, as well as some useful features like easier searching from anywhere in the Glass interface and better battery charge estimation.

It’s surprising that Google is only now getting around to adding some of the new features like crash reporting and international dialing. That goes to show that, despite looking like something from the future, Glass is still very much in its early stages.

Expect plenty more updates like this as Google learns more about how people are actually using Glass. Everyone participating in the Google Glass Explorer program are basically guinea pigs before Glass makes its way to the general public.

The new features in the update include:

• Change to sync policy: require power + wifi for background uploads
• Crash reporting
• Incoming G+ notifications (direct shares, comments, +mentions), including ability to comment and +1
• Incoming Hangout notifications
• Transcription of queries & messages is now wicked-fast
• Long-press to search from anywhere in the UI (no longer just from off)
• International number dialing + SMS
• Hop animation on disallowed swipes in the UI
• New On-Head Detection calibration flow
• Show device Serial Number on Device Info card
• More reliable estimation of battery charge remaining
• New recipient-list mosaic

Photo: Project Glass/Google+

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

While everyone’s talking about Facebook mobile today, Twitter cleaned up both its iOS and Android apps with a couple new features.

Mobile is the money word for social networks today and while Twitter’s app updates are life-changing, they do improve the overall user experience.

Both apps now come equipped with the over 100 new locations that show trends. Trends show you the most popular topics being discussed on the social network. It can be filtered by location, as opposed to all of Twitter, to show you what’s happening and where. This is particularly helpful for breaking news. But before the new locations were added, trends were stuck in major metropolitan areas. The new locations help refine what’s happening in specific parts of the world.

On the iOS front, Twitter users can now invite their friends to join straight within the app. Not sure how helpful that will be, though, because who do you know that isn’t on Twitter? (Other than your grandparents and the tribe you met on a vacation to a far-away island.)

Also new in the app, when you reply to a retweet, it will automatically mention both the original author of the tweet, as well as the retweeter.

Android is left with only one significant update other than routine bug fixes. You can now switch Twitter account by accessing the menu.

Of course, you can’t have a full-on Twitter mobile update without a little love for its micro-video app Vine. Nothing huge here, as Twitter just updated the app yesterday to give you access to the front-facing camera (selfies!), but Vine’s video playback has been improved.

hat tip The Next Web; Twitter image via Rosaura Ochoa/Flickr

After more than six months of neglect, Hulu’s design team has finally started paying some attention to its Apple TV app.

The original Hulu app for the device was welcomed with open arms by Apple TV owners, who patiently watched as nearly ever other set-top box gained access. That said, the old app was sort of boring and wasn’t very useful if you were just looking for something random to watch on the service. I’m not exactly sure how much of it can be blamed on Hulu, as the company was rumored to have gone through a lengthy approval process before being granted entrance to the device.

The latest update, however, brings a brand news user interface to the app that really opens up Hulu’s library of content. The old side bar navigation was replaced with a menu bar at the top that simplifies all the major categories of content (hot, TV, movies, Latino, Queue, etc.). The design team also replaced the side scrolling thumbnails of TV shows that occupied half of the screen (similar to how Apple displays album artwork while you’re browsing your music library on the device). Now, you’ll see a horizontal carousel of TV shows that changes automatically, which is similar to what you’d see on Hulu’s desktop website homepage. Also like the homepage are horizontal categories of shows, episodes, and clips.

The show pages have also been redesigned to make much more sense for people accessing Hulu via television. The left side of the screen features a thumbnail of the current episode along with a summarized description. It is worth noting that the episode description text is way too small, and pretty much be useless for anyone with a smaller screen and/or someone watching TV from across the room. On the other side is a list of episodes for a single season, complete with the length of each episode and thumbnails. It’s a nice change of pace from the old version of the app.

The Hulu app update also has some other nice additional functionality to help you get what you want quicker — or in other words, the developers take care not to waste your time. For instance, clicking the play button on a thumbnail will automatically play the most current episode of that TV show. You can also toggle on subtitles using the remote, thus eliminating another thing that would otherwise interrupt your viewing experience.

You’ll still need to pay the $8 per month for Hulu Plus to gain access to the new app, but if you’re a heavy Hulu user you probably already are. And in that case, the latest Apple TV update should make you very happy.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Perhaps BlackBerry is finally paying attention: The company’s first major update for BlackBerry 10 on its Z10 smartphone fixes some of the most common complaints from reviewers and its users.

Announced this morning, the BlackBerry 10.0.10.85 update (BlackBerry really needs a simpler way of naming updates) offers 60 percent better battery life; fixes around the phone, calendar, and contacts (specifically around Google Calendar support); low-light performance improvements for the camera; better browser and media performance; and faster speeds for third-party apps.

The latter update could make BlackBerry 10 more enticing to developers. The company announced last week that the popular messaging client WhatsApp is coming to its platform — today it revealed that performance improvements was one of the reasons WhatsApp came aboard.

The update fixes some of the issues I pointed out in my BlackBerry Z10 review, but it’s still not enough to change my overall opinion. The BlackBerry Z10 still has an identity problem, and the company still hasn’t figured out who its new devices are meant for. Until BlackBerry offers some compelling features that are significantly better than the competition, it’s going to have a tough time competing against the iPhone and Android.

BlackBerry says the 150 megabyte update is already available on some carriers, and it’s working with other carriers to roll it out soon. You’ll get a notification when it’s available, and you can apply the update directly on your phone.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Fab released a number of updates to its iOS and Android applications today, saying that it wants to focus not on sales but on making the Fab app a place where people want to browse and stay awhile.

“We want people to want to take their mobile [devices] out of their pocket hourly just to see what’s hot on Fab right now,” said chief executive Jason Goldberg in a blog post. “We believe that if people enjoy browsing and discovering on Fab, plenty of sales will happen over time.”

And sales have certainly happened. The company says that 30 percent of its sales comes from mobile and even saw a spike up to 50 percent on mobile for two days in the last month. Fab predicts that that in the next two years, the iPad will overtake the iPhone (probably because of the larger screen size for product browsing). For now, however, mobile is even convincing customers to buy more — 20 percent more — than web customers.

Because of this, Goldberg says the company is issuing updates to its mobile apps ever few weeks. You can use today’s new features to search for a product by type, color, and to sort by what’s available, “favorited” by Fab users, best-selling, and price. In order to make Fab more “browsing-friendly,” it also hides the navigation bar once you’ve started scrolling.

“For nearly a year now, we’ve been designing and building new Features for Fab’s mobile users first, and then taking those features to the web,” Goldberg says. “Building mobile-first forces us to think about how Fab will be used by people on the go first, and people at their desks second.”

Jason Goldberg photo via Fab

An all-new header photo — somewhat reminiscent of Facebook’s cover photo — now helps your Twitter profile stand out better. Rather than just a few pixels for a headshot or a logo, the new header photo can display much more: multiple images, a portrait in a setting, or whatever your creativity allows within the limits of about 520-by-260 pixels.

It also, not incidentally, creates a clear differentiation between Twitter controls, menus, and space on the left, and your personal photo, tweets, and account information on the right.

Here’s a simple visual overview:

According to Twitter, the same profile photo will appear on Twitter.com, iPad, iPhone, and Android.

In addition, Twitter updated its mobile apps to create a more visual experience, introducing “photo streams” thataggregate photos uploaded in tweets over time in one location within the Twitter application. It’s a swipable element — simply scroll forward and back in time by swiping from side to side.

On iPad, the photo stream looks like this:

New Twitter photo stream on iPad

Tapping on a photo will bring it up fullscreen, much like this image of a T-shirt someone gave me at a conference:

Full-screen images on Twitter for iPad.

In addition to the new profile and photo-display opportunities, Twitter users still may upload a custom background, which displays on the web but not mobile platforms. Conversely, the photo stream doesn’t show up on the web.

The goal, according to Twitter, is to “get to know people better through their pictures” and announced the updates with a blog post titled “because you have more to show.”

I’m not sure what the pic above says about me, and I’m not sure there’s much more that I want to show.

But I do know I now have some work to do to update my Twitter profile. …

photo credit: [phil h] via photo pin cc

When Microsoft bought Yammer for $1.2 billion, concerns arose that the enterprise social network might lose some of its innovative spirit. But today Yammer has pushed back on that idea with the announcement of several big updates, including a new “inbox” that prioritizes conversations, a real-time messaging interface, and integrations with Hootsuite and seven other services.

“People were wondering if we would keep up our pace of innovation after the Microsoft acquisition,” Yammer cofounder and CTO Adam Pisoni told VentureBeat. “The answer is yes.”

The first parts of today’s announcement are updates to the main Yammer interface. The biggest interface change is the new Inbox. The Inbox replaces Private Messages on the right side but offers more functionality. In the Inbox, you can prioritize your messages, follow and unfollow conversations, send and reply to private messages, and search across your Inbox.

“The Inbox makes it possible to track conversations you need and should take action on,” Pisoni said. “You can now see what’s most important.”

Next is the new “Online Now” section in the bottom right corner that shows you coworkers that are also online and allows for real-time chat. It looks and functions similarly to instant messaging interfaces in Gmail or Facebook. You can also send messages to folks even if that user is offline. One problem with this feature is that you can’t go “invisible,” so the only way to keep coworkers from pinging you all day is to close your Yammer tab or app.

Yammer has implemented several minor interface updates here, too. On the homepage, elements from the left panel pushed to the top right corner to give more room to different groups in the right side. The homepage also feature trending files that have been recently updated, and companies can now pin important announcements to the top of employee feeds until they are read.

The other part of Yammer’s announcement today is a set of new app intergrations. The biggest of these is social media management app Hootsuite. Now in Hootsuite, you’ll be able to add and monitor Yammer feeds from the dashboard. Other integrations include Get Satisfaction, FuzeBox, Bevalley, If This Then That (IFTTT), Mindflash, Mindjet, and Zapier. These integrations make it possible to cross-post info from these apps on your Yammer feed or login with Yammer Connect to personalize a service.

Pisoni estimates that Yammer will have these updates rolled out to all customers in the next two weeks. He also said the Yammer iOS app will add updates including “Inbox” in the next few weeks. He didn’t give a timeline for an Android app revamp with the Inbox, but we’d expect it to be updated a few weeks after iOS.

You can a look at the new “Online Now” real-time chat function below:

And here’s the new Inbox:

Homepage photo credit: KnowYourMeme

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Fear no more, sexters and gossip-y texters, Skype fixed a bug in its instant messaging system today that was sending messages intended for one contact to another in your address book.

The issue seemingly started after Skype issued an update to its software in June. Unlike malware, it did not craft its own message and send it around, but rather took a message you crafted and delivered it incorrectly. According to Skype, the problem occurs when the app crashes during a messaging session. If you entered text or sent a message just before the program crashed, then it redirected that message away from the original receiver to someone else in your contacts.

Yesterday, Skype confirmed its existence and reassured users that it was a “rare circumstance.” You are not affected by the bug if you are running 5.9 for Windows, 2.8 for Android, or 4.0 for iOS, according to Skype’s announcement today.

The issue affects those running versions 5.10 for Windows, 5.8 for Mac, 4.0 for Linux, and 1.2 for Windows Phone. If you are running one of these versions, you should update your Skype software as soon as a fix goes live. “Hotfixes” are currently available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The Linux update also includes fixes for a bug that causes Skype to crash when a user marks all conversations as “viewed,” as well as another one that makes call participants disappear from the screen if there is “not enough screen estate to show them all.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After recovering from a minor PR bomb caused by the “Smoked by Windows Phone” campaign — and a data glitch that forced Nokia to offer full refunds on the Lumia 900  — Microsoft may once again be in hot water. This time it’s about the company’s Windows Phone OS upgrade strategy.

Word is that current Windows Phones won’t be upgradeable to Windows Phone 8, a massive update that’s currently being called “Apollo”, reports the Verge. ZDNet’s Microsoft guru Mary Jo Foley has heard similar information from her sources as well.

The Verge’s report came in response to an earlier news item from Microsoft developer evangelist Nuno Silva yesterday. He claimed that all Windows Phones would be upgradeable to Apollo, but now it seems like that’s completely false.

I certainly didn’t expect Windows Phone models from the platform’s launch to be upgradeable to Apollo, as their hardware was lackluster even when they debuted. But it seems crazy for Microsoft to cut newer devices from the upgrade cycle, especially its new flagship the Lumia 900. The consumers that are currently buying the more recent Windows Phone devices are precious early adopters, and the company needs to make sure it doesn’t piss them off. Such a move also won’t endear Microsoft to the techie crowd.

On the other hand, if Windows Phone 8 is actually a big enough update that current phones can’t handle it, then it may also end up being a huge leap forward for the platform. But even if that were the case, I don’t think it’s worth the ill will Microsoft will see from burned Windows Phone owners.

Photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Lumia 900 owners can rest easy, as Nokia has just released a software update that fixes the data connectivity bug in its new flagship handset.

A crippling data bug probably wasn’t the best news for Nokia shortly after launching the Lumia 900 — Windows Phone’s potential savior, and a device that I called the best $100 smartphone yet. But at least the company has made good by offering a $100 credit — effectively making the phone free — for anyone who buys it until April 21.

The update fixes a memory management issue in the Lumia 900 that led to a loss of network connectivity. Nokia’s swift response to the issue is commendable, though I’m surprised the company didn’t notice the issue before the phone actually launched.  Nokia already apologized to users for the issue earlier this week, but the company made sure to do so once again on its new Lumia 900 update site.

You can get the Lumia 900 update by going through the Zune software on PCs, or the Windows Phone Connector on Macs. Nokia is also going the extra mile by letting Lumia 900 owners swap their phones for an updated model in any AT&T store.

Photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Indicating yet again that 2012 is going to be a big year for Windows Phone, details have emerged about Microsoft’s plans for its upcoming Tango and Apollo updates.

Tango, an update which will focus on delivering “products with the best price,” will hit sometime in the second quarter, while Apollo, a major update meant for superphones, will land in the fourth quarter, according to a leaked roadmap uncovered by WMPoweruser.

The roadmap is up to date as of October, so it’s possible that Microsoft’s plans may have shifted since then. Still, it gives us a decent sense of what the company is aiming to accomplish in 2012. The company has just finished rolling out its Mango update to all existing Windows Phones.

The Tango update will serve to get Windows Phone into the low-cost phone arena, something that Microsoft desperately needs to do to better compete with Android and the iPhone. Right now, consumers looking for a bargain smartphone are usually faced with an Android device, or previous-generation iPhone — Windows Phone could be a particularly tempting option for users who don’t want the complications of Android, or to be tied into Apple’s ecosystem. It’s unclear what Tango will bring to existing Windows Phone devices, since it sounds like the update will focus more on stripping out features.

Nokia is leading the way with low-cost Windows Phone devices with the launch of its Lumia 710, which is headed to the U.S. via T-Mobile for just $50 with contract.

Hardcore users will look forward to the Apollo update, which will hopefully bring dual-core chipsets, LTE, and high-resolution screens to the platform. Still, it sounds like once again Microsoft will be a year late with its cutting edge hardware, since both the iPhone 4S and Android smartphones feature those specs today. Microsoft also expects that Apollo will help it to increase its volume of devices sold — though that will only happen if it offers compelling devices and steps up its marketing efforts.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Owners of Samsung’s first lineup of Galaxy S phones are in for some bitter news this morning, as the company has confirmed that the phones won’t be receiving an update to Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.”

Samsung pointed to its TouchWiz interface on the phones as the main reason for the snub, saying that there isn’t enough RAM and storage to run both Android 4.0 and TouchWiz, the Verge reports.

The company recently announced that its newer Galaxy S II phones will receive an Ice Cream Sandwich update early next year.

Given that Samsung sold over 10 million Galaxy S units in 2010, there are certainly going to be a lot of customers angered by this news. It’s particularly surprising since the Nexus S, which is also built by Samsung and shares plenty of hardware with the Galaxy S series, will be getting an Android 4.0 upgrade. Samsung explains that away, saying the Nexus S doesn’t run TouchWiz, so there are more resources available for Ice Cream Sandwich to use.

The news shows yet another downside to custom Android skins, which have been criticized for slowing down phones without adding much additional functionality. While Samsung likely won’t ever let go of TouchWiz on the Galaxy S, some intrepid users could release a version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the phones with Samsung’s software stripped out.

Additionally, Samsung also said that its first tablet, the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, won’t see an upgrade for similar reasons. That’s less of an issue, since that tablet didn’t win over many fans.

The iTunes 10.5 update adds support for Apple’s upcoming push into cloud services. While it’s not a true cloud-computing experience, iTunes will now automatically download all purchases made through iTunes and the iOS App Store, regardless of which device the purchases were made on. The update also adds Wi-Fi syncing for all iOS devices.

The only thing this version of iTunes doesn’t have is support for iTunes Match — the $25 a year service that gives legal access to any songs currently in your iTunes music library. The service is scheduled to roll out later this month.

The influx of people updating tomorrow will likely bring Apple’s servers to a crawl. For anyone who doesn’t want to wait an extra half hour to update their device, it’s probably a good idea to download the new iTunes now.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft’s massive Windows Phone 7.5 mobile operating system update, also known as Mango, started rolling out to users worldwide today.

It’s the biggest update yet for the mobile platform, and it includes a slew of new features that users have been anticipating for months now. Mango also contains two surprises that Microsoft announced for the first time today: Tethering, to let your share your phone’s mobile Internet access, and a Web Marketplace, which will let you browse apps from a computer and remotely install them on your phone.

The Mango update will reach 98 percent of all Windows Phone users within four weeks, Microsoft’s Eric Hautala said in a blog post today. “This is a simultaneous, coordinated, global update that cuts across carriers, phone models, and countries,” he said. “This time, almost everybody is going first.”

The company has created a handy “Where’s my phone update?” section on its website that will let users easily check on the status of their update. It is currently being delivered to all U.S. carriers, though it appears there are a few delays with some specific devices: AT&T’s HTC HD7S, the Samsung Focus (version 1.4) and the Dell Venue Pro. Once the update is available on your phone, you’ll need to connect it to your computer and update it with the Zune application (on Windows) or the Windows Phone 7 Connector (on Macs).

As for the new features, tethering doesn’t appear to be too different from the same feature on the iPhone or Android. Supported Windows Phone 7 devices (it will only work on newer phones with broadcasting-capable wireless radios) will be able to share its wireless connection with up to five devices. But, as is usually the case with tethering, the feature is only supported on certain carriers and will cost an extra monthly fee.

More intriguing is the Web Marketplace, which will let Windows Phone 7 owners search, share, and install apps on their phones from their desktop web browser. The Web Marketplace puts Windows Phone 7 on par with Android, which also lets you remotely install apps from the Android Market website. This is one area where Apple sorely needs to catch up — finding apps manually on the iPhone, or synchronizing via iTunes, is getting old. (As a commenter mentions below, you can enable Automatic Downloads via iTunes to automatically send apps to your phone. Still, that’s not as convenient as a web interface for the App Store.)

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Windows Phone 7 users won’t have to wait much longer for the platform’s major Mango update, as Microsoft announced today it will start rolling it out “in the next week or two.”

Mango, also known as the Windows Phone 7.5 update, will contain more than 500 new features, most of which will serve to make Windows Phone even more competitive against Android and the iPhone.

Microsoft’s Eric Hautala, general manager of Windows Phone’s Customer Experience Engineering, said that the company has been working together with its partner companies for months to ready the update. Windows Phone owners will also receive firmware updates from their handset manufacturers to get their phones ready for Mango.

“This matched and paired firmware has been painstakingly tuned so your phone — and apps — work with all the new features of Windows Phone 7.5,” Hautala writes. “Since your phone requires the proper firmware to function as designed, my advice is simple: steer clear of bootleg updates and homebrew tools.”

Windows Phone owners have been eager to get their hands on the Mango update, so there’s certainly a danger that some intrepid owners will try to install incompatible software. A Windows Phone update from earlier this year caused some major trouble for Microsoft, so the company is likely working extra hard to make sure the Mango update runs smoothly.

Microsoft has also released updates to its Windows Phone 7 Connector for Macs and its Zune software on Windows, which are required to perform the Mango update.

Facebook today unveiled three new features aimed at making it easier to keep up with your friends’ most important and most recent updates.

The first feature is an adjustment to the site’s news feed (the list of updates from your circle of friends). In the past, this list was displayed in strictly reverse chronological order, with an option to switch between “Top News” and “Most Recent” options. Now, Facebook is merging the two views, so the top of the news feed always shows the updates that you will find most interesting, according to Facebook’s estimates.

Facebook will adjust this list depending on how long it’s been since you last visited Facebook. If you were on the site a few hours or a day ago, it will show a wider sampling of recent updates. But if you haven’t checked in for a week or more, Facebook will prioritize the display to show the updates most likely to interest you.

Below the selected top news items, you’ll be able to view the full, reverse-chronological feed of all updates (what used to be called the Most Recent view).

“What this is about is making sure you can accomplish two goals,” Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s vice president of engineering told VentureBeat. “One is making sure you don’t miss anything critical. And then when you want to see more, you have an easy way to do that.”

I asked Schroepfer how Facebook decides what I’ll find interesting.

“We look at hundreds or thousands of different signals,” Schroepfer said. For example, the company’s algorithms look at who has published an update, how much engagement it’s generating, how many comments, and other signals. In addition, you can easily click on an update to tell Facebook that it’s not relevant to you, or to flag an update from the chronological feed that you’d like to see in the top news section.

“We’re continuously changing and tuning the ranking,” Schroepfer said. Like Google with its PageRank algorithm, however, Facebook wasn’t about to give me more specific details.

Second, Facebook is increasing the default size of images shown in the news feed, making them twice as large by default. The underlying images are bigger, thanks to recent changes making them 960 pixels wide, so Facebook has more pixels to work with.

It’s a relatively small design change but really makes the feed “pop,” Schroepfer said.

The third feature is called Ticker, which displays short versions of your friends’ updates in real time. For people who live on Facebook (and you know who you are), this display gives you more immediate notifications about what your buddies are up to, whether that’s a post, a shared photo, a check-in or a comment.

You can click on anything in the ticker to see the full update and add your comment, then go back to whatever you were doing in Facebook.

The Ticker appears on the right side of your screen, above the chat pane. You can click and drag on a horizontal divider to give more space to the ticker or more space to the chat window, depending on your preferences.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Update: VP of Windows Phone Joe Belfiore tweeted this morning that the Sept. 1 release date is “just a rumor.” That’s still not an outright denial though.
—

Rejoice all ye Windows Phone 7 faithful, Microsoft’s long-awaited Mango update could be landing as soon as Sept. 1, the UK mobile blog Pocket Lint reports.

The date comes from “multiple trusted sources” and coincides with the beginning of IFA in Berlin, Europe’s biggest consumer electronics show. But even if some European countries receive the Mango update — Microsoft’s biggest update yet for its fledgling mobile platform — on Sept. 1, there’s still no guarantee it will reach the U.S. at the same time.

Microsoft has previously said that Mango would be released some time in the fall. The company announced in July that the Mango update has been released to manufacturing, meaning the code has been finalized and mostly ready for release.

When asked for comment, a Windows Phone representative said that Microsoft doesn’t respond to rumors or speculation.

The Windows Phone 7 Mango update will bring over 500 new features, Microsoft said in May. Most notably, Mango will bring app multitasking, Internet Explorer 9 with better HTML5 support, and add Twitter and LinkedIn as integrated services.

If the rumor is true, Windows Phone manufacturers like Samsung, Acer and LG will likely be showing off Mango devices at IFA. The timing could be bad for Microsoft though, as many expect Apple to announce the iPhone 5 soon and have it available for release in September.

Nokia is expected to announce its flagship Windows Phone devices at the Nokia World conference in October.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft announced today that the first major update for Windows Phone 7, codenamed “Mango”, has been released to manufacturing — a major development milestone before it makes it way to consumers.

“This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile-operator partners to optimize Mango for their specific phone and network configurations,” Microsoft’s Terry Myerson wrote on the Windows Phone Blog this morning. “Here on the Windows Phone team, we now turn to preparing for the update process.”

Generally, RTM code is what ends up in finished products — barring any major issues. It’s also good to hear that Microsoft is now thinking about the actual update process. The company’s first attempt at releasing a Windows Phone 7 update earlier this year was a fiasco that left some devices completely nonfunctional. Microsoft certainly can’t afford to have a repeat of that situation — especially when competitors like iOS and Android offer smoother upgrade experiences.

The Windows Phone 7 Mango update will bring over 500 new features, Microsoft said in May. Most notably, Mango will bring app multitasking, Internet Explorer 9 with better HTML5 support, and add Twitter and LinkedIn as integrated services.

The Mango update is expected to land sometime this fall. Microsoft still hasn’t locked down a specific release date. New Windows Phone devices coming this fall, including those from Nokia, will ship with the update.

The company introduced “Promoted Tweets” last year, modeling it on Google’s search ads. Right now, they only appear in Twitter’s search engine results. Advertisers pay Twitter to promote their own tweet messages based on relevant search terms.

Unlike regular tweets, seeing Promoted Tweets in the main update stream won’t depend on when the short message is sent. If a user is following a particular brand, its tweets could appear sooner in the timeline of updates, according to sources in the report. For example, an hour-old promoted tweet will show up next to the most recent tweets in the main stream.

Previous attempts at changing the way information appeared in the main stream on Twitter’s iPhone app met with a backlash from users. The app featured a bar at the top of the screen, called the QuickBar, that showed trending topics. Twitter later removed the QuickBar after  deeming it too intrusive to the user experience.

The new changes associated with Promoted Tweets entering the main update stream seem far less intrusive than the QuickBar. But it could still create backlash from users who have gotten used to an ad-free experience.

The new emphasis on Promoted Tweets is part of Twitter’s effort to create more ways of generating revenue from the service, which has more than 300 million registered users.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft today detailed what’s coming in its long-awaited fall update for Windows Phone 7, code-named Mango, and it includes some major new features like multitasking, as well as expanded access to the OS and devices for developers.

The company also said that Windows Phone 7 will get a faster browsing experience in the fall update with Internet Explorer 9, which will come with HTML 5 support and hardware acceleration.

Microsoft has a lot to prove with its Mango update: foremost, that it can deliver a major update as smoothly as Apple; but also that it can finally bring Windows Phone 7 to feature-parity with the iPhone and Android.

The announcement, made at Microsoft’s MIX 11 developer conference, comes after the company famously botched its first WP7 update in February — a publicity disaster that left some phones completely nonfunctional, or “bricked.” Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore apologized to the MIX11 audience for the past update troubles and went on to say, “We expect we are going to get these problems licked.”

Multitasking, or the ability to run multiple applications at once, will allow WP7 phones to run certain programs in the background, switch between apps quickly, and transfer audio and background file. As part of the update, developers will be able to integrate their apps more deeply with the OS, including taking advantage of Live Tiles (found on WP7’s home screen) and background push notifications. Developers will also get access to the camera and other sensors (including gyroscopic and compass) of WP7 devices with the Motion Sensor Library.

Microsoft also showed off new apps coming to Windows Phone 7, including Skype (yes it’s officially coming this fall), Spotify, and Kik Messenger.

Developers will be able to prepare for the new Windows Phone 7 features with Microsoft’s latest mobile developer platform this May, which includes GPS simulation to better troubleshoot location features over emulation, as well as access to over 1,500 new APIs.

Via Engadget

Calling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we’ll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers. We’ve pretty much finalized the invite list, but have a few spots left. Request an invitation.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

An update released on Monday for Windows Phone 7 devices has caused issues for many users, including trouble with its installation, and some phones have been left completely nonfunctional, or “bricked.”

Now Microsoft says it has found an issue with the update process, and it’s temporarily disabling the update for Samsung phones, WinRumors reports.

Ironically, the update was meant to improve the updating process for Windows Phone 7 devices. It was to pave the way for a bigger update next month that would add copy-and-paste capabilities to the platform. Microsoft certainly isn’t alone with software updating snafus, but since it’s one of the first big updates for Windows Phone 7, the issues shed a negative light on the platform.

Owners of the Samsung Omnia 7 and Focus phones seem to be having the most trouble. For some, the updating process merely fails midway through, but their phone is left working. For others, it completely corrupts their phone’s firmware, and goes as far to “brick”, or completely kills the phone. Microsoft has been telling users who have bricked their phones to exchange them for new ones at stores.

Microsoft is apparently hard at work fixing the update’s issues and will release it again to users soon.

Calling all developers: We want to write up your app for VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight! If you have an innovative mobile app that hasn’t been featured on VentureBeat yet, submit it for consideration right away. The Mobile App Spotlight is sponsored by The Intel AppUp developer program.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system will be getting multitasking later this year with an interface that looks like a direct copy of Palm’s (now HP’s) WebOS platform.

Multitasking refers to the ability to use more than one application at once. For mobile devices, it usually involves creative methods to keep apps running, as well as easy ways to juggle them.

To switch between apps, Windows Phone 7 users will be able to use a card-like task manager that gives them a live preview of running apps. The interface is heavily reminiscent of (read: almost exactly the same as) Palm’s WebOS, which was praised for its intuitive approach to multitasking. Microsoft isn’t the only company that’s imitating WebOS,  by the way — RIM is using a similar card-based interface to move between apps on its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

The multitasking update will be available some time later this year, Microsoft announced today at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona. According to Joe Belfiore, vice president of Windows Phone Program Management, multitasking for third-party apps was left out of the initial release of WP7 due to battery concerns. Now it seems those issues have been resolved. Belfiore didn’t explain what improvements made multitasking possible.

Speaking of features that didn’t make the cut for launch, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned that the long-awaited copy and paste feature will be available on WP7 in an early March update. That update will also bring CDMA compatibility, which means Windows Phone devices will finally be able to work on Verizon and Sprint’s network.

Microsoft also demonstrated some other new features that will hit Windows Phone 7 later this year, including integration with Twitter in its People hub (currently only Facebook is supported), and an update to the mobile web browser with the release of Internet Explorer 9 for mobile. IE9 will feature hardware and graphics acceleration that will make browsing the web faster than the iPhone — in fact, Microsoft brought out an iPhone on stage to show just how slow it was in comparison.

Via Engadget

Calling all developers: We want to write up your app for VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight! If you have an innovative mobile app that hasn’t been featured on VentureBeat yet, submit it for consideration right away. The Mobile App Spotlight is sponsored by The Intel AppUp developer program.

Seesmic

The company helps users to manage their social networks both on the desktop and mobile devices, including Windows, Macs, iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Through a single dashboard, users can add their Facebook, Twitter and other social networks as streams and monitor or engage in real-time. Seesmic made a bunch of product updates in 2010, including adding support for multiple accounts on Android and acquiring social posting service Ping.fm.

The investment by Salesforce.com makes sense as the two companies have been working together recently to integrate Salesforce Chatter, a collaboration tool for enterprises, with Seesmic. Users will now be able to see Salesforce.com customer’s comments on Facebook and Twitter.

Seesmic has a host of competitors offering very similar services, including Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Yoono. Though none have integrated with an enterprise collaboration tool like Salesforce Chatter.

The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2008, has secured a total funding of $16 million. Past investors Omidyar Network, the firm created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and Wellington Partners also participated in the round.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Updates are in the works for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform that may make it more enticing to mobile developers, according to Tom Warren at WinRumors.

Sources tell Warren that the update, which is expected to be announced at the Mobile World Congress event in February, will offer developers more freedom with their apps by opening up greater multitasking support, in-app downloads and better customization for users. The news is buoyed by a Business Insider report from yesterday that also pointed to a February update that would relax app restrictions,  based on the word of a mobile app company head.

Microsoft was notoriously restrictive with the initial apps that hit Windows Phone 7. In conversations with developers, they mentioned that Microsoft paid extremely close attention to even minor aspects of their apps — like the exact pixel width of their app’s margins. Clearly, Microsoft wanted to convey that its platform’s apps were polished and iPhone-like from the start. Now that Windows Phone 7 is beyond the launch hump, Microsoft can afford to give developers more flexibility.

Previous reports also pointed to Microsoft announcing a smaller Windows Phone 7 update in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. That update will apparently bring copy and paste functionality, as well as support for CDMA networks like Verizon and Sprint (which was delayed initially).

It’s unclear how these two updates will coexist. They could potentially be one and the same — with Microsoft unveiling some aspects in January, and more in February. But I think it’s more likely that we’ll see the first update within the first few months of 2011, and the bigger update in the following months.

Microsoft is also expected to announce a Silverlight update for Windows Phone 7 at the Mobile World Congress, and it’s apparently working on overhauling its mobile version of Internet Explorer.

Facebook

The new feature may be a move to make someone’s news feed more specific and relevant to users. With the average user having 130 friends, it can make it difficult to stay up-to-date on what everyone’s doing. With the “subscribe” feature, a user could choose the top friends they want to follow and see their updates in the notification stream, similar to what happens when someone comments on one of your updates. It also sounds much easier than managing your news feed settings for multiple groups of Facebook friends.

As pointed out by All Facebook, it isn’t known what will happen if someone “Likes” a page or checks in to a location through Facebook’s new Places feature. The following Facebook statement was provided to All Facebook:

“This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links, or notes).”

The new Facebook feature may remind you of the main feature of popular social network Twitter, which has built its entire 145 million member network on following other users and seeing only their updates. One can’t help but wonder if Facebook is making a move to be a more complete social network, offering Twitter users the same features. And here comes more speculation about whether Facebook will kill Twitter.

Wowd has been telling Web surfers what’s popular online by gauging what gets clicked on the most, but the newly released tool for Facebook lets users easily filter updates from friends, create custom feeds, and block game spam. The tool must be downloaded and works with all major operating systems, including Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Facebook’s News Feed filters friends’ updates according to the social network’s own algorithms, but Wowd’s new tool takes it to the next level by letting users create filters by topic or keyword and create a feed of related content. Feeds can be saved and organized. If a user is interested in seeing what friends are talking about, say, the Red Sox, a custom feed can be created to see just those mentions in updates.

Probably the most annoying updates that comes from friends on Facebook are from games. For example, I receive several from friends playing Mafia Wars, a crime game that lets players make alliances and battle each other. Wowd’s new feature lets users block these gaming updates if desired (see image below). This feature may be less useful given Facebook’s recent move to stop showing game updates to non-gamers on Facebook, but if you’re still seeing too many game updates, it may have some appeal.

While Facebook’s basic News Feed and search functions are probably the closest competition to Wowd’s new tool, the company also notes a project called Spindex from Microsoft’s Fuse Labs as a potential rival. The project aggregates a users social media channels into one page and shows popular feeds and trends among friends. The main difference appears to be that Wowd is working to de-clutter, while Spindex seems to be showing users what’s popular.

The Palo-Alto, California-based company claims to have around 320,000 downloads of its search engine. With its new Facebook tool those downloads could jump significantly. It will be interesting to see if Facebook users feel they need a tool to manage and organize their networks.