There was so much news from Tuesday's launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 that we're keeping things going today! Up next is an update for the Windows Live Mobile app. Here's what's new:

• Windows Live Home - an entirely new feature!
  • View you and your friends "What's new" feed from Windows Live and other major 3rd party social networking sites.
  • View Windows Live photos and comment
  • Upload photos to Windows Live and other 3rd party sites through integration with the new My Phone client
  • View your Windows Live people
  • Update your status and accept network invitations from others
• Improvements and Updates like
  • Entirely new launcher screen
  • Significant touch investments that shine with new Windows Mobile 6.5 devices
  • Bing search integration
  • Abuse reporting
  • Automatic uninstall of previous versions
  • Virtual memory improvement and reduced installation file size through client refactoring

More on the Windows Live team blog. You can download the app in the Marketplace, or at http://wl.windowsmobile.com.

Not all the news is coming out of Vegas this week, as Microsoft has made Windows Live for Mobile available for download.

Now you can get to all your favorite Microsoft programs and features – Hotmail, Windows Live Spaces, Live Search, MSN Mobile – straight from your phone. (Messenger is still a separate download, apparently.)

Strangely, only AT&T and Sprint are mentioned in the carriers section. If anyone on Verizon or T-Mo wants to give it a shot, let us know in the comments. (Commentor emoney says everything's a go on Verizon. Where's our T-Mo peeps at? emoney also reminds us that Hotmail pushes now, which is very nice.)

Otherwise, head on over the Windows Live for Mobile site (link fixed, thanks wwejason!), or download it directly onto your phone.

Via Pocketnow

We'd heard back in August that “Windows Live” would be getting a rebrand. We've suggested many-a-time here that “Live” is confusing between search, desktop products, mobile products, cloud services, consumer services, Office, and more. Yes, all those things need to be tied together, but there's striations between the products where Live does and doesn't apply, to the point where “Live” is to “defining term” what “Clippy” is to “Help tool.” Which is to say -- not a bad way to brand stuff on paper, but in practice hopelessly annoying.

We're about to plunge into yet another tearful tirade about how Microsoft's cloud services are actually really awesome, better than MobileMe and BlackBerry Internet Service even, but nobody knows about it because they have to hunt down Windows Live for Windows Mobile, Live Search for Windows Mobile, Live Mesh for Windows Mobile, and then patch them all together. We're about to do that, but it looks like Microsoft may have settled on one of the names conjectured in that August post: Kumo, which can mean either “cloud” or “spider” in Japanese depending on which Kanji characters you use. Seems like the perfect term to apply to a set of cloud services with a side of search.

LiveSide reports that Microsoft took control of Kumo.com. TechCrunch believes that Kumo will apply to search and Live will be cloud services and social networking. CNet joins both in emphasizing that no decision appears to be fully set in stone yet.

Us, we're going to go stare in a mirror and repeat “Live Services” three times and see what comes out.

Traveling to a foreign land and don't care much about roaming data costs? Check out this neat trick: you can use MSN messenger as a translation service with the new version of Windows Live Messenger Translation bot. Once you add the mtbot@hotmail.com you can start chatting to get translations. Currently supported languages are:

• English to/from: Arabic ,Chinese Simplified ,Chinese Traditional ,Dutch ,French ,German ,Italian ,Japanese ,Korean ,Portuguese ,Russian (RUS->ENU only) ,Spanish
• Chinese Simplified <-> Chinese Traditional

If you have your (Windows-based) laptop with you, then you might also be interested in Windows Live Accelerator for Internet Explorer 8 Beta. This allows you to browse over to the Italian web page your friend designed and read through instructions like a champ. All you have to do is highlight what you want translated then click on “Translate with Windows Live” and voila! Italian to English made easy.

via liveside

We've been wall-to-wall Microsoft services lately and for good reason -- Microsoft's Live offerings are really maturing lately. One hassle, though, is that most people's desktop PIM manager is Outlook and Outlook hasn't (until now) fully synced calendars with Live Mail. No more, as Paul Thurrott points out: Microsoft has released a beta of Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1. It's good stuff, adding calendar sync capabilities to the already existing contacts and email sync, though there is one tiny caveat that some users may need to know about:

Note to Premium Subscribers:The Outlook Connector will automatically upgrade your MSN Calendar to the new Windows Live Calendar beta. Once upgraded to Windows Live Calendar, you will be able to synchronize multiple calendars, including shared calendars to Outlook! You will no longer be able to access MSN Calendar.

...It's still not a full fledged solution for mobile (unless you're an old-school, cable-based ActiveSyncer, in which case we presume those synced calendars can be synced over USB just fine), but it's a sign that Microsoft is heading in the right direction. Those “right direction” signs are all over the place these days, now we just need some unification.

Thanks to Rene for the tip!

Apparently we weren't the only ones who found Microsoft's services strategy utterly confusing and slapdash -- Microsoft did too. To that end, as reported by All About Microsoft, they're splitting up their Platforms and Services unit into two different units as well as giving the previous president of that division a retirement to go work for Juniper networks.

The two new divisions will be “Windows/Windows Live” and “Online Services Business.” The W/WL will have three folks in charge and the OSB will get a new guy. Steve Ballmer sent out a letter to the company about the changes with some interesting tidbits about their feelings on Google, Apple, and Yahoo. Short version: We're working on search and Apple's done better with the “end-to-end” experience.

There's plenty to parse here, including the possibility of a Zune phone, so read on!

Read the rest of this entry »

The Windows Live for Windows Mobile team blog drops the news, the Windows Live client (not to be confused with Live Search) has been updated and is available for everybody to download at http://wl.windowsmobile.com/. The client already provided push sync for email and contacts; the new version adds:

• View graphics, web links and contact photos in emails
• Respond to emails with voice recordings
• Upload photos to your Windows Live Spaces

It does appear that this is still the 'lite' version we mentioned back in April, which doesn't provide for MSN Messenger unless your carrier allows for it. According to MSDN, you'll want to uninstall the previous version from settings before installing the new version, FYI.

Apple's Mobile Me service has been having all sorts of issues, so go ahead and give this app an install and show those iPhone folks how push email (just Hotmail and Live mail) is supposed to work. :p

[via]

Ok, don't hate us here, we are just the messenger. Hot on the heels of telling you that a new version of Live Search for Windows Mobile is coming down the pipes, we're telling you that you can now download Windows Live for any Windows Mobile devices. Yes, these are different apps. Yes, we're tired of complaining about how silly it is to have to differentiate between “Live Search,” “Windows Live” and “Live Search that isn't an app but is instead just a web search.”

You can hop over to http://wl.windowsmobile.com direct from your device to get Windows Live. Then again, you may already have it installed, as Windows Live comes pre-installed on a few devices. On most, though, the carriers give it the big old Ax because it competes with services they want to charge you for. Good on Microsoft for finally making an end run around these clowns and giving us a direct download, right?

Sigh. Not so much. The direct download version of Windows Live has support for Live Hotmail , Contact sync, and Spaces, it does not include their Live Messenger client (which is heads and shoulders above the default Oz client that most US WinMo devices ship with). This direct download might give you a Live Window (we couldn't resist) outside of your walled garden, but it definitely doesn't completely free you from your carrier.

Still - if you're a Hotmail Windows Live Hotmail user, this is a must-download as it will make your email push and sync up your contacts just right. It will also let you throw a Live Search field onto your Today screen if you're still hunting around for one of those (us, we prefer the Google Today screen plugin, but don't tell big M.)

While you're at it, you may as well visit the mobile version of the Windows Mobile Owners Circle and pick up some other free software for your phone.

[via pocketnow]

We've complained with more than a touch of bitterness that Windows Live Services are confusing. You've got your Live Search, your Windows Live, your Windows Live Search, and so on. Some of which may be used either over the web or as applications, both on desktop and mobile. We could also bring up that “MSN” still seems to be hanging about here and there as well. It's a mess of dot-Net-size proportions.

So seeing this story over at Ars Technica was nice. Microsoft apparently intends to fix up the branding for Windows Live fairly soon as well as add some mystery features later on this year (“wave 3”), which will be much more search-centric. Internally the code name for this action is “Rome.”

Of course, this is all up in the air pending what shakes out of Microsoft's proposed buyout of Yahoo. We said the merger would be good for mobile services and we meant it. Hopefully the first benefit will be clearer names for all the goodies that Microsoft offers us in the cloud.

Over at LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live, we get some more details about what MS is thinking:

Re-branding Live Search on its own, without the Yahoo! acquisition, would be a move ripe for derision by Microsoft's detractors, seen as another flailing attempt to make a move on Google. But a new brand combining Live Search with Yahoo!, when it comes on board, makes much more sense. The new brand, with new market share and the combined engineering talents of Microsoft and Yahoo!, would lead the way in restructuring Microsoft's live services to accomodate the inclusion of Yahoo!. And for those who dwell in the past at Microsoft's laughable naming conventions, consider Silverlight and Popfly and a new generation of Microsoft branding, and that Live Search has already been disassociated with the Windows Live brand, possibly in preparation for exactly this move. With the need to consolidate search products as the top priority once the Yahoo! acquisition is in place, a move now to establish a new brand, neither Live Search or Yahoo! but a new brand for a new generation of search, comes at the right time.

In other words, they're hearing us loud and clear. Bravo!

One of us! One of us! Either Microsoft and Nokia decided to bury the hatchet or else Nokia decided they couldn't live without online services. Either way, more buy-in to Windows Live services is good news for Windows Mobile users, even (especially) if it's on a competing platform. Windows Live is so tightly integrated in Windows Mobile 6 that it's almost a crime not to use them (thankfully, though, you're not forced to use them). More users, especially on MSN Messenger, is a Good Thing.

Welcome to the fold, Nokia users. Pay no attention to the fact that after the Beta these services might not be free. Gooble gobble!

Nokia announced today that it has teamed up with Microsoft to offer Windows Live services directly on S60 compatible Nokia smartphones.

Read: Nokia announces Microsoft Windows Live suite download for phones