According to a recent post by WMPowerUser , it appears that prototypes of the device had been spotted in the wild. Below is a summary describing the device according to WMPU’s sources:

• 4.5” AMOLED display with WXGA resolution
• Polycarbonate body with a tapered shape towards the edges, thickness in the middle is similar to the Nokia Lumia 920
• Weight is lighter than the Nokia Lumia 920
• Camera lens labelled “XX megapixels” (although later confirmed to be 41 megapixels), circular in shape, with an automatic lens cover
• Xenon flash with LED focus assist light
• Nokia Pro Camera app enables a customised camera interface – manual focus and camera adjustments available through the app
• Wireless charging may be supported via a cover, similar to the Nokia Lumia 925

Furthermore, MobileGeeks also separately confirmed the specifications above via their own sources, but with some additional information:

• Similar to the Nokia 808 PureView, photos will be taken at a maximum of 34 megapixels, despite a 41 megapixel camera
• 1080p and 720p video capture supported (with three frame rates options available)
• Nokia Pro Camera app has a circular on-screen dial controls

The website also suggests that the Nokia “EOS” may be announced during the second week of July (most likely July 9), which corroborates with an earlier report from Financial Times mentioning the same timeframe for launch. If these rumors hold true, it means that customers on AT&T in the US and worldwide should be getting their hands on the device by summer this year.

In addition, Bing is expanding the news index to go back beyond its current two week news window.  From the blog post:

And that’s not the only progress we’ve made over at Bing News. We recently extended our news articles index beyond two weeks. This means when there’s no fresh news related to a given query, we can look back over several years to bring you any relevant articles. This is a pretty significant update and is just the start as we work to make Bing News even more comprehensive. While there’s still more to do, we believe these updates provide you with a deeper understanding of the world and an opportunity to explore the connections we’re able to make over here at Bing.

Bing has been in the periphery of some other Microsoft news recently, too.  As Mary Jo Foley points out today, it’s Bing that is powering much of the voice control and search capabilities in the newly announced Xbox One:

Bing is evolving into more than “just” a Web search engine for Microsoft. It’s also gives the company a way to harness and make use of data using Microsoft’s myriad machine learning and computation capabilities. And though it may be hard to see through all the “Scroggled” fog, Bing may be more important as a service than a “mere” search engine to Microsoft going forward.

This week, as part of its Xbox One reveal, Microsoft execs didn’t call out Bing by name much, if at all. However, as a subsequent post on the Microsoft Offical Blog noted, it’s Bing that provides the responses when users search by voice via Kinect for movies, TV shows and music. It’s Bing that’s parsing the natural-language-query commands, such as “Xbox, Snap Internet Explorer.” Specifically, it’s the Tellme voice technology, combined with social-graph information, plus Bing’s search functionality.

So for today at least, the focus is on some of the positive aspects of Bing, and that’s a good thing.

But what Google I/O really made clear to us was, under all the technophilia, Google’s main focus is on monetizing its users’ data. They will be paying more attention to your location, analyzing your photos and turning them into animated gifs and they’d like some credit for their innovations while rarely mentioning that all this personal data collection gives them more opportunities to show you ads.

He goes on to mention that this may not seem to bother at least some Google users:

You know, for some folks – the bargain they strike with Google is fine. Just like personal space in an elevator, people have varying degrees of tolerance for how close another person gets to them, and varying degrees of comfort when that person is actually a corporation not wearing deodorant.

… and then goes on to present an infographic (of course) and some Microsoft funded research study data that purports to show that Google users are getting “Scroogled”, if they only knew.  Weitz summarizes:

But I think it’s kind of interesting, that a company that talks a great deal about the possibilities presented by Internet innovation, the open source movement, and freedom of speech, has an ecosystem play that continues to tie their users down to one identity, one technology system, and to an ad-propelled company that can delete what a G + user says without appeal. When you sign onto Bing, you can sign on with Microsoft or a Facebook account. We don’t have to know everything about you to give you a great search experience. And yeah, our maps work, too.

The blog post is, of course, another round fired off in what appears to be Bing’s approach to marketing these days: scare tactics about big bad old Google, and how that big bad wolf is going to come and blow your house down.

Now, as we said before, we’re no fans of Google.  We’ve been using Bing, pretty much exclusively, since back when it was MSN Search, and to be honest, it’s made some pretty great strides in that time.

But Google is about a lot more than just monetizing your data, although yes, that’s a big part of it, and as Weitz points out, probably has a different focus than what Bing offers you.  However,  what Weitz fails to mention is that Google is also constantly innovating (and yes, it’s had some failures and some flops along the way, but also some pretty truly amazing innovation, too).  Take Danny Sullivan’s post today on Google’s “conversational search”, which was introduced at Google I/O and went live today on Chrome:

I’m 17 years now into writing about search, and I’ve seen all types of things that have promised to revolutionize the space, especially products that trot out words like “natural language” and “semantic search” but fail to deliver.

Conversational search has natural language, semantic search and more built into it, and while it’s far from perfect, this really is one of those significant changes that makes even a “seen it all” person like me sit up and take notice.

What Google is doing is hard, and yet when it works, it feels natural, easy, like it should be.

In the meantime, even though Microsoft bought TellMe Networks way back in 2007, they’ve sat back and watched while first Apple with Siri, and now Google with conversational search have passed them by.  Oh yes, they’re getting quite good at making fun of their competitor’s successes, as today’s new anti-Siri ad shows.  Too bad they can’t seem to keep up with the innovation.

Google also introduced a completely revamped maps experience (and yes, they’re testing ads in it, according to Search Engine Land), and watched as some 10 million Android phones were sold last month.  People aren’t scared of Google, they’re flocking to it, and they’re doing so not because they’re getting Scroogled, but because they’re getting good value for the effort they’re putting into being a Google user.  People *like* Google, and taking potshots at them isn’t helping to get people to like Microsoft.

In the meantime, Bing hasn’t done much but bring us Scroogled ads and spin campaigns.  Yes, there has been some news about further Facebook integration, but be honest, have you ever actually used the Facebook integration features of Bing?  What happened to Bing Maps, for example?  Apparently Nokia and Microsoft can’t decide who owns what, and are letting Google run completely away with location services in the meantime.

It’s clear that Microsoft is gearing up for more Scroogling, and we think that’s kind of sad.  Bing is a good product, with lots of potential, and even a fairly healthy market share, at least until Marissa Mayer figures out a way to get out of the Bing/Yahoo! deal.   Why not focus on the product, or spend some of that Scroogle money on innovation instead of spin?

Today is about introducing the platform and it’s about introducing the big themes of what Xbox One is about as a new entertainment device that brings together games, TV and entertainment into one place. I think it’s inappropriate for us to go into every avenue of tiny little detail today, but we will in due course…

Microsoft started out with some lofty promises about live TV integration, and Yusuf Mehdi demoed switching channels and finding content with simple voice commands.  Only it’s not as simple as that, it turns out.  The Verge’s Niley Patel dug a little deeper, and found “a familiar nightmare”:

The problem is that the demoes weren’t real — the Xbox One’s TV integration is the same familiar nightmare we’ve known for nearly 20 years now. Instead of actually integrating with your TV service, the One sits on top of it: you plug your cable box’s HDMI cable into the Xbox, which overlays the signal with its own interface. If you’re lucky enough to own a newer cable box, you’ll get to change channels directly through the HDMI connection, but most people will find themselves using the One’s included IR blaster to control their cable or satellite boxes — a failure-prone one-way communication system that stubbornly refuses to die.

Ever since the very first rumblings about a new Xbox, there have been questions about “backwards compat”, the ability of the new system to play old games, and news quickly filtered out that there would be indeed no backwards compat with the One.  Again, from The Verge:

If you were hoping to play your vast collection of Xbox 360 games on Microsoft’s latest creation, we’ve got a spot of bad news. Microsoft Xbox Live VP Marc Whitten confirmed to The Verge that the new Xbox One console will have no backwards compatibility whatsoever.

“No, there’s not,” said Whitten, when we posed the question. “The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn’t really work from that perspective.”

That means that Xbox 360 discs won’t work, but also extends to Xbox Live Arcade downloadable titles. Anything that was designed for the Xbox 360 will have to be rebuilt, and it sounds like Microsoft doesn’t plan to do so.

There’s nothing stopping you from running an Xbox 360 side-by-side with a new Xbox One, of course, and even though The Verge is skeptical, Microsoft did make mention of “re-imagining” at least some current games for the One, most likely the most popular and most recent titles.  However, if you’re hoping for cross platform play capabilities between the One and 360 platforms, the Xbox Support Twitter account has quashed that idea:

@koopavelli There is no cross platform play between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One ^JG

— Xbox Support (1-5) (@XboxSupport) May 21, 2013

Another big topic today is about second hand games – that is, the ability to sell used games, or let your friends play games you own on their systems.  Microsoft explained some of this over at Xbox Wire, the new official Xbox blog:

Q:    Will Xbox One allow players to trade in, purchase and play pre-owned games? A:    We are designing Xbox One to enable customers to trade in and resell games. We’ll have more details to share later.

However, thanks to Eurogamer’s relentless pursuit, some more information has emerged.  Eurogamer interviewed Xbox CVP Phil Harrison, which may or may not have cleared up some of the confusion.  According to Harrison:

…you can buy a game on a disc from a retail store, come home and install it to your Xbox One. The disc contains all the bits and data on that game, which you can then give to your friend, and they can then install it on their Xbox One. No restriction on that, except that the second person obviously has to pay for it.

You can purchase a game in two ways: you can purchase it from a retail store or you can download it. So the act of putting the bits on the hard drive – the Xbox One doesn’t really know or care what method the bits got into the machine, if it was from a disc or downloaded from Xbox Live. But obviously the users will then have to purchase that content.

What I think people are now confusing is the purchasing of content in the first instance with the ability to trade and resell the previously played games. We have a solution for that and we will be announcing exactly how that works in due course.

Unfortunately, the Xbox Support Twitter account re-added some confusion back again by tweeting “You will not have to pay a *fee*, apparently responding mainly to information posted in a Wired article from earlier in the day (emphasis ours):

Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.

But what if a second person simply wanted to put the disc in and play the game without installing – and without paying extra? In other words, what happens to our traditional concept of a “used game”? This is a question for which Microsoft did not yet have an answer, and is surely something that game buyers (as well as renters and lenders) will want to know. (Update: Microsoft called Wired after this story was originally published to say that the company did have a plan for used games, and that further details were forthcoming.)

It sounds to us like the various parties are getting caught up in semantics – that while there won’t be a *fee* (as in extra charge) paid to Microsoft for playing a second hand game, you won’t be able to just hand your game disc over to someone and let them play it without a connection to your Xbox Live account (or a secondary purchase of the game), either.

If nothing else, it’s been a busy day for Xbox watchers, and E3 is still nearly 3 weeks away!

After months of speculation, Microsoft has now officially announced the new Xbox. Following a brief introductory video, Don Mattrick, President of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft took the stage to discuss the history of Xbox as a brand, as well as to reveal the new Xbox.

Billed as the ultimate, all in one, home entertainment system, and formerly known as Durango, the new Xbox is now officially known as Xbox One. The Xbox One was designed with three main principles – that is, to be, simple, instant, and complete. As widely anticipated, Xbox One includes Kinect functionality built into the unit.

Following the system reveal, Yusuf Mehdi took the stage to demo some of the new UI features – including the ability to switch between applications instantly, the ability to watch live tv, and for the first time on a gaming console, the ability to snap multiple applications simultaneously. In addition, Xbox One will support Skype, in both regular and snap modes.

Augmenting the live tv feature, Xbox One includes a built in on screen guide, complete with full voice command. As an added bonus, applications can be snapped with their companion live tv show. As an example, a live ESPN broadcast was demoed, with a subsequent fantasy league app snapped to the left hand side.

Following the introduction to the Xbox One’s intelligent TV features, Marc Whitten took the stage to discuss the specs of the new console, which include:

* 8gb RAM
* USB 3.0
* Blu-Ray
* 64 bit architecture
* Integrated Kinect
* Built In 802.11n wifi
* 500gb HDD

Notable improvements to Kinect are set to include the ability to see players in darkness (via active IR), heart rate monitoring, as well as the ability to recognize facial expressions. Whitten continued to tease a lag free, instant experience. Moving forward, it was announced that Xbox Live will now be running off of 300,000 servers, achievements will be dynamic, and much like PS4, Xbox One will include built in cloud powered game capture functionality.

Immediately after detailing the hardware, EA Sports’ Andrew Wilson took the stage to announce four games currently in development for the Xbox One: FIFA, Madden, UFC, and NBA Live. Coupled with the product announcement, EA Sports Ignite, a new next-gen graphics engine designed to “blur the line between reality and gameplay” was unveiled. Ignite boasts humanlike AI, dynamic crowd rendering, and stunning visuals.

Microsoft Studios’ Phil Spencer took the stage next, to announce Forza Motorsport 5, currently in development for the Xbox One by Turn 10 studios. Set for release at launch, more infotmation will be available at E3. Further exclusives include Quantum Break, a new Sci-Fi thriller developed by Remedy, and 7 other new IPs not yet ready to be revealed as of this writing.

Nancy Tellem, president of Entertainment and Digital Media, introduced Bonnie Ross from 343 Industries, to announce a live action Halo Television series, helmed by legendary director Steven Spielberg. In other Xbox Entertainment Studios news, a new partnership was announced with the NFL, giving players the ability to watch live football games, as well as offering exclusive, interactive content.

Don Mattrick returned to the stage, to wrap up the presentation. Xbox One will launch worldwide later this year. The broadcast was closed out with a not entirely unsurprising Call of Duty: Ghosts behind the scenes video and gameplay reveal.

As Mattrick said, today’s reveal is only the beginning. Expect details such as pricing, launch titles, and release date to be announced at E3 next month. Stay tuned to liveside for the latest Xbox One developments as they happen!

You can watch the presentation live (it starts at 10:00 am PDT – GMT-8) via a number of channels:

• on PC – http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hub/reveal
• on your Xbox, via the dashboard, or
• on your Windows Phone, via this app: download the free Live Event Player
• or from Spike TV – http://www.gametrailers.com/netstorage/xboxcountdown/live.html

After the show, at noon PDT, Xbox’s Major Nelson (Larry Hyrb), will be live on Twitch.tv to recap the news of the day.

We’ll be following along, too, of course, and will have the news for you as it happens.

Thanks as usual to Bing’s propensity for testing new stuff out in the wild (and to our readers for tipping us when they do, thanks Nate!), we caught an early glimpse at what looks to be a new way of interacting via search: a live chat box right from within Bing:

Here’s a closer look:

As you can see from one of the messages, apparently there was an image link at the bottom of the Bing Home page that opened up this chat window.  Only going by what we see here, this doesn’t appear to be a connection into your Microsoft account or Skype messaging contacts, but rather a way for anyone searching for a particular search term to (anonymously?) connect with others searching for the same thing.

Would you use Bing Live chat?  The mind reels at all of the unseemly ways this might be put to use, but hey if it gets you closer to what you’re looking for, it’s all good, right?

Again, as usual, there’s no telling if Bing is just testing out a never-to-be-seen-again feature, or if Bing Live chat is right around the corner, but if you’re one of the lucky ones to spot it in the wild, let us know!

Xbox’s Director of Xbox Live programming, Larry Hyrb, or as he’s perhaps better known, “Major Nelson”, has been holding down the fort on his own blog, which has become the de facto official news source for all things Xbox, but Microsoft seems to be paying a bit more attention to blogging recently, and it’s good to see them launch a long overdue official blog.  The new endeavor is headed up by editor Lisa Gurry, a Senior Director for Public Relations at Xbox:

You’ll see some familiar faces on Xbox Wire. Our executives will write blogs occasionally, but most of our blogs will be from everyday people on the Xbox team. Our own Major Nelson will appear as well – both via blog posts and through interviews – of course, Major’s fans can also continue to follow along with him at MajorNelson.com. I’m lucky to spend my time at work living and breathing all things entertainment and I’m excited to serve as your editor here at Xbox Wire.

Just last week, Microsoft launched The Fire Hose, a curated blog of official posts from Microsoft.  We’ve added it in as a tab in our Blogs We Like section, as well as adding in the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time RSS feed for Xbox Wire (which doesn’t have a title set in its RSS, among a few other bugs).

We’re looking forward to lots of Xbox news soon, and welcome our new blogging compatriots at Xbox Wire!

(via Neowin)

At Google I/O, at the end of a 3 hour keynote that introduced yet another subscription music service, Google Hangouts reinvented as an uber-messaging client, some cool new maps technologies and lots of oohs and aahs from developers, Google co-founder Larry Page took some questions from the audience and some potshots at Microsoft:

You just take something as simple as instant messaging. We’ve kind of had an offer forever that we’ll interoperate on instant messaging. I think just this week Microsoft took advantage of that by interoperating with us, but not doing the reverse. Which is really sad, right? And that’s not the way to make progress. You need to actually have interoperation, not just people milking off one company for their own benefit

…

…I’m sad that the Web’s probably not advancing as fast as it should be. We certainly struggle with people like Microsoft. We’ve had a great relationship with Mozilla, I think, and value that deeply. I’d like to see more open standards, more people getting behind things, that just work, and more companies involved in those ecosystems. I think that’s why this conference is so important. But I wouldn’t grade the industry well in terms of where we’ve gotten to.

Page was obviously referring to Outlook.com’s addition of Google contacts to its messaging feature, which is just rolling out and was announced only two days ago, and the decidedly non-interoperable Skype.  Somewhat ironically, Google had just announced Google Hangouts, which while bringing together Google’s mishmosh of messaging clients into a more cohesive and cross product whole, will no longer use the open standards XMPP protocol (as Google Talk uses), and while Google has no current plans to shut down Google Talk, it has no plans to bring XMPP to Hangouts.

Shortly after the keynote ended, news broke that Google has filed a Cease and Desist order on Microsoft’s home built Windows Phone YouTube app, because it violates YouTube’s terms of service by not serving ads.  Microsoft was quick to reply that they “would be happy” to comply with the TOS if Google would allow them access.  It hasn’t been made clear by either party why that access can’t be granted, as there is already an Xbox YouTube app, which apparently didn’t have any trouble getting API access or complying with the TOS.

While we’re no fans of Google, and could spend the rest of the day listing ways we think they’re “evil”, we would much prefer that Microsoft would lay off the name calling and potshots and work together with its competitors to create a better web for all of us.  Like Larry Page, we wouldn’t grade either company well, and are a bit saddened by the whole turn of events.  Unfortunately, Google continues to flirt with being “evil”, and Microsoft can’t seem to shake its arrogance, even if it has lost the monopolistic market share.  Both sides have plenty to be ashamed about today.

Speaking of updates. As I mentioned earlier, the Lumia 925 comes with the latest update to the Windows Phone 8 operating system that includes a small number of improvements and upgrades. (It’s similar in size to the one we delivered earlier this year, which brought new Wi-Fi and messaging improvements like the ability to text a reply to an incoming call.)

The new update, which is expected to start rolling out to existing Windows Phone 8 phones later this summer, brings back support for FM radio (we heard you!) and makes the Data Sense feature of Windows Phone 8 available for more carriers to offer. The update also makes it easier to select, download, and pin tunes in Xbox Music and improves the accuracy of song info and other metadata—something I know music fans will appreciate. (FM Radio and Data Sense availability depend on your phone model and carrier.)

The update includes hundreds of other small quality improvements. One final one worth highlighting, as we announced earlier, is that the update also ensures Windows Phone continues to work with Google services by adding support for the company’s newest sync protocols—CalDAV and CardDAV.

This updated operating system, known internally as “GDR2” (GDR1, or Portico, came earlier this year and brought messaging, wifi, and IE improvements to Windows Phone 8, and there will be a GDR3 later this year) will update Windows Phones to be able to continue to sync Google contact and calendar information just in time: Google’s deadline to drop support for Exchange ActiveSync for free accounts was extended until July 31st.

That means that hopefully we’ll have GDR2 in hand sometime before then.  Google has been playing roulette with its mobile sync APIs recently, first announcing a decision to drop EAS for CalDav and CardDav, then announcing that it was also dropping CalDav in favor of it’s own Calender API, and then backtracking in March, noting in an update to its “A second spring of cleaning” blog post that:

Update March 15, 2013: We worked with the developers who provide 98 percent of our current CalDAV traffic to assure access to the CalDAV API, which means many popular products will not be impacted. We remain committed to supporting open protocols like CalDAV.

While it may not be much clearer from this update whether or not Google will actually support CalDAV for Windows Phone (which just might fall into that missing 2%), and it’s probably incorrect to call CalDav and CardDav Google’s “newest sync protocols”, as today’s Windows Phone blog post does, we’re hoping that Google won’t send Microsoft scrambling once again in order to sync Google services to Windows Phone.

Still, we’ll soon be able to listen to FM radio again, hurray!