Microsoft Can't Decide If It's Giving Away Windows 10 For Free

In an announcement on Friday, Microsoft dropped the unusually generous news that it is giving away free copies of Windows 10 to anyone who participates in the beta Insider Program for Redmond's latest OS. Sound a little too good to be true? You bet.

As noted by Ars Technica, Microsoft has since sneakily updated its blog post announcing the move, changing some crucial language:

Previously it said that signed up members of the Insider Program running a preview version would "receive the Windows 10 final release build and remain activated." Now it says only that they will "receive the Windows 10 final release build."

Moreover, Microsoft added some clarifying language, saying that "It's important to note that only people running Genuine Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 can upgrade to Windows 10 as part of the free upgrade offer."

Seems pretty clear, then: only users upgrading from Windows 7 or 8 will get a free upgrade, which is in line with Microsoft's previous announcements.

But that's not all! On Twitter this evening, Microsoft exec Gabriel Aul stated in no uncertain terms that anyone with a prerelease build of Windows 10 (with a registered Microsoft Account) would remain activated on the final version of Windows 10.

@ZacB_ @joebelfiore Yes, as long as running a prerelease build connected with registered MSA:http://t.co/vlaGyfwzbr

June 21, 2015

Reading between the lines, it seems that Microsoft might be providing a way for individual users to upgrade, without making the whole process above board. Microsoft makes most of its Windows money off businesses and OEMs, the companies that sell new PCs already running a (licensed, paid-for) version of Windows. The wording in the latest blog post implies that upgrading to full-fat Windows 10 will work; it just won't be officially sanctioned by Microsoft, meaning that businesses will still have to pony up for the upgrade.

We reached out to Microsoft for comment, and will update if anyone manages to clarify this mess.

[Microsoft, Ars Technica]

WhatsApp for Windows Phone finally receives an update with new features

WhatsApp for Windows Phone received an update, resulting in addition of fresh features and refinements. The upgrade contains features transferred by the WhatsApp team from the beta version. This update, has caused quite a stir among Windows Phone users as there has been no update for the app since June.

According to Windows store listing, here is what version 2.11.586 offers:

• The app now opens smoothly without any lag
• Now users can share the exact location by dropping and dragging the pin
• Users can add caption to each photo and video
• Easy Crop and rotation of images
• Can make chats and groups archive
• Each chat or group can have their respective background
• Enhanced support for phones with high-resolution display

Are you a Windows Phone user? Are you liking this Whatsapp update? Let us know in the comments box.

Nokia Lumia 630 & Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM launched in India at Rs 10,500 & Rs 11,500 respectively

Nokia has been making constant improvements in the budget Windows Phone category. Lumia 520 was one of the best-selling smartphones in the country and then they launched the Lumia 525 with upgraded RAM for about the same price. It has now launched its first Windows Phone 8.1 devices in India, the Lumia 630 and the Lumia 630 dual SIM. The single SIM variant costs Rs 10,500 whereas the dual SIM variant has been priced at Rs 11,500. A point worth mentioning is that it is also the first Windows Phone device with dual SIM capability.

Nokia Lumia 630

Nokia Lumia 630 Specifications

• 4.5 inch ClearBlack IPS LCD display with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection
•  Windows Phone 8.1 OS
• 1.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 512 MB RAM
• 8GB internal storage which can be expanded by 128 GB and is a segment first feature
• 5MP rear auto focus camera and no front camera
• On-screen buttons
• 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS for connectivity
• Rs 10,500 for single SIM & Rs 11,500 for dual SIM

The Lumia 630 can’t be considered as a good upgrade over the Lumia 520 though as it misses out on a 1GB RAM which is present in the Lumia 525. The screen resolution as well as the camera stays the same. Both the devices will go on sale later this month starting 16th of May. Will Microsoft be successful in pulling users from Android? Let us see how it performs in the market in the coming months.

MLB at Bat for Windows Phone adds push notifications and pitch tracking

Opening day is here! ...sort of. This year's quest for a World Series ring kicks off Down Under today, with the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks squaring off at the Sydney Cricket Ground (yes, they're still playing baseball). Of course, everyone else is still playing Spring Training games until the weekend of March 31st. But Major League Baseball is making sure all of its mobile app ducks are in a row ahead of time. In particular its Windows Phone MLB at Bat app is getting a long overdue update for the 2014 season. Now you can get live pitch-by-pitch tracking for games and set up push notifications for scores and news. Those features have been available on iOS and Android for quite sometime now, so this is less a major step forward and more about feature parity. But still, we're sure those that fall in the middle of the baseball and windows phone fan venn diagram are extremely happy.

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Via: Technet

Source: MLB at Bat

Tags: app, baseball, microsoft, mlb at bat, MlbAtBat, mobilepostcross, windows phone, windowsphone Next: Alt-week 3.22.14: Inner-selfies, new fashion for astronauts and the glory of Venus
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Never Future is a Windows Phone-exclusive game about battling mutant trash monsters

Sneaky Box's Never Future is a Windows Phone-exclusive game that won plenty of awards back in 2012 when it was a baby startup - World Wide Finalist at Microsoft Imagine Cup, Winner of Nokia and Microsoft's AppCampus, and Winner of Startup Weekend Lithuania. Available now for $1.99, the game is a top-down shooter set in a post-apocalyptic future where all the pollution that humanity spread on Earth mutated into horrible (and smelly) junk monsters. Yes, junk monsters, and we're not talking about relatives of Oscar from Sesame Street, but for trashy fiends that you should only approach with a loaded flamethrower. A broom and spade won't cut it against trash that has teeth and tentacles.

You'll play as an archaeologist that got transported into the bleak future by a mysterious artifact. To survive and get through the game's 50-plus levels, you will have to scavenge and recycle trash, which can be turned to different weapons, armor, and special abilities. This is dumpster diving on a whole new level.

If you feel like throwing out some mutant trash, Never Future can be downloaded from the link below.

Download Never Future ($1.99): WindowsPhone

via WMPowerUser

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Microsoft's Blink Windows Phone app gets a redesign, lots of new features

The Blink app for Windows Phone 8 is already pretty good, and it's about to get even better. Microsoft Research has released a new version of its photography application, complete with a fresh look and a swath of new features. Aside from letting you create GIFs, Blink now makes it easier for you to lock on your subject, take more stable shots and quickly get to gallery view, where you can see the stuff you've captured. You can also see images show up on your Start screen, thanks to added Live Tile support. Plus, there's a new tutorial mode -- perfect for those who have yet to take the app for a spin. Either way, the revamped Blink is available now from the Windows Phone Store.

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Source: Windows Phone Store

More Coverage: Inside Microsoft Research blog

Tags: Blink, Blink app, lens apps, LensApps, Microsoft, Microsoft Research, MicrosoftResearch, mobilepostcross Next: Comcast's first transparency report reveals over 25,000 government data requests .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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All apps in the Windows Phone Store show they will work with Windows Phone 8.1

update as Windows Phone 8.1. If you take a browse through the Windows Phone Store and look at the selection of apps, you will see that they all note to work with

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Windows Phone 8.1 may support USB on-the-go

It goes without saying that if this turns out to be true, then it will be a significant step toward Windows Phone taking on Android. Former Microsoft employee Nawzil Najeeb is claiming that his device running Windows Phone 8.1 recognizes USB connections to the handset.



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Full press render for Samsung ATIV SE, Windows Phone for Verizon, leaks

evleaks, we get to see the full rendering of the device.

First of all, it looks like a repurposed Galaxy S4, with small changes to the back plate near the bottom of the device. Volume rocker and power/lock buttons are in familiar places for Samsung users. We would not be surprised if that was a 13MP camera.

Specification-wise, we do not know anything official, but this form factor virtually guarantees the aforementioned camera, a 5-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, and we fairly certain that there is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU to round up the package.



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Mozilla scraps Firefox for Windows 8′s Metro citing low adoption of the platform

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Mozilla today announced it is abandoning the Metro version of its Firefox browser, before the first release for Windows 8 even sees the light of day. Firefox Vice President Johnathan Nightingale ordered the company’s engineering leads and release managers to halt development earlier this week, saying that shipping a 1.0 version

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OneShot camera app for Windows Phone got updated with high-resolution support and voice control

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Microsoft doesn't want Android and Windows dual-OS devices to happen either

Since the beginning of the year,various manufacturers have been pitching dual-OS devices that bootAndroid and Windows 8 (desktop and Windows Phone). Yesterday, Huaweiannounced that it will introduce a dual-OS handset soon. Beforethat, ASUS was to ship its Transformer Duet TD300 dual-bootingtablet, but it was stalled in its tracks by Google. This revealed a serious obstacle for the dual-OS concept - industry pressure.

So far, our assessment of the situationwas that dual-OS devices represent a chance for Microsoft topiggyback on Android's popularity to increase Windows' market share,which is something Google would understandably object to. But thereality might be different. According to analyst Patrick Moore, whileGoogle "wants all-Android devices", Microsoft too wouldrather have all-Windows devices, because dual-OS will let Androidenter the Windows-dominated PC market. Google is already trying tocompete in this space with its Chromebook laptops, and dual-bootingdevices could give them another, even more comfortable entry pointinto a territory that Microsoft wants for itself.

Allegedly, an internal ASUS memo aboutits 2013 AIO PC dual-OS desktop computers revealed that Microsoft has anew policy of not supporting dual-booting products, which is why theTaiwanese company will stop selling them. As a whole, the fate of future dual-booting devicesis unclear at this point. Although Chinese and Taiwanese vendors arequite interested in the concept, and Intel has done a lot of technological work tobring it to fruition, it seems that Google and Microsoft have thelast word on it, for now.

source: WSJ

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Nokia Refocus finally available for all Nokia Lumias, running Windows Phone 8

Nokia Refocus, a camera app that allows you to take a macro photo and adjust its focus later, is now available for all Nokia Lumia devices, which are running Windows Phone 8 with the Lumia Amber update. The app was released several months ago, back in November, for all Lumia smartphones that make use of the PureView imaging technology

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Five music apps off the beaten path for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, plus apps to discover more music

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Mozilla stops work on Firefox for Windows 8

We hope you weren't eagerly anticipating a finished release of Firefox for Windows 8 -- despite releasing a beta of the browser just last month, Mozilla has cancelled the project. There just aren't enough testers using the new interface to justify shipping a completed version, the developer says. It's concerned that the missing feedback could lead to a buggy release that requires too much repair work. Pre-release code will still be available, and Mozilla isn't ruling out a change of heart in the future. For now, though, Windows 8 users will have to switch to a rival like Chrome if they want a touch-friendly alternative to Internet Explorer.

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Via: The Next Web

Source: Mozilla Future Releases

Tags: browser, firefox, internet, mozilla, software, web, windows, windows8 Next: San Antonio clears Google Fiber's legal hurdles ahead of a possible deal
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Windows Phone 8.1's Microsoft Camera app demoed on video

As you may have heard, Windows Phone 8.1 is going to be a major upgrade over the current Windows Phone 8 OS. Microsoft will most likely reveal everything there is to know about WP 8.1 next month at its Build Conference (April 2 - April 4). Until then, we’re still relying on leaks to provide new details about the upcoming iteration of what is now the world’s third most popular smartphone OS.

The latest leak comes in form of a 3-minute video, and allows us to take a look at the new Microsoft Camera app that will apparently debut on Windows Phone 8.1. The new app resembles Nokia’s Camera app - which probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, since Microsoft is getting closer to completing the acquisition of Nokia’s handset business. The UI has a fresh, clean design, providing shortcuts to different camera settings, and letting you easily choose between photo mode, burst mode, or video mode. Take a look at the leaked video below, and also check out our Windows Phone 8.1 feature overview while you're here.



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Windows Phone passes BlackBerry in latest comScore report

The latest comScore report shows that Windows Phone has surpassed BlackBerry in U.S. smartphone market share. For the three months ended in January, Windows Phone averaged a 3.2% slice of the pie. While that was flat from the 3.2% that Microsoft's mobile OS scored on average for the three months ended in October, BlackBerry's share tumbled .5 percentage points during the same time period to 3.1%.

At the top of the list, Android also lost .5 percentage points to 51.7%, but remains on top. Apple's iOS picked up the market share losses from both Android and BlackBerry, tacking on 1 percentage point to 41.6%. Symbian was flat with .2% of the U.S. smartphone market.

As far as manufacturer's market share is concerned, Apple remains on top with that 41.6% tally. Samsung is still in the number two spot after tacking on 1.3 percentage points to 26.7%. LG's share rose to 6.9% from the 6.6% slice it owned for the three months ended in October. After that, Motorola and HTC had poor quarters. With market shares of 6.4% and 5.4% respectively, Motorola dropped .6 percentage points and HTC dropped 1.3 percentage points from the three months ended in October.

The report also revealed that Google's sites remain the top properties on smartphones reaching 89.4% of the intelligent handsets. Facebook (86.6% reach) and Yahoo (86.2%) both trailed. Looking at mobile apps, Facebook has the widest reach (77.6%) followed by the Google Play Store (52.4%) and YouTube (49.7%).

Latest comScore report has Windows Phone on top of BlackBerry Fullscreen More popular slideshows

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Nokia App Reality video suggests that Windows Phone isn't far behind Android and iOS when it comes to apps

Nokia and Microsoft want to make sure that consumers will no longer see Windows Phone as that mobile OS that doesn’t have enough apps. Nokia released a video which presents the

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XOLO getting ready to launch first Windows tablet in India

LAVA’s premium device maker, XOLO is about to begin selling its first Windows powered tablet, the XOLO Win. The company is better known for its line of Intel packing, Android powered smartphones and tablets.

The Win has a standard form factor, 10.1-inch, 1280x800 screen. Underneath is a dual-core AMD A4-1200 CPU tuned to 1.0GHz (known as

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Meet My Drive – an app that allows you to share files between an iOS device and a Windows PC

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