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  • ip.access & Kineto Complete Femtocell Interoperability Testing

    ip.access and Kineto Wireless have announced successful interoperability testing between ip.access’ Oyster 3G femtocell Access Point and Kineto’s Multi-Service Access Gateway (MSA-GW).

    The testing was based on 3GPP’s Release 8 Iuh specification, which defines the standard interface between femtocell Access Points and the femtocell gateway. The Iuh standard makes it easier for mobile network operators to deploy femtocells in multi-vendor environments, ultimately giving them a wider choice of suppliers.

    According to the companies, they have separately deployed femtocell solutions successfully for mobile network operators. The two companies have taken a leading role in the development of the Iuh standard through their involvement in the Femto Forum and 3GPP, and both companies participated in the world’s first femtocell plugfest organized by the Femto Forum and ETSI in March 2010.

    "The femtocell industry’s progress in defining and implementing open standards has been impressive, and we see this is an important step in proving and improving those standards. Kineto and ip.access are two companies distinguished by having their technology live in production networks. This step marks another important milestone in our lengthening technical leadership,” said Dr. Nick Johnson, CTO of ip.access.

    According to Ken Kolderup, vice president and general manager of Kineto’s Infrastructure Business Unit, delivery of standards-based femtocell systems are crucial to supporting the next phase of operator deployments. "The relative ease with which we were able to confirm interoperability with ip.access is a testament to both the completeness of the Iu h specification and the market-readiness of our respective products,” he said.

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  • Number of Worldwide Mobile Payment Users to Reach 108.6 Million in 2010

    The number of mobile payment users worldwide will exceed 108.6 million in 2010, a 54.5 percent increase from 2009, when there were 70.2 million users, according to Gartner. Mobile payment users will represent 2.1 percent of all mobile users in 2010.

    Gartner report "Market Insight: The Outlook on Mobile Payment" finds that Asia/Pacific is the leading region with mobile payment users. In Asia/Pacific, mobile payment users will surpass 62.8 million in 2010, and represent 2.6 percent of all mobile users.

    In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), mobile payment users will total 27.1 million and represent 2.1 percent of all mobile users in the region. In North America, mobile payment users will number 3.5 million and represent 1.1 percent of all mobile users in the region.

    "We continue to see strong growth in developing markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa for mobile payment, while adoption in North America and Western Europe lags behind due to the plentiful choices of payment instruments that consumers have," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. "Developing markets have found the right formula for mobile money services — functions that users want and an ecosystem that can sustain the service."

    Shen said that the strong demand for mobile payment in developing markets is being driven by the unbanked and underbanked populations that do not have ready access to the banking infrastructure or PC, positioning mobile as the natural choice of access platform. “At the same time, regulators in early-adopter markets are tightening up policies to provide better user protection and fight against unlawful financial activities relating to money transfer,” she said.

    The report also shows that Short Message Service (SMS) remains the dominant mobile payment technology. Its ubiquity and ease of use makes it the technology of choice, not only for consumers in developing markets, but also for those in developed markets. Wireless Application Protocol/Web can support either downloadable clients or mobile browsers. It is more frequently used by consumers in developed markets due to the higher penetration of data-capable phones and active data plans.

    According to Gartner, many financial institutions have failed to see the business case of Near Field Communication (NFC) payment, in particular, which offers similar functionality to contactless cards but with the added complexity of dealing with mobile carriers and other ecosystem partners.

    Shen urged service providers in developing markets to investigate service interoperability to speed market uptake and foster healthy competition. She said that solution providers should ensure platform flexibility so that platforms can work with both the bank’s and mobile carrier’s systems, and so that it can be readily customized for local deployments.

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  • CounterPath Brings Enterprise-Class VoIP Softphone to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

    CounterPath has released the Bria iPhone Edition for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Bria iPhone Edition is a VoIP softphone that works over both 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

    Bria iPhone Edition integrates with other CounterPath desktop and convergence solutions, as well as with enterprise and carrier infrastructure equipment from vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, BroadSoft, Metaswitch, Avaya, Cisco and NEC. Bria iPhone Edition also supports Asterisk-based telephony systems.

    It is the latest CounterPath solution for mobile platforms and its first standalone mobile SIP application. Earlier this year, the company launched Linux, Mac and Windows versions of Bria. In addition to the Bria-branded version, CounterPath will also be developing customized white-label versions of Bria iPhone Edition for carriers, OEMs and enterprise customers worldwide.

    “Bria iPhone Edition leverages the iPhone’s native address book and its embedded Bluetooth technology to provide “a seamless calling experience while on the move,” as the company claims.

    Apple currently ranks third in smartphone shipments, with 16 percent of all units in the category in Q1 2010, according to several analyst firms. For all handset types – smartphones and feature phones – Apple is No. 6, with more than 8.7 million shipped worldwide in Q1.

    According to CounterPath, Bria iPhone Edition’s key features include:

    • Full SIP compliance, enabling use with any SIP-compliant server and hundreds of ITSPs that currently offer CounterPath-based services.
    o Bria iPhone Edition appears as another endpoint to service providers or PBX equipment, enabling fast, cost-effective deployments.
    • Call quality that’s superior to circuit-switched wireline and wireless voice, and based on the G.711, G.729 and GSM codecs.
    • An intuitive user interface that provides one-touch access to voicemail, call history, speakerphone and other frequently used telephony features such as 4-digit dialing.
    • Support for DTMF, which lets users enter numbers to access an auto attendant.
    • Bluetooth support, enabling hands-free calling for convenience, as well as safety while driving.
    • Multi-call management options, including the ability to switch between, merge and split calls, all in ways that are already familiar to iPhone users so they can start using these features immediately.
    • Signaling and call encryption via TLS and SRTP, enabling enterprise-class security.
    • Optional customized branding available for enterprises and telephony providers.

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  • Apple Releases Find My iPhone App

    If you lose your iPhone or iPad while on the go, simply install the Find My iPhone app on any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to find it. Apple has just announced that the Find My iPhone app is now available as a free download from the App Store.

    In case you lost your device, sign in with your member name and password to locate your missing device on a map and have it display a message or play a sound.

    There is even an option to remotely lock the missing device to protect your privacy, or to wipe it to permanently delete all of your data if you think that it won’t be returned. The app will automatically sign you out after 15 minutes of inactivity or you can manually sign out at any time.

    In addition to the new app, the Find My iPhone web application on me.com now displays the device location on a full-screen map.

    Unfortunately, Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe are not available in all countries.

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  • Mobile Technology for Social Change: Interview with Katrin Verclas, Co-Founder of MobileActive.org

    MobileActive.org is a global network of people using mobile technology for social impact. They are committed to increasing the effectiveness of NGOs around the world who recognize that the 4.5 billion mobile phones provide unprecedented opportunities for organizing, communications, and service and information delivery.

    Smartphone.Biz-news.com spoke with Katrin Verclas, co-founder and editor of MobileActive.org; she was one of the speakers at Mobile Monday workshop @ Lift10 that took place last month in Geneva, Switzerland.

    Katrin explained to us what MobileActive.org is: “Our core resources, which are available to any organization that is interested in using mobile technology in their work, include our blog where we regularly report and feature case studies on latest issues and trends on innovative uses of mobile technology in areas as diverse as poverty alleviation, providing health diagnosis, improving elections, reuniting families after a natural disaster, advocacy and fundraising, mobile journalism or human rights reporting, and more.

    Katrin Verclas

    “We also publish How-To Guides and strategic tool-kits geared towards NGOs and civil society practitioners wanting to use mobile phones in their work, as well as maintain the m-Directory on our website, which is a comprehensive database of information on projects, programs and mobile tech tools for social change,” she said.

    And, because it’s important to engage & share experiences offline as well as online, MobileActive.org frequently organizes events, workshops and mobile camps focused on mobile technology for social good. These "M4Change camps" happen in various cities across the world.

    Katrin said that one of the most meaningful ways they play a role is by “connecting people and organizations that have experience and know-how with others who are seeking to do similar work.”

    “By maintaining a deep awareness and knowledge of what different projects and programs are being implemented around the world, MobileActive.org functions as the connector or facilitator – bringing together the appropriate people who may be helpful to one another.

    “For example, if there is a project to help young people find employment in India through SMS alert messages, and we know that a similar project is underway in Morocco, MobileActive.org will facilitate an introduction and bring those groups together to share experiences and expertise, as well as lessons and challenges learned which can help avoid redundancy and "re-inventing the wheel" in a world of scarce resources,” she said.

    MobileActive.org was founded in 2005 when 40 activists from various parts the world convened in Toronto for the first time ever to explore the use of mobile technology for social change. Out of this three-day meeting a new community, and ultimately organization, was born. Today, five years later, MobileActive.org manages a growing international digital community of more than 10,000 highly skilled practitioners, technologists, campaigners and strategists who are actively collaborating and sharing information, innovative strategies and tools.

    “The time has been right for the MobileActive.org network,” Katrin said. She claims that “as in any new and fast-moving field, there is a need for knowledge and skill-sharing in order to not be redundant, to maximize scarce resources, and to advance common issues.”

    “MobileActive.org’s fast growth, active community, and the many collaborative projects which have been born, are result of this need. Community and collaboration matter in this brand-new field where we all ‘build the plane as we fly it’ in order to learn from one another and collectively advance our knowledge and experience,” MobileActive.org co-founder said.

    “With more than 4.5 billion phones globally, the use of mobile phones to improve lives has often been referred to as a mobile revolution,” as MobileActive.org states on their website. Asked how they foresee the future development of this revolution, Katrin said: “I think the revolution lies in the fact that we are now a connected humanity – we have a way to reach each other and connect no matter where we are in the world. If you think of this network of humanity that is unprecedented in history in revolutionary terms, I am ok with that!”

    According to her, “the way we can communicate today, exchange information, received and deliver services certainly has the potential to be revolutionary.”

    “However – she said – I am not sure we have realized this potential yet. Mobile phones as a communication device that connects us all — even those at the bottom of the economic pyramid has certainly had an economic impact – mobile companies in some countries are the largest employer and contributors of tax payments and markets have been made more efficient with the introduction of mobile communication (and when markets become more efficient prices tend to go down and incomes rise).

    However, we are still only at the beginning of what will be the real revolution – mobile payments and financial transfers, including savings and wide-scale remittances, mhealth services that are universal, secure, and reliable, and ways in which people can use mobile to make their governments and political processes more accountable. In some of these areas we are just at the beginning of what is possible.”

    When asked about the effective strategies and tactics of mobile use for NGOs that MobileActive.org organization recommends, she had this to say: “The two single most important things that we preach to organizations are a. to be very clear about what you are trying to accomplish and, consequently, very clear about how mobile fits into those goals (and sometimes it just simply does not) and b. knowing the target audience extremely well – and their needs, wants, desires, and ways in which they currently use mobile.”

    She added that they have heard of more examples than she can count where an organization thought that including a mobile strategy was a good idea only to find out that the target audience did not agree. “A clearly identified need and rationale for why to include mobiles into the organizational work and goals is a must. This might sound trite but it’s the point organizations do not take seriously enough in the rush towards and the hype amidst the ‘mobile revolution," Katrin said.

    She claims that, while it is not a new concept, citizen media (which refers to media content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional journalists) has become more widespread in recent years.

    “Due to developments in information & communication technologies such as smaller and cheaper recording devices, cameras and phones, and shifts in access to venues and platforms for self-publishing (thanks to blogs and social media websites etc.), media production tools are in the hands of a lot more people today,” she said.

    “Given that the mobile phone is the most ubiquitous communication device in human history, mobiles certainly play a special role in the spread of citizen media and reporting. Mobiles allow people to express themselves: take pictures, audio, video, write. Even a simple SMS message is a means for transmitting critical news & information in real-time.

    And because phones are small and mobile, they can be with people wherever things are happening. This has been especially notable in large-scale events such as the London bombing, the crackdown on protesters in Burma, 2009 Iranian elections, etc. In each case, citizens were able to take video/pictures and bear witness, sometimes even where journalists couldn’t,” Katrin said.

    She gave us an example: a video filmed on a mobile phone that recently made history when it won the prestigious George Polk Award for Journalism. The famous video clip showed of the death of Neda, a young woman who was killed in the violent aftermath of the Iranian elections last year, and came to be seen around the world upon gaining the attention of international media.

    “This is symbolic of the rise in citizen media and the role of mobiles, as the the video was taken on a mobile phone, and it was the first video in the Polk’s 61-year history awarded to an anonymous citizen journalist,” Katrin concluded.

    ***
    Mobile Monday is a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

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  • Digital Dividend Spectrum and Mobile Broadband in South East Europe

    Serbian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society has driven an initiative to develop a unified approach to the allocation of ‘digital dividend’ spectrum – the spectrum that will be freed up by the switchover from analogue to digital TV – in South East Europe.

    The Ministry hosted a Ministerial Summit on the digital dividend in Belgrade attended by regulatory bodies and government delegations from states in South Eastern Europe including Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey.

    GSMA, that represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, said it applauds all governments’ actions to establish a harmonized approach to spectrum allocation in South East Europe.

    “The region of South East Europe lies on the borders of the European Union and achieving harmonised use of spectrum is important to the growth of the telecoms market and the wider economic well-being of the countries in it,” said Martin Whitehead, Director of GSMA Europe.

    “A cohesive regional approach from EU member states and their neighbours in South East Europe will maximise the affordability of telecommunications services in the area. We are delighted that Minister Matic and the Serbian Ministry have taken a lead on this issue by bringing together key nations from across the region to discuss and encourage a unified approach to spectrum harmonisation,” he added.

    GSMA informed that the objective of the meeting was to discuss how best to maximise the economic and social benefits promised by the digital dividend in South East Europe. Allocating some of the digital dividend to Mobile Broadband will increase Internet penetration and have a significant positive economic impact by driving innovation, job creation, productivity and competitiveness.

    However, harmonisation of the spectrum on a regional basis is needed to drive down handset and network equipment costs and make Mobile Broadband affordable to consumers.

    The unprecedented amount of spectrum that will be freed up in the switchover from analogue to digital terrestrial TV is known as the Digital Dividend. The Digital Dividend spectrum is located between 200 MHz and 1GHz. This spectrum band offers an excellent balance between transmission capacity and distance coverage.

    If just 25%, or around 100MHz, of the spectrum currently used by analogue TV (470 – 862 MHz) was re-allocated to mobile communications, the mobile industry could dramatically speed up the rollout of broadband communications and increase coverage.

    Because of its good signal propagation characteristics, less infrastructure is required to provide wider mobile coverage, meaning that communications services can be provided in rural areas at lower cost.

    This is of core importance in South East Europe where population density is typically lower than in other parts of Europe. The region’s position on the borders of the EU also makes coordination between states more complex and the high number of multiple border issues threatens to complicate coordination further.

    Harmonisation of digital dividend spectrum throughout Europe is an important element in the greater spectrum debate, as the mobile industry currently faces an urgent need for more spectrum to accommodate significant increases in Mobile Broadband usage.

    Extending coverage to rural areas and ensuring that the ‘digital divide’ between town and country is lowered is also a vital element of EU policy. Work on the digital dividend must continue to ensure universal connectivity.

    According to GSMA, the mobile industry needs around 100 MHz because:

    • Economic studies show that about 100MHz gives the optimum trade-off in Europe
    • It is in line with MEPs’ ITRE report
    • It leaves broadcasters with the spectrum they need to offer more content (75% of the resource)
    • This spectrum needs to be harmonised as much as possible to control cross-border interference and reduce terminal costs – separate national bandplans destroy value
    • LTE needs wider bandwidths to offer mobile broadband data rates (2 x 20 MHz for up to 100 Mb/s downlink) that consumers want, efficiently
    • Spectrum allocation needs to accommodate multiple operators to promote competition
    • More may be needed in some markets on a national basis, which may happen at different times in different markets

    What can be done to attain 100 MHz?
    Allocation of the digital dividend is a national prerogative, meaning that Member States of the European Union are entitled to manage the freed up spectrum according to their national interests, provided that they are in line with the decision taken within the International Telecom Union (ITU). The Member States are likely to be bound also by a spectrum management framework, as set out at the European level, in order to guarantee benefits that stem from a minimum common denominator of spectrum allocation.

    According to GSMA, these benefits include the possibility of harmonized frequencies, the balanced allocation of spectrum between the different service providers, and the avoidance of interference within the boundaries of the European Union. Overall, this would lead to faster, cheaper and better services with an increased possibility for content enhancement and interoperability of devices (e.g. Mobile TV).

  • SGI Releases InfiniteStorage 5000 SAS External Storage System

    SGI, a provider of HPC and data center solutions, today announced the release of SGI InfiniteStorage 5000, a RAID storage system that combines leading edge hardware with a choice of host interfaces and drive technologies in a powerful external storage platform.

    SGI InfiniteStorage 5000 is SGI’s first storage system to employ 6Gb/s SAS technology.

    SGI InfiniteStorage 5000 provides customers with improved performance and scalability, multi-protocol host connectivity, flexible drive support, data security features and advanced energy savings. With SGI’s DMF software, SGI InfiniteStorage 5000 is an ideal primary or secondary storage solution for tiered virtualization implementations.

    It is also ideal as a front-end for active archive architectures using an SGI® COPAN™ MAID solution on the back-end. It perfectly complements SGI® Altix® UV server and Rackable™ rackmount server environments.

    “As data volumes in the enterprise continue to grow, increased performance, reduced power consumption and system flexibility are of primary concern to customers,” said Rick Chapek, SGI senior vice president of hardware engineering. “By utilizing 6Gb/s SAS technology, SGI InfiniteStorage 5000 brings performance, reliability and a strong feature set normally seen in high-end Fibre Channel systems to an aggressive entry-level price point.”

    SGI InfiniteStorage 5000 delivers bandwidth up to 4,000 MB/s on sustained reads from disk, a 4X performance improvement compared to the previous generation product. The system delivers 40,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second) random disk reads, a more than 2X improvement over the prior generation.

    “Although 6Gb/s SAS for drives has already become common in the industry, completing that transition by including the host side has finally begun in earnest,” said Benjamin S. Woo, program vice president, worldwide storage systems research at IDC.

    “With both 6Gb/s host and drive-side architecture, InfiniteStorage 5000 should provide an affordable entry-point system that offers improved storage performance and scalability, and greatly decreased power consumption. Furthermore, it is ideally-suited for mixed workloads and virtualization, making it a top choice for storage upgrades.”

    SGI InfiniteStorage offers the ability to intermix drive types, allowing organizations to address a wide range of capacity and performance requirements. Customers can deploy high performance solid-state drives (SSDs) or SAS drives for the most demanding application workloads as well as cost-effective nearline SAS drives for less performance-sensitive, high-capacity applications.

    SGI InfiniteStorage 5000 consumes less energy with power supplies that meet the forthcoming Energy Star, 80 PLUS® energy efficiency and Climate Savers Computing specifications.

    Four native 6Gb/s SAS host interfaces can be intermixed with eight 1Gb/s iSCSI or eight 8Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) host ports per dual controller. This flexible and multi-purpose dual protocol approach allows organizations to implement a variety of configurations – from rackmounted server and storage DAS implementations using SAS, to iSCSI and FC SAN environments for larger consolidation and virtualization projects.

  • Samsung Takes Lead in U.S. LCD-TV Market in Q1

    Samsung in the first quarter of 2010 regained the leading position in the U.S. LCD-TV market, as the company capitalized on rising consumer demand for television sets with advanced features, including LED-backlighting, built-in internet connectivity and 3-D images, according to iSuppli.

    Samsung in Q1shipped 1.1 million LCD-TV sets in the United States. While this was down 33 percent from the fourth quarter, Samsung actually outperformed the overall U.S. LCD-TV market, which contracted by 35.8 percent sequentially due to seasonal factors. "This allowed Samsung to increase its market share to 18 percent in the first quarter, up from 17.3 percent in the fourth quarter, giving it the top position in the U.S. market," said Riddhi Patel, principal analyst, television systems, for iSuppli. 

    According to her, the year 2010 "marks a major transition period for the U.S. LCD-TV market, when consumers increasingly are gravitating toward sets with more advanced features.”

    “With Samsung at the forefront of trends including LED backlighting and 3-D, the company has been able to outperform the market and its closest competitors,” she said.

    The report finds that Samsung of South Korea retook the lead from U.S.-based brand Vizio, whose unit shipments declined by 42.2 percent sequentially in the first quarter. Vizio and Samsung have been engaged in a tight race for leadership in the U.S. LCD-TV market, with the two companies frequently swapping the No. 1 position from quarter to quarter. Samsung held a 1.3 percent point lead over Vizio in the first quarter of 2010, the same margin in which Vizio led Samsung in the fourth quarter of 2009.

    According to iSuppli, the U.S. LCD-TV market in 2010 is set to undergo a rapid transition away from traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs) and toward LED backlighting technology. Shipments of LED-backlit LCD-TVs in the United States are projected to rise to 7.7 million units in 2010, up about 600 percent from 1.1 million in 2009. LED-backlit models will account for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. LCD-TV shipments in 2010, at 23.4 percent, up from only 3.4 percent in 2009.

    Meanwhile, Internet-Enabled Televisions (IETVs) are attracting consumer interest, with U.S. shipments expected to rise to 11.8 million units in 2010, up from 6.9 million in 2009.

    Among U.S. consumers that purchased new televisions in the first quarter, 26.8 percent indicated their new sets were connected to the Internet, either though the internal capabilities of their TVs or via external devices, such as digital video boxes or game consoles. This is up from 24.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Over time, IETVs will account for a rising portion of Internet connectivity in televisions.The most popular types of Internet content accessed by consumers are movies and social networking services.

    The research group says that U.S. shipments of 3-D TVs—introduced to the market for the first time in March—are expected to reach 1.45 to1.5 million units in 2010, thanks to increasing acceptance from enthusiastic early adopters.

  • iSuppli: HP’s Palm Acquisition Opens up a Tablet of Possibilities

    Hewlett-Packard planned acquisition of Palm immediately puts the PC-centric company knee-deep in the smart phone race, but perhaps more importantly positions the company to compete in the burgeoning tablet market, says iSuppli.

    According to the research firm, the acquisition gives HP the means to use Palm’s WebOS platform to release a tablet device that will compete against Apple’s iPad as well as whatever arises from the relationship between Nokia and Intel.

    iSuppli forecasts worldwide tablet shipments will expand to 11.0 million units in 2010, up from just 2.0 million units in 2009 and 1.8 million units in 2008. Most of the shipments in 2010 will be made up by sales of the iPad, and sales will continue to expand in the coming years as a range of competitors enters the tablet market.

    iSuppli believes that a key component in HP’s strategy will be to utilize its common WebOS operating system as a basis for developing a tablet that can use the same applications and services being employed by the company’s existing smart phone product line.

    According to the analysts, the challenge for HP is to develop an ecosystem around a platform that will be able to compete with the centralized apps store Apple has created. That also means garnering support from leading developers in order to get the right apps and features available for multi-platform mobilized devices.

    What this means is that there are now three major competitors positioning for a fully interoperable, multi-device platform: Nokia/Intel, Apple and now HP with its Palm purchase.

    “Even so, this doesn’t even address the number of Taiwanese and other vendors that are developing their own tablet PCs in what will surely be a highly competitive market in years to come,” as iSuppli claims.

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  • Xbox LIVE Video Kinect Brings Video Chat to Your Living Room

    Along with the announcement of Kinect for Xbox 360 (formally known as ‘Project Natal’), Microsoft yesterday unveiled Xbox LIVE Video Kinect that lets you chat with other Xbox 360 users.

    But the next year, Microsoft is going to link Video Kinect with Windows Live Messenger, allowing the Xbox LIVE community to have real-time video conversations with hundreds of millions of PC users around the world. The new service will also integrate custom news feeds, weather and videos from Bing.

    The Natal camera’s "Autozoom Focus" instantly finds and follows you when you move so you always stay in frame; no headset is required.

    No more details have been given except those given by Piero Sierra, Group Program Manager, Windows Live Messenger & Mail at Microsoft in his blog post: “When we told you earlier about what’s coming in the next version of Messenger, one of the things we discussed was how we’re improving the core instant messaging experience, and making big improvements to video chat and media sharing with built-in features like HD support, full-screen video chat, and more engaging ways to share photos and videos,” he wrote.

    And added: “If you’ve been following the E3 conference, you know that today Microsoft unveiled new details about the controller-free Kinect for Xbox 360, including how it enables Xbox LIVE users to have real-time video conversations with Windows Live Messenger users.

    This functionality will release in the next year, and we’re excited about how it helps make your communication experience even richer by bringing Messenger and your friends directly into your living room.”

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