Last week we reported how LG could be planning to launch a Windows Phone 7 Series device as early as September this year. Now the first pre-production prototype of this possible device has been shown off by Microsoft during filming of The Engadget Show.
The LG model is the first official branded hardware we’ve seen of a Windows Phone 7 Series handset and seems to perfectly fit the hardware requirements defined by Microsoft for any devices running their latest mobile operating system, which was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month.
Microsoft’s Aaron Woodman revealed the prototype and gave a quick overview of some of the hardware features it includes. The device sports a QWERTY slide-out keyboard as well as a touch screen and the three standard Windows Phone 7 prescribed buttons: back, home and search. Other buttons include power, camera and volume controls.
Engadget say the device is “just a hair thicker than an iPhone or Nexus One” and features a five megapixel camera and flash on the rear, and a headphone jack. They also reiterate that the device is still a prototype so anything could change between now and when the device is launched (whether that be September or sometime later). Check out a video of the phone and some hand-on photos of the hardware over at Engadget.
If you believe the posters in one forum thread, Valve’s content delivery service Steam could soon be making its way to Apple’s Mac platform. But rather than the typical rumours from a friend of a friend who knows somebody that works for the company, graphics and files specifically referencing Mac OS X have been discovered in the current PC version. A file known as C:\Program Files\Steam\resource\menus\osx.menu contains definitions for OS X menus, as well as a form of platform checking in the file Steam\Public\steamui_english.txt with the line:
“steam_welcomeaction_platformwrong” “%gamename% is not available on your current platform.”
Steam recently moved from Microsoft’s Trident web rendering engine to Webkit, an engine used by Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome. Valve’s Chris Green has also posted on his Linkedin profile that Valve are interested in Mac and Linux engineers. Historically Valve have given very little support to the Mac, but the debut of Steam on the platform could signal a change of attitude.
Below are the graphics included in Steam hinting at OS X support.
The guys over at LiveSide.net have once again stumbled upon new screenshots of Windows Live Wave 4. The screenshots reveal a new look on the header themes for some of the Windows Live services, including Hotmail, live.com, and other sites.
Microsoft accidentally gave some users a sneak peak when they released just the thumbnail pictures of the new themes under the Options menu on some current Wave 3 services. Today, LiveSide revealed some of the new themes for Windows Live services.
There are a total of 16 new themes, including the Windows Live default blue header. Most of these themes are snippets from Windows 7 wallpapers including Characters, Scenes, Architecture, and Nature packages. The new Windows Live Wave 4 will also remove the “Options” menu from current services and simply add a “hover-over” pop-up window to change themes.
