It's been in beta for some time, but today, finally, Windows Live Movie Maker has gotten its release papers.

Yes, it's got the love-it-or-hate-it ribbon interface. On its tabs are loads of transition effects, filters and fades, caption tools, and ready access to editing functions. Videos can be created in 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios and resolutions up to 1080p. YouTube uploading is now built-in and other services like Facebook, SmugMug, Picasa, and Drupal-based sites can be added via plugins.

For those of you who, like me, don't want to deal with the Live installer, head on over to Softpedia to download the new version directly.

Remember, this baby is Windows Vista or Windows 7 only.

Quick-fix updates have also been pushed to the rest of the Live suite and the Messenger Geek has a list of links to the individual .msi installers.

Microsoft is rolling out a number of changes to its Live.com portal and Windows Live suite of applications. In a nutshell, the company is trying to add social networking-style features to the web portal. Users will be able to create profile pages where they can connect to other friends, share images and other media, and post short status updates. In other words, it looks a lot like Facebook. But Microsoft will be leveraging its existing services like Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger. Your IM contacts will automatically be added to your Windows Live contact list.

The new Windows Live also supports integration with third party services like Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, and Twitter. And Microsoft is increasing the amount of free storage space for Windows Live SkyDrive users from 5GB to 25GB.

Microsoft is doing a phased rollout of the new services, so you may not notice any changes to your account right away. But all existing Windows Live users should see the new features within the next few weeks.

The company is also releasing new versions of its downloadable and web-based applications including Windows live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Photos, and Windows Live People, a one stop shop for contact management.

There's been a lot of talk over the last few days about new features that will be included in Windows 7. There will be a new taskbar, improved window behavior, and less annoying User Account Control prompts. But there are a few things that won't be included in Windows 7 that had been part of past versions of the operating system.

Microsoft will stop bundling Windows Movie Maker, Windows Mail, and Windows Photo Gallery with the operating system. Those applications will still be available as free downloads, but you won't have them out of the box. Instead they'll be part of the new Windows Live suite of desktop applications which we first looked at in October.

To be honest, it would probably make more sense to keep bundling these applications with Windows. After all, when you install OS X, or most Linux distributions you get a mail application and some sort of photo management software. But Apple and Linux distributors haven't faced the same kind of anti-trust pressures that Microsoft has in the past. While Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player will still be bundled with Windows 7, it's likely that the company is avoiding a whole batch of lawsuits by offering free downloads of other software.

via ZDNet

It's been a while since Microsoft's free Hotmail email service received a major overhaul. Last year, Microsoft increased users' email storage space from 2GB to 5GB. But now the company is also starting to roll out a new site design.

The update brings faster page load times for anyone using the "full version" of Hotmail, while "classic version" users now get access to drag & drop and other features that were previously only available to full users. Microsoft has also improved the contact list. You'll see profile pictures for email contacts if your contacts have uploaded pictures for their Windows Live Messenger profiles. You can also see recently sent messages from your contacts when viewing their profiles

The new Hotmail also has a new auto-complete feature for email addresses and a contact picker that helps detect misspelled addresses.

The new version of Hotmail is not yet available for all users. And some users who have received the updated are less than thrilled with it. It's not clear if the new version is actually more difficult to use, or if some of the people who now have access to it haven't yet figured out where all the buttons are.

Microsoft is expected to officially unveil Windows Live Wave 3 beta later today, but you can already find download links for the new Windows Live suite of applications at LiveSide, an unofficial Windows Live news and review site.

Windows Live Wave 3 includes new beta versions of Windows Live Messenger, Toolbar, Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer, and Family Safety. Windows Live Movie Maker has been included in the Windows Live suite for the first time as well, although I discovered that Movie Maker Beta is only available for Windows Vista. If you try running the installer using Windows XP, Movie Maker doesn't show up as an option.

The new applications feature a number of changes. First, the user interface has changed a bit. All of the applications have a lighter, brighter color scheme than their predecessors. Windows Live Writer Beta includes a new tool that lets you post videos to YouTube directly from the blog editing client. There's a new calendar in the Windows Live Mail Beta application.

Windows Live Movie Maker appears to be a stripped down, easier to use version of Windows Vista Movie Maker. It lacks a timeline and audio editing features, doesn't allow you to crop or edit clips, and lacks the ability to place text overlays on a video. In other words, if the old Windows Movie Maker is like Final Cut for dummies, Windows Live Movie Maker is Movie Maker for dummies. I'm not entirely clear on why Microsoft even bothered with this program.

Microsoft has launched a technical preview of its new Live Mesh service, which is basically combines remote desktop, online storage, and file synchronization services. Right now the service is available for Windows XP and Vista, but eventually support will be added for OS X, mobile phones, and other devices. And when we say "available," we mean Microsoft allowed 10,000 people to sign up for the first round of testing. All of those slots are full, but you can sign up for the waiting list.

Live Mesh lets you choose folders and files on your computer that you want to synchronize with other computers, and with an online desktop called your Live Desktop. The system gives you a lot of control over which folders to share, and which computers and devices you can use to access those folders. You can also share folders with other Live Mesh users, see when those users are online, and even when they're accessing your files.

Right now there are basically two separate interfaces for Live Mesh: the desktop version and the web version. From either interface you can see a list of updates to your files and folders, access those documents, or initiate a remote desktop connection.

Ultimately, developers will be able to write applications for Live Mesh that you can also synchronize across platforms. In other words, you'll be able to sync more than files. Say you've developed a household budget tracking application. You can share access to the application with other members of your household, and every time someone makes buys groceries or pays a utility bill, they can enter the amount on their own computer and the updates will be available on everyone's system.

We've embedded a video from the Live Mesh blog explaining the service after the jump. You'll need to have Microsoft Silverlight installed to watch.

Microsoft has rolled out a new improved news search engine under its Live Search banner. Overall Live Search News looks a lot like you'd expect a news search engine to look if you've used another one like say, Google News. But there are a few features that make Live Search News stand out:

• An orange banner will pop up and highlight breaking news at the top of the site, but only when there's actual breaking news, which is kind of refreshing in today's 24/7 news environment when many news agencies are pretending there's always something breaking.
• See that blue sidebar on the right? Yeah, we thought it was for advertising at first too, but it's actually local news selected for you based on your IP address. No need to sign up and change your settings to get local news tailored to you.
• Once you enter a search term, you can further refine your search from a list of categories, or select from a list of related searches.
• Videos are featured right on the main page, and if you mouse over them you can preview the videos before deciding whether to click to watch the full video.

Overall, we're pretty impressed with the new Live Search News. Our only real complaint is that there doesn't appear to be a way to subscribe to RSS feeds for searches.

[via CNet]

We're going to go ahead and give Microsoft some points for thinking outside of the box with their latest advertising strategy. The company has posted a series of videos to YouTube highlighting the features of Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Windows Live online services. Considering YouTube is owned by Microsoft arch-nemesis Google, that took some guts. But even more gutsy (or foolish), was the decision to leave the comments open on Microsoft's new YouTube channel.

While Windows may be installed on the vast majority of work and home PCs, it probably won't come as a surprise to you that Microsoft has a few detractors. And they tend to be somewhat vocal in their criticisms. The comment section of the company's YouTube channel kind of reads like a collection of prison letters from Sideshow Bob to Bart Simpson.

We also would have expected Microsoft to post the promotional videos on its own MSN Video site, not YouTube. So overall, the YouTube channel appears to be a way of reaching out to potential customers wherever they may be. And as we're seeing, those potential customers are more than happy to reach back -- even if it's not necessarily in the way Microsoft may have hoped.

[via istartedsomething]

As expected, Microsoft is releasing its updated suite of Windows Live applications and services. And as of this evening that means you can sign up for a brand new xxx@live.com e-mail address to replace your musty old xxx@hotmail.com address.

You're supposed to be able to sign up by going through get.live.com as well, but it looks like you may have mixed results if you go that route right now.

In addition to Live.com email addresses, Microsoft is offering up localized email accounts for more than 30 countries, from Argentina to Vietnam.

[via Bink.nu]

Can't wait a few more hours for Microsoft to push out the latest version of its Windows Live application suite? The folks over at Mess.be have found the download links for Windows Live Wave 2.

Wave 2 includes updates to all your favorite Windows live services, including Messenger, Writer, Mail, Toolbar, Photo Gallery, and Family Safety. The application suite is x64 system compatible now, but other than that there don't seem to be a ton of new features other than the fact that several apps have new build numbers and they've all dropped the beta tag.

It looks like Microsoft is preparing to launch the latest versions of Windows Live Mail, Messenger, Writer, Photo Gallery, and Family Safety.

If you've been keeping track, you probably know that Microsoft has already released beta versions of most of these applications, and a nice little unified installer app that lets you install a bunch of Microsoft services all at once, if that's the kind of thing you're inclined to do. We'd like to think that each service will work a bit more reliably once they emerge from beta, but having spent the last few months with Windows Vista, we've learned to temper our hopes.

[via LiveSide]

Microsoft appears to be taking a cue from Google, and is rolling out its latest web service to just a few Windows Live users at a time. LiveSide reports that some folks are able to access the new Windows Live Calendar today, while others will be taken to Hotmail or MSN Calendar if they follow that link.

The updated calendar application seems to be a decent Google Calendar competitor, with many of the same features:

• Day, Week, Month, and Agenda views customizable by name and color
• Create multiple calendars
• Share your calendars with other Windows Live users
• Receive email reminders of scheduled events
• Share calendars via xml
• Import ICS files from Outlook, Google Calendar or other calendar apps

There's no way to synchronize calendars. Yet. But LiveSide reports that Microsoft is working on the ability to synchronize your Windows Live Calendar with Outlook and/or Windows Mobile. And that could make this a killer web app. Right now you need a third party solution like GooSync or GMobileSync to synchronize a PDA or phone with Google Calendar.

While it's nice that Microsoft is starting to offer web-based services like the ability to store and share files online, Windows Live SkyDrive launched earlier this year with an anemic 500MB storage limit per user. But when you can get 5GB of free space from AOL's Xdrive or 25GB of space for media files from MediaMax, half a gig just doesn't cut it.

So what does Microsoft do? They increase the limit to 1GB. Gee, thanks.

The SkyDrive team has announced a few other updates that do look useful. For example you can subscribe to an RSS feed for public folders. Every time a new file is uploaded you'll get an update. You can also see which user uploaded a specific file to a shared SkyDrive. And you can add Windows Live friends to your SkyDrive contacts list without sending them an e-mail or instant messaging them through Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger.

As for the 1GB file size, we suppose it's a start. But we'd like to see more from a company that's in a brutal contest with Google for internet dominance.

Microsoft has launched an updated version of Live Search. Some of the changes will be visible in the user interface, but the company also made a bunch of changes under the hood to make the search engine more useful and reliable.

• Increased the site index by more than 400%
• Improved understanding of query intent
• Auto-spell correction
• Faster page-loads
• Uses more click-stream data to improve page ranking and relevancy
• Improved answers to questions about specific items like weather, images, celebrities, entertainment, maps, or sports

The interface is also a bit cleaner. The search box has moved to the left. The tabs for searching images, video, news have been replaced with text links (which are a bit harder to notice than tabs at first). And the fonts look a little less 1985-ish.

Apparently 40 percent of the searches on Live.com involve entertainment, shopping, health, and local search, so Microsoft has focused heavily on these four areas.