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.