Filed under: OS Updates, Windows Mobile, Microsoft

Bad news for owners of the latest Windows Mobile 6.x devices: your phone doesn't meet the hardware specifications for an update to Windows Phone 7. Microsoft says that even the brand new HTC HD2 doesn't meet its tight requirements for the much-talked-about new mobile OS, according to APCMag.

Even though the HD2 has a fast enough processor, a nice touch display, and a good enough camera, Microsoft says it can't be upgraded to Windows Phone 7 because it has too many buttons. Apparently, a Windows Phone 7 Series device has to have three buttons, but the HTC HD2 has five.

Or, to put it terms that Monty Python fans will understand, Microsoft is saying that the number of the buttons shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.

Five is right out.

It's not just HTC's device, though. None of the other phones Microsoft currently supports are eligible for the upgrade, either. This just seems like a case of Microsoft taking a page from the Apple handbook and controlling the hardware experience for its hot new software. MS has a lot riding on Windows Phone 7 Series, and it makes sense that they wouldn't want to take the blame for any compatibility issues with the previous generation of hardware.

Windows Mobile 6.x users WILL be getting an upgrade, though: to Windows Mobile 6.5.3, just before WinMo gets rebranded as "Windows Mobile Classic." It will come with magnifier technology, so you can use the touchscreens on older devices without a stylus.

Windows Mobile 6.x users won't get Windows Phone 7 upgrade originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft - Windows Mobile - HTC HD2 - Apple - Operating system

Filed under: Internet, Google, Search

Over at Wired, there's a fantastic, exclusive feature on The Google Algorithm. It's quite easy to take for granted just how awesome the Google engine is.

We know it works, but we don't know how it works... except a few mythical bigwigs at Google, anyway. Now, I'm not about to tell you that the Wired article reveals Google's best-kept industry secrets, but it does illuminate.

And sometimes a little illumination is all you need! You might not care about the specifics of fuel injection, but it might be kinda cool to find out how fuel injection was discovered -- and that's what Wired's Google story does: it tells you how Google came to dominate the market. More importantly, it details the competition that Google now has in the form of Bing, and the methods they will employ to keep ahead of the pack.

Did you know that there have been at least eight major overhauls of the Google search engine? Or that PageRank, though memorable, is all but dead? PageRank and over 200 other signals are used to resolve a webpage's relevance and importance -- and they've all been added without any disruption to service! Apparently it was a piece of Wittgensteinian philosophy that led them to derive the difference between 'hot dogs' and 'boiling puppies' -- context is king!

Anyway, if you find yourself with a few minutes to spare this Saturday, give it a read -- it'll make your searches even more enjoyable, trust me!

A philosophical crawl through Google's legendary search engine algorithm originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bing - Google - Web search engine - Google search - Search

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware, Beta

One of my favorite video games from my childhood was a strategy game for my Commodore 64 called M.U.L.E. In fact, when I wrote about an online C64 emulator two years ago, I ended with the question "Does anybody remember M.U.L.E.?" Evidently, they do, and they loved it as much as I did.

Today I discovered Planet M.U.L.E., a free remake and tribute to the original game and its designers. And what a remake! Somehow Planet M.U.L.E. has managed to update the game with better graphics and sound, and yet still keep the simple charm of the original.

The game is not a clone, or a take-off on M.U.L.E.; it's a faithful remake that replicates the fun of the original game while adding in online multiplayer functionality. And amazingly, it's available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux!

If you remember M.U.L.E. and would like to relive the fun of colonizing planet Irata, you have to drop everything and head over to Planet M.U.L.E. now. And if you don't remember the original, but are open to playing a classic game that promises great strategic gameplay, give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

Classic strategy game M.U.L.E. comes back to life as Planet M.U.L.E. originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video game - Linux - Download Squad - Game - Microsoft Windows

Filed under: Social Software, Microblogging

Nothing sets off a good round of speculation like a vague, tantalizing tweet from a developer. Twitter's Alex Payne (aka @al3x) set a small fire in the tech blogosphere (does anyone still call it that?) when he let slip the following delicious tidbit on Saturday afternoon:

If you had some of the nifty site features that we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client. (You will soon.)

It's a perfect storm of offering information and building excitement without actually revealing too much about what we can expect. Al3x, you tease!

TechCrunch speculates that Alex might be talking about baked-in geotagging, and cites third-party Twitter web client Brizzly as an example of a featureset that Twitter could duplicate. The advantage of bringing things like filtering, location-based search, and more powerful follower-management tools to Twitter natively is that they won't have to deal with the delays or API rate limits that third-party devs face.

Do I think that popular desktop clients will suddenly become obsolete? Definitely not. Will Twitter's web experience get a lot better? Heck yes, unless they try to crowd too many features into it. I'm looking forward to seeing what Alex's mystery features entail.

Twitter employee teases users with "nifty" new features originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter - Alex Payne - Download Squad - Application programming interface - Social network

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

If ever there was a time waster for which the concept of a sequel seems ironic, it would be This is the Only Level. This is the Only Level's whole raison d'etre (sorry, I'm watching the winter games closing ceremony as I type this) is to play with the concept of what a level is. The game features one "level", if you define a level as how it is laid out on the screen, but you can complete many stages. Stages are versions of the level where you need to get your character from the beginning to the end of the level, but are given an additional challenge of some kind.

This is the Only Level Too is a sequel to This is the Only Level, adding even more levels, oops, I mean stages to the game. As always, the fun in this game is in figuring out the clever and sometimes infuriating puzzles that don't always stay within the confines of the game itself. If you liked the first one, the sequel brings more of the same brain-bending goodness.

This is the Only Level Too - a sequel Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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game - Download Squad - TimeWaster - Video game - Board game

Filed under: Internet, News

Considering that you're currently online and reading news, you probably won't be shocked to hear that websites are now officially more popular than newspapers as a source of news in the U.S. That puts the Internet in third place for news, behind local TV stations and national television networks according to a study from Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project.

TV news still tops the list, but almost 60% of Americans now get their news from a combination of online and offline sources. Those online sources include the web versions of newspapers, so although the print newspaper is clearly lagging behind web-based news, things aren't as awful for newspaper publishers as that makes them sound.

Mobile sites are starting to break into the news market in a big way, too. 33% of Americans reported that they read news on their phones. I think it's a safe bet that the rise of the iPhone and Android devices had a little something to do with that. Pew also found that Americans are participating in the news process in large numbers. 37% had blogged, commented on, Facebooked or tweeted a news story.

The overall effect is that people think that the increasing spread of online news makes staying informed both easier (55%) and overwhelming (70%). Perhaps that explains why 21% say they rely on just one online news source.

[via Ars Technica]

Study: online news now more popular than newspapers in U.S. originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Newspaper - Pew Research Center - United States - iPhone - Online and offline

Filed under: OS Updates, Microsoft, Mobile

While we try to shy away from gadgets and gizmos here on Download Squad, some attention does have to be paid to operating systems. They are, after all, the reason this blog exists! An operating system makes or breaks a device -- it's the difference between grudging oh, it's my company phone acceptance and mass omg, you must check this OUT! adoption.

Of course, try as they might, a vendor such as Microsoft or Apple doesn't really have a say in whether their new OS is a hit or not. They can produce a masterwork, like Windows NT, or a piece of tripe like Mac OS 9, but ultimately it's how these OSes are used that matters. Would the iPhone be where it is today, without the Guinness Beer Drinking App?

Anyway, as you're all aware by now, Windows Phone 7 is coming -- and soon, by the looks of things! Our perky, equally nerdy cousins over at Engadget have an exclusive video of Microsoft's new smartphone OS running on new LG phone. There's a QWERTY keyboard, a five megapixel camera (with flash), and a bunch of other goodies (check the gallery out, if you're more interested in the phone itself). It doesn't look like an iPhone-killer to me, but I bet it's going to nibble at the Blackberry's toes...

Windows Phone 7 gets the hands-on treatment originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft - Apple - IPhone - Smartphone - Operating system

Filed under: Windows

Two of my favorite Windows tinkerers -- Rafael Rivera and Long Zheng -- got tired of waiting for someone, somewhere to make use of Windows 7's cool, built-in sensor support. Rather than twiddle their thumbs like certain non-coders who are writing about them (read: me), they decided to do something about it.

Enter Geosense, a free download for Windows 7 which allows you to activate location awareness on your system without the need for GPS hardware.

Once it's installed, you'll be able to make use of geolocation features in various apps. Granted, the list is pretty short right now. The Geosense site only mentions MahTweets (a Twitter client), their own Google Maps demo app, and the built-in weather gadget in Windows 7.

Geosense works nicely, and I can't wait for location-aware apps to do things like automatically switch my default printer when I cart my laptop from home to work. Hopefully this will give app developers a kick in the pants and we'll see some more cool apps soon.

Geosense brings GPS-free location awareness to Windows 7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 7 - Microsoft Windows - Global Positioning System - Google Maps - Google

Filed under: Windows, Browsers

While the count was at three release candidates in two days when I started checking my RSS feeds this morning, it's now up to four. Yes, Opera has dropped the beta tag and is feverishly working toward a final version of Opera 10.50 for Windows. Their site is literally buzzing with activity, from the message boards to the desktop team's blog.

Why the rush? What could possibly be so important about getting every little bug squashed ASAP?

Well, there's that browser ballot screen thing which is scheduled to start rolling out across Windows desktops in the EU today.

Opera 10.50 is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor, and the ballot screen should certainly increase awareness among the general public. The new browser is fast, looks good, and very user friendly -- so there's every reason for the Opera crew to try and get 10.50 into the hands of EU users stat.

New RC builds are popping up so quickly I'd advise just sitting tight and waiting for the final version at this point. The changelogs are getting shorter as bugs get fixed, so it won't be long before Opera signs off on 10.50.

Opera pumps out 4th 10.50 RC build as browser ballot screen goes live originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Opera - Windows - Software release life cycle - Download Squad - RSS

Filed under: Internet

It's very simple, short and sweet -- in true Google style -- and in this case that's a very good thing. Person Finder: Chile Earthquake lets you search a database of records, or submit details of someone you have information about. If you're yet to hear from a friend or family member in Chile, go search. If you're in Chile right now and you have information about survivors, or victims, please submit it.

Google disclaims that they're not checking the veracity of data submitted: this is simply a public, searchable notice board to enable the friends and family of victims, and those on the ground in Chile, to communicate quickly and easily.

At the time of writing there have been 33,000 records submitted to the Person Finder, and it's growing quickly. Let's hope the tally stops climbing sooner rather than later.

Google launches 'person finder' for Chile earthquake originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google - Earthquake - Chile - Chile Earthquake - Database