Microsoft launches Facebook for Windows phone beta program.

This is the news of the week. Microsoft is indeed launching a beta program for the redesigned Facebook app for Windows Phone 8. The app new look is more in line with its Android and iOS counterpart. It features support for high resolution photos, post sharing and Facebook timeline.

With this release Microsoft expects users to provide feedbacks and bug reports to Facebook and Microsoft engineers working on the new app. Since it's in beta, you will not find it in the store using search. Instead, use the link below to download Facebook beta. There are two ways for users to report bugs and provide feedback, The first is through the store by leaving a comment or in the Settings of the app itself.

After installing the beta, the speed does not go unnoticed. The redesign is also obvious with the left side menu to access the navigation bar. Very convenient to access groups, newsfeed, apps etc. The right bar reveals your online friends; tap to initiate a chat session. The latter takes place within the app instead of "calling" the messaging hub.

Facebook Beta runs on Windows Phone 8 only and can be downloaded in the Windows Phone Store.

Source: Windows Phone Blog

Familiar looking "FallingBirds" game free for a limited time - new levels coming soon.

FallingsBirds is a funny puzzle game where you help a familiar blue bird reach his nest. To help you, there are a bunch of tools such as trampolines, walls, and rockets to help you progress towards the nest. Easy right? Nah, it would not be fun without some bombs to dodge as well as collecting some stars and points. Sounds like fun.

FallingBirds is currently free and runs on Windows phone 7.5 and 8. Hurry up and get your free copy. The publisher has already announced new levels to be added soon.

Really, doesn't that bird look familiar?

Download: Windows Phone Store

Red Stripe Deals: Mush, My Stock and Ruzzle at $0.99 for a week.

It's that time of the week again where Microsoft offers a selection of apps at discounted prices for Windows Phone. Three games/apps are available this week at $0.99 only.

Mush

The first game is a Xbox live title called Mush. "Discover the emotions in this award-winning exclusive, a quirky puzzle adventure that lets you change how your character feels! Touch, tilt, rotate and shake up Mush to alter his mood. Gain new abilities, evade beasties and solve puzzles as you tumble through unique and beautiful worlds!".

MyStocks Portfolio+

As it's name implies, it is an app that helps you keep track of your stocks and markets. MyStocks Portfolio+ provides real-time quotes from most market and syncs from various sources.

Ruzzle

Ruzzle is fun  and challenging word game. You have two minutes to makes as many words you can. It's even more fun when you play against friends.

Source: Windows Phone 

Nokia releases Nokia Chat beta for Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices.

Nokia Chat is another Lumia exclusive app currently in beta. The app, released today, is a multi-platform messaging software that lets Lumia users connect to friends who use Asha, S40 and Symbian devices. Nokia Chat beta also supports Yahoo Messenger, thus expanding the app reach to other platforms as well. While exclusively available to Lumia devices, the app is also limited to some countries. Users can download the beta in the United State, United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Nigeria. More countries will be added later.

Check out the features of Nokia Chat for Windows Phone:

Person to Person Messaging: Reach millions of Nokia Chat and Yahoo! Messenger users across different mobile and computer platforms.

Push Notifications and Live Tile Updates: Receive new message notifications, preview new messages, and see how many notifications you’ve received - even when Nokia Chat isn't running. 

Share a Place: Send information about a restaurant, store, or other point of interest.  If the recipient is also using a Lumia, they'll see details, directions, and reviews inside the HERE Maps app. 

Broadcast Your Location: Optionally include your city or neighborhood in your status message, so your friends and family know when you're near or far away.

Find Contacts: Scan your phone's address book to find friends and family who already use Nokia Chat and Yahoo! Messenger.

Using a Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone 8?

Take advantage of these additional features:

Speak Your Message: Compose a message by pressing speak, and what you say will be translated into text.

Voice Commands: Start Nokia Chat by long-pressing the Windows key and saying "Chat with" and the name of an existing contact: for example, "Chat with John".

Lock Screen Notifications: See how many Nokia Chat notifications you have on your lock screen.   Start the built-in Settings app and select "lock screen" to begin.

Source: Nokia Labs

Tumblr makes debut on Windows Phone 8.

Tumblr today made its official appearance in the Windows Phone Store. The app which lets you post anything from anywhere is beautifully designed around the Windows Phone modern UI. Unfortunately, the app has been designed for Windows Phone 8 devices only. But it does take advantage of the different tiles size and, obviously, the lock screen feature.

Features:

 - Find and follow the things you love
 - Share photos, gifs, video, quotes, chats, links, and text
 - Jump between your dashboard and Explore with just one swipe
 - Display the latest images from your dashboard on your lock screen and live tile 

- GIFs play as you scroll 

Source: Windows Phone blog
Download: Windows Phone Store

Red Stripe Deals: Monster Pinball HD, Sonic Cd and Polygot.

Each Thursday, Microsoft offers some nice discounts on one or more Xbox titles, an app and a game. This week features:

Monster Pinball HD

An action packed Pinball game with stunning graphics is now at $0.99 only. Whether you're a fan or not, you will love Monster Pinball HD, which by the way have some very nice sound effects.

Sonic HD

Who's Sonic??? Who doesn't know Sonic, really. Sonic the hedgehog is back on a new mission to put an end to Dr. Eggman's nefarious plans for just $1.99. That's a great deal for a game that features "16:9 widescreen, achievements, leaderboards and both the US and Japanese soundtracks, experience the adventure through time that introduced the world to Amy Rose and Eggman’s most evil creation, Metal Sonic".

Polygot

A multilingual translation app, Polygot is $0.99 and will translate any of the 30 supported languages you throw at it. Not only, it translates text, it also provides playback audio and voice-to-text. A must-have if you're a frequent traveller.

Enjoy! More next week.

See how Windows Phone can help unlock children's imagination.

Back in February, the Windows Phone team celebrated the Kid's Corner feature. The latter is unique to Windows Phone in that it lets parents create a corner for kids that they can populate with apps and games they want their kids to use without messing with emails, social networks, SMS etc. Once the Kid's Corner is activated, it is accessed from the lock screen by swiping from right to left. A neat feature that prevents your kids from sending unwanted emails to your boss or posting stuff to social networks. In February, the Windows Phone team decided to showcase the Kid's Corner by asking parents to submit their children's drawing based on the following questions: "What do you wish your Windows Phone could do? How do you imagine yourself, your family and others using your phone?".

A month later the winning drawings have been posted on the Windows Phone team's blog. Artist Dave DeVries painted the drawings "as realistically as possible". "The results and their accompanying stories are below, and I think you will agree that they are a mix of striking, dramatic, cute, and remarkable."

Check out the blog post on the Windows Phone blog for the kid's drawing and the artist's work.

#2InstaWithLove gets a new filter.

I'm not sure why Nokia is craving so much for Instagram on Windows Phone. Remember they launched an app called #2InstaWithLove that came with a Polaroid filter as a way to incite Instagram to work on an official app for Windows Phone. Since we haven't heard of any progress, Nokia has published an update to its 2InstaWithLove app that adds a second filter called HandCam. I have no idea what it does, so let me know if you ever find out. Again, I'm not where Nokia is going with this, but if it keeps adding filters to #2InstaWithLove , it will end up having a Instagram of it's own.

Get #2InstaWithLove here.

LinkedIn for Windows Phone 8 gets big tiles and speech recognition.

An interesting update for LinkedIn has been published to the Windows Phone Store that adds support for Windows Phone 8 big tiles and voice recognition. The latter lets you use voice command to access your Inbox and more. 

As a FYI, Linked is a social network for your professional life. While I do have an account, and like Google Plus, I hardly ever go there. Except when there are some activity that requires my attention, like someone sent me a message last week. That reminded me that I have LinkedIn installed on my devices. And then came this update. So I'm unlikely to forget soon.  

Back to the update. Besides speech recognition and Windows Phone 8 tiles support, the app also takes advantage of the lock screen to display images. More language support have been added.

Check out the update on Windows Phone Store.

Skype for Windows Phone 8 updated (version 2.5).

Last week Microsoft pulled the plug on Messenger, its 14 years old messaging service, in favor of the recently acquired Skype. Users' contacts have been Migrated to Skype since. Today, Skype announced on its blog that an update for Windows Phone 8 has been published to the Store that makes message notifications from Messenger buddies a default in Skype. There are also the usual bug fixes. Check out the change log on Skype blog. 

Get the update from the Windows Phone Store.

Software update for Nokia Lumia 920 available.

Nokia is currently serving a software update for the Lumia 920. If you own one and haven't seen the notification on your device, go to Settings > phone update. Checkout the change log below

Latest software release for Nokia Lumia 920 is SW 1232.5962.1314.0001
The availability of this update may depend on your network service provider. To check for updates, on your phone, tap Settings -> phone update.

•Improved automatic display brightness adjustment

•Fix for intermittent screen blanking during a call

•Improvements for connectivity issues in certain network conditions

•Performance and stability improvements

Source: http://www.nokia.com/us-en/support/product/lumia920/?sf11548712=1

Sent from my Windows Phone

Deal: Fragger, Gravity Guy, iStunt 2 & Monster Island are free until Monday.

Not much to write about here as the title says it all. Four free games from Miniclip are temporarily free in the Windows Phone Store. Hurry up and start downloading and enjoy the games on your Windows Phone 7.x and 8 devices.

Gravity Guy

Monster Island

iStunt

Fragger

Source: Windows Phone Store

Strategy Game "Wargeit" for Windows Phone free for next 2 days.

Wargeit is a strategy game in which you are the leader of your country with a thirst for for war. Create your army and set out to conquer and destroy other countries. Sounds easy. Well it's not a simple war game since besides having to recruit soldiers and in order to do that your role as the leader is to work and develop the country's economy and fund research as well. "You can base your strategy on science or build a military state. However, whatever you do, at some stage you will have to go to war. If you just sit back, the others will kill you!".

Wargeit is a free online strategy game that amateur will likely appreciate. It is free for the two days; selling price is $0.99. Test out your military and political skills on this game. Just don't try to transpose it into real life though. Wargeit is Windows Phone 7.x and 8 compatible.

Source: Windows Phone Store

Facebook app for Windows Phone updated.

An update notification for the Facebook app has just popped up on my 8X. Unfortunately, there is no change log so I cannot tell what has changed really. It's really an annoyance that developers doesn't care to publish a change log with their updates, especially when the developer is Microsoft.

Follow the link on your Windows Phone to download the update.

http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=82a23635-5bd9-df11-a844-00237de2db9e


Sent from my Windows Phone

Viber for Windows Phone 8 gets major update.

This week's major release for Windows Phone 8 is Viber. The popular VoIP app has been updated to support Windows Phone 8 features like Live tile and lock screen notifications. Once the app is installed, it will automatically detect contacts already using Viber. The app is a free download. Check out the list of features:

- Free calls with HD sound quality
- Free text and photo messaging
- Share photos on Viber directly from your device’s photo gallery 
- Connect with your friends in group conversations of up to 40 participants
- Share your location in messages
- Live Tiles 
- Pin conversations to your home screen 
- Lock screen notifications 
- 30 supported languages

Download it here.

Source: Windows Phone blog

Liquid Daffodil brings unified notification center to Windows Phone 8 for free.

At long last Windows phone gets a notification center that will put an end to complaints of the lack thereof from foes and fans alike. The tiles are really great in providing apps update but it is a completely different story when it comes toasts notifications which appear briefly and can easily be missed if you're not looking at the screen at that time. Unless you stare continuously at your screen, it was impossible to track notifications on Windows Phone. All that changes now thanks to the cool folks from Liquid Daffodil with their Unification app. 

Unification gets its name from the fact that it was designed to bring together notifications not only from apps on your phone, but also from any devices powered by Windows Phone 7 and 8, Windows 8 and Windows Desktop. The app "is a secure, encrypted, single-source, cross-device notification platform" that is hosted in Windows Azure cloud service.

Currently, apps from Liquid Daffodil takes full advantage of Unification and developers can also join in. Users will need to "opt-in", that is to sign-in with their Microsoft Account. I haven't got the chance to see Unification in action yet. So I'll update this post when it comes into action.

Unification is a free app in Windows Phone Store.

Checkout apps from Liquid Daffodil here.