Matthew@MSN : MSN

Let the competition begin!

matthewsoft — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 03:59:00 GMT

MSN has recently come out with some developer competitions for MSN Messenger and Virtual Earth. Be sure to check out the Virtual Earth Hacks video on Channel9 and Dare's post for any other information.

@Matthew

MSN gets into Internet audio

matthewsoft — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 07:55:00 GMT

Also yesterday, Microsoft announced that it bought Teleo, a provider of voice over Internet protocol [VoIP] technology. Currently MSN also uses similar VoIP technology in MSN Messenger, but has not yet incorporated into the public switched telephone network [PSTN]. I have been using VoIP PSTN service through Packet8.net and so far have been quite impressed [in the pocket certainly, and call quality as well]. I should also note that Microsoft has used other VoIP technology before deploying it's own, but Microsoft .NET Voice Services as it was known was discontinued in software updates in 2003.

The technology certainly looked cool, I hope MSN uses it well.

@Matthew

MSN launches phishing filter

matthewsoft — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 07:25:00 GMT

Yesterday the butterfly released the Phishing Filter Add-in for MSN Search Toolbar Beta as expected. The technology uses the same Microsoft Phishing Filter in Internet Explorer 7 Beta [codename Rincon]. This is one of many cool additions to the MSN Search Toolbar, including an MSN Games and MSN Weather modules, and MSN Screen Saver Beta [although it can be used independently of MSN Search Toolbar now].

I haven’t taken a look at the technology in detail yet, but I wonder how it compares to other anti-phishing technology like Netcraft Toolbar or Earthlink ScamBlocker, which uses technology from Brightmail. Even eBay’s toolbar now indicates when a user is browsing a real eBay/Paypal site.

@Matthew

Microsoft Passport Network 3.0 coming soon... [rev1]

matthewsoft — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:16:00 GMT

Some of you may have noticed some new Passport logos last night. Hopefully that means Microsoft Passport Network 3.0 will be launching shortly. Passport will loose the .NET name and focus on being used for mainly Microsoft sites. eBay and others have already removed Passport support from their sites. Although Passport was initially developed as a single sign-in service for the revolutionary web services market, Microsoft soon scaled it back as the Hailstorm initiative failed. Although this doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't committed to web services.

The new Microsoft Passport Network will be much more user friendly, making it easier to manage the information stored in a user's account. MSN Account Services site will be focused on providing an easy gateway to all that information, including marketing preferences, your children's accounts, account credentials, privacy and security.

The upgrade appears to be in progress now, but here's a little sneak peak of the new features and UI [sorry, you have to scroll down when opening the image].

Update [2005/04/27 16:58 -6]: Mess.be has also reported on the new Passport, although they're mistaken on a number of points.

>View "Create a security key" (for strong-credential sign-in).

Security key was discontinued back in the beginning of March and is expected to be redesigned. However, the security key may have been removed for security reasons as Passport 2.5 is upgraded to 3.0. That is to say, that upgrading secure information could in itself be a security risk and the information was deleted to prevent that - part of Microsoft's increase security awareness. Security key is used as additional protection against extremely private information, such as bank statements stored in MSN Money, so most people will not need to set up this service.

>View "Add or change your Mobile credentials" (probably linked to MSN Messenger 7's Offline/Mobile Messaging feature).

Mobile credentials is nothing new and will not be tied with Mobile Messaging, which will still need to be done at the MSN Mobile site. Adding a phone number and PIN to your Passport allows you to easily sign in to Passport on mobile devices. You can also sign in to Passport on a computer with this phone number and PIN if you add @passport.com to the end of the phone number.

And finally the unoffiical MSN Messenger enthusiasts site Messenger Blog is giving a link to one test bed although I would highly recommend that you don't go playing around with it. It's possible to harvest any information in a number of test beds since security is generally not enabled when debugging. Soon enough we'll all be able to play with it.

/update

@Matthew

MSN Messenger 7.0.0777 is released to the public! [rev0]

matthewsoft — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 05:06:00 GMT

Today MSN Messenger 7.0 was finalized and released to the web [RTW] for public consumption. Jeff Wilkes and others have reported being able to get it from the official site, but I just tried and got 6.2, so try the Neowin download link.

Also, MSN Spaces has removed beta from it's name, increased storage from 10 MB to 30, added more themes, announced 4.5M Spaces created, and launched What's Your Story?. However, there will be many more exciting things from the Spaces team later on and eventually more storage as a universal platform is completed.

Press releases:

More press:

@Matthew

PS--Thanks to Paul for most of this stuff.

Go all over Europe in MSN! [rev3]

matthewsoft — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 00:10:00 GMT

Thanks to Scoble for this.

There is a bug in Microsoft MapPoint that takes you on a crazy adventure all over Europe while the start and end points are in the same country. The bug is expected to be fixed in February.

@Matthew

Update:
1) You can read the response from Microsoft @ <http://www.mp2kmag.com/mappoint/discussion/viewtopic.asp?p=12088#12088>.
2) c|net News.com also picked up on the story.
3) February is gone [today is March 2] and the bug has been fixed! In case you didn't know, MSN Maps & Directions has been redesigned as well.

Concepts, concepts, concepts everywhere! [rev3]

matthewsoft — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 09:13:00 GMT

Hello everyone,

In case you haven't heard, Neowin has leaked some concept photos of MSN 11, for which we can expect around the launch of the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn due in 2006. The images and video of MSN wave 11, Longhorn Live, and Microsoft Live Services have since been restricted. I think it all looks great, although I will warn you that the final product is usually much different from the original concept. There is no live code, or program behind these images; it's simply a graphics designer working his magic. That said it still shows where the MSN team is heading and that they are absolutely committed to developing better products. Maybe eventually we'll even see some prototypes, which have running code, of MSN 11 and these new Live services.

Feel free to browse around the Concepts image gallery where you'll find not only the above mention concepts, but also the old concepts of MSN Mars [MSN Explorer 6], HailStorm [now defunct .NET My Services/XML Web Services] and Unified Communication Client [still left to be seen].

@Matthew

Update:
When viewing the image gallery, I know that some of the images aren't resized properly for the CSS I'm using and I did change it, but I like this one so much! So remember you may have to scroll all the way down to view the image. I may fool around with it and add some white space just to get it to resize better, but for now I'm being lazy [and have too much stuff to do].
Attention--All images and references to the artist have been removed at the request of the artist.