Microsoft adds mobile, single sign-on to Live ID
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Microsoft on Tuesday expanded the capabilities of its Windows Live ID service by adding support for single sign-on for its Windows Live services and making it possible for users to sign up for an ID from a mobile device.Microsoft executives posted the updates to Windows Live on separate blog entries. Windows Live ID is the gateway to Microsoft&#39;s Windows Live services, which include e-mail, instant messaging, blog hosting, and security.Users with multiple sign-ons for various Windows Live services can now unify them through one ID and password, according to a blog entry from Jeff Steinbok, a member of Microsoft&#39;s Live Spaces development team (sign-in required). To set this up, users can go to the Windows Live account site and look for the section called Linked Windows Live IDs. A user can add IDs to a single &quot;linked&quot; ID and password so that they need to sign in only once to use various Windows Live services.Microsoft also is giving users the ability to sign up for a Windows Live ID from mobile devices, according to a Windows Live Spaces blog post by Phil Holden, director of online services (sign-in required). In his post, he wrote that Microsoft designed to work with built-in mobile phone browsers and users only need a data plan from a mobile carrier to get started.To sign up for a Windows Live ID from a mobile phone, users have two options they can use directly from their mobile browser, according to Holden. They can go directly to the Windows Live account-creation site or go to mobile.live.com&#160;and find a Windows Live service, such as Hotmail, and select &quot;Get a Windows Live ID.&quot;Microsoft is trying to make its Windows Live services more appealing and widely accessible to users as it competes with Google and Yahoo to provide Web-based services to businesses and consumers. On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer emphasized how mobile devices are key to Microsoft&#39;s services strategy, in comments made during a keynote at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco. Overall, Microsoft hopes its online services will fuel its strategy to earn more revenue through online advertising linked to those services.
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Microsoft has teamed with Verizon's business arm to provide consumers with one-click phone calls to businesses found on its Live Search listings, the telecommunications company said on Monday.
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New software will let users securely access enterprise networks and data from handheld devices with two-factor authentication.
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Microsoft released a beta version of its next-generation Windows Live OneCare 2.0 desktop security and management package on July 11, touting a number of improvements made to the product, including the ability to monitor multiple PCs on a local network.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft announced some new Windows Live applications for mobile phones on Monday, including programs that offer search and mapping capabilities.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ on Tuesday fixed a bug in its Windows Live ID registration that let users deceptively register a false e-mail address. The false e-mail address could then be used as an ID for Microsoft's Live Messenger program, which could trick a user into thinking they are chatting with someone who is not whom they appear to be, such as steveballmer@microsoft.nl. Erik Duindam, a Web developer in Leiderdorp, the Netherlands, reported the problem to Microsoft on Monday. Microsoft acknowledged it had fixed the bug but did not have further information on the flaw's impact. It's unclear how long the flaw may have existed or how many accounts with deceptive instant messenger IDs could have been created. Duindam said a fake ID he created was still active on Tuesday morning. If a user attempts to create a Windows Live ID, Microsoft sends a confirmation e-mail to the e-mail address entered by the user. Without confirmation, Microsoft includes a warning with future messages sent by instant message, which appear as: fake@emailaddress (E-mail Address Not Verified). However, accounts created over the weekend with fake e-mail addresses were still active as of Tuesday and carried no such warning. "It's heaven for scammers," Duindam said via instant message on Tuesday. An attacker could use the flaw as part of a social-engineering ploy, where users are tricked into doing something that puts their machine at risk. For example, victims could receive an instant message from someone who appears to have their boss's e-mail address. At that point, victims could be tricked into thinking they are communicating with their boss. The hacker could then send a link to a malicious Word document, for example, that could install a keystroke logging program on a machine. "In one swoop, you can become the boss, or human resources or accounts," wrote Chris Boyd, senior research manager with FaceTime Communications, via instant message. Boyd said if the original spoofed accounts are still active, Microsoft should try to shut them down as soon as possible. But it could be difficult, especially if Microsoft was not aware of the flaw and can't track the spoofed accounts. Â
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AOL is chums again with buddy Microsoft and is now supporting a new version of Redmond&#39;s controversial Sender ID anti-spoofing technology.
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Microsoft on announced it has inked a pact to put mobile versions of its Windows Live services onto handsets made by one of its chief competitors.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has fixed a problem that made it difficult for users of the most recent Windows Mobile devices to synch with PCs running Vista. Tuesday night, Microsoft launched Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1, an upgraded version of the software that lets Windows Mobile users manage their phones. The Mobile Device Center was designed for Vista users as a replacement for ActiveSync, the software that let's PC users synchronize content like calendar items and transfer content like music between their Windows Mobile phones and PCs. However, early users of Windows Mobile 6.0 devices have complained that the Device Center doesn't synch files at all or in some cases it may lose updates to files. "In the past, some users reported installation and compatibility issues with Windows Mobile Device Center [WMDC]," said John Starkweather, group product manager in Microsoft's mobile communications group, in an e-mail statement. "We have released an update to WMDC intended to improve the overall user experience." Mobile Device Center 6.1 supports file synchronization for all Windows Mobile 6.0 devices including smartphones, according to Mel Sampat, a program manager for Windows Mobile who blogged about the new version. Other new features in Device Center include synching HTML-formatted mail, allowing data connections on the phone when connected to the PC and automatic device authentication. Microsoft also announced that in the third quarter Windows Mobile will be compatible with Office 2007. That means users of Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Standard devices as well as Mobile 5.0 touch screen phones will get a free update that will let them read and edit Office 2007 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Also in the third quarter, device makers will be able to start shipping Windows Mobile 6 devices with Office Mobile 2007 preinstalled.
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What Yahoo's massive conversion to OpenID last month lacked is a way for Web sites to securely authenticate the users who have signed in. As it turns out, OpenID's directing body may want Microsoft to provide that part.
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A new product from Microsoft Corp.&#39;s hardware group aims to eliminate the need for that not-so-secret list of user names and passwords hidden in the typical desk drawer.
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Microsoft is releasing a new application for delivering &quot;snippets&quot; of data to Windows Mobile devices, one of several announcements planned for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.Microsoft plans to announce that it will offer software for Windows Mobile users based on MSN Direct, a service it developed to deliver data snippets to watches. The new application displays small bits of information like weather, stocks and news on the home screen of the phone. &quot;This is an innovative take on how to get information in a glanceable way on handsets,&quot; said Brian Arbogast, vice president of mobile services at Microsoft.Windows Mobile users can download the application, which will initially be offered as a beta.Microsoft and its competitors Yahoo and Google are jockeying for lead position in the mobile market. Each is working to draw mobile users to their services in hopes of ultimately establishing a revenue stream from mobile advertising. So far, the market is relatively open.Microsoft also said it is offering a new software development kit that will give developers access to additional Microsoft mobile services protocols. With the new tools, Microsoft&#39;s software vendor partners will be able to build richer clients that access additional Windows Live for mobile capabilities. For example, a developer could make an application that lets a user click to record a voice clip and send it to an MSN Messenger buddy, even if the sender is using a Windows Mobile phone and the recipient has a Nokia S60 phone.&quot;These are rich and fun and engaging features in Messenger that we had on some of our top-end platforms that are now opened up through this protocol,&quot; said Arbogast.Microsoft also introduced a new program, Windows Live @mobile, aimed at making it easier for operators to quickly begin offering Windows Live and MSN mobile services across their device portfolios.While Windows Mobile has been seen primarily as a product for business users, Microsoft is increasingly trying to push it into the consumer market. &quot;This is about us really extending our focus to be, instead of predominantly on the work part of life, to be about delivering phones for your entire life,&quot; said Arbogast.Microsoft also recently hired a new marketing executive tasked with positioning Windows Mobile to appeal more to consumers.Still, Microsoft isn&#39;t shifting away from its business customer focus. It is stepping up its efforts to sell mobile products to small businesses. Through a new partnership, Brightstar and TechData will sell Windows Mobile phones to small and medium businesses in Europe. The companies will offer a portfolio of products and services to customers, including servers, devices, services and support.In the U.S., Microsoft said that Cbeyond, a provider of communications services for small businesses, will offer a new hosted Exchange e-mail service that supports mobile devices for small and medium businesses.
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Microsoft Corp introduced on Wednesday  a suite of Windows Live online services bundled into a single  download in its latest effort to compete with Google Inc&#39;s  growing array of applications delivered over the Web.
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Microsoft today launched a redesigned MSN portal for mobile phones, with improved navigation and optimized display of Web pages.
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Microsoft  unveiled on  Thursday a new version of its Windows operating system for  mobile devices, making it look more like Windows Vista and  adding features previously only available on personal  computers.
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People with a Yahoo user name and password will be able to use that ID information to access non-Yahoo Web sites that&#160;support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework, reducing the amount of different log-in information people need to create, remember and enter online.Already, almost 10,000 Web sites support OpenID, an open framework available for free to end users and Web site operators alike, according to the OpenID Foundation.Yahoo&#39;s move will triple the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million by adding its 248 million active registered users to the rolls, the company said Thursday.OpenID addresses one of several issues related to giving people more control of their online activities. Other groups are focusing on data portability, to let people move around the data and content they create online, so that they don&#39;t have to enter it manually in, say, every social-networking site they sign up for.Yet other initiatives, like Google&#39;s OpenSocial, aim to create standard interfaces so that developers can create applications that run in multiple social-networking sites, instead of having to rewrite the same application multiple times for every site.For all of these initiatives, it&#39;s critical for major Internet players to get involved, so that the benefits of standard technology and methods developed by groups like OpenID can have a real-world impact.Unsurprisingly, in Thursday&#39;s statement, Scott Kveton, the OpenID Foundation&#39;s chairman, hailed Yahoo&#39;s support as a crucial validation of the framework that will help spur its adoption by other large Web site operators.Other major players that have expressed interest and gotten involved in varying degrees with OpenID include Google, Six Apart, AOL, Sun, Novell, and Microsoft.Yahoo&#39;s announcement doesn&#39;t come as a complete surprise, since signs that it had been working on an OpenID implementation had surfaced. For example, a short message in the domain me.yahoo.com indicating the company would act as an identity provider for OpenID was spotted last week.Yahoo participated in the development of version 2.0 of the OpenID framework, which the company said provides new security features. Yahoo users who log in to third-party OpenID sites should know that the log-in process doesn&#39;t reveal e-mail or instant-message addresses, Yahoo said Thursday.Yahoo&#39;s initial OpenID service will be available in public beta on Jan. 30 and the company is working with several partners, including Plaxo, so that the Yahoo ID will work on their sites that day.&#160;
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To overcome industry objections, Microsoft revises its Sender ID proposal.