When you want to get in touch with someone, where do you look? There are lots of places that people store their contact data - the address book for their email account, their Instant Message buddy list, Facebook, LinkedIn, their phone…. When you find that person you want to reach out to, is their information...

A look at trends in photos and videos A lot has changed in the three years since we launched the first Windows Live Photo Gallery . For starters, there are a lot more people taking photos. About 10 billion more photos will be taken in the US in 2010 than in 2007—rising from about 47 billion...

I wanted to talk about a new user safety feature we just introduced in Wave 4: SmartScreen for URLs This safety feature is another step Windows Live is taking to protect you from socially engineered attacks and account abuse. This abuse is an industry-wide problem, and we've seen a significant uptick...

As many of our recent posts have talked about, at Windows Live we’re keenly aware of the staggering array of services that our 500+ million users love and use in addition to Windows Live. Whether it’s major social networks like Facebook , photo and video sharing services like YouTube or Flickr , or any...

Over the past few weeks, we've announced many new features coming in Windows Live Messenger. By now you've probably played with the Beta, and if you haven't, you can get it now at http://explore.live.com . You can also see how Messenger goes with you wherever you are -- on the new Hotmail or even using...

ZDNet’s Ed Bott penned a very thorough comparison of Photo Gallery 2011 and iPhoto ‘11 in The Ed Bott Report this past week. While he doesn’t go so far as to declare a winner, he highlights some clear advantages to our design approach. In a lot of ways, his experience and analysis reflects what we set...

In June, we announced that as part of Windows Live Essentials beta, we brought together two programs, Windows Live Sync and the Live Mesh beta, into one: Windows Live Sync beta. We focused on four things with our beta release: Making it easy to access the PCs you use from anywhere Getting your files...

When I talk about what we’re doing in Windows Live, people often start by asking me: What is Windows Live ? Many folks know about Hotmail and Messenger , and there are millions of users of our other desktop apps and services like SkyDrive , Photo Gallery , and Movie Maker . So what people are really...

In recent posts we’ve talked about the new Messenger and the re-invention of Hotmail . Today, we’re going to spend time on the new Windows Live Essentials . You can also view this video on YouTube Windows Live Essentials – the essential software for...

Last week, Steve Lohr of the New York Times explored the evolving landscape of computer vision . Steve notes that computer vision – which broadly includes robotics, object detection and recognition, sequencing, as well as modeling and object interaction - is moving into the mainstream; what would have...

It's here! Hot on the heels of the Hotmail roll-out , the new Windows Live Essentials is now available for public beta testing. Windows Live Essentials beta requires Windows Vista or Windows 7, and is available in English, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, or Spanish.  Get...

Today we released an optional update for Wave 3 of the Windows Live Essentials suite in all 48 languages. This is a minor release that updates Windows Live Messenger, Mail, Family Safety, Writer, and Sync. You can install it from http://download.live.com , or through Microsoft Update as an optional update...

If you’re using Windows Live Essentials on Windows Vista or Windows 7 and have Microsoft Update turned on , you’ll see an optional update this week in all 48 languages where Windows Live Essentials 2011 is available. After launching Windows Live Essentials 2011 last fall, we’ve been closely watching...

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of Windows Live Messenger is usually instant messaging – bouncing short text messages back and forth. But there are tons of things we've built into Messenger to make that experience more meaningful, and closer to a real face-to-face interaction. My name...

Engineering is a process, with trial and error, analysis, weighing of pros and cons, planning for the unexpected, and discovering unexpected issues along the way. It’s exciting precisely because we’re always learning as we go. I want to welcome you to our new blog, which is about just that: the engineering...

Over the last few months, we’ve focused this blog on our current software and services – how we build them and how they're used around the world. We’ve also talked about trends we’ve observed both in the use of our services and in our research with customers. Today marks the point where we shift the...