Windows Phone Mango gaming hub gets new avatars, better Xbox Live

Windows Phone Mango is supposed to have over 500 new features and Microsoft continues to slowly detail what all of these will entail. The company showed off some of the new features in the gaming hub and mobile gamers should start to get excited.

I've always felt that one of the biggest advantages Windows Phone has is that it has Xbox Live built in. Hardcore gamers swear by this service and Windows Phone Mango will improve the mobile integration. From the Windows blog:

• Improved Xbox LIVE messaging: Read and reply to Xbox Live messages sent from another Windows Phone, a PC, or an Xbox console. We've also added more avatar delighters here. If a message contains certain emoticons (e.g. , ), you'll notice your avatar's expression change to reflect that emotion! (If a sender overloads a message with conflicting emoticons, your avatar will look bewildered.)
• Connect with Xbox Live friends: Find out if your Xbox LIVE friends are currently online through the friend status view. You can also search, browse, initiate, and respond to friend requests right from your Windows Phone 7.
• Integrated achievements and new comparison views: See the recent games your friends have been playing, and compare gamerscores and achievements for all Xbox LIVE games played on the phone, console, or PC.
• Edit your profile: Moved to a new city? Have a new motto in life? Now you can update your name, bio, motto, and location right from the phone.
  Improved Spotlight content: We've improved the news and info delivered to you via Spotlight in the Games Hub. Your window to the Xbox LIVE community will now be complemented with rich and vibrant images!
• Improved game request notifications: In Mango, you'll receive notifications for multiplayer game or turn requests and can track them in the Requests section of the Games Hub.

That's quite a good list of improvements but I'm really hoping we'll see developers push the bar on what we can do on mobile gaming with Windows Phone Mango. There are some other improvements as well, so hit the via link to get all the details.

Article: RSS via IntoMobile

Windows Phone 7 Mango Shown Off on HTC HD2 (Video)

We know that Windows Phone 7 Mango has been hacked over to the evergreen HTC HD2 and we even hope to see a public release sometime soon (probably even today) but until then there are a couple of videos to get you through the waiting.

Yes, Windows Phone 7 Mango is working on the HD2 even if there are currently some things that do not, like the Marketplace, search or HTML 5 rendering in Internet Explorer. Other than that, just take a look at the two demo videos below to see how the beloved Leo is handling Redmond's upcoming greatest:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq7le236lHI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDHicfHmb1M

Windows Phone Mango update available to “nearly everyone”

I know, it's been a few weeks since the Mango update started rolling out but the update has yet to reach 100% of all Windows Phone users yet. Well for those of you who are keen on the progress of its delivery, the folks at the Windows Team Blog have written about it, claiming that the update is being delivered ahead of schedule and is now available to "nearly everyone in the current delivery pool".

The team also notes that there have been some issues with the current update and will be dealing with the problem. Beginning next week, firmware updates will be delivered to specific phones that have problems are being updated to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. It's good to see Microsoft acting so quickly in response to complaints. In the meantime for those of you who still don't have Mango, just sit tight.