Microsoft Kinect “Update Failed” Error For Early Adopters

Microsoft Kinect does not launch until November 4 in the United States. But a select few customers who have already received their goods ahead of the launch day are complaining that they are noticing an error while updating the software. Users connecting the new Kinect to their XBox are prompted with a message that says that an update is required. Apparently, the update file being pushed is not the latest version and misses key components thereby temporarily making access to XBox Live unavailable.

In a statement acknowledging the issue, Microsoft has noted,

“Due to a retailer error, a very small number of customers were shipped copies of a Kinect game ahead of launch. Since Kinect does not launch until Nov. 4 in the United States, customers who insert the game into their console before then will be temporarily unable to access Xbox LIVE. The retailer is contacting affected individuals directly to warn them of this situation.”

[via Joystiq]

Yahoo Search Marketing Transition To Microsoft adCenter Complete

It has taken a long time for Yahoo to completely outsource their search engine and marketing efforts from their in-house team to Microsoft’s Bing team. Nevertheless, it is now learned that the transition is complete. Moving on, all the search results as well as the associated advertisements on the Yahoo portal and partner websites will be handled by Microsoft. An email was sent to Yahoo advertisers announcing them of this development.

The partnership brings a significant level of benefit to both the companies. The total search engine share of Bing and Yahoo combined in the US is close to 30% and this partnership will bring better competition from advertisers and consequently higher ad dollars.

What does this mean to the existing Yahoo advertisers? The company has noted that the search marketing solutions page will be accessible for the next five months during which the advertisers are expected to effect a complete transition to the Microsoft adCenter. Advertisers may no longer use the Yahoo interface to run campaigns.

Now Buy Microsoft Office 2011 For Mac – Software Officially Launches

We always knew this was coming and after Microsoft announced last week that an announcement was due on Tuesday, it was more or less confirmed that the new Microsoft Office 2011 productivity suite for Mac was releasing this week. Now it has.

The new Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac is now available for public consumption and brings with it, all the expected suite of applications like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. And perhaps in what should come as a huge relief, Microsoft has finally replaced Entourage with Outlook in the latest release.

A single license of the Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac software should cost Home and Student users between $109.99 and $149.99. On the other hand, for business users, this application should cost higher between $174.99 and $279.99.

Of course, the price is going to be cheaper if you are checking it out from third party retailers like Amazon.

Get Cheaper Zune Pass Subscription With New Annual Contract

Microsoft has introduced a new 12 month subscription plan for Zune Pass that effectively brings down the overall monthly cost that subscribers pay for the service. What more, with this new subscription plan, Microsoft now offers a better deal for music lovers with Zune Pass than Pandora does with their own offering.

Let’s look into it now. Until now, Microsoft Zune Pass was available at two price points – the $14.99 plan for 1 month subscription and the $44.97 plan for a 3 month subscription. Each of these plans provides unlimited music downloads with the ability to keep 10 songs for yourselves for each month of subscription. Assuming the price per song to be $0.99, these plans will give you $120 worth of songs in a year where the total cost would come out to be close to $180. That makes the annual cost of Zune Pass subscription alone $60.

The new annual subscription offer is provided at $149.90. With the 10 songs per month offer still holding true, the subscription cost now stands at a mere $30 a year when Pandora still costs the user $36 a year.

What do you think? Does this make the Zune Pass subscription all the more attractive?

Official Twitter App For Windows Phone 7 Launches

If you are an active Twitterer from one of those countries where the new Windows Phone 7 handsets have already released, then you should be happy to learn that the official Twitter app for Windows Phone 7 is already available for download. However, at the moment, it looks like there is a bit of work still going behind the scenes. Some users have reported problems signing in while others have reported slow loading times. These issues however appear to have affected only a small section of users as reports from a majority of users seem to be on the positive side.

The Twitter app is pretty comprehensive in that it also features sections like ‘Top Tweets‘ that is available on the desktop application letting users read through Twitter conversations even without having to login. You can check out a video demo of the app below.

Microsoft Games For Windows Marketplace Launches November 15

Come November 15, Microsoft will be launching a Games marketplace for Windows users to browse and download gaming applications to their computers. The marketplace is expected to offer a good line-up of PC games that will offer desktop gamers a great place to browse and download games from.

The Games for Windows Marketplace is expected to only hold close to a 100 games at launch, but expect the numbers to grow rapidly as the exposure and target market that developers can gain through such a marketplace can be overwhelming. Microsoft is also expected to come up with features like ‘Deal of the Week‘ and ‘Featured games‘,etc.

To buy a game, users will need to sign in using a Windows Live ID, Zune tag or Xbox Live gamertag. The payment can be made either using a credit card or Microsoft Points. Here is a partial list of the games that will be available on the Games for Windows marketplace at launch.

- “Fable: The Lost Chapters”
- “Grand Theft Auto III”
- “Lego Universe”
- “CarneyVale”
- “Dead Rising 2?
- “Lost Planet 2?
- “Max Payne”
- “Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition”
- “Flight Simulator”
- “Gears of War”
- “Halo”
- “Zoo Tycoon”
- “Fable III”
- “Age of Empires Online”
- “Microsoft Flight”

New Xbox.com Website Launches

Microsoft will be launching a new-look Xbox.com website sometime now. The new site will bring a number of new features besides opening up support for Xbox Live to nine new countries where the service is launching next month. These countries include Russia, Poland, South Africa, Greece, Czech Republic, Hungary, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile.

The new features as described by Major Nelson include

• Browser based Avatar editor: Edit your avatar and preview avatar items before purchase
• Combined views for messages, friend and game requests
• Improved notification of your account subscription
• Leverage Family Reports to understand what your family is doing and how they are using LIVE
• Play web games with your Xbox LIVE friends on the web or on Windows Phone 7
• Marketplace: More powerful search and more intuitive ways to browse and filter

The new website is set to go live starting 09:00 AM GMT. That’s almost here.

New Microsoft Office 365 Beta Website Launches

Following what we had heard earlier, Microsoft has launched a new website for the cloud version of their popular Office productivity suite. Announcing the launch of the new beta version of the office365.com website, the company has said that the new service will provide the “best of everything we know about productivity, all in a single cloud service” and that this will let people “focus on their business, while we and our partners take care of the technology“.

The announcement however did not make a note of the exact launch date of the new Office365 service but what we know is that the product will launch early next year in as many as 40 countries worldwide. As of now, users can sign up for beta testing the service besides clicking on the various links to learn more about what is on offer.

Free One Month Zune Subscription With Windows Phone 7 Purchase On AT&T

The Windows Phone 7 comes integrated with Zune which is a premium service that is available at a price of $14.99 a month. Now a free subscription to this paid service appears to be the perfect bait for companies to lure customers into buying handsets running Windows Phone 7. After Microsoft announced a 3 month free Zune pass subscription to users who shall pre-order a Windows Phone 7 handset, AT&T has now announced an additional one month of free Zune subscription. While the Microsoft offer is only valid on customers who pre-order a phone unit, the AT&T offer shall be valid on all Windows Phone 7 handsets purchased before the end of this year.

It looks like a perfect bait at least from the perspective of Microsoft. A good number of users who get access to this free service are likely to turn into long term Zune customers and a comprehensive free trial of Zune is a perfect way to lure these customers. What do you think?

New Microsoft Office Announcements This Week

Microsoft has called the press up for a media event on Tuesday this week at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. According to a statement from the company, the announcements scheduled for this week are likely to be about Microsoft Office. No further details are known yet.

That, however does not stop us from speculating. It has been widely known that the Microsoft Office 2011 edition for Mac computers is slated for release later this month on October 26. What that could mean is that Microsoft’s announcements tomorrow will inevitably discuss this upcoming release. The company had announced last month that the software had already been shipped to Apple for being incorporated in the upcoming versions of Mac.

Besides that, there are also speculations that Microsoft could be announcing a mobile Microsoft Office suite geared to iOS devices. That remains a speculation however.