Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"While the news has been coming for some time now, you always need to break out a confirmation to make everything official. And it's now official: Xbox Live is on its way to mobile phones. The service will be known as "Xbox LIVE Games" (catchy!), and looks to be available only on phones operating a mobile version of Windows."

Xbox Live on Windows phones? Hmm. Could be interesting - assuming, that is, that it turns out to be more than the tease that we've seen in the past and never materialized into anything.

"Windows/Mac/mobile: SugarSync, a previously paid-only syncing service that got quite a few shout-outs in our feature-by-feature online storage chart, now offers a free 2GB plan that keeps documents synced across Windows, Mac, and mobile platforms."

SugarSync is a really slick service with some amazing features, but I've never wanted to use it before now because it's not a replacement for Mozy [Affiliate] based on my needs. Why not? SugarSync's pricing plans. I've got 267 GB worth of data backed up with Mozy, and it's costing me less than $5/month to do that. SugarSync's biggest plan offers 250 GB of storage and would cost me $20.83/month. With the vast majority of my files, I don't need to access them via the browser, so there's no ultra-compelling justification for the extra $15/month I'd need to pay for SugarSync. Thus, I haven't ever used SugarSync. Read more...

"The EU will require Microsoft to package third party browser software with Windows. Furthermore, it will require Microsoft to provide further support efforts to make third party browsers' interface with Windows components like Windows Explorer as efficient as Internet Explorer's. The ruling is set to apply to both desktop Windows OS's and to Windows Mobile for cell phones."

Ah, the EU bureaucrats. With the world economy in tatters, they're still running after Microsoft, salivating for more money. Don't they have better things to do? Or maybe fleecing a big American company is part of their plan for the economic recovery of Europe - I wouldn't put it past them. We all know that Microsoft had some heavy-handed, monopolistic tactics back in the '90s - it's a matter of public record. But in the technology world, that's an eternity ago - politics, and even the law, can't keep up with the ferocious pace of technology and they look like idiots when they try. Read more...

I wanted to take a second to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving! Even if you do not live in the United States and do not celebrate Thanksgiving, today is as good a day as any to take a step back and reflect on all of the things we are thankful for. Also it is a good day to recharge the old batteries so you can wake up early and brave those horrifying Black Friday lines. As always please remember to be safe out there! Oh and just to shake things up a bit I thought it might be fun if everyone snapped some pictures of their giant turkey buffets with their Windows Mobile devices and posted them up on the forums. I for one have always enjoyed looking at tables full of food :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!