Microsoft Gets Social with New KIN Phones
While its awesome Courier tablet concept got canceled recently, Microsoft is getting back into the hardware business (thanks to partnership with Sharp) with two new social networking-centric mobile phones. The uniquely square KIN ONE (seen at right, you can see why it was codenamed Turtle) is joined by the more traditional candybar-style KIN TWO, and both feature capacitive touchscreen displays and slide-out QWERTY keyboards.
Running on the Verizon Wireless 3G network, they're powered by the new Windows Phone OS for KIN, which creates a flowing magazine-like interface called the Loop that pulls together all of your social networking outlets--including Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. It also provides an innovative way of sharing content by dragging posts, web pages, locations found via Bing (remember, this is a Microsoft product), and more to a colored spot at the bottom center of the phone. Once content is dragged, you can then choose how to send it (email or text message) and its recipients.
TheStreetTV YouTube channel has a pretty good overview of what this new interface is like:
Both the KIN ONE and KIN TWO are available for ordering over at AmazonWireless.
--Agen G.N. Schmitz
