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Microsoft has been wrapped up in sports deals for the last few days and yesterday’s partnership with the National Football League, was yet another welcome addition. The NFL and Microsoft plan to upgrade interactive TV viewing for football fans through the company’s latest entertainment console, Xbox One. The $400 million deal was announced Tuesday and will be set into effect as early as Q1 2014.

We’ve covered SoundGecko before, the media project that Long Zheng is a part of and veteran Windows Phone users will familiar with. The app and service allows users to “flag” articles to be converted into audio format, perfect for those of you who want to “read” while driving or who’s eyes are just too tired. What’s more, the service in its basic form is free (though there is a paid option with more features) and it launched with a fancy Windows Phone app.

Now we’re excited to announce that version 2.0 is live in the Store. So what’s new? The app now features “stations” for easier content discovery. Basically, you can now follow specific topics of your choosing or even specific brands and websites (or a combo).

The wait is over: you can now order up a brand new Nokia Lumia 521 direct from T-Mobile. The cost of the device is of course exceptionally low, coming in at just $29 down payment and just $5 a month for your two-year…errr…non-contract with T-Mobile. Feeling lavish? Then you can just buy the phone outright for a mere $150, which last we checked is damn low for a brand new smartphone in 2013.

The Lumia 521 from Nokia is a custom variant of the Lumia 520, comes in white and sports a dual-core 1GHz CPU, 4” LCD display, 512MB of RAM and a 5MP rear shooter. While you give up things like NFC, wireless charging, a front-facing camera and the ability to play a handful of games, you do get a solid smartphone running Windows Phone 8 and Nokia’s excellent navigation software and app selection.

According to The Verge, HTC Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera has departed on separate ways from the manufacturer. The struggling company is experiencing a number of high-ranking departures, including the VP of Global Communications, who announced he would be exiting last week. So what's going on at HTC?

Earlier today, Microsoft and the Realmadrid Foundation commenced an endeavor for social projects in Latin America and the Caribbean by way of pen and paper. The recently signed agreement focuses on bringing software and cash donations to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. In addition, Microsoft will provide hundreds of millions of young people with their YouthSpark program’s resources.

Following up on our earlier post, we told you that the free, ad-supported version of Itsdagram would go live today and sure enough, it has.

For users who don’t want to fork over $1.49 for the app (or who can’t due to lack of carrier billing in their region) you can now get the completely free and fully functional Instagram-client for Windows Phone 8. The app is exactly like its paid sibling but has some banner ads near the bottom—otherwise the apps are identical.

Drag Racing is a new game for your Windows Phone 8 device that has over fifty officially licensed cars that you can race down the strip. Everything from compact sports cars to muscle cars to sedans.

Drag Racing has plenty of upgrades to enhance your cars performance that can be purchased with your race winnings. You can race against the computer or choose an online opponent to challenge.  We've only messed with Drag Racing for about an hour and it comes across as a fun game for short bits of time as well as longer, marathon gaming sessions.

We first began reporting on the next Xbox console (codenamed Durango) earlier this year, but the new console had been rumored for quite some time now. Earlier today, Microsoft finally announced the console during the Xbox Reveal event.

The console’s final name is not Xbox Infinity as many had expected. Instead, Microsoft has named it the Xbox One. The name stems from Microsoft’s goal of this console becoming the One device you use for all of your entertainment needs. The OS is comprised of three layers: one dedicated to gaming, one based on the Windows 8 kernel, and a third layer that interfaces between the other two. It will launch sometime later this year.

You'll find everything we know about the Xbox One past the break!

The Xbox One should offer an exponentially better entertainment experience than our beloved but aging Xbox 360. The gaming possibilities are greater than ever before thanks to beefier hardware (16 times as much RAM, for instance) and the new Kinect. That said, Microsoft chose to reveal precious few games during the event.

Let’s see what titles they announced and what we can expect when the console launches later this year…

If this is your first time logging onto Windows Phone Central for the day you might have missed something. That something was the reveal of the next generation console from Microsoft called the Xbox One. If you weren’t tuned into the live broadcast or our live blog you’ll be feeling fairly left out right about now. No worries, the Xbox channel over on YouTube has you covered with some highlights of the day.