announcement

It has been speculated for some time now that Microsoft would hold a special press event for Windows Phone 8 to finally show off the OS and sure enough, it has come true.

On Monday, October 29th at 10AM, Microsoft will show off to the world their new mobile OS originally codenamed ‘Apollo’.

The announcement is coming just days before the first expected availability of new Windows Phone 8 devices, thought to be occurring on November 4th.

Windows Phone Central will of course be there in sunny San Francisco to cover the event and bring you all the news as it happens. Then we're off to BUILD 12 the very next day.

AT&T made the HTC 8X official today

Although HTC themselves mentioned that their new Windows Phone 8X was coming to Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T just a few weeks ago, AT&T this morning has gone ahead and made it official.

The HTC 8X features a 4.3” Super LCD2 display with Gorilla Glass, 16GB storage and a dual-core 1.5GHz CPU. To top it off it has an 8MP F2.0 rear camera and a 2.1MP front-facing camera, both using HTC’s ImageChip technology for speedy shots.

HTC 8X and 8S both on their way to UK shores

Three UK has announced on their official blog plans to stock both HTC Windows Phones that were announced today at the manufacturer's event in New York. The HTC 8X and 8S are HTC's entries for Apollo to match Nokia's new Lumia line and the Samsung ATIV S.

Unfortunately no details have been supplied surrounding availability or pricing, but if we're to follow how AT&T will be setting bars, we wont be looking at a loan or possibility of a remortgage. EE (Everything Everywhere - Orange and T-Mobile) has taken up both the Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 to launch on its new 4G LTE network.

We'll expect more information to be published by Three on what models will be stocked, as well as colours and pricing. Now Three UK and EE have both thrown their support behind Windows Phone 8, only the likes of Vodafone and O2 remain.

Source: Three UK

Mock battle: iPhone 5 vs Lumia 920

When the day breaks tomorrow, the tech world will be focused on one thing: Apple. Then it will turn on everything else that is mobile and ask rhetorical questions. Will we be a part of that? Well, we can’t ignore it, can we? For that though, you have our sister site iMore who have had some fairly massive (and accurate) leaks on the upcoming iPhone 5.

But we want to know, will Apple live up to the hype or will Nokia outshine them this time?

PlayUp - The new JBL-Noka portable speaker with NFC

[Updated with new images and Nokia link]

Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Nokia’s own Chris Weber have revealed that JBL and Nokia are getting together for some new NFC-enabled mobile speakers called PlayUp.

Much like the Play360 currently on the market from Nokia, the new JBL-Nokia offerings look to improve upon their existing model of high quality portable media speakers. The device is expected to feature NFC and Bluetooth for easy connectivity and since Nokia’s new Lumia lineup will feature NFC, it makes a good pair for retail.

We have to admit, we're rather loving this speculation about what Microsoft will unveil on Monday and it finally looks like it's coming into focus.

On Monday, June 18th, Microsoft will take the wraps off of their own tablet running Windows 8 (or a variant of), confirming an earlier report.

The New York Times is now going on record as having spoken to "people with knowledge of Microsoft’s plans"  that indeed, it is a tablet of their own making. As the Times points out, this is the first time in the company's 37 year history that they are making their own computer. That's huge.

What makes the situation difficult is how Microsoft's OEM partners will react--after all, they'll be competing with their own team, so to speak. On the other hand, Google has been making "Nexus" devices for some time now--devices which set the bar for what they expect as far as quality in hardware and design. Truth be told, the Nexus line of Android phones have been some of the most popular as they are both cheaper and more stable having no 3rd party skinning.

If Microsoft heads down this path, the tablet unveiled on Monday will surely be priced very competitively and also be a "pure" device. That notion certainly appeals to us and we're betting you're going to thrilled with it as well. What's more, according to the New York Times, Microsoft is aiming this directly at the iPad making this a bold (and overdue) move.

Unfortunately, there's no word if Nokia has had a hand in this--our bet is they have not. Instead, we're expecting Nokia to show off any new tablets in September at Nokia World. For some reason, we don't think we'll be disappointed with whatever they make leaving fans a tough choice: pure Microsoft or whatever Nokia offers?

The only question we're left is what will they name it? Microsoft has a spotty history in this area and let's be honest, the name is hugely important. (Then again, we all laughed at "iPad" a few years ago). We're kind of partial to "X-Tab" but curious as to what you think they should call it...let us know in comments!

Source: The NY TImes; Thanks, Pierre V., for the tip

Join Daniel Rubino, Jay Bennett, Rafael Rivera and special guest, Nokia's Justin Angel today for an all new WPCentral Podcast, live at 5pm EST in streaming video.

Justin Angel, who has contributed a lot to the Windows Phone ecosystem before he was hired by Nokia, will be discussing Tango and 256 MB development best practices, as well as taking our questions and yours. (See his site here and follow him on Twitter: @JustinAngel)

Hang out in our chat room to join the conversation right here on the site!

Look, we're not going to beat around the bush here, this post is total wild rumor-mongering, but SE asked us to guess so we are. Sony Ericsson (Netherlands) has put up a Tweet teasing a big announcement next week, presumably at CES:

"We're getting ready for some very interesting news next week...what do you think it could be?"

Normally we'd pass this off as "just another Android announcement" and it could very well be. However and perhaps it is just coincidence but we seem to have caught a theme of tiles throughout the above picture which was posted in conjunction with the aforementioned statement.

Could this mean that SE is finally on board with Windows Phone? If you recall, SE was announced as a key-launch partner for Windows Phone back in early 2010 and even had a working prototype (see above) but it was canceled at the last minute with the company turning towards Android. Back in May of this year, SE went on record as saying that they were "leaving the door open" for Windows Phone if it should start to take off. Finally, Sony has the option to port over the Sony PlayStation Suite, something they mentioned back in January, 2011.

So has that moment arrived or are we just looking too much into this?

Source: @SonyEricssonNL; Thanks, Jan Z., for the tip!

As we mentioned just a few days ago, we were expecting Microsoft to have a few announcements at Gamescom conference in Germany this week and sure enough, they delivered. And in our opinion, big time.

In an exciting move, Microsoft has announced a whole hodge podge of game titles that will be released during the launch phase of Windows Phone 7 and there are some biggies.  The are so many in fact, you'll have click the link to see the whole list, but we'll tease you with a few:

• Halo: Waypoint
• Bejeweled LIVE
• Castlevania
• Guitar Hero 5
• Max and the Magic Marker
• Star Wars: Battle for Hoth
• Assassins Creed
• Asphalt 5

In all, there will be 50 titles launching this year (all listed after the break), from studios such as Gameloft, Konami, Namco Bandai, PopCap, THQ and of course, the newly formed Mobile Gaming Studios from Microsoft.

Sound exciting? Read on for some screen shots, videos, the official commercial, a poll and much more details!