Upgrades Ahead for Microsoft Windows Phone 7: Multitasking, IE 9, Kinect Integration

Microsoft announced its plans today to make several important upgrades to its Windows Phone 7. Some of these features will be out in March – the first major upgrade to Microsoft’s new smart-phone – and will include the addition of copy-and-paste. Other upgrades are set to roll out later this year.

These will include the phone’s availability on CDMA networks, multitasking, offline document storage via Windows Live SkyDrive, and the addition of a “dramatically enhanced” Internet Explorer 9. The latter will feature the same standards support and hardware accelerated graphics as the PC version of the browser.

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These features will all serve to fill in some of the gaps in the phone’s initial release, making it more competitive with other smart-phones on the market. The lack of multitasking on the Windows 7 phone – the inability to, say, check your email and listen to music simultaneously – is often cited as a major drawback to the phone.

Windows 7 Phone With Kinect Integration

But if these upgrades sound pretty run-of-the-mill, then here’s a video demo that’s a lot more exciting – integration with Microsoft Kinect.

The Windows Phone 7 devices already feature integration with Xbox Live. But currently that simply amounts to being able to view your friends’ activites and achievements. As the demo below demonstrates, there are a number of very interesting possibilities when our phones can become our game controllers.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tauted these upgrades as some of the ways in which the company plans to expand and scale its platform. And while we can be dazzled by the potentials for Kinect integration, it may be the recently announced partnership with Nokia that offers the Windows Phone 7 more oomph.

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