Microsoft has announced the new ‘We’re In’, a Bing App for Windows Phone users. We’re In app from Bing works using the user’s Phonebook on the Windows Phone device and allows mapping locations and creating time-specific events. The app is available for Windows Phone from the Windows Marketplace.

Amidst several location based services, Microsoft Bing’s team has rolled out one that integrates Bing Maps. The new We’re In App is for people who love organizing meet-ups and hang-outs with close friends, relatives or colleagues. Using the We’re In app you can create an event and simply invite friends using their contact number from Phonebook.

In the invite you can specify the purpose of meeting in the Title box. You can also specify the time frame for location sharing – the upper limit is two hours at the moment. This invite can be sent via SMS (standard rates apply). Users who don’t own a Windows Phone device but have an iOS, Android, BlackBerry or Symbian OS device can accept the invite and join via the mobile web.

Users who have accepted the invite and joined a specific event will appear on Maps and can see the locations of the attendees of the event. Do note that your location will be shared only with users who have been invited and it will be shared immediately after the invite has been accepted. This will help people who’ve been invited to know others’ whereabouts.

Users can also share status updates which are visible through the user tile on the map. Since the events are time bound, location sharing stops as soon as the event expires. However, you can go to the People tab (the small, people icon at the bottom of the screen) and tap on ‘Leave’ at any point if you wish to stop sharing your location with others.

We’re In is quite a handy app that respects user privacy and allows time bound events which auto-expire even if users forget to turn off location-sharing.

The We’re In app is currently available only on Windows Phone devices but will soon be available on other mobile platforms as well.

The popular Skitch application, available on both iOS and Android platform for $20 or Rs 900, will now be available for free to users thanks to Evernote which has acquired the company.

Despite becoming free, the Skitch application will not have advertisements nor will come with any hidden features.

Skitch originated as a Mac based application that allows users to easily draw, ink, grab screenshots, annotate and share ones’ favourite images with a little personal touch in the form of freehand additions drawings, elements and much more. Skitch is presently available for both smartphones and tablets based on Android or iOS platforms.

“Our goal is to make Skitch a household name with everyone that wants to draw, sketch, annotate, doodle, sign or highlight something. That happens to be everyone. Our engineers are working on tying the two services together. We’re combining our years of experience with inking, handwriting recognition and pen input with the fantastic capabilities of Skitch,” said Evernote in an official blog.

Now all Evernote users will be able to use the application free of cost, without the need to create an additional Skitch account.

Existing Skitch accounts will be seamlessly integrated with the Evernote and the same credentials will allow access for both the services.

On the other hand, Skitch users who do not have an Evernote account will be asked or prompted to link their existing Evernote account or add a new account if they have none.

That’s not just all, existing Evernote users will automatically get their Skitch files on their device synced with the Evernote account.

The Facebook inside Xperia feature on Xperia Play will soon allow users to recommend their favourite games instantly on the social network from the Smartphone.

Sony Ericsson added the Facebook inside Xperia feature to the Xperia Play device some time back. The feature allows users to share, like and connect on Facebook in a faster and easier way which is not possible through an application or through website.

Though the date of the launch of the games is yet not finalised but Sony Ericsson aims at bringing this feature to all Xperia Play smartphones across the globe as soon as possible perhaps in the form of another upgrade that will follow the upgrade 2.3.3.

After the update, Xperia Play users will also be able to upload screenshots, top scores and even achievements from various games right on to Facebook from the home screen of the smartphone.

Image: whatmobile.net

Nokia Sleeping Screen application, which allows Symbian S6o ^3 users to change their sleeping screen to something more colourful than the ordinary clock, has received an update.

With the new update, Nokia Sleeping screen gets a totally new identity as along with the older stock interfaces. Nokia users are now also allowed to use their own custom images as the sleeping screen. The images will not appear the way they appear in the real world but the software will modify the images and convert it in to something similar to what the stock images looked like.

The Nokia Sleeping Screen was first launched in April as an experimental application.
Nokia developers have added a plain looking clock to the sleeping screen that makes more space available on the screen since users now will be using a lot of custom images. Along with that new stack themes or images for the sleeping screen have been added to the application if users want to use them. And finally the missing link, the orientation change for the sleeping screen has now been enabled so now with the change in the orientation of the phone the sleeping screen also changes the orientation which was obviously missing earlier.

The sleeping screen is available at the Nokia beta labs as a public beta and all those who want to use this on their Symbian^3 devices can download it directly from the Nokia Beta Labs or can follow the link.
Nokia is looking for more suggestion and comments about this so if you have a query or suggestion to make any other improvement that might be helpful to other users then please share the same on the beta lab.

Research In Motion (RIM) will soon launch its own music streaming service for the BlackBerry users. The move is clearly aimed at shoring up its position in the mobile business in the face of threats from companies like Apple and Google. The company is negotiating with several music labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Group, says a Reuters report.

The new music streaming service of RIM has not been named yet. It is expected to work on top of the BlackBerry Messenger service which was already in news recently for the permission to developers to add its social features in their apps. The BlackBerry Messenger is likely to face challenges soon from similar services by Apple, Google and Facebook.

While the BlackBerry users currently do not have the ability to buy their music directly through the phone, they do have access to several music player apps including Slacker, Rhapsody and Pandora. RIM’s PlayBook tablet has 7digital’s cloud based music store pre-installed in the tablet. The BlackBerry devices or the PlayBook tablet owners can also sync their devices with their computers to get their music tracks.

Something similar to this has already been announced by Apple in the form of iCloud which is likely to be launched with the iOS 5. The iOS 5 will launch a feature which will be known as “iTunes in the Cloud” which will allow users to access their music from all their devices. The iCloud will also allow the users to upload just a portion of the track which will then be replaced by a high quality music track from the Apple library.