Software : Microsoft unfriends Facebook app on Xbox 360

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Microsoft unfriends Facebook app on Xbox 360 Posted: Microsoft's annual fall dashboard update for the Xbox 360 brought plenty of changes to consoles earlier this week. The slow rollout is still continuing around the globe, with all markets expected to have the latest dashboard by Oct. 23. Though new tricks like Internet Explorer and better Kinect voice recognition joined the anticipated Xbox Music service as new features, it appears some older apps have been discontinued. With the latest update, Microsoft removed both the Facebook and Twitter apps from the Xbox Live store. Social not-working It's unclear right now why the Facebook and Twitter apps have been removed from the Xbox Live app marketplace. Despite the Xbox 360's annual updates having occurred since the launch of both apps in 2009, the Facebook app itself hadn't seen an overhaul since its launch. Neowin speculated the introduction of Internet Explorer may have had a part in the removal of the social networking services. Users who had previously already downloaded either app will be able to continue to access both Facebook and Twitter through their Xbox 360s, which makes the removal that much more puzzling. Microsoft even still lists both Facebook and Twitter as partners on the "Be Entertained" portion of the Xbox Live web page. TechRadar has reached out to Microsoft, and will update this story if and when a request for comment is returned.

Grumbles heard as IE10 Windows 7 preview scheduled for mid-November Posted: Microsoft announced via the IEBlog Wednesday that a new preview of Internet Explorer will be available on Windows 7 in mid-November. The final version of the new web browser will hit Windows 7 later, once Microsoft has collected feedback from developers and customers, the company's blog post revealed. IE10 comes standard in Windows 8, and early builds of the latest Microsoft browser were available as early as April 2011. TechRadar went hands-on with Internet Explorer 10 , though a lot has changed, the latest version we tested (as part of our Windows 8 review) did not disappoint. A long and lonesome road Internet Explorer 10 has been a long time coming, and some eager users are apparently getting fed up with the wait. Despite Wednesday's news that a new IE10 preview will arrive next month, several commenters expressed displeasure that the final version isn't arriving alongside Windows 8 in late October. Comments like, "A preview, really? 100k people and you can't develop anything in time," and "Why preview? We want to develop optimized sites now! WTF," seemed to echo the general sentiment of those posting. Nevertheless, some commenters simply thanked Microsoft for the update, while another, oddly, waxed nostalgic about Internet Explorer 6. IE10 has what developers want In the blog post announcing the latest IE10 preview build, Internet Explorer Group Program Manager Rob Mauceri wrote that the new browser will deliver what web developers want. "IE10 on Windows 7 has the same standards based platform for developers to target as IE10 on Windows 8," he stated. "We built an entirely new browser with Windows 8, with more performance and developer capabilities," Mauceri continued. "IE10 brings improved real-world site performance and additional standards support to Windows 7 that Web developers have been asking for." Of course, web devs themselves will be the judges of that when the new Internet Explorer 10 preview drops in November. Hopefully, the final browser will be worth the wait.

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