Microsoft have unveiled two new phones aimed at capturing the social networking crowd – the Kin One and the Kin Two.
The Kin One is small, egg shaped and features a full QWERTY keyboard, 5MP camera and will utilise Zune to play media on the device.
The Kin Two is a larger handset that boasts a wider screen with an 8MP camera that is able to capture HD video and has integrated 8GB of storage.
Both are separate from the Windows Phone 7 devices, expected later in the year.
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Kin Loop
The Kin devices will incorporate a clever new feature called “Loop”. Loop pulls a users real-time social networking feed, showing you your favourite people’s status updates, news feeds and notices from other social networks.
Kin Spot
Kin Spot is a way for handset owners to share what is happening in their world, letting them concentrate on the people they wish to share their content and updates with instead of choosing a specific application to do so. With Spot, Kin users can share videos, photos, webpages, status updates and even text messages by dragging them to the “Spot” on the phones screen, all automatically geotagged to include the users whereabouts at that time.
Kin Studio
All uploaded content is stored in the Cloud by way of the Kin Studio. Everything that the user creates using their Kin phone is automatically available online and is accessible from any internet browser. Instead of having to syncronise your photos and videos with an online service, Kin Studio safely stores your media and presents them via a visual timeline making them easy to view and also to share with friends.
As well as backing up all your media, Kin Studio also backs up text messages, call history and phone contacts, chronologically populating an online “journal” so you can view all of the content created around a specific day in your life.
There is no word on the name of the mobile operating system that powers Kin but Microsoft are quick to point out that this is a completely different offering from Windows Phone 7. Instead of being a smartphone with hundreds of different applications at your disposal, the Kin One and Kin Two exist to keep you in constant contact with friends whilst your on the move, sharing photos, videos and status updates on the go without an app store in sight.
KIN will be exclusively available from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. beginning in May and from Vodafone this autumn in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Kin One
Kin Two
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