Microsoft has gone all out and has started doling out the next generation of its blogging service – Windows Live Spaces. With a major update of this kind, Microsoft hopes to take the competition up a few notches with other social networking juggernauts such as MySpace.

The service will now include social networking features that would allow users to personalize their spaces with gadgets. Also, Microsoft has launched the Windows Live Toolbar, the Windows Live QnA beta and has announced the releases of enhanced safety services in the coming weeks.

The new service will allow users to customize their site with blogs, photos and music lists. Windows Live Spaces is designed to connect users to their real social network of friends — people in their Windows Live Contacts list — that is integrated across Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and other services — and introduce them to people through these trusted contacts. Users under 18 can only be contacted by those in their Messenger contact list.

There are several features that have been incorporated including a permissions feature that would let users decide how and who can contact them, through their Spaces site. These permissions would be shown beside a user's profile, and can be changed.

I have never ever heard of a public transport system launching a podcast series! I came across a blog posting on Micro Persuasion that said that the New York City subway system’s Metropolitan Transit Authority had launched a series of podcasts for its 130 million monthly riders.

The podcasts would cover topics on safety tips, service advisories, special travel deals and interviews with guests. It’s a given that there are plenty of iPod-carrying users in New York and this is an extremely innovative way to get across messages and entertain the passengers of the NYC transit system. Impressive, I say!

Read the blog post here.

Jeff Taylor, the founder of job site monster.com, has launched another online property called eons.com. The new website is a social networking website for Americans aged 50-plus. Great! Another social networking website! So what? The new entrant into the online social networking scene comes in with a “deadly” twist.

The site sports an online obituary database that sends out alerts when someone you may know dies and that plans to set up a do-it-yourself funeral service, reports Reuters. “The death business is growing,” Taylor told Reuters, offering figures showing the number of deaths in the US rose to 2.4 million in 2005 from 2.2 million in 2000, and was projected to rise to 4.1 million by 2040.

Besides this feature, the site sports interactive games to build brain strength, news on entertainment and hobbies for older people, a personalized longevity calculator and tips to live longer. It also has a nationwide database of obituaries dating back to the 1930s to which people can add photos and comments.

Users will receive an alert when someone from a particular area dies or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name.

Microsoft Live Labs has released a technology preview of Photosynth, an application that can turn two-dimensional images into three-dimensional landscapes. The application is so cool that the word cool would have to be redefined.

From the sound of it, Photosynth seems like a fairy tale story getting into the realm of reality. The folks at Photosynth seem very confident of the potential offering and say that it "will change the way you think about digital photos forever".

What does Photosynth do?