The LiveUpload for YouTube plugin (which we first discovered last year along with LiveUpload for Facebook) is a piece of add-on software designed specifically for Windows Live software. With this plugin installed, you can upload your videos from the Windows Live Photo Gallery software (yes, it handles videos too!) or from Windows Live Movie Maker.

In Photo Gallery, the upload option appears under Publish –> More Services while in Movie Maker a new button called “Publish on Web” offers the option from its menu.

If you’ve been a fan of the YouTube plugin in the past, you’ll now need to download this critical update in order to continue to use it. Due to a change in YouTube’s hashing algorithm, you’ll no longer be able to authenticate and login to YouTube with the older plugin. Instead, you’ll need to download the updated release (1.1) from the CodePlex site here. There are no other features or updates in this new version besides the one bug fix.

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The Windows Live Team just informed us of a new update to the online Windows Live Photos. service for better support of panoramic photographs. Using the complementary Windows Live Photo Gallery software, you can easily stitch images together to create panoramic photos that give professional software applications a run for their money. The process is simple. You first take a series of photos of a scene that each overlap the other a little. Once imported into Photo Gallery, you just select all the photos and choose “Create a panoramic photo” from the “Make” menu. That’s it!

Unfortunately, until now, if you uploaded your creations to Windows Live Photos on the web, the site couldn’t display them properly if they were in their original size. But as of Thursday, September 10th, this is no longer an issue. The Windows Live Team is rolling out a new release of Windows Live Photos that bumps up the limit on photo size so that you can now get thumbnails and easily viewable versions of photos all the way up to 25 megapixels.

The new release also increases the image quality of all photos on the site, enhances image and album embeds, and makes browsing photo albums faster. And you can browse through albums with the arrows on your keyboard now, too. To try the new features for yourself, head over to Windows Live Photos.

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Although the year isn’t over yet, TIME Magazine has already put out their list of the best websites of 2009. Among the obvious choices on the list (Twitter, YouTube, Hulu, Wikipedia), there are also some rarer gems like musical mood site Musicovery, streaming music up-and-comer Spotify, and online finance manager Mint. A couple of Microsoft properties made the cut, too, and we couldn’t agree more with the choices. WorldWide Telescope and Photosynth are listed, both of which are products originally developed by Microsoft Research.

You may remember hearing about WorldWide Telescope (WWT) when it launched back in May 2008 thanks to a little hype from Robert Scoble, but since that time the once Windows-only desktop software has been updated with new features, went 3D, was integrated into Virtual Earth, and finally came to the web for everyone to use thanks to Silverlight technology.

Photosynth has also seen a number of improvements since its launch in March of this year. It was integrated into Virtual Earth, Live Maps, and Windows Live Photo Gallery, arrived on the iPhone and Facebook, and someone even figured out how to navigate synths using gestures. Cool! If you haven’t tried out Photosynth yourself just yet, you can learn how to do it here.

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Microsoft just unveiled the latest in their line of LifeCam devices, the LifeCam Cinema HD. This is no basic webcam by any means as it offers 1280 x 720 HD resolution at 30 frames per second. That makes it the first consumer webcam support this level of HD, in fact. (It will also lead to some seriously high-quality Vimeo vids!)

The camera also features USB 2.0 connectivity, auto focus, a glass lens, a 4x digital zoom, a noise-canceling microphone, and a technology called “ClearFrame” which aims to deliver smooth and detailed video.

The new webcam is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP out-of-the-box and also integrates with the Windows Live suite of tools including Live Messenger, Live Photo Gallery, and Live Movie Maker.

However, before you run out to purchase this hardware (which becomes available on September 9th), you’ll need to first check the hardware requirements. Since this camera does some heavy lifting, you’ll need at least a dual core 1.6 GHz processor in order to use it. However, a 3 GHz processor is recommended. You’ll also need 2 GB of memory.

The camera will retail for $79.99 here in the U.S.

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At this year’s E3 Expo, Microsoft announced an upcoming update for the Xbox LIVE service which will introduce a number of changes and new features, including integration with social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Netflix improvements, and updates to the Xbox LIVE service itself.

Now, thanks to the Xbox 360 System Update Preview program, you can sign up to be a part of the group that will get to test out the newest features before they go live for everyone. To do so, just fill out the "Xbox LIVE Update Preview Sign Up" survey found here on Microsoft Connect. You’ll have to answer a handful questions about where you live, your home network, your ISP connection, and few others so the Xbox Team can help pick out a good cross-section of users to be invited to the test.

According to Major Nelson, they’re looking for multiple thousands of participants, so your chances of making it in the test program are good. If you’re accepted, you’ll be notified via email within a week.

For more details about the updates included, see below:

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Remember PhotoZoom? The online application that made your everyday photos into deep zoomable pics? Well, it’s now called, perhaps more descriptively: “DeepZoomPix.” This new technology uses Silverlight to display the images while the site itself runs on the Windows Azure Services Platform.

If you’ve been using PhotoZoom in the past, don’t worry – your online photos albums are still available from the new site, but you might need to update your embed code and album URL wherever you had used it or linked to it.

The new DeepZoomPix lets you do more with your photos than PhotoZoom ever did. Specifically, it offers features like:

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The Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) is a tool created by Microsoft Research which can be used to create panoramic images. It’s essentially the same technology that Windows Live Photo Gallery uses “under the hood” when you create panoramic photos in the software (just like Alexa does in the latest commercial – and lest you think these kids are far more tech savvy than you – I can assure you that the process is dead simple).

But unlike the panoramic technology that runs in WLPG, the ICE software provides a few extra features, too. The most important one is the orientation tool. With this, you can change the orientation of a photo to give the impression that a tilt/shift lens was used. For example:

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There’s a new site called Liveslices.com where those of you running the IE 8 Release Candidate can browse through and install Webslices from an online gallery. Webslices are a new way to keep up with frequently updated webpages using the new version of IE. When you subscribe to a Webslice (look for a green button), the “slice” is added to your Favorites bar sort of like a bookmark. You can click on the Webslice/bookmark anytime to see a dynamic window appear with relevant info about that web page – all without leaving the page you’re currently browsing.

The new Liveslices site is not a Microsoft-owned property, but the look of its design has a similar feel to those sites we’re seeing in the Microsoft family of websites, including the one for IE 8. (Right down to the same font!) In other words, it has a clean and simple layout.

When you click into the Liveslices gallery, you’re presented with a list of Webslices to choose from and the company promises that they’re going to keep adding to this list.

The ones they currently have available are pretty cool – there are Webslices for Flickr, Twitter, feeds, Gmail, CNN, MSNBC, and more. My favorites (clearly) are the Twitter, Gmail, and Feed ones. With the Gmail and Twitter slices, you can click to see the latest from both your Twitter account and your inbox. The feed one is also great for keep up with your favorite sites. Photogs will love the two Flickr slices for checking out the most interesting photos and the uploads from everyone.

Although the site is brand-new, it’s clearly off to a good start. Got any suggestions for how they can improve? You can leave a comment on their blog here.

If you’re already using Windows Live Mesh to keep your files and photos between PCs in sync, then you don’t really need to worry with using Windows Live Sync (formerly called FolderShare). However, if you never installed the beta Mesh software and you’re just looking for a simple solution to keep your photos synced between PCs, the new Windows Live Sync Photo Gallery integration may be the better choice for you.

After installing Windows Live Photo Gallery (a part of the new Windows Live Essentials suite) on two computers, you can then set them up to sync with each other. To do so, click Setup gallery sync…from the File Menu in Photo Gallery and follow the instructions provided. (You’ll need to be signed in with your Windows Live ID first).

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Remember when we were telling you about how to use the online tool at photos.live.com because the Windows Live Photo Gallery software did not have an option to choose the size? Well, in case you didn’t already notice – it does now! I guess someone was listening.

Last month, a refresh of the Windows Live software (build 14.0.8051.1204) added this feature to your Windows Live Photo Gallery program. You should now see the option in the top right side of the window when you’re uploading pictures...

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For taking screenshots on my Windows PC, I’ve been using the free software from Jing, which lets me use a hotkey combination to take a screenshot then save it to my computer or quickly upload it to either Flickr or a web site via FTP. However, I’m always on the lookout for any utilities that could improve on the screenshot-taking experience. That’s why I’m now giving Greenshot a try.

This new, open source screenshot application runs from a small executable file – no installation required. After it’s up and running, you can use keyboard shortcuts to take a shot of either a region (hit the Print button), a window (Alt+Print), or your entire screen (Ctrl+Print)...

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