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What does a girl want? Fashionable goods. What does a girl need? Ultimate accessories. In recognition of that and an epic Christina Aguilera song (get it?), we are focusing today’s #win7tech chat on Fashion Week, Fashionable PCs, and the hottest fashion and tech accessories for Spring. Erin Flynn, the voice behind Reality Chic and a Windows Champion, will be joining #win7tech Tech Tuesday today to lend her expert fashionista advice to the conversation.

This week people around the world celebrate Data Privacy Day. Data Privacy Day, for those who don’t know, is an annual international celebration designed to promote awareness about privacy and education about best privacy practices for staying safe online. At Microsoft, we dedicate a whole week to discussing, understanding and sharing information about online safety. As such, we are going to focus on it during this week’s Tech Tuesday #win7tech chat from 12-1pm PT.

As I wrote last week, our final tally from the CES 2012 #smokedbywindowsphone $100 challenge was 30 wins, 3 losses, and 1 draw.  Not all of the  challenges made it into digital shorts (which you can check out on the $100 YouTube playlist) so my team put together a “best of” video to show more of our favorite moments.  Check it out:

With the overwhelming number of technology options out there, it is hard to know what will make one’s life more efficient, more fun and less stressful. Being a parent of 3 active boys, Amy Windsor has little time for anything that doesn’t meet at least one of those criteria. So, when she jumped onto the CES floor this week as part of our Windows Champions program, she was doing it with one focus: what do parents actually need and use?

Annie Wang, the Co-Founder, CTO and Creative Director of Her Campus spent the past two days in Vegas asking all the questions students need to know about technology. She went all over the trade show, up and down the Microsoft booth and lived with 14 other student trend focused bloggers from around Europe.

#smokedbywindowsphone is a wrap at CES 2012, and it was a raging success!   Thousands of people (yes, we had crowds watching the challenges happen) saw first hand why Windows Phone connects them to the stuff and people they care about faster and easier than other smartphones.  We gave away a ton of new phones, lost a little bit of cash ($300, to be exact), and had a great time meeting our fans, haters, and everyone in between. 

It was a busy, busy first day on the show floor at CES, and the $100 challenge saw over 25 competitors step up against Windows Phone.  The result?  A pretty impressive record of:

It’s December 5 – your holiday shopping is done, right? No? The Internet Explorer team is here to help.

With my busy job at Microsoft, it’s hard for me to stay in touch with friends and family year round. I lived in Maine ten years ago, then Canada, then Colorado, DC and finally NYC before moving to Seattle. That means a lot of friends in a lot of different places. So, when I do connect I want it to mean a lot and I want it to be in person. That’s why I love Windows Live Messenger’s video chat, Facebook chat sync and photo-sharing services. In fact, I love it so much I’m devoting this week’s chat to the topic.

Spotify is launching today for Windows Phone. Like other subscription music services, Spotify gives you on-demand access to millions of songs. But the service, which costs $9.99 a month, also lets you share your music on Facebook, Twitter, and Windows Messenger—and do some other cool things on Windows Phone: