A few months back, Microsoft invited a couple of guys including myself to discover not only one wonder but 2… The first was Microsoft Windows Phone 7… The Second… was “Kin”. And today MS made it official, the Kin is alive!

Kin is not what you would expect from a company who brought Windows CE and Windows Mobile, like Windows Phone 7. Kin is radically different and will be available, at the moment in 2 different forms as the Kin One or as the web called it the “Turtle”, a squarish phone with a slide keyboard (my personal favorite), a QVGA screen, 4GB of internal memory, a 5Mpix Camera with LED Flash and the Kin Two, a more conventional HVGA mobile phone with a full qwerty keyboard, 8GB of Internal memory and a 8Mpix camera.

Both Kins have been developed by Sharp with Microsoft, and both support WiFi, Bluetooth and obviously 3G.

The key elements for the success of our two little kins? They would be the design that is somehow different from what we are used to see and the OS, that is something we have not yet seen on the web. Now before going forward, I have to admit that I have been extremely amazed by the Kin OS and UI, and even if Kin is not primarily intended for the heavy user or the geek that I am, I am however fascinated by it and would consider to get one alongside my iPhone (until 7 get out at least).

Think about the Kin OS as an extension of yourself, but an extension of your digital self, where all your SNS and friends are connected in one place and one place only. Thanks to the nicely designed “Magazine” Style UI (a bit like Wired Mag actually), and the two 2 key elements named the Loop, that will keep you updated at any moment, or keep you “In the Loop” about your friends’ activities and the Spot where you will “Drop” different info, Text, Photo, People and send them through the air to someone of your favorite SNS.

To go a bit into details, the “Loop” is your primary Home screen, where you get the latest updates of the people, events or things you want to follow. The Loop is not a “Static” page, but a real time update of the things/people you are following up at any given moment. When you want to react to someone’s comment or information you just have to click on your friend’s icon, can reply to her/him immediately… Everything is done live and real time.

“The Spot” on the other hand is a bit different. It helps you to create news/event and publish them to one or several SNS. The “Spot” is literally a spot or a dot on the lower center of your Kin Screen. The Spot is a new way to share information, just take anything you want from your Kin, drop it on your spot and you will then drag down some of your contacts you want to share it with and you are done… They will receive, this could be one or more than one person, one or several pictures, map, video and so on. I believe that Spot is the easiest and ultimate way to share data on the web, even my 3 year old daughter will now be capable of sending me stuff from her mum’s Kin… Well-done Microsoft!

In addition to this, Microsoft also provide a “Companion” Software for the Kin that will keep track of everything you did, do and will do with the Kin Studio. All your text messages, photos, music video and whatever your Kin can store will be there on your Kin Studio. Even if everything will of course be in the “Cloud” , the Kin Studio will keep a “Hard Copy” of your Data just in case, and will display it on a very interesting timeline with a UI close to the Kin itself and the Zune client.

Now I am finished with talking, and I will let Derek, the same Derek who made the presentation for us back in December in Seattle, show you what the Kin is all about !