Microsoft's latest patent filing is finally giving us a deeper look into what they plan to do with their Live Anywhere service. Even though it's been a year since Microsoft first demoed the Live Anywhere concept—which promises connectivity from all devices into the same Xbox network—at E3 2006, the only advancement we've seen is the ability to play a handful of Xbox Live games on Vista with your buddies on Xbox 360. All the really cool stuff—playing XBLA games from your cellphone, playing games from your Zune, and communicating anywhere with your Live buddies—has yet to materialize.

In the filing, Microsoft's planning on supplementing weaker devices (in terms of processing power) like mobiles and the Zune, with stronger processors, like Xbox 360 and PCs. That way, through wired and wireless connections, already-rendered video and audio can be streamed to your devices out there in the world. Although we probably still won't see Live Anywhere on our phones for a while, and by extension the ability to mock Blongo's Guitar Hero skills from anywhere, it's nice to know Microsoft hasn't forgotten about it. – Jason Chen

Zune, Xbox, PC in Game Network [ZuneScene]

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