AT&T announced the Nokia Lumia 1520 pre-order a little over a week ago. Its set to arrive next Friday, the 22nd, and cost you $199 on-contract. You can also pre-order from the Microsoft Store for $199 and get $70 worth of app vouchers and a free copy of Halo: Spartan Assault. AT&T on the other hand is giving out a $20 app voucher, Spartan Assault, and 50GB of cloud storage on AT&T Locker. But that was then. Now it looks like you can get the Lumia 1520 for just $99 on AT&T's website.

Everyone wishes they had a 3D printer. It's a relatively new field that's beginning to see mainstream appeal. To help push 3D printing, Microsoft has released an app for Windows 8 that will let you manage your prints. Makerbot also pushed out some driver updates for Windows 8.1. One way or another, today's a good day if you're into 3D printing on Windows 8.

Have you recently switched to a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone or planning to in the near future?  You could be eligible for a $20 Windows Phone Store voucher with Nokia's latest promotion, the World of Apps.

If you have purchased a Nokia Lumia 521, 925, 928, 1020, 1520 Windows Phone or a Lumia 2520 tablet all you need to do is head over to this website and register.  If eligible, a PIN code will be emailed to you with instructions on how to redeem your $20 voucher.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer surprised a few people when he announced his plans to step down within the year. The announcement came shortly after he announced his new "One Microsoft' plan that would turn the software giant into a devices and services company. What led to such a drastic decision after announcing plans that would fundamentally change Microsoft? The Wall Street Journal had an interview with Ballmer about his time at Microsoft, the thoughts that led to his retirement, and what he's doing until he officially steps down.

If you own an unlocked Samsung ATIV S and are still waiting on GDR3 (or Update 3 as it's officially known), you're in luck as multiple reports have surfaced with handsets being bumped to the latest version of the operating system. Microsoft's Windows Phone Update 3 includes numerous new features for consumers to enjoy. 

People Search is a contact search app that is based off of the T9 system instead of a full-QWERTY keyboard meaning you can easily use it one handed.  In addition, you get a ton of features including customized searches, ability to share contacts, and a QR Tag generator.

People Search was recently updated to version 2.4.31 that separates that Windows Phone 7.x and 8 builds along with a little fine tuning that improve support for 720p devices.  Along with the update, the developer is marking down the price for the weekend.

The Asphalt franchise has long been one of my favorites when I'm in the mood for fast cars and hot competition. This week marked the release of Asphalt 8: Airborne, the latest edition to the series, for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8! With 47 high-performance luxury dream cars from all the top manufacturers, new exotic locations and 180 events, you are definitely going to want to check this game out right now! Keep reading for more details, and to see how you can enter to win a $100 Windows Store gift card!

This past year we've seen some pretty serious growth when it comes to startups developing apps for Windows Phone. Still, market share is a little north of 4% globally depending on which market analysis you go off of. There's still plenty of work left to be done in order to attract startups that are typically short on both cash and man power. Sometimes they just need a little convincing that there's enough interest in their upcoming service on Windows Phone.

Windows Phone community let's meet Coin.

LockMix is a feature rich Windows Phone 8 app that allows you to customize your Windows Phone lockscreen to display everything from the weather to stock information to Chuck Norris quotes.

On top of delivering the information to your lockscreen, LockMix also gives you the ability to customize the layout.  You can have widgets of all sizes scattered about your lockscreen providing you with as much or as little information at a glance.

LockMix is an impressive lockscreen app for Windows Phone 8 in a growing faction of the Windows Phone Store.

Not long ago, we covered a Sega Genesis emulator for Windows Phone 8 called EmiGens Plus. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive was a terrific console, but many gamers would still love to play newer console games on their phones. Thanks to EmiGens' developer Andre Botelho, now they can!

After months in beta, Andre's Playstation One emulator EmiPSX is now live on the Windows Phone Store. The emulator has fairly limited compatibility and can't run games at full speed on current Windows Phone 8 hardware, but it's still a very promising release for Playstation emulation fans. Head past the break for full review with video!

10tons Ltd, the developers behind such games as Trouserheart and Sparkle, are celebrating their company's tenth anniversary with a huge sale of their games across all platforms. Through this weekend, all 10tons games for Windows Phone, Android, iOS, Mac, Ouya and Blackberry 10 will be just $.99. Due to limitations of the Windows Store, games for Windows 8 will be $1.19.

Internally, we've known that Windows Phone 8 Update 3 (aka GDR3) used to have an option for three columns of tiles for smaller displays. That layout is now only found in devices with displays 5-inches or larger e.g. the Lumia 929 for Verizon and the Lumia 1320/1520. Below 5-inches and Windows Phone 8 will return to the traditional layout, as seen in the 4.8-inch ATIV S Neo.

Exactly why that feature was removed is not too clear, though presumably there were some usability issues that the development team were unable to fix. Now, Nawzil has posted a photo of an early build of Update 3 running on a Nokia Lumia 920 that reveals three columns were possible. The toggle for it was found under zDev, a common tool often seen on development devices.

Microsoft launched their "Games for Gold" program last summer, which awards two free games a month to consumers who have active Xbox Gold subscriptions. The first half of the month usually offers one title, while the other half of the month offers another. Yesterday, Xbox's Major Nelson announced that the program would in fact be carried over for users purchasing the upcoming Xbox One console.

While we are a week away from the launch of the Xbox One, Sony has already launched their PlayStation 4 and fans are lining up to pick up their new units. In the wake of the event, Microsoft has tweeted at their rivals and congratulated them on the launch.

It's going to be quite the busy couple of days next week, particularly around and on November 22nd. Why, you ask? If you've just emerged from the cave of wonders and dreams, the Xbox One will be launching on the day, alongside the Lumia 1520 and Lumia 2520 from Nokia--of course we told you as much a few weeks ago. Nokia has now confirmed pricing and availability for its first Windows 8.1 RT tablet in the US on AT&T.

Major Nelson already demonstrated just how fast the Xbox One can recognize your Xbox code cards, and now he is out to show us just how fast the unit can boot up. In a video, that Nelson posted on his own Instagram account, he gives the command of "Xbox, on" and the unit comes to life in thirteen seconds.

We reviewed the first Nightmares from the Deep game, Cursed Heart earlier this week. Funny how the timing works out – the sequel Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren's Call has just launched on Windows Phone 8! That would be good news enough, but it has also arrived before the iOS and Android versions. It seems developer Artifex Mundi has a soft spot for mobile Windows platforms.

To celebrate the launch, the Windows Phone version of Siren's Call is on sale for $2.99 (40 percent off its regular price of $4.99) and the Windows 8 and RT version is on sale for $4.99 ($6.99 regular price). Head past the break for screenshots, Store link, and our video interview with the developer!

Windows Phone Central App and Game Roundup: Zombies Games meet Weather Apps

Three categories of Windows Phone titles come to mind as having the strongest presence in the Windows Phone Store; Zombie games, Weather apps, and Photography apps.  These groups seem to multiply faster than bunnies or flashlight apps.  Fortunately, while some may see these categories as over saturated, it's crowded with quality titles.  Which is never a bad thing.

In this week's Windows Phone Central Roundup, we focus on two of these categories, Zombies and Weather titles (we'll pick on the photography apps on down the road).  The Zombie titles in the roundup are some of our favorite titles that have been covered through the years.  The weather apps aren't heavyweight apps like the Weather Channel or Accuweather but they do a good job of keeping us up to date with what Mother Nature has in store.

The last few months have been pretty good for the Windows Phone ecosystem. There have been some great devices announced by Nokia and other OEMs, more and more popular apps coming to the Windows Phone Store, and more than one research agency testifying the growth.

A couple of days back, we posted about the latest IDC report which pegged the year-over-year growth of Windows Phone for the third quarter of 2013 to 156%.