I apologize for the long absence! I have been very busy with school this week, so didn’t have time, and of course, a lot of stuff happened this week!

As previously rumored, Windows Phone 7 was going to get Internet Explorer 9 Mobile, which would finally get the desktop and mobile versions of the Microsoft browser in sync. It is no longer a rumor, as Steve Ballmer announced that later this year Windows Phone 7 will get IE9 Mobile, with hardware acceleration, putting mobile Safari to shame (for now, that is). Not only that, but Windows Phone 7 will also get multitasking, much like how webOS currently implements their multitasking, with a card like interface. The update will be quite significant, not only including a major browser update along with multitasking, but Twitter will be integrated into the People Hub, and Office docs can be synced with SkyDrive.

In other Windows Phone news, Microsoft has said that the infamous copy & paste update for Windows Phone will be coming within “the first two weeks of March.” Microsoft updated their Windows Phone tools to include the copy & paste feature last month, and Microsoft defended that it was still a January update, because that is when the update was shipped to the manufacturers, but they are currently testing it now. Not only will this update include copy & paste, but a pretty big speed improvement in app loading times as well.

A new feature in Internet Explorer 9 includes the ability to pin websites to the taskbar on Windows 7, allowing these sites to take advantage of Jump Lists and other nice little integration features with Windows. Microsoft says that this feature has made a big impact on websites implementing these features, with websites seeing their site visits increase anywhere from 15 to 50%.

All over the Internet people were talking about how Microsoft is planning on killing the Zune branding, but Microsoft denied that they were killing the Zune. Paul Thurrott at Windows Phone Secrets says that Microsoft is indeed killing the Zune branding, but not the services themselves. Some say certain services could be integrated into Windows Live, I guess time will tell, won’t it?

I bet you might have heard about that tiny announcement that Nokia was pretty much dropping Meego and slowly phasing out Symbian in favor of Windows Phone 7, didn’t you? Many believed that Microsoft was paying them billions to do so, but Neowin points out that the claim is just not true. In fact, Stephen Elop said that this is a “very balanced relationship.”

Rovio has announced that they will be bringing Angry Birds to Windows Phone 7, I personally have never played it, so I don’t know just how exciting this news is. Good news that a very popular iOS game is coming to Windows Phone, however.

Millennial Media found that Windows Phone 7 is one of the top platforms publishers tend to support in 2011, with Windows Phone 7 tying with the iPad for second place and Android took the top spot.

Millennial found that Windows OS only accounts for 2% of the smartphone market, compared to Android and iOS’s massive 38%. Millennial gets their data through mobile advertising, with them reaching 81% of the U.S. mobile market, they should know what they are talking about.

Sad, right? For now, that is, seeing as there are just as many people planning to support Windows Phone 7 next year as the iPad (20%), with Android getting the most support (29%). The more apps available for a phone platform, the better, as people think of a smartphone as a device which is capable of running applications.

4% plan to support Palm, 6% for Symbian, 8% for iPhone and 12% for RIM. The iPhone’s number continues to shrink, however with the iPhone having a large amount of applications already available, they will be just fine.