Microsoft held its big E3 press conference today, and while much of the focus of the event was on the Xbox, the Redmond firm did drop a little bit of mobile news as well. The feature, known as Xbox SmartGlass, is an app that'll allow users to connect to their Xbox 360 using a Windows 8 computer, tablet or mobile device and then use that hardware to control the content that's playing on the Xbox. Users will also be able to begin playing content on one device and then transfer it to another. Another big SmartGlass feature will be its ability to show additional content related to whatever media you're currently accessing. For example, Microsoft showed a demo that involved watching an episode of the show Game of Thrones, with the SmartGlass device used for displaying a world map that showed where the action in the show was currently happening. SmartGlass is expected to launch this year and will be available as an application on Windows 8 computers, Windows Phone, iOS and Android.

In other Microsoft news, the company today sent out updated invitations to its Windows Phone Developer Summit that we first learned about last month. The original invitation didn't offer up much in the way of details on what the event was all about, but the new updated is much more intriguing, teasing "a sneak peek of the future of Windows Phone." That's not much to go on, but it's definitely more interesting than the last invitation. The Verge has been told by sources that the event will be used to help developers learn ways to create apps for the new Windows 8 kernel used in Windows Phone 8. The event is scheduled for June 20.

So far Microsoft has been fairly tight-lipped about the next major version of Windows Phone, so it's exciting to see the company tease "a sneak peek of the future of Windows Phone" for its event later this month. The rumor mill hasn't been quite as unwilling to share details on Windows Phone 8, though, with support for new hardware features like multi-core processors, four different screen resolutions and NFC reportedly in the cards. It's not clear exactly what Microsoft is planning to talk about at this upcoming summit, but we'll definitely be checking in to find out. What features would you all like to see included in Windows Phone 8?

Via The Verge (1), (2), Microsoft