Microsoft today unveiled a new family of smartphones -- the Kin One and Kin Two -- designed for social networking-savvy consumers, in an attempt to improve its fortunes in the mobile business and regain lost ground from Apple, Research in Motion and Google

The Redmond, Wash.-based company said the new smartphones, part of a project that was code named "Pink," are tailored with touch screen displays and slide-out keyboards and will be released through Verizon starting in May

The company developed new software for the Kin phones that brings together feeds from social-networking Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, so users to keep track of status updates, photos and other information shared by friends.

Photos, videos, texts, Web pages, location and status updates can also be shared by dragging them to a place on the phone called the "Spot."

Both Kins will have touch screen displays that respond to multiple finger gestures, similar to the iPhone, slide-out QWERTY keyboards, a music player based on Microsoft's Zune software, Wi-Fi access and cameras capable of taking higher-resolution photos.

The Kin One features a 5.0-megapixel camera and 4GB of storage. The Kin Two has a larger screen and keyboard, 8GB of memory and an 8.0-megapixel camera for shooting high-definition video.

Neither device has a memory card slot, instead, offering a service called "Studio" which backs up content such as photos and videos to an online storage center to free up memory, similar to a feature provided on Sidekick devices.

Roz Ho, team leader behind the Kin, said Microsoft had been working on the Kin devices for several years now, in an attempt to develop a product for users who specifically want to connect with others over social networks such as Facebook.

But unlike most smartphones, the Kins won't have access to Microsoft's Windows Mobile app store to download add-on software programs.

The new products are part of a broader effort by the software giant to jump start its stagnant handset business. For years, the company mostly stayed out of the hardware side, instead selling its Windows Mobile software to handset makers that installed it on their own devices.

But in recent years, Microsoft has lost market share to sleeker handsets like Apple's iPhone and Google's Nexus One that better combine software and hardware for an improved experience on such features as touch screens.

"We saw ourselves as providing operating systems for people," said Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president of entertainment and devices division.Today we think of ourselves as providing great mobile experience for people

Verizon said it will begin selling the Kin phones in early May. Pricing will be announced later