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Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Microsoft to hold MWC press conference for March 2
Following quite a few Android device makers, Microsoft has today announced that it too will hold a special press conference during MWC 2015 in Barcelona in March.
Specifically, the software giant will talk to the press on March 2 at 8.30 AM local time. That's one day after Samsung's big event, by the way.
Microsoft hasn't given us any information as to what exactly it will talk about, but it's safe to assume we're going to see some new phones getting unveiled.
However, it's unlikely that we'll see a new Windows Phone flagship device being introduced on this occasion, despite the very long amount of time that has passed since the previous high-end Lumia-branded smartphone was made official.
Obviously, Microsoft might surprise us, and unless it wants the Lumia brand to be associated just with low-end and midrange offerings, it probably should.
One handset which may be announced at MWC could be the successor to the Lumia 1320. It will probably be called Lumia 1330, and its specs were purportedly leaked back in December.
Microsoft and Samsung ended their dispute over royalties settling the matter out of the court
Samsung and Microsoft announced that they have put an end to their dispute over Android royalty payments. Terms of the agreement are confidential.
Here is the full text of the joint release from the two tech giants:
“Samsung and Microsoft are pleased to announce that they have ended their contract dispute in U.S. court as well as the ICC arbitration. Terms of the agreement are confidential.”
Microsoft took Samsung to court in August last year after the Korean giant stopped payments of Android royalties. Samsung argued that the acquisition of Nokia made Microsoft a direct competitor.
An end of the legal dispute means that Samsung might return to making Windows-powered smartphones. Last month, a word got out that the manufacturer is keen on making affordable handsets, which utilize Microsoft's mobile platform.
Microsoft Office 2016 preview is now available
Microsoft Office 2016 preview is now available for users who are willing to commit to a non-disclosure agreement. The Redmond giant will officially release Office 2016 later this year.
The upcoming Office release is available through Microsoft Connect. The productivity suite features a new, dark theme and a virtual assistant. The latter is rumored to offer Cortana integration.
Cortana update brings a new Lifestyle interest with Fitness Tracker
Just a couple of days after there were reports that Microsoft will soon integrate Cortana into its Office productivity suite the Redmond-based company has updated its digital assistant with a new interest category.
Dubbed Lifestyle, the category contains a Fitness Tracker that claims it will “keep up with your workouts.” The update seems to be rolling out slowly, as not everyone has received it yet.
For those who are unaware, Microsoft updates Cortana twice a month.
Microsoft Office will soon have Cortana integration
According to a report in The Verge, Microsoft will soon integrate Cortana into its Office productivity suite. The highly capable virtual assistant will be available in both mobile and desktop guise in the near future.
A Microsoft Office “Work Assistant” application is reportedly in testing. The solution utilizes Cortana to “open, edit, and share documents using voice commands.” The initial app by Microsoft is said to be a prototype for the time being.
Cortana integration into Microsoft Office could mark the arrival of the Redmond giant’s virtual assistant to iOS and Android. Microsoft has already hinted at such plans in the past.
Dual-SIM Microsoft Lumia 435 is now available in India
The Microsoft Lumia 435, which was unveiled in mid-January, has today become available to buy in India. We're talking about the dual-SIM version of the handset, which is currently being offered in white and black by Microsoft's online store for the subcontinent.
Green and orange color versions were also presented during the phone's official unveiling, but so far those have not been launched in India. Perhaps they will arrive in the future.
If you want to buy a Lumia 435 from Microsoft, you need to pay INR 5,999. At the current exchange rates, that means $96 or €85. That's pretty close to the €70 price before taxes that Microsoft touted last month. The software giant's Indian online store claims you'll receive your brand new Lumia 435 in 4 working days if you order one.
In this instance, the price is low because the hardware isn't anything to get excited about. The Lumia 435 sports a 4-inch 480x800 touchscreen, a 2 MP rear camera, and a VGA secondary shooter. It's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset with a 1.2 GHz dual-core Cortex-A7 CPU, it has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable internal storage, 42Mbps HSPA support, and a 1,560 mAh battery. It runs Windows Phone 8.1.
Universal Microsoft Office apps arrive on Windows 10 Technical Preview
Microsoft rolled out universal Office apps for Windows 10 Technical Preview. The trio includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The touch-optimized applications are available for desktops, notebooks, and tablets with Windows 10 installed. The Redmond giant will open up the apps’ preview to smartphones in the weeks ahead.
Windows 10 Technical Preview users can seek out the apps in the Windows Store Beta. If you happen to be one of those users, feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts on the apps in the comments.
Microsoft acquires Sunrise Calendar for $100 million
Microsoft has acquired the popular Sunrise Calendar application for a reported amount of $100 million dollars.
Sunrise is a free calendar application for iOS and Android. It featured an attractive interface design and synced with a wide variety of services such as Google calendar, iCloud, Microsoft Exchange and even Facebook for your events. The app also has other clever features, such as LinkedIn integration, weather forecast for your location, built-in Google Maps navigation for going to events, and timezone support.
It remains to be seen what Microsoft does with its latest acquisition as neither companies have announced their plans yet.
#TileArt by Microsoft will help you customize your Windows Phone homescreen
Microsoft launched a dedicated app to help Windows Phone 8.1 users customize their device’s homescreen. Dubbed #TileArt, the free app is currently available in the Windows Phone marketplace.
#TileArt will allow users to pin any image or photo to the homescreen of their smartphone. Support for transparent PNG files will also be on board, as well as access to a free #TileArt gallery.
The app will allow users to share their creations on a number of social networks. You can take a look at the application’s official promo video.
Windows 10 double-height live tiles accidentally revealed by a Microsoft employee
While there have been numerous reports about double height live tiles in the recent past, we never got a real-world glimpse of the feature in action, but that was until now.
A Microsoft employee by the name of Vesku Paananen tweeted a picture (see above) showing a variety of systems running Windows 10. Apparently, he didn’t realize that the image also contained a phone with a double height live tile.
Although the image, which was first spotted by the Finnish blog Bestmobileblog, has since been deleted, it does show that Windows 10 for phones might still have some surprises in store.
New canon DSLR s, Canon EOS 5DS & EOS 5DS R leaked with specs on-board
Canon is expected to announced the EOS 5DS and the EOS 5DS R full-frame DSLR cameras this week. The specifications for both models have already been leaked.
Both models have 50.6 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor, 61 point AF system with 41 points being cross-type, dual DIGIC 6 processor, ISO 100-6400 range (expandable to ISO 50 – 12800), 5fps burst mode, 1.3x and 1.6x crop modes, 100% field of view, 150,000 pixel RGB-TR metering sensor, 252 zone TTL metering, 1080p30 video, mini HDMI output, microphone input, and 3.2-inch LCD with 1.04 million dot resolution.
The only difference between the two models is that while the 5DS has a low pass filter, the 5DS R does not.If you are not satisfied ,then you can go here for more info.
Microsoft Lumia 435 pre-order starts in the UK, ships 1st of march
Two weeks after its announcement, the Microsoft Lumia 435 is now available for pre-order in the UK. The phone is offered by Amazon and costs £88.49 SIM-free and is offered in Black, Orange and Green. Actual shipping date has also been confirmed - a month from now, March 1.
Microsoft plans to make the phone available throughout February in more countries in Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. The Lumia 435 is a budget-minded handset with a Snapdragon 200 chipset with a dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 4" LCD display (480 x 800 pixels).
It's also destined to receive Windows 10 once the OS reaches its final status alongside the Lumia 730, Lumia 930 and Lumia 1520.
Additional specifications of the Lumia 435 include a weight of 131.9g and a 1,560mAh battery, good for almost 12 hours of talk time or 21 hours if you're on 2G. The phone boasts 42.2Mbps downlink speeds over 3G, which is about as good as it gets pre-LTE.
Bill Gates working on a Personal Agent project at Microsoft
When Bill Gates stepped down as Microsoft chairman last year, he vowed to “substantially” increase the time he spends at the company, with a particular focus on “ambitious scenarios,” though he didn’t reveal what exactly he would be doing. However, in an Ask Me Anything question and answer session on Reddit day before yesterday, Gates revealed that he is currently working on a project dubbed Personal Agent.
“One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to,” he said. “The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model – the agent will help solve this.”
While that sounds something which would fit in nicely to Cortana, the software giant’s virtual assistant which is coming to desktop soon, Gates specifically mentioned that it would be a cross-platform product, meaning that in addition to Windows it would also be available on devices that run iOS and Android to say the least.
Given the fact that Microsoft has been working in the digital assistant space for a while now, and co-founder Bill Gates is helming the project, it would be interesting to see how the product shapes up.
WSJ: Microsoft will make an investment in Cyanogen
According to report in The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will make an investment in Cyanogen Inc. The Redmond giant is expected to become a minority investor in a $70 million round of equity financing.
The latest round of funding is said to value Cyanogen Inc. “in the high hundreds of millions.” Spokespeople from both Microsoft and Cyanogen Inc. declined to comment on the matter.
Cyanogen made quite a splash a few days ago when the company’s CEO Kirt McMaster told an audience in San Francisco that the company wants “to take Android away from Google.” The ambitious startup plans to create a version of Android, which isn’t dependent on Google Play apps and services.
The round of financing for Cyanogen could grow further. As it turns out, more strategic investors have expressed interest in the company now that its plans to loosen Google’s hold on Android became clear.
Considering the roughly 3% market share Windows Phone holds, it is hardly a surprise that Microsoft want a piece from the action in the Android realm. The tech giant surely wouldn’t mind further exposure for its Bing search engine.
Microsoft giving away a free Lumia 435 for every Lumia 535 buyer in Italy this Valentine’s Day
Slowly, but surely, we’re starting to hear more and more about this year’s Valentine’s Day offers and deals. The latest such promotion to get unearthed comes from Italy, where Microsoft is preparing a pretty sweet deal.
If you buy a Lumia 535 from February 4 to February 15, you’ll get a free Lumia 435. This is however limited to Italy, so if you’re not there, you can’t take advantage of the offer.
You don’t even have to buy the Lumia 535 from a specific store. Any purchase counts, whether made online or offline, even if you get the device from an Italian carrier. After you’ve bought the Lumia 535, you simply go to the special website Microsoft has set up for this promo, enter your details so your purchase can be identified, and that’s it. You then patiently wait and Microsoft will start shipping the free Lumia 435 units on February 23. You will have to register on the website between February 4 and February 22.
A “buy one, get one free” offer always sounds neat, and this one might help Microsoft move some product over in Italy. Neither the Lumia 535 nor the Lumia 435 are high-end devices, but getting two smartphones for the price of one is still pretty good.
Microsoft launches Office for Android, Outlook for iOS and Android, updates OneDrive
Under its new leadership, Microsoft has embraced other Mobile platforms and Office for Android is officially available starting today (having gone through a preview stage). Also, it’s bringing Outlook to Android and iOS and updating the OneDrive apps to handle photos better.
Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android tablets offer an “unmistakably Office experience”, which means the Ribbon UI.
The apps support what you’ve grown to expect from their desktop counterparts, including Track changes and comments in Word, formulas and PivotTables in Excel and transitions and embedded video in PowerPoint.
The requirements for the apps are – a tablet with a 7″ screen or more, an ARM processor with 1GB or more RAM and Android 4.4 KitKat. Lollipop is not officially supported yet though the apps should still work. If you have one of the few 10+ inch Android tablets, you’ll need an Office 365 license to create and edit.
Outlook for iOS and Android is a rebadged Acompli (which Microsoft acquired in December). The app became popular for its swipe interface – a left/right swipe can schedule an email, archive it, delete it, move it or flag it. The app also sorts emails into Focused and Other tabs and learns from your reading habits which email goes where.
Next up is OneDrive. Until now it treated files the same, but now it’s taking special care of photos. It will aggregate photos from your computer, phone and email inbox so they are easy to browse. With the help of Bing tech you can search photos by location and content – people, beach, sunset, dogs, all automatically tagged.
Meanwhile, OneDrive for Business is landing on Mac and iOS.
Microsoft lists Lumia 835 on its website, it's probably a typo
Nokia Lumia 835 popped up today on the Microsoft's official Lumia webpage. It's AT&T exclusive, has similar specs to Lumia 830 and of you click on the link - it takes you to AT&T's Lumia 830 store page.
The Lumia 835 looks a lot like a typo - if it was a new upcoming Lumia it wouldn't be Nokia branded, it looks like the Lumia 830, comes with similar hardware and even the link suggests for Lumia 830. Oh, and there is another typo in the description text - O1S instead of OIS.
Of course, there is always a chance someone messed up and spilled the beans on an upcoming Lumia 835 while creating its placeholder or dedicated locked page.
If someone is indeed readying a Lumia 835 for upload on the website, we guess the announcement should happen soon. We wouldn't get our hopes too high, though.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lollipop update rolls in Russia
Android 5.0 is slowly making its way to more devices. So slowly, in fact, that as of January 5 it didn't even get its slice in the pie chart of the operating system's distribution. However, for the lucky owners of a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in Russia, the update is already seeding, beating the Galaxy Note 4 in the race to get it.
Users in different parts of the world, who can't wait for their localized versions, can download the coveted update and apply it manually by following the link at the bottom.
The Lollipop update for the Galaxy Note 3, which we saw previewed in a beta, brings the modern Material design to the aging 2013 top-tier phablet. Samsung's TouchWiz overlay on the Note 3 was criticized for not being optimized for the large screen, and that is now going to change.
Other improvements, inherent to the new OS version are increased battery life and a general performance boost. The Android 5.0 update is said to carry some of the latest Galaxy Note 4 features over to its older brother, better multi-window support being one example.
Now that the official update has started rolling out, we could only hope that global availability will follow soon.
Microsoft confirms desktop apps and experience only on 8-inch and larger Windows 10 tablets
Last week all eyes were on Microsoft and the announcement-rich event, held on January 21. A lot of groundbreaking and game-changing plans were unveiled to make the next installment of the OS a truly revolutionary experience. But perhaps the thing that excites us the most is the future of Windows on mobile devices.
Microsoft has made it clear that it will spare no resource in following its One Windows strategy and unifying the user experience across all devices. This, of course includes the unification of the app ecosystem, allowing developers to write code that works seamlessly across PCs, smartphones, tables and even Xbox consoles.
Today Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group at Microsoft mentioned on Twitter that the company has rethought its mobile strategy and will now include a full desktop experience and Win32 apps only on devices with screes of 8 inches and more. This is not the case with Windows 8.1 which allows for a full desktop version to run on 7-inch devices. The US tech giant apparently found that to be rather inconvenient from a user standpoint and is slashing the support in the name of a better overall user experience.
But with all this talk of apps and different apps on different devices and a unified platform things often get a little confusing so what does this announcement really mean? Well to try and put it simply Windows 8.1 currently has two main set of apps. One the one hand we have traditional win32 applications, that have been the norm on PCs and then we have Microsoft’s new RT shell, or the touch optimized, tiled, Metro UI interface, which offers its own set applications.
Some software packages, like Skype and most browsers for example, are available in both variations, but they are still different apps. This was primarily done to target early generation Windows tablets and to some extent Windows-powered smartphones with a new set of apps, tailored specifically to them.
Windows 10 want to bridge this gap even better by making sure that any app written to comply with the new app ecosystem will run across PC’s, tablets, smartphones and even Xbox, but this still only concerns the aforementioned new kind of applications. The traditional PC style win32 apps are a totally different breed and will not be affected by this new change.
What Joe Belfiore is essentially saying is that manufacturers will be allowed to put full versions of Windows 10 which include a desktop and consequently win32 application on devices with 8-inch screens and above. Anything below that, be it a small tablet or smartphone will essentially be limited to using only the new unified application platform and the apps it provides.
Cortana’s location-based reminders feature now available even in unsupported regions
Cortana’s location-based reminders, that trigger notifications when you arrive at specific geographic locations, have now started working even in unsupported regions – they are now available in Jordan, as well as Russia.
According to a 'Geeks on Gadgets' report, the feature now works perfectly in Jordan. “Navigation commands also work, bringing a list of nearby locations and approximate distances (in miles however), with the option to navigate to the through HERE drive,” the report notes.
Microsoft has been working to expand Cortana to more regions; just last month, the Redmond, Washington-based company brought the voice assistant service to France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. It was also enabled for China and the UK prior to that.
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