Category: Microsoft

Business Microsoft Tablet

Strategy Analytics: Microsoft’s share of tablet market quadrupled after Windows 8

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As reported on Engadget. By Sharif Sakr Say what you like about Windows 8, but before it arrived Microsoft’s presence in the tablet sphere was as small as it was stagnant. By the reckoning of number-crunchers at Strategy Analytics, just 400,000 Windows-running slates were shipped globally in Q3 of last year — a figure that was largely unchanged from the year before and which represented just 1.6 percent of the global tablet market. Six months later, now that…

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Business Microsoft

Microsoft Confirms Its Plans To Bring Windows 8 To Smaller Touch-Enabled Devices Soon

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As reported on TechCrunch. by FREDERIC LARDINOIS During its Q3 2013 earnings call today, Microsoft’s outgoing CFO Peter Klein noted that the company plans to bring Windows 8 to smaller devices. Until now, Windows 8 was mostly geared toward desktops and larger tablets, including Microsoft’s own Surface and RT machines. With the forthcoming Windows 8 Blue, rumor had it that Microsoft would enable its OEMs to run Windows 8 on smaller devices, too. Klein confirmed this on today’s call,…

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Microsoft

Outlook.com lets you sign in with an alias, adds 32 international email domains

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As reported on Engadget. By Nicole Lee Aside from the two-step verification feature revealed yesterday, Microsoft also rolled out a pair of updates for Outlook.com that are decidedly less important but welcome nonetheless. Namely, users are now able to sign in via a new alias instead of their initial username, and they can add a bit of international flair to their Outlook address with any of 32 new country-specific domains as well. It still might not have the…

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Business Culture Hardware Dev Microsoft

Microsoft Reportedly Preparing To Jump On The Smartwatch Bandwagon

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As reported on TechCrunch. by CHRIS VELAZCO Apple, Google, LG, and Samsung are all reportedly working on wrist-worn computing devices behind closed doors, and it seems like that little club of big companies may soon get another member. If a new report from the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Microsoft has been in touch with an undisclosed number of suppliers who have apparently been tasked with delivering components for a smartwatch-like device that supports touch input. Now that’s not to…

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Microsoft Tablet

Microsoft Reportedly Working On 7″ Surface Tablet As PC Market Slumps To Four-Year Low

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As reported on TechCrunch. byNATASHA LOMAS According to a report in the WSJ, Microsoft is working on a new line-up of its Windows 8-powered Surface tablets that includes a seven inch version of the slate. This small form factor size would enable Microsoft to compete with the likes of the Android-powered Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, as well as Apple’s iOS-based iPad Mini. The paper quotes a person familiar with the…

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Blue state: Microsoft’s tricky strategy to strike back against Apple and Google

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As reported on The Verge. By Tom Warren Can Redmond rethink 30 years of corporate culture to pull this off? As it has countless times in the last decade, Microsoft once again finds itself at a crossroads. Over the course of thirty-plus years, Microsoft rose to global dominance on the back of the desktop computer. But in the last decade, PC sales have been slowing as mobile devices become the next paradigm in personal computing. This…

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Google and Microsoft trade insults for April Fools

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As reported on The Verge. By Matt Brian April Fools’ Day provides the springboard for companies to make some unbelievable announcements, but for Google and Microsoft, it serves as the perfect time to poke fun at eachothers’ shortcomings. With Gmail Blue, Google is teasing Redmond over a product that doesn’t officially exist yet, while Microsoft goes back to basics to poke fun at its rival’s “vanilla” search engine. “HOW DO YOU COMPLETELY REDESIGN AND RECREATE SOMETHING, WHILE…

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Microsoft Tablet

Microsoft allows Windows 8 to run on smaller displays: is a reader-sized Surface on its way?

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As reported on Engadget. By Sharif Sakr Until now, Windows 8’s official hardware requirements have been understandably ruthless: devices with anything less than 1,366 x 768 pixels need not apply. That policy was changed in a recent newsletter, however, to permit the creation of Windows 8 devices with a resolution of 1,024 x 768 — likely representing a very different size and shape. Microsoft says the policy switch isn’t meant to “encourage partners to regularly use…

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Application Microsoft

Microsoft’s MixShape uses big data and clever visuals to craft the perfect Spotify playlist

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As reported on The Verge. By Jeff Blagdon Making a good mix for a party or workout is serious, time-consuming work, so why not throw some data analysis and computing power at the problem? MixShape takes Spotify’s vast music library and couples it with some heavy data analysis from The Echo Nest to give you a graphical representation of the high-energy peaks and down-tempo valleys of a given playlist. Once you have a base to work from (either…

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Microsoft

Microsoft updates Mail, Calendar and People apps in Windows 8, Windows RT

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As reported on Engadget. By Dana Wollman Just as last week was winding down, we heard a credible rumor that Microsoft was about to update some of the native apps found in Windows 8 / Windows RT. Turns out, that report was on the money: the company unveiled some changes today to Mail, Calendar and People, with a particular focus on speed improvements. None of these updates will be available to download until tonight or tomorrow, says a…

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