microsoft news

If asking digital assistants to play music, answer questions, read stories, and tell jokes,tu on lights, lock doors is your thing, then Amazon Echo(3rd Gen) is definitely a great product and in many...

The best feature of the Microsoft Store is the security of having your apps curated and checked, meaning it is a much safer source of applications.The second best feature is that apps are automatically updated, without needing a constantly ruing background updater in your system tray.Now a new feature of Windows 10 RS4 App Installer means this feature will...

Snapchat has now aped an Instagram feature for once, rather than the latter.The firm has introduced Giphy integration (via The Verge), into the app, a...

After a brief beta testing period, Larry Hryb has aounced that party chat is now available through the Xbox app on Android and iOS mobile devices.As...

Facebook has left no stones untued when it comes to copying features from Snapchat. Now it looks like the social media giant is rolling out a new feature for Instagram which is again a copy from Snapchat. The new feature will notify users if someone is taking screenshots of their stories.The new feature will send a popup saying the other person will be notified that you have taken the screenshot. If you thought this was the end of it then you’re wrong. Instagram will send notification if you take a screenshot of a photo someone sent you in private message. The app will send a notification saying that the other user has taken a screenshot of the photo you sent them. Both of the features are s...

Snap is finally expanding to the desktop web from mobile, kinda sorta.The first step towards that appears to be a web-app for viewing stories on Snap maps. Much like when one is using the actual app, it only shows stories that you or your friends choose to post to the local story feed. You’ll be unable to see any of your friends snaps on there if you’re a current Snapchat user, and it’d be useless if that was your intention.Of course, it’s more likely that Snapchat intends non-users to use this app to view popular local stories, like say a concert nearby, or a festival in a park. If users find the concept of stories attractive, they’ll be more likely to download the app itself and give Snap ...

We first saw evidence of Microsoft’s app-specific preview program with the Photos app, and now it appears Microsoft is rolling out the feature to other core applications, such as the Camera,Alarm and Clock and other apps.The feature means individual Windows 10 Insiders will be invited to test updated versions of the apps and provide feedback, without a wide semi-public rollout program.“You’ll be one of the first to try out new features in the preview version of Camera, and your feedback will shape the future of the app,” the invitation to the Camera Preview reads.The new phase of the program could mean Microsoft can iterateon applications more rapidly and separate from new builds of Windows,...

The lack of meaningful applications in the Microsoft Store is its biggest issue, making it rather surprising that Microsoft is demanding that developers remove their application from the store.That is however exactly what is happening, as Microsoft is demanding companies remove their app from the store if they have the word windows as part of the name.Victims of the policy have included WindowsArea.de and DrWindows, who both have apps in the store, some of them since 2012.It is ironically Microsoft’s biggest fans who are affected, and some wonder whether Microsoft will next assert copyright on the Windows name when it forms part of the name or URL.Once again it seems Microsoft’s policies are...

Snap has been struggling over the past year with Facebook caibalizing its core product with the powerand cumulative billion dollar strong userbases of Instagram and WhatsApp, but signs are emerging that the company’s fortunes are on the way up.The firm issued a redesign toattract more users and stem the haemorrhage, rolling it out to a limited group over the last 3 months., with a wider roll-out this week.While the redesign has been paed by many users, the firm expected the adjustment period. In a speech given to Snap shareholders earlier this week, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said “As expected, it will take time for our community to get used to the changes, but overall, we are pleased with the in...

Microsoft today released the preview of the February feature update for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows 10 Mobile devices. With this v17.9029 update, you can easily find out who has edited your presentation and what changes they’ve made by checking out the slides that have a green highlight.What determines whether changes are highlighted:This feature works on shared documents stored in OneDrive and SharePoint.Changes are highlighted only when the person who makes the change is using PowerPoint 2016 version 8403 or later.Changes aren’t highlighted if revision data has been tued off for the document in the Trust Center Privacy Options:If you are an Office Insider, you can download thes...

Facebook is testing a new story maps feature, akin to Snapchat’s own snap maps feature.For the uninformed, Snap maps showcase the locations of Snapchat users relative to their chosen friends on a map. It also allows users to see popular stories around them. If there was an event, for instance, users would be able to view snaps shared from that location to Snapchat’s ‘Our Story’ remotely.Facebook seems to be moving towards that path, with an option to share your stories to “world” being tested. This would probably let you share your stories with the world much like Snapchat’s ‘Our Story’, and then show up whenever someone checks our your geographic location.NEW: Facebook is testing a Snapchat...

Microsoft recently aounced a new simplified experience that will allow enterprise users to easily sign into all their Azure AD-coected applications. Previously, The My Apps portal was the single centralized location for users to launch their Azure AD-coected applications. Now, Microsoft has released an updated My Apps browser extension for Edge, Chrome and Firefoxbrowsers through which users can sign into password-based single sign-on applications by navigating directly to the sign-in page for the application.Users can click the browser extension icon, select an app, and be signed into the app without navigating to the My Apps page. When they click this button, they’ll also see shortcuts to ...

Microsoft has released updates for Office Mobile apps on Windows 10 devices including tablets and phones. This latest update takes the apps to version 17.9001 and bring the followingimprovements:WordQuick editing of equations: Word now supports the creation and editing of equationsExcelUpdating PivotTables and more: If you already have PivotTables, you can update, sort and filter data directly on your device (requires Office 365)PowerPointCorrection of minor bugsYou can download the Office Mobile apps from the Microsoft Store.Via Plaffo.com...

It’s rather hard when your biggest success is also your biggest millstone, but for Microsoft the x86 Win32 platform has been both their biggest blessing and biggest curse, leading to their ubiquitous presence in every office and most households around the world, and also leaving them with an insecure platform which is difficult to monetize and manage.Microsoft has been trying since Windows 8 to move Windows users onto a more controlled platform, but efforts like Windows RT and Windows 10 S have invariably floundered due to the lack of power offered by the Windows Store when compared to the estimated 8 million Win32 apps available easily and often freely on the inteet.Microsoft is not well kn...

Google’s ChromeOS has been taking on more PC like traits in the past few months.Google finally introduced Google Play to ChromeOS after a long beta period and brought more desktop-like computing through Android apps. However, there were a few things missing from the experience to make it truly competitive. One of the most notable was Android Parallel tasks. The lack of Parallel tasks meant that ChromeOS couldn’t run two Android apps on the screen at the same time, opting to freeze one whilethe other was in focus. For most Chromebooks ruing Android apps, switching away from an app would lead to that app losing focus and no longer updating.Trivial use cases might mean a music app not showing w...

With the release of Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft introduced a new feature which restored the apps ruing before the PC was shut down. Microsoft took this approach to preserve your work and to increase productivity.While the feature is handy, it does cause problems and surely users are not happy about it.Fortunately, there’s a workaround for the users who still want a fresh start when they tu on their computers. The most basic approach you can take is to shut down the computer after closing all the open windows and applications. Another way is to use Alt+F4 shortcut instead of going to Start>Power Button>Shut Down.If you don’t want to go through this many steps then there’s...

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, has been fighting stalling growth as Facebook-backed competitors Instagram and Messenger steal its best features.One of Snapchat’s best-receivedfeatures was Stories, which was rapidly copied by Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp. Till now you had to be a fellow Snapchat user to share your Snapchat Story, and given that the Snapchat user base is much smaller than the nearly billion Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp users, it meant you could reach more people by publishing your story on those platforms, making Snapchat’s insular system, previously a positive, now a negative.Now according to a report by Cheddar, Snapchat is looking to open up stories with a ...

Back in 2016, Microsoft acquired a game streaming and broadcasting service Beam which was later renamed to Mixer. Microsoft has since taken huge steps to integrate Mixer into Windows 10 by introducing an option to stream directly using Game Bar and no extra software. This indeed was a positive step since gamers had to use multiple applications to stream the gameplay on different websites or social media.This, however, meant that Microsoft didn’t plan to release Mixer app for Windows 10 since the streaming capabilities were embedded into the Game Bar. The company did eventually release the app for Android and iOS but left Windows 10 users to use the website. Now an independent developer took ...

It seems one of Microsoft’s Garage projects is set to make it pretty big.Microsoft Launcher, which started as the Arrow Launcher, was the creation of Microsoft’s Garage team, theMicrosoft program that encourages employees to work on projects that they are passionate about, even if they have no relation to their primary function within the company.In recent years most of their projects have been for iOS and Android, and I suspect it is true to say most have not made any impact (who remembersParchi and Torque.) With the Microsoft Launcher, however, it seems the team finally has a hit on their hands.Recently we reported that Microsoft Launcher has been downloaded 10 million times and is heading...

Update:Larry Hryb has officially aounced the new feature. You can sign-up for the iOS Xbox beta app here. It is still available on Android devices as well.The newest beta of the Xbox app on Android today introduces the party chat to your mobile device. It appears Microsoft is testing this feature to allow you to interact with your Xbox party similar to how it’s done on the Nintendo Switch (via Engadget).Microsoft has not officially aounced this new feature, but it’s safe to say it should be releasing for everyone eventually seeing as people have spotted it on the app’s page. If anything, the company is certainly looking into the ability and is interested in testing it out. While many critici...