microsoft news

In January 2019 last year the US Department of Justice charged Huawei and a number of US subsidiaries with a large number of offences, including money laundering, bank fraud and more.Now the DoJ has u...

Slack has just aounced their 3rd quarter eaings, and have beat analyst expectations with revenue of $168.7 million, $10 million more than analysts expected.Slack also reported that they now have m...

It seems everything is coming up roses for Satya Nadella’s Microsoft. After topping Apple to become the most valuable company in the world, the company has come on top of another rating of 890 compan...

A new security vulnerability in Skype for Windows desktop app was revealed last month. The issue was in the Skype Updater tool that keeps the Skype app on Windows always up-to-date. In order to prevent new users from downloading the vulnerable app, Microsoft pulled the app from the web. Microsoft has now fixed the issue and they have made the Skype for Windows desktop app available for consumers. Skype customers can now resume download and install of the official Skype for Windows desktop v7.41 from the Downloads page.This Skype desktop app is supported on PCs ruing Windows 7 and higher only. There is currently no support for Windows XP and Vista PCs.Source: Microsoft via: OnMSFT...

Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine has been growing at an accelerating rate over the last few years, managing 15% YoY growth in the last quarter. Comscore has however stopped providing monthly updates on the market share of the various search engines, so it is difficult to say exactly how well it is doing.Speaking at Natchcon, a conference for natural brands, Microsoft, however, revealed an update on the current status of the search engine and revealed that a full 20% of all searches in USA, including both desktop and mobile, were taking place on Bing in December 2017.This number is quite impressive, given how prominent searches in mobile have become. Microsoft has, of course, developed their Bi...

We reported a few days ago thatmajor European trade organizations also weighed in on Microsoft’s side in a long-ruing 2013 data jurisdiction case, with Microsoft is currently in the US Supreme Court fighting a data request by the DoJ for information held in Ireland on their servers on an Irish resident. Now Microsoft’s chief counsel Brad Smith has revealed that this was just one of 23 amicus briefs filed with the US Supreme Court in support of Microsoft’s position that the DoJ should request data held by Microsoft overseas via normal treaty process rather than forcing Microsoft to hand it over without any local approval, which may breach rules in the originating country. “On Thursday, 289 d...

Sometime back we reported HP using a keylogger on recent laptops which tued out to be just a minor mistake from HP’s side. As it tus out the company forgot another keylogger in the keyboard driver. The keylogger can be a potential threat to security as it is recording every keystroke on the computer. If you remember, HP was accused of spyware installation sometime back which tued out to be a telemetry client but many users complained that the software was installed without permission.But, before you get worried, bear this in mind, the keylogger in the HP Synaptics Touchpad driver keyboard driver is not enabled by default. You need to make registry edits to enable it on the device. This point...

Oh dear. Apple appears to be in the habit of leaving their users exposed to whichever villainous person happens to pass by.Last time we describedApple’s approach to security to be the same as leaving your door unlocked in a quiet area – OK until some-onenefarious comes along and actually tries the door.Little did we know a week later Apple would actually be leaving physical doors open to hackers.9to5Mac reports that Apple’s Homekit has a vulnerability which would allow hackers to unlock your smart-lock-equipped doors, switch your thermostat on and off or mess in any way they wanted with your smart home.The vulnerability has not been described and has been patched via a server-side update whi...

It seems Apple is determined to make it super-easy for MacOS users to be casually hacked by passersby. We wrote recently of a MacOS High Sierra bug (or is it just pure negligence) which meant the OS shipped without a root password, meaning anyone could walk past your locked Mac laptop, casually log in and reformat your hard drive, amongst other nefarious things.Apple rushes out a patch, with rush being the operative word. Not only did the patchbreak some file-sharing functions on High Sierra, causing Apple to re-issue another patch, but now it appears simply updating the OS undoes the patch, leaving users vulnerable again.Wired reports that those who had not yet upgraded their operating sys...

Star Wars Battlefront II’s loot box controversy gathered mainstream attention around the world, and it looks like the situation isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Now, govement officials from the United States, Australia, and Belgium have weighed in ...

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite has the fortune of being a crossover between two beloved universes which have already met up several times in the past. This time, however, the Infinity Stones make Infinite unlike any other entry in the series. Some of the changes implemented are a step back from previous games, but other mechanics only add to its appeal.The story mode began with no real tutorial (thou...

Bluehole, developers of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), the first standalone Battle Royale survival shooter, responded today to growing conces regarding the similarities between the battle royale mode in Epic Games’ newly-revealed Fortnite and PUBG.“We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG’s development as they are the creators of Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), the engine ...

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is the first expansion for Dishonored 2, continuing the story of Billie Lurk (Meagan Foster) and her old mentor Daud as they go after their biggest target yet: the Outsider himself. The premise alone should indicate how important this expansion is within the Dishonored universe. Every story so far has been tied to the Outsider bestowing powers upon those he deemed...

[embedded content] Professional reviewer Chris Gower has reviewed the new Samsung Galaxy Book vs his old Surface Pro 3 and Microsoft’s Surface tablets in general, looking at the strengthsand weaknesses of each device. Samsung’s Galaxy Book comes with a redesigned detachable backlit keyboard, a tilt-recognition S Pen that supports 4,000 points of pressure and Windows 10 Pro. It is powered by 7th G...

Microsoft has won a court injunction against Russian hacking group Fancybear this Tuesday, baing them from hacking Microsoft computers or using their trademarks. The US District Court for the Easte District of Virginia permanently enjoined Fancy Bears from sending malicious software or code to infect Microsoft or Microsoft’s customers without authorization. Of course telling criminals that t...

Back in 2015 when Microsoft has pushed out the Windows 10 upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, part of the process was pre-downloading between 6-8 GB of installation files, which famously nearly bankrupted a nature conservation service in Africa and which was blamed for causing issues to the PCs of many Windows users. It appears German Windows users were similarly unimpressed by the move and complained to their local consumer protection council (Verbraucherschutz). After 18 months and many legal manoeuvresby Microsoft, they finally agreed to a cease and desist and promised: Microsoft w...

When we last wrote about the newly leaked renders of Fitbit’s Project Higgs smartwatch we concentrated more on the appearance of the device and rumours around its app store, but ReadWrite.com notes that they reveal something much more important, at least when it comes to Fitbit’s future in the wearables market place. Fitbit used to dominate the wearables market, but Apple’s increasing focus on fitness and built-in ecosystem have seen the earlier market leader slip to 3rd place according to the IDC. Fitbit’s Project Higgs smartwatch is their attempt to get back on an even playing field with A...

Microsoft earlier aounced a skip ahead “ring” for Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring in July, allowing them to skip ahead of the current Windows Insider builds, and jump to pre release builds as well as receive early updates to in-box apps like Groove, Mail and so on. On the day it was aounced, ...