Microsoft will finally try to repair the Surface RT Wi-Fi bug today as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updates that will also comprise several fixes for Windows RT platforms.
The update addresses “limited Wi-Fi connection issues and contains driver updates to improve performance with Windows as well as the volume and power buttons”.
The Surface team confirmed in an AMA session on Reddit a few days ago that Microsoft would release two different patches for the bug, one expected to be released on February 12 and another one due in March.
“Wifi connection robustness has been improved with the Feb 12 Windows Update. Another version is in the works and will release Mar 12,” the team said on Reddit.
To see if you received the update, you can click on the upper right portion of the screen or swipe in from the right edge. Click on Settings, and tap onChange PC settings. Then, tap on Windows Update and Check for Updates.
Unlike Apple or Google, Microsoft doesn’t provide a very clear numbering system for its Windows RT updates. Apple, for example, uses nomenclature like “iOS 6.1.1”, while that seems to be nonexistent on the Microsoft side. This update is simply being called the “February update.”
At any rate, it’s good to see Microsoft addressing issues that users may be seeing, relatively quickly.
Apple Inc has been ordered to appear before Australia’s parliament with fellow technology giants Microsoft Inc and Adobe Systems Inc to explain why local consumers pay so much for their products, despite the strong Aussie dollar.
The House of Representatives launched a probe in July last year to see if some goods were more expensive in Australia than in other parts of the world.
Consumer bodies have often complained that Australians are overcharged.
The firms have previously made written submissions to the committee but have so far declined to appear in person. They are now scheduled to appear before the committee on 22 March.
Ed Husic, a member of the Australian House of Representatives, says that some estimates suggest Australian prices on some products are up to 60 percent higher than in the U.S. Husic told Kotaku Australia that “in what’s probably the first time anywhere in the world, these IT firms are now being summonsed by the Australian Parliament to explain why they price their products so much higher in Australia compared to in the U.S. Adobe, Apple and Microsoft are just a few firms that have continually defied the public’s call for answers and refused to appear before the IT Pricing Inquiry.
Husic took aim at Apple last week over local taxes paid by the company, telling parliament that Apple generated A$6 billion in revenue in Australia in 2011, but paid only A$40 million in tax – less than one percent of turnover.
Amitesh Deshpande receiving the grand prize from Mr Mor, Business Group Lead – Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd
Five Champions from across India. Five action packed games. Eight hours of continuous gaming. The atmosphere electric, the brawls rough. And finally, one prevailed to be crowned the king of Xfriends- The Ultimate Gaming Challenge.
After months of relentless gaming across seven separate blockbuster titles on Xbox Live such as FIFA 13, Resident Evil 6, Halo 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and more, five national champions emerged. Yesterday, these champions took on each other in rounds of brutal battles to find the best amongst them. Xbox lovers and gamers across India took part in the Ultimate Xfriends gaming championship- the ultimate gaming competition on Xbox LIVE that pits gamers against each other. ‘Ultimate Xfriends’ , launched in September 2012- sought the best gamers across Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and India – the guys who’ll do whatever it takes to win. And they did do whatever it takes.
The grand prize, a 24 K Gold plated Xbox 360 console
At the thrilling grand finale of Xfriends, held at the FoG (Federation of Gamers) lounge in Delhi, the search for India’s best gamer finally ended. Amitesh Deshpande –who went head to head with five other really tough national competitors – took home a mega prize of an exclusive 24 K gold plated Xbox 360 console and the title of Ultimate Gaming Champion in India.
[quote]Battle weary but ecstatic about his win, Amitesh Deshpande said, “It’s awesome to be a winner and that too for a competition like this which got me playing against India’s best gamers on Xbox Live. It has been a tough fight, which made it all the more exciting to win against such good competitors. As Xbox Live lets me take my Xbox 360 online anytime, it’s the place for players (like me) to hang out and hone our/their gaming skills. I really hope Microsoft and Xbox bring us these events regularly. ”[/quote]
Anshu Mor, Business Group Lead – Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. said, ” These are some of the most exciting gamers one can find anywhere in Asia, in fact across the world. The level of competition seen here today is very, very impressive; the place is absolutely buzzing with their energy. To see them compete so fiercely, all for the love of gaming on Xbox, is very thrilling, exciting and inspiring for us. Moreover, the competitors have come from cities as far away as Trivandrum, Chhattisgarh, Raipur, etc. making it all the more special for us.”
We managed to talk to Mr. Mor about Microsofts plans ahead, stay tuned to know more!
On January 30, Canadian mobile phone maker BlackBerry officially launched its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, and confirmed that the Skype application will be available for it. On Skype’s support page, the company detailed that its BlackBerry 10 app will be a port of its Android app.
[quote]”If you have a new BlackBerry smartphone powered by the BlackBerry 10 platform, you will soon be able to download and run Skype on these devices. We are working closely with BlackBerry to ensure the Skype for Android app runs great in the BlackBerry 10 environment.”[/quote]
Skype for BlackBerry 10 will be a port of the company’s already-poor Android app. While Microsoft seems to be eager to pour resources into mobile app development on iOS, the Android app has suffered from poor performance and incomplete tablet support for some time. A port to BlackBerry 10 will likely pale in comparison to a native experience, and won’t come close to the new BBM Audio and Video features bundled in the new OS.
In other words, Microsoft is wasting an opportunity here. Or, more realistically, they’re taking a wait-and-see approach to the whole thing, satisfied to say that it has something available for BlackBerry 10, even if it merely a rough port of its existing Android code.
Given the majority of BlackBerry 10 apps are Android ports, does this pose a problem for BlackBerry 10 users? Let us know below!
Microsoft has taken aim at Google before with its ‘Scroogled’ advertising campaign, and now it’s revived the attack tactics, slating Gmail’s policy of reading your emails to target ads.
“Think Google respects your privacy? Think again,” says Microsoft’s advert. It says that nasty Google goes through your every email, reading every word, so it can target ads to you based on what you’re writing about.
[quote]”Emails are personal — and people feel that reading through their emails to sell ads is out of bounds,” said Stefan Weitz, senior director of Online Services at Microsoft in a statement. “We honor the privacy of our Outlook.com users, and we are concerned that Google violates that privacy every time an Outlook.com user exchanges messages with someone on Gmail. This campaign is as much about protecting Outlook.com users from Gmail as it is about making sure Gmail users know what Google’s doing.”[/quote]
To illustrate this, Microsoft has a pair of shifty-looking eyes reading an email. Outlook.com, however, “prioritises privacy”, according to the ad.
In a press release pushed out today, Microsoft said the Scroogled campaign is also an attempt to educate Americans on some of the bad practices used by email providers. A study commissioned by Microsoft reveals that 70% of consumers “don’t know that major email providers routinely engage in the practice of reading through their personal email to sell ads”, while a larger 88% disapprove of the practice.
Previously Microsoft has used the “Scroogled” catch-phrase to warn users against Google Shopping’s practices, but today sees the campaign expanded into a much wider attack on Google and their advertising methods. Gmail has been targeted this time around, but it’s likely more services will be highlighted in future campaigns.
Today, Microsoft Corporation announced the availability of Office 365 for consumers, a reinvention of the company’s flagship Office product line. Families can now subscribe to Office 365 Home Premium, which includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across five PCs/Macs plus five mobile devices; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage.
[quote]“This isn’t just another version of Office. This is Office reinvented as a consumer cloud service,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft Corp. “Together with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Office 365 gives you the freedom to do things when and how you want.”[/quote]
Microsoft also announced it will now deliver many new features and services to the cloud first, transforming the company’s traditional three-year release cycle. Now, new features and services stream to subscribers as soon as they’re ready, eliminating the hassles of upgrading and keeping subscribers always up-to-date.
[quote] “This is a major leap forward,” said Ramkumar Pichai, GM – Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft India. “It’s a service designed to help you manage the tasks of your work and home life, wherever you are, whenever you need, online or offline. Also, it’s a perfect fit for busy families and individuals who can connect multiple devices with a single subscription.”[/quote]
The new 365 Home Premium will be available for purchase in India at an annual subscription of INR 4,199/-. Simultaneously, Microsoft also announced in India the availability of the updated FPP version of its traditional Office suite for consumers – Office Home and Student 2013.
Microsoft says its fourth-quarter earnings slipped 4 percent, despite a lift from its latest version of Windows.
The Redmond, Washington-based software giant posted revenue of $21.46 billion and net income of $6.38 billion, with earnings per share of 77 cents. That’s largely in line with what Wall Street had been expecting, though a bit lower on the revenue side and higher on the earnings side — ahead of today’s financial report, the analyst consensus was that Microsoft would post earnings of 75 cents a share on $21.53 billion in revenue.
The results announced Thursday are the first to include Windows 8. The program is a dramatic overhaul of the Microsoft Corp operating system that powers most PCs. Windows 8 came out 26 October with slightly more than two months left in Microsoft’s fiscal second quarter.
When Windows 8 finally hit the market, Microsoft also unveiled its own tablet computer, Surface, as a showcase for the operating system. Microsoft didn’t disclose Thursday how many Surface devices were sold in the October-December period.
Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, which is responsible for the Xbox and Surface, saw an 11% decline from last year, with only $3.77 billion of revenue. This comes after Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 was the top-selling gaming console for two years straight. It looks like holiday sales weren’t as great as the company expected.
Microsoft’s Online Services division saw more growth, however, with $869 million in revenue, which is an 11% increase year-over-year. Thanks to the upcoming Office 365 suite and SkyDrive, Microsoft’s online services don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, especially with the deal that Microsoft made with the city of Chicago to bring Office 365 services to city employees.
According to Microsoft’s Colombian Facebook page, the long-awaited Windows Phone 7.8 upgrade is set to roll out on January 31st.
Handsets stuck on Windows Phone 7.5 have not been treated to the plush Windows Phone 8 OS which is reserved for new handsets. Version 7.8 their only salvation, but it’s been slow coming.
The update mainly addresses the home screen, which will match Windows Phone 8 for the ability to resize tiles according to users’ needs. Other tweaks, such Bluetooth file transfers and new theme colours, are minor at best but will address a few lingering issues with the soon-to-be-deprecated operating system. Considering newer WP7.5 devices like the Nokia Lumia 900 are less than a year old, the lack of a true software update is sure to be grating.
But Microsoft has made the difficult and likely-correct decision to focus its resources on Windows Phone 8, which shares a kernel with its desktop counterpart and supports multi-core processors, high-definition screens and a larger number of development tools.
It usually takes a few weeks for an update to hit every handset, so you may be looking at mid-February before you’re treated to Windows Phone 7.8.
Owners of Windows Phone 8 devices can now download and install a new application on their devices, namely Speedtest.net, which has been available for other mobile platforms out there for quite some time now.
The Speedtest.net web interface has been used by millions of people all over the world to test whether or not they are getting what they pay for from their ISPs. The site was originally launched to provide performance indicators of the tested network, but has grown to include a portfolio of official mobile apps as well as a reporting mechanism to see how ISPs around the world are performing, with the idea in mind that being able to name and shame companies should keep service providers honest. Windows Phone 8 users can now count themselves as part of the official experience.
The application already has millions of users, and arrives on Windows Phone 8 devices with the same features and capabilities as on other platforms.
One word of note though: judging by the comments left on the application it appears that some owners of the Lumia 920 on USA’s AT&T are having issues running the program, but the majority of people who have downloaded the application, on the other hand, say that it works as intended. They also seem to dig the new user interface.
Speedtest.net is a free app for Windows Phone 8 devices and you can find it here in the Windows Phone Store.
Building upon a series of reports about Microsoft’s apparent efforts to bring its Office productivity suite to iOS, The Verge last month shared a few screenshots and noted that the suite would be offered in early 2013 as a set of free apps with viewing abilities that could be upgraded with basic editing tools through a Microsoft 360 subscription. Microsoft has, however, been rather cryptic in its public comments on the Office for iOS project, leaving a number of questions about just what the company’s plans are.
Today, with special thanks to Microsoft Romania, there’s a slight sign of progress and confirmation. As noted by Mac4ever, references to several Office for iOS applications have begun creeping into Microsoft’s support site, albeit as product tags that appear to have been applied improperly to support articles. In their support documents they reveal “Office Mobile for iPhone” and list “Excel for iPad,” “PowerPoint for iPad.” Unfortunately there’s no other information about specifically when Microsoft will make this available. In addition, Microsoft Office for Android is also expected early 2013.
Like other Microsoft apps, the leaked Office Mobile for iPhone uses Microsoft’s “Metro” Modern UI design language. The app appears to support all files types and syncs them via SkyDrive.
The Software giant will likely limit the mobile apps when they do come to iPhone and iPad. The company will likely require Office 365 for certain aspects of the apps like the ability to edit or create new documents.
WP8 would share the same kernel as that of Windows 8 and Windows RT
The Windows Phone Store now has over 120,000 apps ranging from photo apps to those that help you stay in touch with friends across the globe. Out of the top 50 apps available for iPhone and Android, 46 of them are available for Windows Phone 8. Back in June, the company had announced that it had crossed 100,000 published apps, and now a 20 percent increase in just six months is something to applaud.
For Microsoft, growing its app store is an important goal around fostering the image of the Windows Phone platform. Seeing as consumers love apps, having a plethora of them available for download is a critical selling point.
Microsoft has also announced that since Windows Phone 8 was launched a few weeks back, WP developers have witnessed more than 100% increase in revenue. While the company didn’t give the specifics, it does seem that WP apps are finally gaining some traction among the users, something which is certainly good news for the developers who have invested their time and money into developing Windows Phone 8 apps.
Microsoft has finally put a price tag on the Surface tablet variant which will come with Windows 8 Pro. The Microsoft Surface was announced earlier this year and went on sale in the beginning of November in the US. While Microsoft has failed to move numbers, many owners are surprisingly happy with their devices. Microsoft plans to up the ante with a Pro edition packing Microsoft’s full fledged Windows 8 Pro.
It’s confirmed in a Microsoft blog post that the device will start at $899 for the 64GB model, and the higher capacity version with 128GB storage will cost $999. The Pro packing Surface also has a “Standalone” moniker which means you’ll get a Surface pen/stylus, but the touch/type covers will cost anothe US$100. Both capacity variants will be available in January, with no word on dates.
The Surface Pro will resemble the Surface RT and, including the same “VaporMg” casing and built-in kickstand, boasts a 10.6-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The upgraded Surface will also have a full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, 3rd Gen Intel Core i5 Processor with Intel HD Graphics 4000, 4GB of RAM, a Mini DisplayPort that can output a 2560 x 1440 resolution, a full-size USB 3.0 port and Windows 8 Pro with support for all desktop applications.
Microsoft has found the issue that’s causing some Windows Phone 8 users devices to randomly reboot. It’s certainly frustrating and it’s happen to other platforms in the past.
Hundreds of users of the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X smartphones have reported on Internet forums that their phones were repeatedly and spontaneously rebooting. The reports identified several different mobile operators in the U.S. and Europe. The forums didn’t identify a consistent culprit for the problem.
Initially, it was speculated that the patch to fix the rebooting issue will be part of a larger software update for the platform, known as Apollo Plus, that would bring added features. However, it looks like as the problem has been identified, Microsoft may not want to wait and is rolling out the patch ahead of Apollo Plus.
Unfortunately Microsoft isn’t specifically saying what’s causing this, only stating that it’s not them but “with our partners.” No indication if it’s a manufacturer, carrier or app developer. However, according to AllThingsD a fix is en route OTA in December.
There’s no mistaking the fact that, despite Windows Phone 8’s extensive feature set and countless improvements over its predecessor, there were a few notable omissions in the final Windows product.
Microsoft admitted that it ran out of time to bring a new notification centre to the OS, and basic enterprise features like VPN support were also omitted at launch.
To that end, the company plans to introduce a software update for Windows Phone 8, currently dubbed “Apollo+”, early next year, likely during Mobile World Congress in February.
Also expected to make an appearance in the update, which may be the first to use Microsoft’s new over-the-air infrastructure, will be fixes for WiFi disconnecting when the screen is turned off, corrections for audio glitches, and the possibility of notification improvements.
Last but not least, it’s said that Microsoft plans to test the ability to receive Windows Phone 8 updates via OTA (over the air), but it’s not yet decided whether this change will be introduced with Apollo Plus update.
Microsoft’s newest big-time brand, Skype, has just been updated to version 3.0 for Android. With it comes a brand new interface for tablets, though Microsoft didn’t seem to think that anyone uses a Nexus 7 since the frame is forced into landscape mode. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next update.
Much like the desktop client or iPad application, the new Android version offers a two-column approach aimed at simplifying multitasking. For example, users can now easily access IM messages without leaving a video call.
The claim to improved sound is credible. The variability of Skype’s audio makes it hard to pin down, but apparently there’s a better audio codec called SILK which copes with varying speeds and improves the capture of deep, bassy, tones, like those of Morgan Freeman.
