Author: Microsoft Stories

Turn 10 and Microsoft recently launched the open beta of Forza Motorspot 6 Apex on Windows 10 and it gave a chance to see how it fares against the Xbox One version. Forza Motorspot 6 Apex marks the first instance that the series will be losing its console exclusivity and will be heading to Windows 10 later this year. To begin with, Turn 10 Studios have added a plethora of graphical settings in the game. Players can change the Dynamic Rendering Quality, Shadow Quality, Particle Effects and more. The Xbox One version used an EQAA solution while the PC build uses MSAA, an expensive but a much better solution than EQAA. As a result, the image quality is much sharper compared to the console version.

Perfect World Entertainment, the publisher for Star Trek: Online announced that the game is going to be coming to the Xbox One this fall. Because the game has been in existence in one form or another for years now, when it hits consoles, it will be bringing over 130 featured episodes and 11 seasons worth of content. Familiar races and classes, as well as ships and characters, are all included in this version.

Eka Software Solutions, a global provider of smart commodity management, said that its next-generation CTRM software has been seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This solution provides the best of both worlds for commodities companies that seek the most advanced solutions to manage trading and risk as well as accounting. Eka’s next-generation CTRM software, InSight CM, is an advanced transaction management platform, suitable for a wide range of commodities in the agriculture, manufacturing, metals, and energy industries. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an easy to use accounting package that provides businesses greater control over financials.

Microsoft’s ever-growing library of backwards compatible games just got a little bigger. Starting with Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut, Xbox One is now capable of multi-disc backwards compatibility. ‘Yes, ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut’ was the first multi-disc Backward Compatible title added to the program. Fans had been asking for this feature and the engineers worked hard developing a solution to enable it so Microsoft could further expand the titles included in Xbox One Backward Compatibility.

Microsoft is planning to support fingerprint readers for the first time in Windows 10 Mobile this summer. While we’ve seen facial recognition thanks to Windows Hello, unlocking Windows phones with just a fingerprint has been missing. Microsoft revealed at its WinHEC conference this week that it plans to support fingerprint scanners with the Anniversary Update to Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile.

Microsoft this week announced Windows 10 Build 14342 for PCs, Azure expansion into South Korea and Canada, and the end of MSN China and the Sunrise calendar app. This week’s updates from Redmond focused on Windows 10, Azure, MSN China, and Outlook 2016 for Mac. Windows Insiders in the Fast ring received preview build 14342 for PCs. This update brought improvements to Microsoft Edge, Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, and updates for Action Center, Windows Ink Workspace, and the Skype UWP preview.

A couple of days before Satya Nadella took over the reins at Microsoft, co-Founder Paul Allen described the role as “one of the toughest jobs in the world.” The fortunes of the tech company were in a desperate need of “rebooting its corporate culture” as Nadella took up his role. A little over two years into the job, Nadella seems to have done just that. From creating a culture around One Microsoft, the company’s focus is more on people (both customers and employees), with devices being innovated for the ‘Mobile first, cloud first’ world.

Android Wear smartwatch users can now run a ‘Lite’ version of Microsoft’s Windows 7 on an it. To get the smartwatch to boot to Windows 7 there are a couple of requirements. Firstly, one would need an Android Wear-based smartwatch, a desktop with ADB drivers, the Android Debug Bridge turned on and the knowledge in DOS and ADB commands. Watch the video to know how.

Microsoft’s Project Spark announced in 2013 will be discontinued from August this year. Community Manager Thomas Gratz, said, “This was an extremely difficult decision for our team that we do not take lightly. When “Project Spark” transitioned away from active development last fall, many of our team members moved to other projects within Microsoft Studios. While this means there have been no layoffs at Microsoft, it also means it’s simply no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping “Project Spark” up and running with meaningful updates and bug fixes, so we have come to this hard decision.”

Anyone can get into the private beta of Microsoft’s new GigJam productivity service. It is aimed at helping teams to collaborate in real time over the Internet. GigJam combines data from a variety of services including Microsoft’s own Office 365, Trello, Dropbox, and Salesforce. Users can then bring that information into a shared workspace, allowing them to quickly work together.