Author: Microsoft Stories

Hear to Sanjay Ravi, Microsoft’s car tech boss, tell it, there’s one really big reason that auto manufacturers are picking the Redmond giant to power their efforts here. Ravi says, Microsoft’s whole existing business roadmap under CEO Satya Nadella slots right into the connected car business. And none of it involves making a car. To Microsoft, the new gameplan is to provide apps, tools, and services to anybody, wherever they want to use them. So far, that’s meant stuff like Microsoft Office apps on iPhone and a more robust set of Microsoft Azure cloud services for app developers. “Cars of the future are going to look like your office on wheels, or like your living room on wheels,” Ravi says.

HARMAN, the premier connected technologies company for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, announced a connected car collaboration with Microsoft Corp. at CES 2016. This project will introduce new mobile productivity services, as well as utilize existing products, services and technologies, including cloud platforms, telematics and driver productivity, to offer better convenience, safety and reliability for drivers and greater operating efficiency for auto manufacturers. Most importantly, the collaboration will integrate key elements of Microsoft Office 365 productivity suite capabilities into HARMAN infotainment systems.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), January 6-9, IAV and Microsoft will be demonstrating a connected highly automated driving (CHAD) vehicle capable of connecting with the Microsoft Azure cloud and Windows 10 to enable communication that helps prevent vehicle and pedestrian accidents and increases driving comfort and convenience.

As announced by CEO Satya Nadella in November last year, Microsoft is all set to bring its Surface Pro 4 tablet to India on January 7. This is the first time that the Microsoft Surface tablet will be officially available in the Indian market. The new tablet will come with Windows Hello, an automatic biometric sign-in option introduced 1st year. The feature allows users to scan their face, iris or fingerprints to verify their identity and give them access to Windows phones, laptops and personal computers.

NICE Systems announced the compatibility of its multi-channel recording platform with Microsoft’s latest unified communications platform Skype for Business. Enterprises will benefit from having a single platform to manage both internal and external communications, while also being fully equipped to capture all customer interactions for security, compliance and quality management purposes. This will enable organizations to seamlessly engage customers over multiple channels, while also recording, storing and archiving these interactions using the NICE Engage platform.

Microsoft Corp’s latest operating system, Windows 10, is running on 200 million devices in what the company said was the fastest adoption rate of any of its operating systems. Windows 10, which the company released as a free download in July, powers both personal computers and devices like phones. Just over two months ago, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said 110 million devices were running Windows 10, meaning the system is now on almost double the number of phones and PCs compared to before the holiday season.

Microsoft hyped up this year’s list of Xbox One exclusives to be the greatest in its history and it certainly didn’t disappoint. As Phil Spencer’s rise to the head of the Xbox division commenced, we saw a return to hardcore gaming and a wealth of great releases worth spending time on. And the winner of best Xbox One game of 2015 is Forza Motorsport 6.
With more than 450 cars across a range of different leagues, a lengthy Career mode and an extensive Showcase mode full of unique little missions to complete, Forza Motorsport 6 had enough to keep us busy for a long time.

In late 2015, Microsoft published a free e-book anthology of science fiction stories called “Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Stories Inspired by Microsoft.” Featuring stories from Elizabeth Bear, Greg Bear, David Brin, Nancy Kress, Ann Leckie, Jack McDevitt, Seanan McGuire, Robert J. Sawyer – all big names in the world of science fiction – each story revolves around one of the weird science projects that Microsoft Research is working on.

Microsoft has unveiled a free app that uses machine learning to improve selfies by taking age, gender, skin tone and lighting into account and beautify the overall photo. Named “Microsoft Selfie”, the app enhances colour balance, skin tone, and lighting by using 13 filter options that clean up noise and add different themes to an image.

Microsoft India is helping business across sectors. Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Microsoft India, said, “If you see all destructions today, Our technology let, look at the banking space, look at the retail space, the cab companies, the e-commerce space, our job today is to empower every individual and organisation on the planet to achieve more in a cloud first, mobile first world.”