Author: Microsoft Stories

Microsoft and NATO have agreed to renew a longstanding partnership that will see the tech giant provide the intergovernmental treaty group’s Communications and Information Agency with details of Microsoft products and services, as well as new information about cybersecurity threats.

Yesterday marked 30 years since the release of Super Mario Bros. on the NES, a milestone that led to the 13th of September being marked as “8-bit Day.” Microsoft created its own easter egg for 8-bit Day, rewarding people who entered the famous Konami code on its homepage with a slice of video game history, a cute little message from the company, and a pixelated version of Microsoft’s ninja cat riding its T. Rex steed.

Microsoft Corp sent out invitations on Monday for an event on Oct. 6, where it is expected to unveil new devices that run on Windows 10, its latest operating system. Microsoft is expected to unveil devices such as the Surface Pro 4 tablet, the Microsoft Band 2 wearable fitness tracker and the latest Lumia smartphones at the event.

Microsoft has bought a popular Android app called Echo Notification Lockscreen, which lets you personalize what appears on your phone or tablet when it’s in lock mode. This actually makes Echo the second Android lockscreen replacement that Microsoft owns. Microsoft Chief Experience Officer Julie Larson-Green says it’s all in the name of “[taking] productivity to the next level” and “[keeping] you in the moment.”

Microsoft has made its Live Encoding service generally available as part of a slew of updates announced for the Azure Media Services suite. Live Encoding is a powerful service that lets broadcasters send one video stream to Microsoft’s cloud and get it encoded there into an adaptive bitrate stream that can be sent to different types of devices. That means a video producer can send a single high-quality stream to the cloud that can then be streamed in lower quality to people on slower connections.

At Gamescom 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 and backwards compatibility – which lets you play your Xbox 360 games on your Xbox One – is finally hitting the console in November. In a run up to that, members of the Xbox One Preview Program will be invited to try it out with invites being sent in phases.

Microsoft has announced that it will be releasing its Office 2016 for Windows on September 22. The new Office will have many small but notable updates to the productivity suite which includes real-time editing by multiple people within the desktop apps as well as new design themes.

At the three-day World Hindi Conference, representatives of Microsoft, Google, Apple and other big companies were seen demonstrating how their apps could be downloaded quickly in Hindi from play store of their gadgetry. Alok Lall, Microsoft India Marketing Director, said, “Under Digital India, Microsoft was promoting local languages. We have already developed user friendly in script and phonetic Hindi keyboards. As part of Skill India, we have also developed a Hindi search Engine, Bing, which is a hit.”

Microsoft sent a pair of representatives to Apple’s big press event in San Francisco Wednesday morning to demonstrate new features in Office for iOS that are tailored for the new iPad Pro. Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Office 365 client applications, came on stage at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium to show new changes to the company’s suite of apps for Apple’s tablet.

Microsoft has unveiled the update of its Translator app that should make it easier to communicate in a foreign language when the users are traveling. The watch app will automatically show the users the common phrases in the local language, depending on the user’s location and the time of day. The users can also use the Time Travel feature to view phrases for other times of day. The features will be available when WatchOS 2 arrives on September 16.