Recent News

Microsoft has announced that it will now put its effort into doubling down its quantum computing research, in an aim to produce a scalable quantum computer using what is called, a topological qubit. Microsoft Executive Todd Holmdahl will lead the scientific and engineering effort to create scalable quantum hardware and software. He has also played a key role in the development of other products such as Xbox, Kinect and HoloLens. “I think we’re at an inflection point in which we are ready to go from research to engineering,” said Holmdahl, who is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s quantum program.

In the ongoing efforts to influence developers, Microsoft has now replaced the iconic Command Prompt with PowerShell. The open source command-line tool has been debuted on the latest Windows 10 preview. Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14971 has brought PowerShell as the “de facto” command shell in File Explorer. You can access its existence through a Windows and X key combination or from the context menu that appears with a shift and right-click on the whitespace in File Explorer.

Brigade Enterprises, one of the leading real estate developers in India, recently launched the country’s first real estate focused accelerator program. The accelerator will mentor startups whose products or services can be used in the real estate industry across various domains be it Residential, Office, Retail or Hospitality. Naveen Asrani, Director, Startups, Microsoft Corporation India, said, “We are excited to be associated with Brigade Group’s real estate focused accelerator program. It is the first of its kind in the country and should give rise to high-impact solutions in the real estate space. We believe that this partnership will give the much-needed impetus for technology adoption in the Real estate sector in India.”

According to Goldman Sachs, investors should buy Microsoft stock because earnings will top expectations in coming years due to its cloud computing business. The firm upgraded the shares of the technology company to buy from neutral. “We believe the shares are poised to more consistently outperform in the year ahead on the back of sustained traction in its Cloud offerings (Azure and Office 365) overlaid by steady albeit not spectacular performance out of its legacy PC-linked software business,” analyst Heather Bellini wrote in a note to clients.

The PS4 Pro and the Xbox One Scorpio are fascinating and interesting, not just because they are an altogether new paradigm for console gaming, but also because of the stark differences in the two approaches – the PS4 Pro is a relatively more conservative approach next to the Scorpio, which represents a total overhaul of the Xbox One. “It has generally been more difficult to reach 60fps on Xbox One than on PS4, so Scorpio will be a very welcome change. I’ve yet to see the functional differences in the Scorpio GPU but Scorpio definitely has a significant advantage in terms of memory bandwidth, so we’ll definitely be seeing higher fidelity games on there,” said, Mark Williams, Technical Director at VooFoo Studios.

This year, Microsoft is joining in on the fun, by selling a lot of stuff on Xbox Live for cheap. A whole lot of some of the very best games across Xbox 360 and Xbox One have been put up for some killer prices. If you are among the many who have just recently bought an Xbox, this is an excellent way for you to catch up on some of the great games you may have missed. Check out the full list of games that are available on discount on Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Samsung announced its partnership with Microsoft on open source projects such as such as .NET Core and Xamarin.Forms, to enable .NET support for Tizen. This effectively means that from now on, developers will be able to make use of Microsoft’s Visual Studio and make apps for Tizen using the C# language. Samsung has already released the first preview of the Visual Studio tools for Tizen that will help .NET developers to Tizen apps for smart TVs, wearables such as the Gear S3, smartphones, and Internet of Things devices.

Microsoft made a splash in the tech industry when it announced that it had joined the Linux Foundation as a platinum member. While the move felt like a welcome extension of the tech giant’s open source strategy to some, others saw it as a threat to Linux. Microsoft’s addition to the foundation was a positive step for the open-source community overall, Jim Zemlin, the Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, said in an interview. In his view, adding Microsoft as a foundation member is an important move to further the Linux Foundation’s mission, “which is to create the greatest shared technology asset in history.”

No one ever imagined that backwards compatibility would become anything more than a novelty for Microsoft and Xbox, but it has gone on to become one of Microsoft’s strongest assets. And Microsoft now appears to be leveraging this, as they are taking this chance to push some of their older, Xbox 360 games again. As spotted on Reddit (via Eurogamer), it looks like old Xbox 360 games are being reprinted with Xbox One branding, to establish that these games can be played on an Xbox One too. The branding doesn’t hide the fact that the games in question are Xbox 360 games, but proudly wears the Xbox One label, and declares that these games can be played on Microsoft’s new console.

Microsoft has released SQL Server for Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Developers and system admins can start testing the latest preview on their infrastructure. “We have made it easier than ever to get started with SQL Server. You will find native Linux installations with familiar RPM and APT packages for RHEL and Ubuntu Linux, and packages for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will be coming soon as well,” said Tiffany Wissner, Senior Director of Data Platform Marketing, Microsoft.