In the News

Thekla Inc.’s awesome first person puzzler The Witness is now available for Xbox One. It launched earlier this year for PS4 and PC and received a strong amount of critical acclaim for its visuals, puzzle design and environments. The Witness essentially sees you waking up on a deserted island and going about solving puzzles. The game occupies about 4.23 GB of space on Xbox One.

Along with Comcept’s ReCore, Microsoft has begun its Xbox Play Anywhere initiative. Revealed at E3 2016, this feature allows users to buy a game digitally on either the Xbox One or Windows 10 and receive a free copy on the other platform. The progress, including saves, DLC and Achievements, will carry over between the two platforms thus allowing gamers to shift between them at their leisure.

Developers who want help running Linux and Java-based micro service applications will have a new Microsoft service to take for a spin. Microsoft announced that its launching the public beta of Service Fabric support for running applications on the popular open source operating system with the popular programming language. It’s an expansion of Service Fabric’s capabilities, at a time when Microsoft is spending more effort to support Linux in addition to platforms it controls.

Microsoft is reportedly planning to kill its fitness wearable range by the name Microsoft Band. Microsoft Band 2 could become the last device to come from the software major in the wearable space. Microsoft is reportedly preparing to host a hardware event for next month. Earlier rumors hinted at the launch of Microsoft Band 3 at that event but now it seems, the product may never see light of the day. Microsoft Band is a wearable device that puts fitness and Cortana at the heart of activity tracking.

In comparison to the Xbox One, the Xbox One S focuses on its greatest strength – games. In many ways, the Xbox One S is what the Xbox One should have been at launch. It sports a clean, modest design, and most importantly, doesn’t need a bulky power brick. Available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB variants, the Xbox One S is worth considering if you don’t already own an Xbox One. The pros include gorgeous industrial design, great form factor, no power brick and whisper quiet.

Microsoft has been evaluating whether or not the existing apps are good enough to be listed on the Windows Store. Additionally, the company has also been sending out emails to numerous developers, informing them that their apps have been unpublished from the Store due to poor quality. It appears like YouTube is among those. As a part of Microsoft’s cleaning process, YouTube has been eliminated from the Windows Store.

Investor group Calcutta Angels Network plans to support 10 startups, including at least three city-based ventures, in the remaining period of this fiscal. “We plan to support ten additional startups this year three to four are from the city,” President of Calcutta Angels Network (CAN) Siddharth Pansari said. CAN is also holding a start-up summit in the city where prominent speakers are Kunal Kapoor of Ketto, Kaushal Dugar of Teabox and Ravi Narayan of Microsoft Ventures among others.

One of the leading garment manufacturing units of India, Orient Craft has proposed to set up its manufacturing unit in Ranchi. In yet another meeting, Chief Minister Raghubar Das gave a go ahead to Microsoft India for starting training for IT personnel in the state. One of the representatives of Microsoft India, Sanjay Gupta, who met Das, said that the company will create master trainers for further disseminating knowledge of IT.

Bungie promised something good for Destiny one week before Rise of Iron released. The much-awaited private matches are now available for Crucible and can be accessed from the Crucible menu. Private matches allow players to essentially invite their friends and customize games to their liking. These include aspects like the maps, modes, score limits, Light levels, time of day and so on. Also, private matches aren’t a part of Rise of Iron – as long as you play the base version of Destiny on the Xbox One or PS4, they’ll be available for free.

Microsoft is shutting down Sunrise, but the best features live on. An update is out for Microsoft’s combined calendar and email app for iOS and Android adds a few fan-favorites. After the update, Outlook will offer icons that automatically match the text in your appointments. Outlook’s calendar will now auto-complete addresses, and give you a map to the location of an appointment. There’s also a list of “Interneting Calendars” that Sunrise features long enjoyed.