In the News

LinkedIn Corp., the operator of the world’s largest online business networking service, has launched a “Lite” version of its website for mobile browsing in India. The company, acquired by Microsoft, said the version was aimed at helping users browse its website faster on their smartphones, in areas with slow or poor internet connectivity. Two more LinkedIn services were launched – “LinkedIn Placements”, aimed at students looking for jobs while “LinkedIn Starter Pack” to connect startups and small and mid-sized businesses with job seekers.

With the PS4 Pro unveiled this week and readily available from November, Microsoft’s Xbox Head Phil Spencer took to Twitter to allay some concerns of Xbox fans. Replying to a query about how developers would design their games for Project Scorpio, Spencer tweeted, “Most devs are already targeting higher specs with their PC builds. Teams have art assets and engine to use power.” In response to a concern about Scorpio games being ports of the PS4 Pro, Spencer claimed that builds for existing games made for powerful PCs would be coming to Scorpio instead.

Sony has been stumbling a fair bit of late – the PS+ price rise, the underwhelming reveal of the PS4 Pro, as well as its disappointing feature set, and now, the lack of mods for Bethesda’s games on PlayStation and Microsoft have been having some good fun with Sony’s missteps. The lack of mods for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Remastered on the PS4. Microsoft’s Xbox UK account posted a hilarious new tweet listing all the features that the Xbox One S has, including backwards compatibility, UHD Blu Ray support, and now, support for mods in Bethesda’s games. It’s a continuation of the checklist style of tweets they’ve been posting since the PlayStation meeting a couple of days ago.

The original Bayonetta is one of the greatest action games of all time, and definitely one of the best games of the previous generation. Its sequel, Bayonetta 2, which came out exclusively on the Wii U, is arguably even better- but the original game is a stunning tour de force of great action game design that everyone definitely needs to experience at least once. So it’s excellent news that it will now be playable on the Xbox One, thanks to Microsoft’s backwards compatibility feature.

The NPD Group’s report for August 2016 is out and thanks to the release of the Xbox One S, Microsoft’s Xbox One has managed to outsell the PS4 for the second month in a row in the United States. Xbox marketing boss Mike Nichols stated, “Thanks to our fans and their excitement for new Xbox One games and the recently launched Xbox One S which is the only console available this holiday with built-in UHD 4K Blu-ray, 4K video streaming, and HDR for video and gaming, Xbox One was the best-selling console in the U.S. in August, according to NPD Group.”

Microsoft will be holding a hardware launch event by October end in New York City. If a ZDNet report is to be believed, the company will launch at least one model of Surface all-in-one PC at the event, which is codenamed Project Rio. The report suggests that the PC is codenamed Cardinal. Some earlier reports had suggested that Microsoft is already working on three Surface all-in-one PCs. It was rumored that the software giant is testing three display sizes, a 21-inch with full HD resolution, and two PCs with 4K at 24-inch and 27-inch sizes.

Microsoft recently confirmed that they have started working on WebVR support for the Edge browser. This will allow VR content to be played directly on to its app. “Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve begun development on experimental WebVR support in Microsoft Edge! WebVR is the next frontier in web graphics, enabling developers to create a wide range of truly immersive experiences for a variety of devices,” posted Frank Olivier, Principal Program Manager Lead on the Microsoft blog.

While speaking at the second edition of ‘National Summit on 100 Smart Cities 2016’, Tarun Kapoor, Principal Secretary, Government of Himachal Pradesh, said, “The Himachal Pradesh government is rolling out incentives to help propel the formation of sustainable smart cities.” While giving his key-note address Mr. Stefan Sjostrom, Vice President Asia, Public Sector, Microsoft Operations, said, “Technology today touches every aspect of our life and one very important aspect is the education domain. The massive e-learning initiatives with over 2000 online courses are changing lives of around 30 million students in the country.”

Acumatica, the leading global provider of flexible, easily-deployed business management software for small to mid-sized businesses, today announced the highly-anticipated release of Acumatica 6. With this add-in, customers can view details on lead and contact records that already exist in Acumatica ERP, create new leads and contacts inside Microsoft Outlook, and customize the appearance of the Acumatica ribbon button in accordance with a company’s branding.

With Sony finally revealing the PS4 Pro (previously known as PS4 Neo), Microsoft has pointed out Project Scorpio – the next iteration of the Xbox One, will have better performance. “The performance delta will be obvious,” said Albert Penello, Director of Product Management and Planning, Xbox. Scorpio is slated for a Holiday 2017 release.