In the News

Universal Windows Platform (UWP) lets Windows 10 developers create a single version of software to run across all Windows devices including PCs, smartphones, tablets, and the Xbox One. Microsoft will update Windows 10 with two new key features for UWP. The first is support for AMD Freesync and Nvidia G-sync in Universal Windows Platform games and apps. Second is the unlocked frame rate for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games and apps.

Bell Business Markets and Microsoft Canada announced Bell as the first Canadian telecommunications provider to offer businesses access to Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute. Janet Kennedy, President, Microsoft Canada, said, “We are thrilled to announce the opening of our Canadian data centers and are excited to welcome Bell as an Azure ExpressRoute partner. Bell’s capabilities to operate enterprise class networks, along with their sizeable reach and availability in Canada, will significantly help to extend Azure services. This can further Canadian business innovation and competitiveness in a cloud-first, mobile-first world.”

Mobile database platform Realm is launching support for Microsoft’s Xamarin platform. The new Realm was made specifically for Xamarin. The Realm team also had direct insight from Xamarin on best practices for structuring APIs and taking advantage of the C# programming language. With Xamarin support, Realm now covers Android, iOS, JavaScript and .NET.

This summer, a spate of new features will be added to Windows 10 Anniversary Update. The full Windows Ink experience is still months away longer. But thanks to the recent, massive Windows 10 Build 14322 that Microsoft released to its Insider beta testers, there is a chance to try out several aspects of Windows Ink, including Ink Workspace, Sketchpad, Sticky Notes, and more.

Microsoft plans to shut its MSN China portal in June but remains committed to China. The company said in a statement, “Microsoft will be shutting down the MSN portal in China on June 7. Microsoft is deeply committed to China, offering a range of products including Windows 10, cloud services to customers, and hosting the largest research and development centre outside of the US.”

Microsoft India inaugurated Microsoft Openness Days, the first-ever open source conference of its kind for developers in India. Speaking on this occasion, Narendra Bhandari, General Manager, Developer Experience and Evangelism, Microsoft India, said, “We are thrilled to host this unique, first-ever conference for cloud open source developers, and thank the Government of Telangana for their continued support. It is energizing to see young talent, develop technical solutions which will help us transform into Digital India.”

Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik claimed that the top 50 of the 100 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) companies have adopted the Microsoft cloud infrastructure, within the first six months of its launch. He said, “We are the first hyper-scale global cloud provider to offer cloud services from local data centers in India. In the first six months of our local cloud launch, we have seen 50 of the top 100 companies listed on BSE adopt Microsoft cloud to drive their digital transformation.”

Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 4 will be receiving mods for Xbox One this month following the release of the Far Harbor DLC. According to an announcement on Twitter, there will be a beta for the mods on Xbox One. Though a specific release date hasn’t been provided, Far Harbor is out on May 19th, so one can expect Fallout 4 soon after.

Microsoft Edge users will finally be able to block ads while browsing the Web. Popular ad-blocking extensions AdBlock and Adblock Plus are now available for users of the Windows 10 Insider Preview. As of now, these ad-blocking extensions are only available for Windows 10 Insider Preview users who have downloaded the latest preview version of Windows 10.

Microsoft last week confirmed that it has stopped letting business customers block the Windows Store in Windows 10 Pro. Instead, the ability to turn off the Store has been restricted to Windows Enterprise, the top-tier SKU (stock-keeping unit) available only to large customers. Microsoft said that removing Store blocking from Windows 10 Pro, making it Windows 10 Enterprise-only, was to cast the latter as the preferred business edition.