In the News

First introduced with Windows 8 as Windows Runtime, Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is a key feature in Windows 10. It enables development with one API set for PCs, tablets, phones, and other form factors. Presentations at the Build Conference 2016 will cover aspects such as the UWP App Model and adaptive UI. In one session, Andrew Clinick, Group Program Manager on the Windows Phone team, will introduce app model capabilities ranging from app deployment improvements to capabilities to drive app engagement on devices.

Microsoft Corporation’s Windows 10 operating system has 270 million active users eight months after launch, revealed the company. The number was announced by Executive Terry Myerson at Microsoft’s annual gathering for developers in San Francisco.

Microsoft announced at Build 2016 that it will be generously supporting bots on the Skype platform with a brand new SDK. Onstage at Build, the company showed off two different bots: video bots, operating within a live video feed and text bots, working in conjunction with Cortana. Bots can help coordinate travel, deliveries and other handy things right within Skype.

Microsoft began its first shipments of its HoloLens augmented reality headgear in an emerging computing platform. HoloLens is being delivered to application developers, with Microsoft opting for augmented reality rather than virtual reality. While virtual reality is fully immersive, the partly immersive augmented reality allows users to multitask via virtual images superimposed on their normal field of view. Aiming to encourage new applications for the device, Microsoft noted that developers can create “new mixed reality” with holograms and enable users to see and experience things in new ways.

The US space agency and tech giant Microsoft have teamed up to create “Destination: Mars”, a guided tour of Mars using the Hololens headset. The same technology helps scientists plan the Curiosity rover’s activities on Red Planet. The collaboration will offer people a guided tour of an area of Mars with astronaut Buzz Aldrin this summer in an interactive exhibit using the Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headset.

PlanGrid, the leading provider of construction field productivity software, announced the beta release of their native app for Microsoft Windows. PlanGrid for Windows is the first construction field app available natively on the Windows Surface. It is the world’s most popular mobile construction app, with five times the number of downloads as its next largest competitor. Its cloud-based construction document collaboration platform has been used by major firms on more than 450,000 projects. Construction professionals around the globe can now access their project documents using iOS, Android, Windows, and on the web.

Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity suite remains the most used Web-based business application. Okta, a San Francisco based startup, builds software that allows companies to manage employees’ logins to multiple Internet-accessed services. That provides Okta a set of data representing how companies or at least those that have embraced cloud-computing services use software. Microsoft’s Office 365 became the most-used app among Okta customers in the middle of last year till the end of 2015.

The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization, enabling mass innovation through open source, is announcing to host the TODO Group. The TODO Group, a cross-industry effort to focus on establishing best practices, tools and programs to support corporate open source engagement, was originally formed in November 2014. Existing contributors include Microsoft, Box, Dropbox, Facebook, GitHub, Google, HPE, Khan Academy, Square, Stripe, Twitter, Walmart Labs and Yahoo.

ShoreTel, the leading provider of amazingly simple unified communications (UC) solutions and phone systems, has enhanced its integration to Microsoft Skype for Business. It has come up with a new plug-in, “ShoreTel Telephony for Microsoft”, that embeds telephony controls inside the Skype for Business client. It enables ShoreTel phone system customers who use the Skype for Business client to have robust phone controls at their fingertips. Specifically, with ShoreTel Telephony for Microsoft, users can dial contacts directly from the Skype for Business client, execute conference calls, transfer calls, access their voicemail box, view and set presence information, and control all of their ShoreTel preferences such as call routing.

Data Masons Software, LLC, a leading provider of Integrated EDI and XML solutions for Microsoft Dynamics customers, announces its sponsorship of Microsoft Envision 2016. Microsoft’s Envision is designed to provide business leaders with the opportunity to discover business insights, gain technology expertise and learn successful strategies to help their businesses achieve more. Data Masons delivers a tightly-integrated EDI solution that enables customers to integrate their entire supply chain activities into the ERP without invasive customizations.