In the News

WhatsApp has finally started rolling out its Web platform for Microsoft Edge. The service was restricted to Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari till now. Like before, WhatsApp patrons just have to scan the QR code found on the page to connect their smartphone. The support for Microsoft Edge was first noticed by the folks over at Reddit.

GoPro Inc. signed a licensing agreement with Microsoft Corp whose terms weren’t disclosed. The deal that involves patent sharing for file storage made the GoPro Inc. shares jump 4.9 percent $10.45. “This agreement with GoPro shows the incredible breadth of technology sharing enabled through patent transactions,” said Nick Psyhogeos, President of Microsoft Technology Licensing in a statement. “Microsoft’s licensing of personal wearable technologies is seeing strong demand as we partner with companies from all industries to optimize solutions for their customers around the globe.”

Available on Dynamics CRM versions 2015 and 2016, the triomis VAT Calculator has been released in the CRM world just in time for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 launch. In November 2015, Microsoft announced the next wave of updates for customer management software Dynamic CRM. The new release is not only the most comprehensive ever, but it also represents a huge leap forward in Microsoft’s journey to deliver intelligent customer engagement. The solution extends the product catalog with VAT keys allowing an automatic calculation of the tax for quotes, orders and invoices. Products can be provided with different tax rates too in the new versions.

Microsoft has issued a new preview build for Windows 10 Insiders. The company has quickened the pace at which it updates the “Fast ring” of preview builds, according to Gabe Aul, Vice President, Engineering Systems, Microsoft. The latest build is largely about laying the foundation as a big feature update (likely codenamed Redstone) is on its way. The latest Build does have some fixes worth noting like pasting files into a new .ZIP file is much better now and suggested apps would no longer appear in the Start menu if users have disabled it in Windows Settings.

Apple’s software has been slipping in recent years, pioneering tech blogger Walt Mossberg argues in a piece published in the Verge. Mossberg spent the most time slamming the built-in Mail app on the iPhone, a critical piece of software for many users. The default mail app is “slow and unreliable,” according to Mossberg, and making things worse, it doesn’t seem to want to play nicely with Gmail, one of the most popular email services in the world with over 1 billion users. He said, “For what it’s worth, I don’t buy it. I use Microsoft Outlook on the iPhone, and it works perfectly fine with Gmail. Outlook is snappy and modern, complete with threaded messaging, email snoozing, and sophisticated filtering that ensures that what lands in my inbox is an actual message from another human. It’s what I want from Apple’s built-in app.”

Vaio, a Japanese company, best known for its laptop lineup, has just launched a Windows 10 smartphone called the Vaio Phone Biz. Vaio had launched the Android Vaio Phone last year. The Phone Biz sports a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) display coupled with mid-range hardware specifications. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core SoC clocked at 1.2GHz paired with 3GB of RAM, and 16GB of inbuilt storage. The handset also has a microSD card slot, which can be expanded up to 64GB.

Microsoft’s Azure IoT Hub, that manages fleets of devices collecting data about the physical world, will be made generally available. The product allows companies to provision, manage and ingest data from millions of devices that are part of the Internet of Things and ignore the ways of figuring out how to handle the devices and focus on the hardware and software. One of the advantages of using the hub over building a similar system from scratch is that Azure IoT Hub is designed to integrate with Microsoft’s other cloud services.

Axiomtek has announced that its Internet of Things gateway product has received Microsoft Azure certification. Many IoT project leaders are looking for certified devices and platforms that are tested for readiness, compatibility and usability with the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite. By choosing a partner from the Microsoft Azure Certified for IoT program, customers can save time and effort through prior knowledge of what devices and offerings will work with the Azure IoT Suite. The certificate applications allows businesses to have a faster time for production and shorter time to market.

Microsoft’s Power BI data visualization service is assisting companies share their business information with the world in an interactive format. The company launched the beta version of a new publish to web feature that lets people take Power BI dashboards and show them off on the web in a live-updating format. The feature will allow companies’ Power BI use work double duty as an internal tool keeps track of key statistics as well as shares that information with the outside world.

Microsoft is lending a hand to ten startups working in the highly technical realm of Machine Learning. The company had selected these startups out of 720 applicants to participate in a four-month accelerator in and around Seattle. Technical accelerators are designed to help new companies get off to a running start, offering guidance, networking and funding. The startups range from an artificial-intelligence-powered doctor bot to a university recruiting tool. Hanan Lavy, Director, Microsoft’s Seattle accelerator, said, “We see machine learning popping up all over the place, all sorts of (industries), from DNA sequencing to financial applications.”