In the News

Microsoft hyped up this year’s list of Xbox One exclusives to be the greatest in its history and it certainly didn’t disappoint. As Phil Spencer’s rise to the head of the Xbox division commenced, we saw a return to hardcore gaming and a wealth of great releases worth spending time on. And the winner of best Xbox One game of 2015 is Forza Motorsport 6.
With more than 450 cars across a range of different leagues, a lengthy Career mode and an extensive Showcase mode full of unique little missions to complete, Forza Motorsport 6 had enough to keep us busy for a long time.

In late 2015, Microsoft published a free e-book anthology of science fiction stories called “Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Stories Inspired by Microsoft.” Featuring stories from Elizabeth Bear, Greg Bear, David Brin, Nancy Kress, Ann Leckie, Jack McDevitt, Seanan McGuire, Robert J. Sawyer – all big names in the world of science fiction – each story revolves around one of the weird science projects that Microsoft Research is working on.

Microsoft has unveiled a free app that uses machine learning to improve selfies by taking age, gender, skin tone and lighting into account and beautify the overall photo. Named “Microsoft Selfie”, the app enhances colour balance, skin tone, and lighting by using 13 filter options that clean up noise and add different themes to an image.

Microsoft India is helping business across sectors. Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Microsoft India, said, “If you see all destructions today, Our technology let, look at the banking space, look at the retail space, the cab companies, the e-commerce space, our job today is to empower every individual and organisation on the planet to achieve more in a cloud first, mobile first world.”

The new entry-level phone Nokia 230, has a 2.8-inch (320x240p) display and runs Series 30+ OS. Nokia 230 has 16MB RAM and can hold microSD cards of up to 32GB.It has a 1200mAh replaceable battery and sports 2MP rear camera with LED flash along with a 2MP front facing camera. The phone is now available on Microsoft’s official store.

Elon Musk is only the latest investor in artificial intelligence, helping to fund a big-name roster of researchers who promise to change the field. Microsoft Research by combining the popular deep networks that everyone from Google to Facebook is also using for machine learning with other mathematical techniques, and beating them all in the latest round of the annual ImageNet image recognition competition. ImageNet tests how well computers can recognise which of 1,000 different categories the 100,000 test images belong in, and where in the photo the object being recognised is.

Hybrid cloud computing is set to become an integral part of nearly every organisation’s business from 2016. They are just not cost-effective but they also allow organizations to effectively manage private and non-private cloud information without much fuss. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said: “Our partnership will blend the power of Azure with HPE’s infrastructure, support and services to make the cloud more accessible to enterprises around the globe.”

Microsoft India is betting on small and medium businesses (SMBs) to bolster its cloud services business in the country. “The Cloud is redefining economics for these businesses. We have a very strong partner ecosystem that is helping SMBs to grow their businesses through cloud services. Microsoft has over 10,000 partners across the country who are capable of remotely configuring cloud services”, said Alok B Lall, director, Microsoft Office Division.

Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella said Microsoft would like to work with T-Hub to develop accelerators and startups. He said this during his visit to T-Hub, billed as India’s largest technology incubator. “Indian talent in the area is dramatically growing and we can see their dominance in the field,” he said while addressing budding entrepreneurs.

Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft, last week in an interview on Windows Weekly podcast gave some insights on the company’s work over the past one year. Capossela during the interview hinted that Microsoft might be working on a ‘Surface’ branded smartphone. He confirmed that the Redmond-based giant is working on a “breakthrough” phone that will be the “spiritual equivalent” of the company’s Surface tablet line.