In the News

A two hour conference at New York saw Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveil the two glittering flagship mobiles from the company, much to the glee of the Lumia fans. A combination of stellar hardware backed up by the goodness of the all new Windows 10 mobile OS, with the release of Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, Microsoft has catapulted itself into a position where it can compete against the big boys of the mobile phone industry with consummate ease.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 would cost Rs. 4,299 on the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One. The PC version will retail for Rs. 3,499 while PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will retail for Rs. 3,499 as well. Call of Duty is one of the biggest selling franchises in the country.

Microsoft is teaming up with Lakeside Software, a partner based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., which specializes in software that analyzes telemetry data to diagnose issues with software that’s running in the cloud. Microsoft earlier this week chose Lakeside Software as a partner for its upcoming series of Windows 10 events, titled Ignite Your Business, which are set to kick off Nov. 3 in San Francisco.

The Hindu
Microsoft launched Lumia 640XL, a dual SIM 4G smart mobile that comes with Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, in Hyderabad. Lumia 640 XL is priced at Rs.17,399 and can be upgraded to Windows 10 in near future. Speaking at the launch, Director–Sales (South) of Microsoft Mobile Devices T.S. Sridhar counted the 13 MP camera, 5.7 inches HD display and integrated Microsoft services among the feature of the smart phone. It runs on 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and equipped with 3000 mAh battery as well as front-facing camera for Skype video calling. A release said the new phone comes bundled with an offer from Airtel. Lumia 640 XL LTE consumers on Airtel 4G will be able to double their data for free and the offer is available till December 31.

Microsoft has announced partnership with Alteryx, provider of a platform for data blending and analytics for its Power BI offering. Alteryx offers a simple, drag-and-drop workflow and can accommodate many types of data. Its platform is designed to cleanse, transform and enrich data and then perform advanced predictive, statistical and spatial analytics. Now, thanks to the new partnership, users of the Alteryx Analytics 10.0 platform can output their data to Power BI for visualization and further analysis by a wide range of business users.

WizIQ, one of the world’s largest online education platforms, looks all set to mark a momentous shift in the Indian e-learning space with its EdTech.Now conclave. Organised in exclusive collaboration with Cambridge University Press India and Microsoft, the event promises to be the biggest congregation of thought leaders, decision makers and pioneers in the field of education. More than 300 visionaries, investors, edtech innovators, academicians and media personnel are expected to mark their presence at the conference on October 15 in New Delhi.

Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), an apex industry body, and Microsoft have come together to enable more than 10,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises across the country to adopt information technology and cloud computing. This will help them to connect better with their existing customers and reach out to potential customers across India.

The Xbox One Elite wireless controller that was unveiled by Microsoft in June finally has a release date. October 27 is when US consumers can pick it up for $149.99 (around Rs. 10,000). Incidentally, that’s the same date as Halo 5: Guardians. The release dates for rest of the world is expected to be announced soon. With a host of games such as the aforementioned Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Fable Legends out around the same time on the Xbox One, it’s shaping up to be Microsoft’s season in terms of exclusive games.

With Windows 10, Microsoft has been aiming to unify the user experience across all its devices. Right from PCs to Xbox consoles to HoloLens augmented reality wearable headset, Microsoft is deploying Windows 10 on everything. Microsoft has started rolling out Xbox One preview to a subset of preview program members. Like Windows 10, the rollout is happening in waves and Microsoft’s Larry Hryb and Richard Irvine narrate all the new improvements in this video.

Windows 10 preview build 10547 features plenty of new tweaks and improvements, and among them is a preview of the Object RTC (ORTC) APIs for Microsoft Edge, a collection of tools that will make it easier for developers to build audio and video calling into Web apps without requiring any browser plugins. Skype is a natural fit for ORTC, and, the Skype team announced y that it is working on new versions of Skype for Web and Skype for Outlook.com that take advantage of this new technology.