In the News

Apple announced its September 9 event and said it would be live-streamed on a range of Apple devices, while Windows 10 users will also be able to access the stream. This announcement probably comes as Apple realises that Microsoft’s new Web browser – built in a collaborative fashion – feature runs some of the same technologies as Safari. Apple’s Safari, QuickTime, iOS, and OS X use HTTP Live Streaming technology. Popular Web browsers Chrome, Firefox, and Opera don’t support this technology. Microsoft Edge, on the other hand, does.

With an eye on people on the move, public lender Indian Bank has launched IndPay, a mobile application service that enables its customers to operate bank accounts from anywhere, anytime. IndPay can be operated through smartphones compatible with Android, Windows and iOS mobile operating systems.

SQL Server Geeks Annual Summit 2015 concluded in Bangalore. The 3-day summit was organized by SQLServerGeeks.com and sponsored by Microsoft, HP, SanDisk, Melissa Data and S&P Capital IQ, the first ever such summit in Asia is featuring SQL Star Speakers such as Denny Cherry, Benjamin Nevarez, Praveen Srivatsa, Alberto Ferrari, Joey D Antoni, Dave Dustin, Vic Parmar, Andreas Volter, Stuart Padley, Lara Rubbelke, Scott Klein, Microsoft SQL Data Platform among others.

One of the biggest technology play¬ers Microsoft sees the world of IT converging into one single platform. Srikanth Karnakota, Country Head Mi¬crosoft India, at the SQL Server Geeks 2015 laid em¬phasis on how Microsoft’s SQL Server business in India is growing by leaps and bounds. Microsoft SQL Server is a re¬lational database management system developed by Microsoft. He said that IT professionals and developers who represent the two major sides of the IT world are being brought to¬gether. “The advent of cloud is making this marriage possi¬ble,” he said.

Businesses have doubled adoption of cloud-based office productivity tools over the past year, and in that period Microsoft has knocked Google off as the market leader, according to a comprehensive new study released by Bitglass. 2014’s underdog, Microsoft has surged ahead of Google, more than tripling its adoption from 7.7 percent in 2014 to 25.2 percent in 2015, besting Google’s 22.8 percent, according to the report.

Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group has developed the tablet keyboard, dubbed DisplayCover that features Kindle-like e-ink display that works alongside the Surface tablet’s 10.6-inch primary screen. The DisplayCover includes a full keyboard and an ultra-thin e-ink display that doubles up as a secondary screen offering 1280X305 resolution, albeit in black and white, which the company says extends the usable screen by up to 8 per cent.

Fuelled by the Internet of Things, mobility, and the growing enterprise customers moving to cloud, the global data business has grown to a whopping $1.6 trillion, said Microsoft Corporation Corporate Vice President (Data Platform, Cloud and Enterprise) T K Rengarajan. “Real companies make real products and real solutions based on data. Microsoft Data Strategy would be to maximise the value derived from all such accessible data. The strategy would be to go cloud first with other things following,” he said.

It hasn’t even been a month since the release of Windows 10, Microsoft’s newest desktop operating system, and more than 75 million devices are already running on it, the company announced on Wednesday. At the sidelines, Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Marketing for Windows and Devices, took to Twitter to offer several other interesting statistics. He noted since launch on Windows 10, Cortana has shared over half a million jokes in response to “tell me a joke” query which apparently people love to ask it.

Music streaming app Saavn expects its user base to touch 25 million by December this year on the back of strong smartphone adoption in the country and launch of its services on the Windows 10 platform. Talking about the new app for the recently launched Windows 10 operating system, Narayanan said Windows leads the market for desktop operating systems with more than a billion PCs running on it today.

Hackathons, or hackfests, are moving beyond generic mainstream technologies such as Android and iOS, to specialised avenues such as design, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), hardware, and even marketing, and their goal is not always about innovation or creating a new technology; it could be finding right talent for specific roles. Microsoft Ventures is gearing up for a marketing hackathon along with Venturesity, while Bengaluru-based recruitment platform HackerEarth will host a hackathon on artificial intelligence.