In the News

Microsoft has introduced its Windows 10 IoT Core, a light version of the Windows 10 operating system for the Internet of Things. 10 IoT Core will run the Raspberry Pi 2 and Minnowboard Max and can work on devices regardless of whether they have a display. Microsoft says IoT Core is designed to have a low barrier for entry and make it easy to build professional devices and works with a variety of open source languages.

Microsoft has announced several updates to its Cloud platform product portfolio. The solutions are designed to help enterprise adapt to the Cloud. General availability of Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 and Azure Data Factory (ADF) has been announced as two of the several platform updates. “Businesses can enjoy the benefits of using a fully managed Cloud service without procuring hardware; reduce costs with automatic Cloud resource management, efficiently move data using a globally deployed data transfer infrastructure, and easily monitor and manage complex schedule and data dependencies,” Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice-President of Information Management and Machine Learning, Microsoft.

Microsoft has announced the launch of Windows 10 IoT Core, a stripped-down version of the OS that’s built to power Internet of Things devices. Windows 10 IoT Core will run on the Raspberry Pi 2 and Minnowboard Max and the OS will function even when there’s no display attached to it. Microsoft released a preview build of Windows 10 IoT Core back in May, however, the company has now turned on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support for wireless connectivity to the web.

In an apparent bid to garner more fans for its Cortana, Microsoft has updated the beta version of its digital assistant with the ability to replace the default Google Now on Android devices. The private beta version of the voice-based digital assistant for Android was launched last month. With the latest update to the beta app, you can now press and hold the home button to activate Cortana instead of Google Now.

Microsoft has introduced a Translator app that can be used on a variety of devices and supports 50 languages, with Hindi being the only Indian language. With Microsoft Translator app, users can translate words or phrases either by typing or by voice. The app can also speak out the translated words or phrases. The app supports smart phones and tablets as well as the Apple Watch and smartwatches that run on Android Wear.

Data-integration giant Informatica has made itself a private company in a $5.3 billion deal that includes investments from Microsoft and Salesforce.com. The deal, said to be the biggest leveraged buyout this year. Informatica has been a strong part of Microsofts partner ecosystem as a data-integration leader,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We are excited to support Informatica in this new stage of growth as a private company.

Windows 10’s marquee features are the return of the Start menu, a massively improved user interface and Microsoft’s personal assistant, Cortana — and the fact that it’s free. CRN Test Center has been using the pre-release version of Windows 10 for months and the final release since it was announced. Here is a hands-on look at Windows 10 from the perspective of solution providers.

Microsoft Outlook has added full Apple Watch support to its iPhone app, and it’s showing other email apps how it’s done.The new app takes brings up an overview over users’ inboxes, along with any upcoming calendar appointments. From here, users can respond to emails (either with a canned response or voice dictation), delete or archive them, flag them as important, mark them as unread, or schedule a reminder to see them later.

Microsoft earlier this year had announced that it will release tools to help Android and iOS developers port their apps to the Windows platform. Four months into it, the company has now released Windows Bridge for iOS (previously known as Project Islandwood) as an open source project. The tool is now available on GitHub under MIT licence.

Microsoft has doubled the bug bounty for Defense maximum from $50,000 to $100,000. It has expanded its bug bounty program to include Defense, Authentication Bonus, and RemoteApp to the list of domains covered in its Online Services Bug Bounty. Microsoft announced the bug bounty program to help the company address critical vulnerabilities and reward hackers who can break into Microsoft’s systems and services. This year, the company has added Azure services to the bounty portfolio.