Recent News

Microsoft has announced its desktop operating system Windows 10 is now running on 400 million active devices. Speaking at Microsoft Ignite, Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Windows and Devices Group, said, “Windows 10 now has 400 million monthly active devices. The adoption has been 150 per cent faster than Windows 7.” Microsoft Windows 10 was launched in July 2015 as a unified operating system for all devices.

Bill Thies, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research India, has been awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as “genius grant”. The award includes a $625,000 no-strings-attached grant, awarded over five years. He is among 23 winners this year. The award recognizes Bill for his contributions to the socio-economic development of under-served communities. A computer scientist, he creates communication and digital technologies to advance the social and economic well-being of low-income communities in the developing world.

Microsoft has offered case scenarios of how its VOIP calling service Skype can authenticate identity using the Aadhaar database to the government. The company said that it already supports iris authentication on Windows 10. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India said that Skype could especially be used to authenticate users who access government services. Microsoft begun working on a pilot to integrate Skype with the Aadhaar database this February. At the time, the company was testing if Aadhaar could be used to identify users for video calls with government organizations and institutions.

Released in 2006, Call of Duty 3 is better known as the last World War 2 game in the franchise before Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Although Treyarch would return to the setting with Call of Duty: World at War, it’s main responsibility these days is the Black Ops franchise. The next big game in the franchise will be Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare releasing for Xbox One, PS4 and PC on November 4th. Purchasing the Legacy Edition will also net you Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered, a graphical revamp of the classic. The latter could also receive its own solo release in the days to come though.

Microsoft announced this past week that the Xbox Elite controller will work with Samsung’s Gear VR headset. When the update hits next month, it’ll initially only offer support for Microsoft’s own Minecraft: Gear VR Edition, though controller support for other games will be available “in the coming months”. To use the feature, users are going to need Xbox’s US $70 controller to play.

Microsoft Lumia 550 smartphones, running the newest Windows 10 Mobile operating system, is now receiving a new software update that seemingly comes with multiple newer aspects. Though the full list of new features is yet to be officially announced by Microsoft, Lumia 550 users can expect feature such as camera enhancements, fixing of issues related to Wi-Fi, voice-calling, GPS and Bluetooth. Also, it seems that the Double Tap to Wake will not come to the Lumia 550 with the latest update.

India is a promising growth destination for all the major cloud vendors, who are looking to leverage the USD 1.26 billion opportunity. The huge business prospects in the Indian market intensified the battle between all the major cloud vendors. With focused cloud strategy and robust channel ecosystem, Microsoft is rapidly surging in the race for leading position in the Cloud space. The software giant is eyeing an aggressive geographical expansion and plans to open new offices at 65 locations covering tier two towns across India by this financial year.

At the recent Microsoft media event that was held in Bangalore, it was cloud tech along with new emerging technologies that took the centre-stage. The event seemed all about the change and how it is no more simply a Windows-centric company. “Clearly things have changed on a different scale in the past two years. Microsoft is the only company offering solutions, strategy and tech pyramid that spans across multiple clouds, be it private, hybrid or public,” said Anil Bhansali, Managing Director, Microsoft India.

For Xbox loyalists, there is a lot to cheer about as a plethora of newer Xbox 360 backwards
compatible titles have now been confirmed to hit Xbox One consoles soon. At this point in time, the most demanded Xbox 360 backwards compatible titles are the Call of Duty increments. Now Phil Spencer, head at Microsoft’s Xbox division, has confirmed that multiple Xbox 360 titles have passed testing as far as offering the backwards compatibility on Xbox One consoles are concerned.

The Dataquest DigiGov Series in Bhopal, in association with Microsoft, carried forward the agenda “Deploying Digital Technologies to Transform Government Services’. Speaking on the occasion, Shivir Chordia, Director Marketing, Microsoft India spoke on the role and growing significance of Microsoft’s One Data Platform for various needs in the government and public sector where the requirement for a unified data platform is becoming inevitable day-by-day. Chordia ran the audience through a number of use cases and showed through his presentation how Microsoft delivers a powerful, scalable, and reliable data platform that is able to run mission critical and data intensive workloads, on premises and in the cloud.