Recent News

Twitter has been long eyeing Bing’s translation services for providing full-frontal language interpretation support through its services. In a step that makes this fact more evident, the micro-blogging site has infused its official iOS app with the translator tool, while also expanding its offerings in its web version. As far as mobile devices are concerned, this feature was earlier available only for Windows Phone devices. With its arrival for iPhones and iPads, the obvious questions will be regarding when it will be made available for Android devices.

Fortinet has announced support for secure access to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The support for Microsoft Azure on top of its existing support for Windows Server with Hyper-V is effective immediately. Venkat Gattamneni, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft, said, “Microsoft Azure’s cloud scalability, performance and economic benefits make it a convincing choice for customers who require secure VPN access from office and branch networks to the cloud”. Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet, said, “Microsoft Azure is clearly a compelling solution for organizations that are looking to improve and extend availability of their IT services”.

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft said that US government National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance “reform” is necessary for global companies like Microsoft, Intel and Hewlett-Packard to thrive in the future. “The United States has to take a real approach where we regain that trust,” said Nadella, appearing via satellite in a candid wide-ranging discussion with Meg Whitman, CEO, HP and Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel, hosted by New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman at the HP Discover conference in Las Vegas. “If you think about HP, Intel and Microsoft, we are global companies and in order for us to be able to thrive in a global world we need our government to be able to have a policy that in fact creates great trust with its own citizens, but also citizens of the world and other nations.”

Office 365 has become the buzz word today and India’s leading non-profit organizations, education institutes, IT/ITES companies and manufacturing and healthcare organizations including Ascent Yarns , Bakewell Biscuits , BLK Super Speciality Hospital , Godrej Industries and iResearch, have opted for it. Also, Microsoft recently added Office 365 Personal to complement the existing line-up of Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 University, and Office 365 for businesses, and Office for iPad, aiding mobile scenarios. Office 365 is the fastest growing product in the Microsoft history. The Home Premium edition already has some 3.5 million subscriptions and counting. Ramkumar Pichai, GM – Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft India, said, “We are pleased with the adoption of Office 365 amongst businesses in India and globally, which reinforces our cloud and mobile leadership. Microsoft is focused on delivering the cloud for everyone, on every device. The future lies in people focused cloud productivity that – enables individuals and organizations to achieve more with the devices and services that people love the most.”

Xolo unveiled its first Windows 8.1 based tablet in the country and took the e-commerce route to launch the device. It’s available exclusively on FlipKart.com. The e-commerce giant is offering a bunch of launch day benefits. Targeted at young working professionals, the Xolo Win is powered by a dual-core AMD A4 Elite Mobility processor (Temash generation) clocked at 1.0 GHz and makes use of Radeon HD 8180 GPU for graphics. It has a 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1366×768 pixels and 2GB of RAM. Internal storage is 32GB EMMC, expandable further via micro SD card slot. Being a Windows tablet, it will have all the apps and games that one expects from a PC.

Since emails are now the preferred mode of communication, the security of their content has become a major concern for both users and serv¬ice providers such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, to keep electronic communication out of the reach of hackers as well as snooping agencies. Recently Google said that it would add another security layer called “end-to-end” to encrypt data in user’s Gmail account. Microsoft said its messaging service Microsoft Exchange has TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption enabled by default. A Microsoft spokesperson said, “We are currently rolling out TLS encryption for popular email service Outlook.com. We are also further strengthening encryption of customer data moving across our networks and services.”

It’s kick-off time in the land of football. Brazil is all set to host the FIFA World Cup and afaqs, looks at the marketing efforts by its official Indian broadcaster, Sony Six and the on-air sponsors it has attracted for the event. Last month, Sony Six had launched a television promo featuring John Abraham. Conceptualized and created by Havas Worldwide, Abraham is seen encouraging viewers to join in the party to catch the “ultimate footballing extravaganza” in the campaign, titled ‘Live the Magic’. Besides the main TVC, the channel has 3-4 shorter promos that are running on various channels. MSM has roped in Microsoft as the ‘powered by’ sponsors. According to Jyotsna Makkar, CMO, Microsoft India, “Any event that features the best in the world is followed across the world and it cuts across categories. The Oscars, Grammys, Olympics, IPL, and FIFA World Cup are examples. The youth in our country follow these passion points and therefore it becomes good vehicle for brands to ride on.”

In an interview to BGR India, Gurdeep Singh Pall, Head of the Skype team, spoke of the Skype translator, competition from the like of Whatsapp and many more exciting announcements. When questioned on Whatsapp, he said, “I’ll agree with you and I’ll also disagree with you. I think what you see WhatsApp as doing is disrupting SMS. Skype is what’s disrupting voice and video calls. So they are slightly different. Now you can say they are adjacent, and they are good questions and we will keep working in that space. The great news is that comms itself has become very exciting”. He also spoke about how neural language which was scrapped about 20 years ago, was helpful in the development of the Skype translator.

Asar Dhandala and Prithvi Raj Pawar of ‘Team Seven Summits’ were declared the national winners of Microsoft Imagine Cup 2014, a premier student technology competition. The youngsters will now repre¬sent India at the internation¬al level of the event to be held in Seattle in July and would compete with other global teams for the first place. The winners of the event will walk away with a prize of $ 50,000. The gamers are students of Backstage Pass school of Gaming in Madhapur.