Articles about Microsoft

As we reported last week, Microsoft is today launching its own business collaboration tool in an effort to fend off the challenge from Slack.

Teams is now available to Office 365 users in 181 markets and 19 languages. Where Teams is likely to score over its competitors is in its close integration with other Office products and with Skype for Business.

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It’s Pi Day -- March 14 or 3/14 --  and to celebrate, Microsoft is offering money off select PCs and Xbox One games both in-store and online.

The deals being offered are all Pi-related, so the sale price, or discount, is some variation of Pi's opening digits -- 314.

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Microsoft is pushing out an update to its Skype extension for Chrome, bringing a host of new features to a range of online services. The update means that you can add Skype call links to emails, calendar events, and social media postings with a single click.

With support for Gmail, Google Inbox, Outlook.com, Google Calendar and Twitter, Microsoft is clearly trying to cover a lot of bases. Twitter is arguably something of a strange choice, but by embracing rival Google services, Microsoft is clearly keen to make Skype more accessible for as many people as possible.

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Blueprints for a new hyperscale GPU accelerator have been introduced recently, jointly by Microsoft and NVIDIA. The two companies are saying the accelerator would "drive AI cloud computing."

The accelerator is called HGX-1 hyperscale GPU. It is released in conjunction with Microsoft’s Project Olympus, as an open-source design.

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For many, March is just another month in the calendar year. For basketball fans, however, it is significant for one big reason -- the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, otherwise known as "March Madness." Only the best college teams make the cut, making it an exciting elimination tournament. It is a great way to see future professional players in a pressure situation -- some of them will play in the coveted NBA.

Watching basketball aside, another fun aspect of the tournament is the bracket challenges. You see, many people like to predict who will win each matchup, and ultimately, which team will become the champion. If you think that sounds easy, trust me, it is much harder than you think, with quintillions of possibilities. Heck, some of these folks bet real money on it. Today, Microsoft announces that its Bing Predicts service can help people create "smarter" brackets. In other words, using the power of data, you could possibly increase your chances.

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Vulnerabilities in software are at the heart of many security problems, providing a foothold for hackers that they can use to gain access to systems.

The latest Vulnerability Review from the Secunia Research arm of Flexera Software maps the security threat presented to IT infrastructures and explores vulnerabilities in the 50 most popular applications on private PCs.

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If you're looking for an alternative to Microsoft's Surface Hub, Google has just the thing for you. Unveiled last October, Jamboard is a 55-inch whiteboard featuring a 4K touchscreen display, HD camera, speakers and integration with the search giant's G Suite productivity apps.

Google did not initially reveal how much it will cost or when it will be available, but the company now says that it will be priced just shy of $5,000 and will be released in just a couple of months.

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Don't believe what Microsoft tells you -- Windows 10 is not an operating system. Oh, sure, it has many features that make it look like an operating system, but in reality it is nothing more than a vehicle for advertisements. Since the launch of Windows 10, there have been numerous complaints about ads in various forms. They appear in the Start menu, in the taskbar, in the Action Center, in Explorer, in the Ink Workspace, on the Lock Screen, in the Share tool, in the Windows Store and even in File Explorer.

Microsoft has lost its grip on what is acceptable, and even goes as far as pretending that these ads serve users more than the company -- "these are suggestions", "this is a promoted app", "we thought you'd like to know that Edge uses less battery than Chrome", "playable ads let you try out apps without installing". But if we're honest, the company is doing nothing more than abusing its position, using Windows 10 to promote its own tools and services, or those with which it has marketing arrangements. Does Microsoft think we're stupid?

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Last week, Microsoft pushed out multiple Windows 10 Insider Preview updates -- Builds 15046 and 15048 for PC, and 15047 for Mobile. Yesterday, Mobile users got Build 15051, and today the software giant announces Build 15055 for both PC and Mobile.

The flurry of new builds shows we’re getting ever closer to the launch of the Creators Update which is due next month.

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Microsoft pushed out a mysterious driver to Windows users on Wednesday that caused big problems for some.

The driver, listed as "Microsoft -- WPD -- 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM -- 5.2.5326.4762," wasn’t accompanied by any details, although we knew from the name that it related to Windows Portable Devices and affected users who had phones and tablets connected to the OS.

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Playable ads -- that is ads that mimic an app and let you interact with it -- aren’t new. I see them from time to time on my iPhone, and never interact with any of them. Because, why would you? However, Microsoft says that playable ads are not only better than regular ads, they are more profitable.

And now they are arriving on Windows 10. The Playable Ads preview goes live in the Windows Dev Center today, allowing developers to offer their own interactive adverts.

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There is a new trend in console gaming, where existing consoles are enhanced rather than replaced. For instance, the Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 Pro aren't really new consoles, but upgrades of the current generation. They may have new features, but they play the exact same games.

Microsoft's next generation of video game console is currently called "Project Scorpio." This will be a truly new console, although it will be backwards compatible with all Xbox One games -- nice. In fact, you will even be able to use your Xbox One controllers and other accessories. While we do not have a definitive date of when it will go on sale, today the next Xbox console makes its debut in the Microsoft Store. We even get a slightly better idea of when it will be in stores.

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If you’ve been experiencing weird problems with Windows over the past couple of days, the problem could be down to a mysterious driver that Microsoft has pushed out for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.

The driver, called "Microsoft -- WPD -- 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM -- 5.2.5326.4762" is causing a couple of problems for users, including failed installations, and Windows Phones and Android devices failing to connect to the target PC.

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Microsoft is preparing to officially launch its competitor to Slack, Teams, which it announced last November.

Microsoft will begin the rollout of its new product by first making it available to Office 365 customers. The launch event and the global rollout will take place on March 14.

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With the Windows 10 Creators Update edging ever nearer to being ready for release, Microsoft is working hard to fix bugs and tidy things up.

Today sees a new build for Mobile (a new build for PC is expected in a day or so). Build 15051 offers a lot of changes, improvements and fixes including:

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