Articles about Microsoft

Today is finally the day -- Microsoft's annual Surface event. This year is quite different, however, as rather than new portable machines, the company is rumored to unveil a new Surface-branded all-in-one desktop.

I am here, live, at a secret location in NYC where I will be live-blogging all the news along with my thoughts -- just keep refreshing. Of course, you can also watch the live video here too.

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Microsoft is hosting an event today, Wednesday October 26, in which it intends to reveal what’s next for Windows 10.

Titled "Imagine what you’ll do", the event is expected to reveal some new Windows hardware, although, from what we hear, not new versions of Surface or Surface Pro (although existing devices may get a processor bump). Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley says the software giant will reveal an all-in-one Surface PC codenamed "Cardinal" (which may or may not be called Surface Studio) and we expect to see new hardware from other partners too.

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Like many technology companies, Microsoft is pinning a lot on AI -- including the areas of speech and image recognition. To help speed up development, and to enable others to start working on their own projects, the company has released an updated, open source version of the Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit.

This is a deep learning toolkit, previously known as the Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK), and it's available for anyone to use completely free of charge. The toolkit has applications far beyond speech recognition, and it has already been used in Bing, and the latest version includes support for Python and C++.

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Businesses can never go wrong choosing Microsoft. Between Windows, SharePoint, and Office, a company should see much success in both productivity and collaboration. One place where Microsoft was pretty much unchallenged in the enterprise was with Surface Hub -- its big-screen collaboration device running the wonderful Windows 10. Today, however, this changes, as Google unveils something of a Surface Hub competitor.

Called "Jamboard", the search-giant's digital whiteboard features a beautiful 55-inch 4K display, HD camera, and integrated speakers. Yeah, it seems very impressive. With that said, Google services like G Suite are unproven in the enterprise; an IT decision-maker would be taking a huge risk by spending company funds on Jamboard. After all, it costs $6,000.

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Microsoft is hosting a big Windows 10 event tomorrow, which you’ll be able to watch live here. It will be showcasing some new Surface hardware, and also revealing more about the future of the operating system.

In advance of that happening, the software giant has pushed out a new build for Windows Insiders on the Fast ring.

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The post-Brexit fallout continues. The UK has already seen price hikes from a number of countries across a range of sectors, and the latest announcement comes from Microsoft.

The technology giant warns that starting in January 2017, prices of enterprise software and cloud services will rise for anyone paying in pounds sterling. The UK's decision to leave the EU has seen the value of the pound plummet, and Microsoft is going to increase prices by up to 22 percent to make up for this.

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Even after a staggered roll out of Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft has managed to push the major operating system update to more than three-quarters of Windows 10 users.

The latest figures from AdDuplex show that uptake of Windows 10 Anniversary Update has accelerated dramatically. The latest version of Windows 10 is now installed on no less than 76.6 percent of Windows 10 PCs.

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Despite a desire to be more connected than ever before, people are simultaneously more concerned than ever about their security and privacy. This is certainly true when it comes to messaging tools, and the privacy features offered by a particular app or service can be what sways your decision to use it one way or the other.

Justice group Amnesty International has spent some time analyzing the privacy and encryption found in a number of popular messaging tools and compiled results in a ranked list. The findings make for interesting reading, not least because Facebook is ranked the most highly.

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Microsoft has posted its earnings for Q1 FY2017 (Q3 CY2016), revealing revenue of $22.34 billion, operating income of $7.1 billion, net income of $5.98 billion, and earnings per share of $0.76 cents. The software giant beat analyst expectations of $21.71 billion in revenue and EPS of $0.68. The stock is up around 5.5 percent over yesterday, with shares trading at over $60 -- a record value for the company.

How do the latest numbers compare to Q1 FY2016? A year ago Microsoft reported revenue of $21.66 billion, operating income of $7.07 billion, net income of $5.66 billion and EPS of $0.70. So the revenue, operating income, net income, and EPS are up.

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Think of electric cars, and it's Tesla that naturally springs to mind. But Geely, the Chinese parent company of Volvo, wants this to change. Today the company launches a new car brand, LYNK & CO, along with not just a new electric vehicle, the 01, but a whole new ownership model.

The 01 -- which will be followed, of course, by the 02, 03, and so on -- is a compact SUV designed for sharing, and it even has its own app store. With connectivity in mind, the 01 has an open API so developers can get to work creating their own apps. Partnerships with Microsoft, Alibaba and Ericsson led to the creation of the platform, and the vehicle offers Apple CarPlay, Mirror Link and Android Auto compatibility.

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The previous two Windows 10 Insider Preview builds -- 14942 and 14946 -- introduced some fairly major new features to the OS, including the ability to collapse the App list in the Start menu, longer Active Hours settings, and precision trackpad improvements.

Today, Microsoft rolls out yet another new build, keeping up the weekly frequency. Build 14951 introduces yet more big improvements, including two large updates to the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

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This Friday, the video game 'Battlefield 1' hits stores. Many gamers have anticipated this game, as both the graphics and gameplay look amazing. As with previous Battlefield titles, the multiplayer and campaigns should be very rewarding. When completing the latter, gamers should expect solid storytelling.

If you are interested in playing Battlefield 1, the Electronic Arts-published title will be made available for Windows PC. If you prefer gaming on consoles, it will also be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. If you don't own either console, don't panic -- Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson) of Microsoft is giving away an Xbox One S. The grand prize is no ordinary version of the console, however, but the limited-edition Battlefield 1 Special Edition Bundle. There will be additional runner-up prizes given away too.

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You may be more than happy with your choice of Windows wallpaper, but what you may not know is it’s not as good as it could be.

I’m not saying the image itself isn’t great, but the problem is Windows 10 automatically compresses the picture to help system performance, and that reduces the overall wallpaper quality, quite considerably.

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In an attempt to assuage concerns regarding how its cloud software and services designed for government agencies work, Microsoft has released new documentation for potential customers of Azure Government.

Microsoft Azure Government has already earned quite a few certifications acknowledging that it meets the strict requirements of the US federal government. However, for customers that believe this is not enough, the software giant has created its new Azure Blueprint program to help users use its cloud platform in a way that is compliant with government guidelines.

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The United States presidential election is set to be held on November 8, 2016, and it’s going to be one of the more interesting in recent years, as the run up has already proved.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are highly divisive candidates, with their fair share of bad publicity, but who will win the day? Microsoft thinks it knows, and is predicting a landslide for the Democratic nominee.

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