Pedro Hernandez

Microsoft has made a break from tradition by licensing Windows Phone 8.1 to some Indian smartphone makers for free. The Times of India reported on March 13 that Lava and Karbonn, which Microsoft welcomed as new Windows Phone licensees during this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, have had their fees waived. In effect, […]

Microsoft is betting that its Office Graph technology and “Oslo,” as the accompanying app is code-named, will take social-enabled business productivity to new heights. First previewed at the company’s SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas on March 3, Office Graph is the “new Office 365 intelligence fabric,” according to Microsoft. It leverages the company’s machine learning […]

Data privacy is a touchy topic these days. When it affects kids, Microsoft is making its stance unabashedly clear. At the Microsoft in Education Global Forum in Barcelona, Spain, March 12, the company signaled that children are off-limits. The software giant claims that 98 percent of schools worldwide use its technology. Comments made at the […]

Today’s launch of Titanfall, a major title for the Xbox One console (also available for Windows PCs and on the Xbox 360 later this month), is not only a big milestone for Microsoft’s latest video game machine, it will also test the mettle of the company’s Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Although Titanfall is developed […]

Microsoft has opened up preorders of the Power Cover for its line of Surface tablets with a ship date of March 19. Like the innovative Type Cover, it provides protection for the Surface’s touchscreen and doubles as a full keyboard and trackpad. As its name suggests, however, it has another function that helps the tablet […]

Microsoft today launched HereHere, a new project that blends data analytics and social media to alert users to issues affecting their neighborhoods and improve how they engage with their communities. HereHere originates from Microsoft Research’s Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs. The mobile-friendly platform delivers selective and relevant status updates pertaining to local happenings that mimic […]

Microsoft is promising a smoother Skype experience on Windows 8.1 with an update that does a better job syncing Skype across different platforms. Skype 2.6, available now at the Windows Store, will help stop Skype apps from displaying mismatched information. “With this update, if you have Skype running on multiple devices, your read chats and […]

Microsoft isn’t only relying on energy-efficient cloud data centers and renewable energy to lessen its environmental impact. The company is also pushing sustainability within its supplier network. The company announced March 7 that its supply chain for hardware and packaging has been certified ISO 14001-compliant. “ISO 14001 is an internationally recognized framework for organizations to […]

Consumers, not businesses, are overwhelmingly the targets of law-enforcement investigations across the globe, according to new data released by Microsoft. In all of 2013, the world’s police and law-enforcement agencies made 72,279 requests for user information affecting 125,215 Microsoft accounts. The figures indicate that the volume of those requests dropped somewhat in the second half […]

The Windows 8.1 Spring Update, which will include features meant to appease keyboard and mouse traditionalists, has been released to manufacturing (RTM) and should be ready for public consumption next month. “Microsoft has released Windows 8.1 Update 1 to manufacturing, according to my sources, as well as the known Windows leaker WZor,” reported ZDNet’s Mary […]