Pedro Hernandez

Kinect, the innovative device from Microsoft that was a consumer electronics success for the company and sparked a hardware hacking movement, has reached the end of the line. The Redmond, Wash. technology giant has pulled the plug on the motion-sensing peripheral first introduced for the Xbox 360 and later updated for the company’s current-generation game […]

Microsoft and Parexel International, a biopharmaceutical services company, have partnered to create cloud-based services aimed at helping pharmaceutical firms speed up the delivery of new drugs and therapies. Under the terms of the alliance, Microsoft Azure becomes Parexel’s preferred cloud platform, similar to deals the Redmond, Wash. software giant has struck with Adobe and SAP […]

Azure Container Service, Microsoft’s cloud-based container orchestration service, is getting some new updates and a bit of a name change to reflect its new Kubernetes-centric approach to cloud-native applications. Also dubbed AKS by Microsoft, but still retaining the Azure Container Service branding, the offering is being billed as a managed Kubernetes service, reflecting the open-source […]

Microsoft’s Learning Tools, a collection of free, artificial intelligence-enabled software helpers in Office that assist users in improving their reading and writing skills, will soon be available in the iOS version of the Word app for Apple iPads. Countering AI doomsayers, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently pointed to his company’s Learning Tools as one of […]

Microsoft is claiming victory in one of the most closely watched legal cases, even before the case finished making its way through the U.S. federal court system. The Redmond, Wash., software maker is dismissing a lawsuit filed in April 2016 against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking to curb the U.S. government’s practice of […]

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is synonymous with mixed-reality computing, but the software maker hasn’t forgotten the countless business users who may never experience augmented- and virtual-reality, at least not at their work desks. In corporate circles, the update will be judged mainly by security enhancements it delivers to harried IT administrators and businesses coping […]

Cray will be furnishing Microsoft’s cloud with supercomputing systems, allowing Azure customers to accelerate their high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, the two companies announced on Oct. 23. “Microsoft and Cray are working together to bring customers the right combination of extreme performance, scalability, and elasticity,” commented Jason Zander, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure Team, in […]

SAP’s Hybris Marketing Cloud service is using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, machine learning particularly, to help retailers make more informed and targeted marketing decisions. During the SAP Hybris LIVE: Global Summit event in Barcelona, the German business software giant announced on Oct. 17 an integration with SAP Leonardo that allows SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud customers […]

Harman Kardon Invoke, the Cortana-Enabled speaker first announced in December 2016, will finally hit store shelves on Sunday, Oct. 22. Apart from Microsoft’s virtual assistant technology, Harman Kardon, a Samsung company, is banking on high-quality audio and a dash of style to help Invoke speakers win a place in people’s homes. “Invoke delivers powerful 360-degree […]

The wait’s finally over. Visio Online, the browser-based version of Microsoft’s diagramming software, is now generally available, ending a public beta that began in December 2016. “Visio Online comes with a host of templates for a variety of audiences, including starter diagrams for basic flowcharts, process diagrams, timelines, business matrixes, Specification and Description Language diagrams, […]

Dell EMC is giving its Azure Stack hybrid cloud solution a hefty upgrade, courtesy of the company’s latest PowerEdge servers. First unveiled at the inaugural Microsoft Ignite conference in 2015, Azure Stack is a software and converged hardware bundles offered by select server manufacturers. It provides infrastructure and platform as a service functionality, essentially enabling […]

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update has other things to offer besides mixed-reality support. Although mixed reality may be the update’s headline feature, the latest version of Microsoft’s desktop operating system also has things in store for users who may never strap on a headset to explore virtual worlds or partake in augmented-reality experiences. Rather, it’s […]