Microsoft

Microsoft’s AI Is On Its Way to Identifying the Whole World

This morning at the annual Research Faculty Summit, Microsoft showed off a pretty impressive advancement in its AI tech. An app, entitled Project Adam, is poised to identify all of its surroundings just like a Fire Phone without the merch hooks. The app is still in development but shows promising results. Microsoft says Adam has…

Watch Out Chromebooks: Super Cheap Windows 8 Machines Are Coming

Chromebooks are great if you want a super cheap computer, but they’re not without their limitations; you (basically) have to run everything in a browser. And Microsoft is aiming to give them some competition withfull Windows 8 machines around those same, dumb low price points. You know, netbooks. Today at the company’s partner conference, Microsoft…

Behold the All Time Best/Worst Movie About the Internet

There are many movies about the internet. Some are good. Some are bad. And now comedian Nathan Fielder has made a movie about the internet so bad that it is the best. Unfortunately, it’s not quite real. But the part of it that exists is great. On Comedy Central’s Nathan For You, Fielder hand-holds small…

Microsoft Wants to Patent a Real-Life Dæmon

Microsoft has struggled to keep up in the device marketplace in recent years. So much so that the company is exploring some pretty insane inventions, including a robotic butterfly that talks to wearable devices and responds to its owner’s mood. It’s sort of like your own mechanical dæmon. In case you’re not up on your…

New Kinect for PC Arrives July 15th (and the Hacks Not Long After)

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox One’s Kinect sensor will be available for PCs from July 15th—and it will usher in a whole new wave of fascinating and useful hacks. Cast your mind back to when the first Kinect became available for PC, and you’ll remember a sudden explosion of cool and crazy hacks that…

The imminent arrival of Microsoft’s Surface Mini is more off-and-on than a light switch—but now, Evleaks reckons it’s back in production in anticipation of a summer release.

Microsoft’s Cross-Platform Smartwatch Might Be Here In October

We hope you didn’t blow all your cash on that Surface Pro 3. Tom’s Hardware says that a “trusted source with knowledge of the development” has verified that a Microsoft smartwatch will be released in October. There aren’t really a lot of details about hardware or pricing yet, but here’s what Tom’s claims they do…

The Race to Save Your Car’s Dashboard

Earlier this week, Google showed off Android Auto, a dashboard navigation and entertainment system powered by an Android smartphone. It’s almost identical in concept to competing designs from Apple and Microsoft. For perhaps the first time, these companies have a unified vision for the future of in-car electronics. And that’s the best news car buyers…

Roku’s remote control app is now available for Windows Phones and tablets.

The Washington Post and Twitter users are reporting a massive outage of Microsoft Outlook, Office 365, and other services. Are you experiencing problems? Share them here! [WP]

If you take the plunge and trade in your MacBook Air for a Surface Pro 3, Microsoft will give you up to $650 for it. It’s never been clearer that Microsoft is gunning for the Air, but whether or not it’s a trade you need to make is a different question entirely.

OneDrive just more than doubled its free-storage offering, bringing it up to 15GB. That’s the same amount you’ll get with Google Drive. On top of that, all versions of Office 365 now come with a full 1TB of storage attached. That’s a lot of spreadsheets.

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Teardown: If This Thing Breaks, You’re Screwed

Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 3 might be the greatest laptop-tablet hybrid that you don’t really need, but what exactly lurks inside it? Fortunately, iFixit has torn the thing apart so we don’t need to wonder any longer. https://gizmodo.com/surface-pro-3-review-the-greatest-laptop-tablet-hybrid-1581896186 So, what is there going on in there? Here are some highlights (or more accurately, low points):…

A Map That Shows Which States Are Xbox One and Which Are PS4

The XBOX One is beating the PS4 — at least on Facebook, if not in sales numbers. A map published by the Movoto Blog takes a look at the popularity of current-gen consoles in every state in the United States based on the number of Facebook likes. The results are surprising: The XBOX One was…

The Surface Mini Exists! (As a Mistake in a User Guide)

Last month’s announcement of the Surface Pro 3 left a lot of people asking “Hey so where’s that tiny Surface I was hearing about?” Rumor had it that it was cancelled at the last second, and now it seems like that was definitely the case; the Surface Pro 3 User Guide is littered with references…

Good news for Windows Phone users: Microsoft is bringing remote-lock and remote-wipe capabilities to WinPhone in a future software update. When it comes to you depends on your phone manufacturer and carrier, but this stuff is reducing thefts in other phones, so hopefully it’ll be a good deterrent for WinPhoners too. [Microsoft Blog via The…

The Secret Android Patents That Microsoft Forces OEMs to License

Microsoft has long licensed a glut of patents to Android hardware makers for them to avoid litigation—and how the Chinese government has made public exactly what they are. In total, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has revealed a list of more than 300 patents that Microsoft requires OEMs to license—at some considerable profit—in order that…

A New Xbox Ad Is Turning on Consoles By Accident

The Xbox One has a new advert starring Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul. Standard. But what is strange is that as he shouts “Xbox On” near its start, consoles around the world are firing up. It seems that—perhaps unsurprisingly—the voice command triggers the machine’s Kinect voice/motion sensor, activating the console. People have been taking to Twitter…

Oh Sweet, You Can Use the Xbox One Controller on PC Now

For all its flaws, I’m a pretty big fan of the Xbox One . But while the voice control can occasionally miss the mark and sometimes the Kinect won’t recognize you, there’s one thing that’s flawless: that controller. And now Microsoft has released the drivers for download so you can use it on PC. I’ve…

The Xbox One Gets a Graphics Boost When Devs Ignore Kinect

Say what you will about Microsoft’s decision to give up on packing in the Kinect with its Xbox One (I sure have!) but there’s good news for performance junkies: When Kinect’s out of the picture, the Xbox One gets a 10 percent boost in graphics power. The announcement that Xbox One dev kits were going…