Microsoft to lay off 3,000 people as it tries to boost Azure

As expected, Microsoft has announced a radical reorganization of its sales business, with thousands of people expected to lose their jobs. The process will cut up to 3,000 jobs, mainly in the sales department — that’s less than 10 percent of Microsoft’s total sales force, and roughly 75 percent of the cuts will be outside of the United States, CNBC reports. The reorganization effort is meant to help Microsoft focus on building up Azure, its cloud platform.

Microsoft is a titan of the software sales industry, with an army of people all working to get Windows and Office into businesses. But, with the advent of cloud services, people are looking twice at those pricey Microsoft licenses and wondering if Google or Amazon couldn’t do a better job.

As Bloomberg pointed out before the announcement, both Google and Amazon offer online services for commerce, and boast about their prowess in AI. In addition, neither company has an enormous legacy software-sales business that they have to maintain at great expense, reducing costs for consumers.

If you put together Azure and Office365, then the company’s web-based offerings are a similar size to Amazon Web Services. But, as The Economist notes, Azure continues to be a money loser, which is a problem for a company that wants to make billions from the cloud by 2020.

Jessica Conditt contributed to this report.

Source: CNBC

Spotify’s new series tackles topics like immigration and equality

Spotify’s foray into original content began in 2016, with a documentary about the young days of legendary rock band Metallica, followed by a video series on Green Day earlier this year. Now the streaming service is getting ready to launch “I’m with the banned,” an in-house initiative that will feature music, videos and a documentary inspired by issues like immigration and LBGTQ equality. The original series brings together artists such as Desiigner, Pusha T, K.Flay and X Ambassadors on six new pieces of music, all created with help from singers, songwriters and producers who are affected by Trump’s controversial travel ban.

You can check out tracks and watch videos from “I’m with the banned” starting today on Spotify. The company says listeners and viewers will be directed to the I Am An Immigrant site, a campaign that focuses on celebrating the contributions of immigrants who live in the US.

Source: Spotify

Google makes its office apps even more secure

It’s been two months since Google Docs was hit by a major phishing scam targeting Gmail users. The company reacted by ramping up protections for those apps. And now, Google is adding security controls to G Suite that let admins block employees from accessing untrustworthy apps.

The company previously revealed that the attack on Google Docs in May was caused by a bogus app using a Google sign-in. As a result, it began closely monitoring external apps that ask for your Google data. Leading to today’s announcement of the OAuth apps whitelisting feature.

With the new security controls set up, admins can vet third-party apps that tap into G Suite data. They can then grant employees access to trusted third-party products, and block them from installing unauthorized apps. Google claims the controls will also limit any issues caused by workers using apps that haven’t been approved.

Google says that the new security features will be rolling out to administrators of G Suite apps over the next few days.

SoundCloud will lay off 40 percent of its staff to stay afloat

SoundCloud has been having a rough go of it lately and today it told staff that 173 jobs would be cut, which amounts to nearly 40 percent of its employees. In a blog post, SoundCloud’s co-founder Alex Ljung said that the company has doubled its revenue in the last year but that it needed to do more to remain independent. “And in order to do this, it requires cost cutting, continued growth of our existing advertising and subscription revenue streams, and a relentless focus on our unique competitive advantage — artists and creators,” said Ljung.

Earlier this year, SoundCloud was forced to borrow $70 million in order to stay afloat — a move that came after a potential acquisition by Spotify fell through. In 2014, Twitter also considered purchasing the company. It backed out because “the numbers didn’t add up,” but later invested $70 million into SoundCloud, though that influx of cash clearly wasn’t enough. In an attempt to boost revenue, SoundCloud began offering a subscription service last year but as we reported, the song library was extremely limited and the service wasn’t very user-friendly.

Along with the layoffs, SoundCloud is also consolidating its operations to its Berlin and New York offices. Its San Francisco and London offices will be closed down. “We are extremely grateful for the contributions of each and every staff member who will be leaving SoundCloud, and we wish all of them the best. Without them, we would not be where we are today,” said Ljung.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: SoundCloud

‘Overwatch’ debuts its fourth new hero: Doomfist

Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch released three additional characters in the year since it launched in May 2016, teasing through in-game hints and in-universe lore blogs. But the next hero is one we’ve been teased since the title’s very first cinematic trailer, when one of the boys takes a gauntlet that could “level a skyscraper” for his own stab at heroics. Fans, the wielder of that legendary glove is here: Doomfist has entered the fray.

Rise up and be remembered.

Witness the return of one of Talon’s leaders: Doomfist!

Learn more @ https://t.co/JCSkZJGOzc pic.twitter.com/QnRzro7YuW

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) July 6, 2017

Like the heroes before, Doomfist will go live on the (PC-only) PTR test servers before rolling into the main game in a few weeks. But then! Everyone will get to enjoy his heavy-hitting kit, which looks to include crowd-control and area damage skills.

Doomfist, of course, is the moniker adopted by three different people in the Overwatch universe. Players wandering around the Numbani stage can find posters advertising an exhibit about each person who wore the legendary gauntlet, and it seems we’re playing with the last in the line — the villain Akande Ogundimu, who broke out of prison to take his place in the shadowy Talon organization. The ‘fist itself features prominently in the game’s introductory trailer that dropped in November 2014, so it’s safe to say fans have been curious when the character would show up.

Source: Blizzard

Hulu Launches Live and On-Demand HBO as $15 Per Month Add-On Option

Hulu today announced that subscribers will now be able to add HBO’s programming into their Hulu subscription for $14.99 per month, as well as Cinemax for $9.99 per month (via TechCrunch). Hulu currently offers Showtime for $8.99 per month as an add-on package to the basic streaming service.

HBO will be available as an add-on package for both Hulu’s new live TV service (beginning at $39.99 per month) as well as its on-demand streaming tiers ($7.99 per month for limited commercials, $11.99 per month for no commercials). HBO’s East Coast and West Coast live feeds will be available, as well as every show and movie in the network’s back catalog.

Those interested will be able to access HBO on Hulu’s new app for Apple TV, iOS, Xbox One, and Android. Coming soon, additional HBO and Cinemax channels will be added, like HBO 2, HBO Family, HBO Latino, HBO Comedy, HBO Signature HD, HBO Zone, MoreMAX HD, ActionMAX HD, ThrillerMAX HD, MovieMAX HD, 5StarMAX HD and OuterMAX HD.

Tag: Hulu
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Instagram Adds Photo and Video Replies for Instagram Stories

Instagram today announced that it has added an option to reply to Instagram stories with a photo or a video, allowing Instagram users to do more than simply comment on a friend’s stories.

When watching a story, you’ll see a new camera button that can be used to snap a photo/video or choose an image that was taken within the last 24 hours from your camera roll. There are options to use Boomerang or Rewind with videos, and there are stickers and filters to apply to both photos and videos.

Photos and videos that friends send as story replies will show up in the Direct inbox, where they can be viewed with a tap. A photo or video sticker will also be added to the story itself, but it is only viewable by the user who shared the story. When you view a story reply, friends will be notified of screenshots or replays.

Instagram users who have the latest version of the iOS app installed will see the new video reply options. Instagram can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tag: Instagram
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Nintendo to Debut ‘Nintendo Switch Online’ iOS App Alongside Splatoon 2 on July 21

During a Nintendo Direct event this morning, Nintendo announced plans to release a new “Nintendo Switch Online” app on July 21, the release date for Splatoon 2. According to Nintendo, the Nintendo Switch Online app, available for iOS and Android, is designed to “enhance your online experience for compatible games on the Nintendo Switch console.”

At launch, the only game compatible with the Nintendo Switch Online app will be Splatoon 2. The app will let users voice chat with friends, invite people to online matches, create teams, and access SplatNet 2. SplatNet2 offers up online play statistics and info on upcoming game features.

The debut of the app means Splatoon 2 and other games are unlikely to have built-in voice chat capabilities, instead requiring the separate app, but Nintendo has been promoting an upcoming headset accessory from Hori that will combine audio from the iPhone and the Nintendo Switch for a more seamless play experience.

Nintendo Switch Online for iOS will let you invite friends with Splatoon 2 to Private Battles, League Battles, and Splatfest Battles across social media and “other services,” and it will support push notifications for instant alerts when an invite is received.

Though the app will launch with limited functionality, it will expand to encompass other games as Nintendo builds out its Nintendo Switch Online service.

The app’s functionality and the Splatoon 2 online play will be available for free until the full Nintendo Switch Online service launches in 2018. Following the launch of Nintendo Switch Online, most games with online gameplay will require an ongoing subscription. Nintendo Switch Online will cost $19.99 per year or $3.99 per month with a monthly subscription.

Tag: Nintendo
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Make Your YouTube Videos Stand Out in Four Easy Steps

The world of vlogging is incredibly exciting. More and more people are turning to it, either to share their passions, exchange help and tips, or to use as a career path. If you’ve decided that you want to make it big on YouTube, there’s quite a lot to consider. From promoting yourself as a brand to growing your followers, you’ve got your work cut out for you. However, there’s no point doing anything until you’re confident that you can produce high-quality videos that people will want to share. It’s not just about the videos themselves either. You need to ensure the whole process sparkles: from when a viewer first visits your channel, to when they read the information below your video.

Content

First off, are you actually saying anything worth listening to? This is a hard point to evaluate, but you need to be really honest with yourself. Yes, everyone repeats themselves in the vlogging world, but the trick is to say old things in a new way. You don’t want to just sound like everyone else: it won’t make people want to follow you. Even though you might be super inspired by certain vloggers, don’t fall into the trap of sounding exactly the same. Take the bits you like, and put your own spin on it all. Likewise, it’s a good idea to jot down some notes about what you’re going to speak about both in your current video, and in future ones. That way, if you freeze up while on screen, you’ll have a few prompts to get you going again.

Camera and filming style

Now, once you’ve sorted the content and ensured that everyone wants to watch you, you need to make sure that this is possible. It might sound obvious, but so many people forget the basic things when filming. You need somewhere with the right lighting: lighting that flatters you, hides anything you don’t want to be seen, but it still bright enough to give your audience a good look at what’s going on. You should also decide if you’re going to film your vlog while holding the camera yourself, like on a selfie stick, whether you want someone else to film you, or if you’ll use a webcam on your laptop or PC.

Editing and extras

If you know that your content is great and the filming quality is high, then you need to make sure everything else looks as good. Try using a YouTube banner maker to give your channel a more professional look and feel. You could also try using a few interactive elements in your actual videos, to help bring your viewers into the story more. This might be as simple as using ‘view more like this’ links in the video, to more complex story ideas, like ‘choose your own ending’ features.

Clarity and quality

No one wants to watch a video with poor quality sound and picture. Even if you’ve got the most entertaining subject matter, it won’t matter if your audience can’t see you or hear you. So, you need to make sure that whatever camera you’re using to record your vlog is good, and that you’re sat in a quiet place with as little background noise as possible.

Honor 8 Pro review

The recently launched Honor 8 Pro is the beefed-up version of last year’s Honor 8. The Honor 8 was a well-rounded package, but the compact form factor and mid-range specifications didn’t really allow for the ‘flagship’ tag.

Enter Honor 8 Pro. There’s larger display, top-of-the-line specifications, and Android Nougat out of the box, yet it is not just a sequel or an XL version. The sum of parts is definitely greater than the whole, and the Pro moniker doesn’t tell the whole story.

On paper, the Honor 8 Pro checks all the boxes for a flagship smartphone in 2017, but does the form and function merit it being categorized along with more expensive flagship devices, and the mid-range ones like the OnePlus 5? Let’s find out in our comprehensive Honor 8 Pro review!

Design

The Honor 8 was one of the best-looking devices of 2016, and the Honor 8 Pro sure can take a shot at the crown once again.

Honor 8 Pro sports a seamless metal unibody design that looks and feels solid, as well as premium. The blue variant of course is my personal favorite, and quite a head-turner. The Honor 8 Pro isn’t the thinnest phone around, but with just 6.97 mm in thickness, it manages to pack in a 4000 mAh battery.

For a smartphone with a large 5.7-inch display, the thin borders and rounded edges aid the grip. No, one-handed usage is not ideal, as one would expect in a phone of this size, but the ergonomics are quite good and the weight distribution is on point. It doesn’t feel as heavy as the specifications sheet suggests (184 grams), but it’s heavy nevertheless.

At the back, the dual-camera sits flush with the surface and the fingerprint scanner too looks neat. The antenna lines on the Honor 8 Pro actually accentuate the design.

Unlike the glass panel of the of Honor 8, the Honor 8 Pro sports a matte finish that improves the grip and is visually pleasing. Of course, some people liked that glass body, but it was a fingerprint magnet and quite slippery. The latter would’ve become worse in a smartphone of this size and weight.

Overall, the Honor 8 Pro is a stylish device with a dependable chassis and stands out in the sea of similar looking smartphones in the market.

Display

The Honor 8 Pro sports a 5.7-inch IPS display with 1440 x 2560 resolution. The Quad HD resolution and a pixel density of 515 ppi make for a terrific display. The display is sharp and the colors are vivid. The contrast ratio is top-notch as well, and while the display is a tad reflective, sunlight legibility is pretty good.

The display on the Honor 8 Pro offers a maximum brightness of 560 nits, which is brilliant. The black levels are deep and while there’s a blue tint on white, it’s not too noticeable to the naked eye.

The Honor 8 Pro has a 2.5D curved glass which offers a nice swiping experience across the large display. There’s Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection as well which will keep scratches at bay and prevent shatters to a certain extent.

The Quad HD IPS LCD panel on the Honor 8 Pro is one of the highlights of the device, but the obvious flip side to a higher resolution display is the bigger strain on the GPU and a hit on the battery life.

Performance

Powered by Huawei’s top-of-the-line SoC, Kirin 960 with Mali-G71 MP8 GPU, the Honor 8 Pro packs in 6 GB of RAM. Developed by HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chipmaker, the Kirin 960 chipset is one of the most powerful smartphone chips out there and does well to take on the Exynos and Snapdragon ones in benchmark tests.

The Honor 8 Pro is a snappy performer that can handle aggressive multi-tasking as well as gaming without breaking a sweat. The generous RAM helps in fluid performance and there are literally no lags or stutters, as it sails through nicely as a daily driver. The device also does a good job at staying relatively cool even when stretched.

My only grouse with the Honor 8 Pro is its loudspeaker performance. It sports a single speaker at the bottom, which is almost a letdown, and the average audio output disappoints.

The Honor 8 Pro packs in a 4,000 mAh battery, and thanks to some great software optimizations, the phone can easily give you a battery life of two days. An hour of charging every day, and you could chug along nicely without getting anxious about running out of charge.

The phone supports quick charging with the bundled 9V/2A charger, and it helps charge to a third of the battery capacity in 30 minutes and from 0 to 100% in under two hours.

A large display with 1440p resolution is expected to impact battery life. However, Honor has done well to pack a large battery and impressive optimizations under the hood. Even as a heavy user, I could manage a battery life of over a day. Also, the GPU needs to push all those pixels to the Quad HD panel. There’s of course a performance delta, but the solid internals on the Honor 8 Pro wouldn’t let that get in the way.

All in all, the Honor 8 Pro stands tall in the performance race and is clearly a champion when it comes to battery life.

Hardware

The Honor 8 Pro features a hybrid SIM slot, so you can either use two nano-SIMs or one SIM and one microSD card. A lot of multimedia hoarders who use two SIMs don’t usually like this arrangement, but the Honor 8 Pro packs in a generous 128 GB of internal storage and not many people would care for memory expansion anyway.

While the Honor 8 Pro sports a USB Type-C port at the bottom, yet oddly, the Type-C interface only supports the older USB 2.0 standard instead of USB 3.0 or 3.1. Most people though wouldn’t really care about it. Of course, OTG is supported.

The Honor 8 Pro has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and it works quite well. Rarely did the sensor failed at authentication, and it works across 360 degrees – your fingerprint is recognized regardless of its position on the sensor.

Camera

The rear camera on the Honor 8 Pro features a dual camera setup. There’s no Leica branding this time around, but Huawei was one of the first in the dual-camera game and has put out several devices with this feature already.

The dual camera setup boasts of one RGB sensor and another monochrome sensor – both 12-megapixel ones with f/2.2 aperture. And there’s a dual-tone LED flash. Both sensors work in unison to produce detailed photos with higher dynamic range. The RGB sensor processes all the color information while the monochrome sensor extracts the details from the shadows as well as highlights.

While the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro have identical camera setups, the shutter performance on the latter and the image processing is much better owing to the faster processor and all that extra RAM.

The Honor 8 Pro takes some great shots. The colors are beautiful without looking over-saturated. In daylight, the photos captured have a very good dynamic range with true-to-life color reproduction. The focusing too is pretty quick, except sometimes in close-up shots.

One of the primary advantages of the second sensor is improved low-light performance. The Honor 8 Pro relies on the monochrome sensor for capturing more light. Even at night time, the Honor 8 Pro manages to take some great shots without much noise and high level of resolved details.

And of course, the two sensors work well to create an optical background defocus effect, popularly known as bokeh. The camera on the Honor 8 Pro manages to capture the depth of field quite realistically. It’s top-notch and one of the best in the business.

Unlike the Honor 8, thankfully, the Honor 8 Pro has a dedicated monochrome mode that allows you to use the monochrome sensor to its full extent. This enables you to capture proper monochrome shots (not just black & white) with high level of detailing, contrast, and sharpness. While most people enjoy clicking portraits or photos with nice bokeh effects with a dual camera setup, I quite like to snap dramatic monochrome shots. With the Honor 8 Pro, the daylight shots are impressive with brilliant contrast and great amount of resolved detail. The low-light ones too are striking.

The 8-megapixel front shooter on the Honor 8 Pro comes with a f/2.0 lens and manages to capture quite detailed selfies even indoors and in low-light, like when you’re out for dinner with friends. There’s of course the beautification feature which masks blemishes on your face, if beauty is just skin-deep for you.

The Honor 8 Pro offers 4K video capture at 30fps. While the captured videos are sharp and colors look just fine, they lack the details.

The camera app on the Honor 8 Pro also offers RAW shooting mode as well as a manual mode so you can granularly configure focus, shutter speed, ISO, and other settings.

Software

Out of the box, the Honor 8 Pro comes with Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.1 on top. Huawei’s proprietary layer – Emotion UI – has matured well from its previous generations and has comprehensive under-the-hood tinkering that boosts overall performance. According to Huawei, almost 90% of core operations on the phone can be completed in three steps, and I can safely say that the claim is not misplaced.

The company claims that there are small, but very useful things, like improved mis-touch detection or better dictation algorithms. Then there’s the new Ultra Memory algorithm that learns from your app habits and speeds up app launch/resume by keeping what you consider important in the RAM. There’s also Ultra Response that allows for faster touch response and supports predictive finger tracking.

Huawei intends to use advanced machine learning to catalog and predict user behavior and allocate system resources accordingly for a better overall experience. SmartPower 5.0, the company’s intelligent power management platform, is an example of the same as it works towards improving battery efficiency.

While EMUI didn’t have an app-drawer like most Android skins from Chinese OEMs, but with EMUI 5.1, Huawei now offers the option between the usual ‘all-apps-on-the-deck’ one or a two-tiered interface with a homescreen and an app drawer. There’s also a Simple UI that’s useful for elderly or visually impaired users.

The Phone Manager app is the one-stop shop for all phone management (d’oh!) tasks. There’s a one-touch optimization button as well as a virus scanner powered by Avast. The Power Manager offers two battery savings mode – Power saving and Ultra power saving.

EMUI 5.1 is jam-packed with features all over – both in the UI as well as under-the-hood. While it offers a clean and intuitive user experience on the surface, there’s much more behind the scenes.

VR Experience

The Honor 8 Pro comes in a box that can be turned into a Google Cardboard-style VR headset. There are two VR apps pre-installed on the Honor 8 Pro – Jaunt VR and Cardboard.

The VR headset is easy to assemble but it’s just a gimmicky one, and not something you can use to indulge in VR extensively. The lenses are pretty good, but it’s hard to hold it comfortably and find the right viewing angle. But of course, it is good way for you to try VR apps and games, and if it works for you, maybe buy a third-party VR headset.

Specifications

Operating System	Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.1
Display	5.7-inch QuadHD (1440 x 2560) LTPS-IPS LCD 515ppi 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3
Processor	HiSilicon Kirin 960 Octa-core CPU (4xCortex-A73@2.4GHz + 4xCortex-A53@1.8GHz) Mali-G71 GPU
RAM	6 GB
Internal Storage	128 GB Expandable upto 256 GB with microSD card
Front Camera	8 MP f/2.0 aperture 1080p @ 30fps video capture
Rear Camera	Dual 12MP camera with hybrid AF RGB and Monochrome sensors f/2.2 aperture Dual-tone flash 2160p and 1080p @ 30/60fps video capture
Battery	4,000 mAh 18W fast charging
Dimensions	157 x 77.5 x 7 mm
Weight	184 grams

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

The Honor 8 Pro is nothing short of a fantastic flagship smartphone in 2017.

Launched in the UK in April for £474.99, and now in India for ₹29,990 ($463), the Honor 8 Pro has managed to squeeze in a well-rounded flagship device in mid-tier price segment. In India, the price is lower than that of OnePlus 5, and while the latter has gotten all the buzz in last few months, the Honor 8 Pro might just spoil its party.

While Huawei and Honor have been slowly and surely getting a foothold in the Indian market, the company was always in the hunt for a game-changing device that captures not just the mindshare, but also flies of the shelves. Looks like, the Honor 8 Pro might just be that.

It’s got the best chipset in the house, a high-resolution display that looks gorgeous, latest Android out of the box, and a good enough dual camera… all packed in a very stylish and solid chassis. There’s not much to complain, really. The Honor 8 Pro is nothing short of a fantastic flagship smartphone in 2017.