Microsoft debating Android app support for Windows Phones
Windows 10 will unify Microsoft’s PC and mobile platforms with a single operating system and app store. However, with Windows accounting for roughly only 2.7 percent of the smartphone market, Microsoft needs a plan to win back consumer support in a big way.
According to a former Microsoft employee, the biggest priority for Microsoft this time around is to “stop the leakage” and prevent Android and iOS users from completely abandoning Microsoft’s operating system. Apparently, this has led Microsoft to discuss whether or not Android apps should be allowed to run on Windows Phones.
The benefit for Microsoft is clear, customers will be free to pick up a Windows powered phone while retaining access to their favourite Android apps. Not to mention that Microsoft’s mobile ecosystem would be instantly fleshed out with a huge range of popular applications. Uber didn’t release its app for Windows Phone until July last year and Snapchat still doesn’t run on Windows Phone, for example. However, such a move may disincentivize developers from designing Windows apps in the future, as they would not be backwards compatible with other operating systems. This would weaken Window’s position as an operating system further down the line.
Microsoft’s recent move to open up its Office Mobile software and unifying the code base across other operating systems is being seen by some as a sign that the company is prepared to relinquish its reliance on its OS in favour of providing competitive services with the likes of Google. Microsoft is also under threat from Apple’s and Google’s moves into the enterprise space, so there’s a clear need to begin competing more aggressively against the big mobile players in software as well as the OS space.
Software looks to be a key part of Microsoft’s Windows 10 strategy , with enhanced security options, data syncing and office features all expected to make an appearance. Windows 10 will be an important release for Microsoft’s mobile plans, but it remains to be seen whether or not the company will go so far as to open up its platform to its major competitors.
Next Lock Screen update brings music controls, MMS and online chat support
A few months ago, Microsoft’s Garage initiative released Next Lock Screen, a simple lock screen replacement that aims to give users the information that they want without needing to enter the phone. The app has just been updated to bring Hangouts, Skype and Line messages to its users, along with MMS messages. The update also brings music controls to the lock screen, which is a feature we definitely would have liked to see from the start. These additions are very important when it comes to lock screen replacements, so we’re happy to see these features added. Take a look below for the full changelog:
- Music Player Controls. Now control music on Android OS versions 4.3 and above.
- Multimedia Messaging (MMS) Support. Multimedia messaging notifications will now appear on your lock screen.More Instant
- Messaging Support. Receive instant messaging notifications for Skype, Line, and Google Hangouts (for Android OS version 4.3 and higher).
- Quick Toggle Mobile Data. Turn on or off mobile data with a single tap.
- Improved performance, memory usage and number of bug fixes.
If you’re interested in trying this app or need to grab the update, head to the Play Store link below.
Marriott backtracks under pressure from FCC, Microsoft, Google
Marriott’s efforts to block its customers’ personal WiFi hotspots have ended, according to a statement from the company.
Last month, Microsoft and Google expressed concern over the issue, and Marriott is finally backtracking.
In an email to Inc., a Marriott spokesperson said, “Marriott International listens to its customers, and we will not block guests from using their personal Wi-Fi devices at any of our managed hotels,
The FCC had also filed a complaint against Marriott, so that was likely part of the decision to stop using cell jammers as well.
Source: TechnoBuffalo
Come comment on this article: Marriott backtracks under pressure from FCC, Microsoft, Google
Sprint snags its first Lumia smartphone
Believe it or not, Sprint hasn’t had a Lumia-badged smartphone since Nokia (and now Microsoft) got into Windows phones — you’ve had to go with HTC or Samsung and forgo a bunch of apps and services. You won’t have that problem from now on, since Sprint just picked up the low-cost Lumia 635. It’s been available on the carrier’s prepaid Boost and Virgin Mobile labels for a little while, but the move gives you truly unlimited data without having to break the bank on either your phone or your plan. You can score a 635 for $168 up front, or $7 per month over two years.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft, Sprint
Via: Neowin
Source: Sprint
Console sales up dramatically in 2014 as Xbox One finishes strongly
Console fanboys, get ready to gloat — or mope. Actually, (nearly) everybody can be cheered by the latest data from NPD, which showed console sales up a cool 20 percent from last year to to over $5 billion. Leading the final charge was MIcrosoft’s Xbox One, which topped the charts in December for the second straight month. Its recent success can likely be chalked up to attractive holiday pricing, since Sony’s PS4 was consistently eating its lunch prior to that. Either way, it came at a good time for Microsoft, since the last two months of the year are far and away the strongest for consoles.
The news was more grim on the software side, however, as software sales were down 13 percent from last year to $5.3 billion. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was the top selling game of the year, with Madden NFL 15, Destiny, Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft rounding out the top 5. Super Smash Bros was Nintendo’s bestseller of 2015 in sixth place overall. Finally, Microsoft had a piece of good news in its latest Xbox Wire report: thanks to a new promotion, the Xbox One will again be on sale for $349 (sans Kinect) starting January 16th. Oh, and screenshots are finally coming “early this year.”
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under: Gaming, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
Via: Joystiq
Source: Xbox Wire
Heels made from aluminum foam, designed by the cosmos
These are the shoes we’d imagine Lady Gaga would wear if she were Cinderella. As much as they look like crumpled aluminum foil, though, their designers, Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves, were inspired by something a lot bigger: the rough surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where ESA’s Philae lander is currently sleeping. In the absence of actual Churyumov-Gerasimenko samples, the duo collectively known as Studio Swine, 3D-scanned meteorites at the Natural History Museum in London after securing sponsorship from Microsoft. They meshed various scanned surfaces together and formed the shoes’ base shape using aluminum foam. A CNC mill then scooped out part of the structure for the wearer’s feet (these are shoes, after all), which was then lined with soft Italian leather. Despite the rugged ultra-metallic look, the designers claim these heels are nearly weightless, as aluminum foam is 90 percent air. We guess fashion doesn’t always have to hurt after all.
[Image credit: Studio Swine]
Filed under: Misc
Via: Wired
Source: Studio Swine
Jide’s Ultra Remix Surfaces, wants to provide Window(s) to productivity
From this angle (or any, really) one might be hard pressed to see anything other than a Microsoft Surface.
Many believe that the motivation behind Microsoft’s Surface line of tablet PCs is to inspire OEMs to make similar, competitive products. This was especially a relevant point in the early days of Windows 8 when manufacturers were still focused on laptops with the slate form-factor primarily embraced by RT products. While inspiration may be the main ingredient, it’s questionable just how enamored Redmond will be at the sight of Jide’s Ultra Remix tablet. The bigger cause of concern? Hard to guess: the design itself or the fact it’s running Android.
This curious creation is the brainchild of a trio of former senior engineers at Google: Jeremy Zhou, David Ko, and Ben Luk. They, along with a team comprised of former staff at Sony, Baidu, Amazon, and even Microsoft itself (among others). The Remix appears to be little more than a geek’s fantasy of running Android on a Surface, but the hardware doesn’t disappoint either. In addition to the kickstand (which can be positioned at either 40 or 80 degrees), it also has an 11.6 inch, 1920X1080 screen and a 1.8 GHz Nvidia Tegra 4 on-board. Add to this 2GB of RAM, 16GB or 64GB of on-board storage, a pair of 5 megapixel front/rear cameras and dual-band Wi-Fi (a/b/g/n). It is only 860 grams and sports an nice 8100 mAh power cell. And let’s not forget the pre-requsite magnetic keyboard (replete with touch pad) and magnetic charging port.
Running on this familiar-looking piece of kit is a variant of Android 4.4.2 called Remix OS. The mobile software platform makes use of a taskbar to facilitate multi-tasking (just like Windows), which interestingly seems to have chosen Lollipop’s system navigation buttons. The OS also allows for apps to be ran in a phone-sized state thus avoiding the stretched out form factor that typically occurs when running them on an optimized screen resolution/size. And, just like Windows, you can have multiple… windows open. Given the similarities, it actually would be most-fitting should Jide work in a licensing agreement with Microsoft to have Office for Android pre-installed.
When the Jide Ultra Remix tablet hits China it should retail for around $349 (16 GB) and $449 (64GB) and be offered in a variety of color options. A US/UK release is expected in Q2 or Q3. Suffice to say, it does look nice and provided it has decent build quality, could actually present a challenge not only to Chromebooks, but to larger Android tablets that offer bigger screens yet the same basic Android interface present on all non-forked devices.
5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week! – Google Play Weekly
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Welcome back to Google Play Weekly! Here are your headlines this week:
- Hyundai announced an Android Wear app that will remote start your car and find it in a parking lot.
- Monument Valley developer shows that piracy is still alive and strong on Android.
- A Need for Speed: No Limits teaser video appeared in the wild and the game looks really good.
- WhatsApp hit the 700 million active monthly users mark.
- Microsoft Office have released a beta for their tablet version of Microsoft Office to the public. If you want to try them out, you can download Word here, Excel here, and PowerPoint here.
And now here are five Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week!
Unclouded
[Price: Free / $2.99 / $3.49]
Unclouded was updated to version 2.0 this last week and with it came a number of changes. It now has Material Design, sports a dark theme for premium users, and has support for Microsoft OneDrive and Box.com. There were also the standard bug fixes and performance improvements and remains the best way to manage multiple cloud storage services in one app.
SoundCloud
[Price: Free]
SoundCloud received a pretty substantial update this last week. With it came some design tweaks to make it more Lollipop friendly along with Lollipop notification support, better Facebook integration, French translation, and some bug fixes and performance improvements. It’s worth noting that it’s not full on Material Design but it still looks really good.
Lego Bionicle
[Price: Free]
Lego Bionicle is a tap-to-play hack-and-slash game where you play as one of six heroes as you beat the snot out of a bunch of robotic bad guys. The graphics are decent and the game play is simple but that makes sense because it is a game geared toward kids. It may be a bit repetitive for adults but it’s free with no in app purchases which helps make up for it.
SnoopSnitch
[Price: Free]
SnoopSnitch is a crowd-sourced and open source security app that analyzes mobile radio data to make sure that you’re mobile data isn’t being tracked or jacked by hackers or other people aiming to do you ill will. This app comes with a cornucopia of restrictions. You’ll need to be rooted, not running a custom ROM, and have a device with a Qualcomm chipset.
BitCoin Wallet
[Price: Free]
Last up this week is Bitcoin Wallet. It’s one of the premiere apps for Bitcoin users and it received a pretty substantial update this last week. It now comes with more Material Design along with some under-the-hood security enhancements along with the ability to send and receive Bitcoins. You can also buy Bitcoins which is a nice touch if you need that.
Wrap up
If we missed any great Android apps or games news this week, let us know about it in the comments!
Microsoft’s Office preview for Android tablets is now available to everyone
If you’ve wanted to try the preview of Office for Android tablets during its brief history, you’ve had to request to join a Google+ group. That’s not the hardest thing to do, but do you really want to participate in a special club (and in some cases, sign up for Google+) just to try some productivity apps a little early? As of now, you don’t have to. Microsoft has posted the previews of Excel, PowerPoint and Word on Google Play, so you can download them like you would any other app. The only major requirements are that your slate runs at least Android 4.4 KitKat and that you’re comfortable with less-than-polished software. You may not want to finish an important report with these releases, then, but it’s now easy to experiment with the new Office suite before it’s completely ready.
Filed under: Tablets, Software, Mobile, Microsoft
Via: Office Blogs
Source: Google Play (Excel), (PowerPoint), (Word)
Google posts Windows 8.1 vulnerability before Microsoft can patch it
Google’s Project Zero tracks vulnerabilities in software systems and reports them to vendors “in as close to real-time as possible” — a noble cause, no? But what happens if said vendor then fails to push a fix within the 90-day window? Microsoft just found out: Google will go ahead and publish the bug anyway, complete with code that can be used to exploit it. A researcher found a Windows 8.1 security hole that allows lower-level users to become administrators, giving them access to sensitive server functions they’d normally have no right to. Though it remains unpatched by Microsoft, the Zero team published it several days ago — right on schedule.
Microsoft was quick to point out that attackers would “need to have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to a targeted machine.” While that should limit the damage, it doesn’t mean the flaw is harmless — a disgruntled mid-level employee with some programming skills could wreak serious harm, for instance. Mountain View told us “just to make this absolutely clear, the (bug) was reported to Microsoft on September 30 (along with) the 90-day disclosure deadline statement… which in this instance has passed.”
Still, some observers have raised questions about whether Project Zero does more harm than good if Google isn’t flexible with its publishing deadline. Others argued that Microsoft had plenty of time to fix the bug, and Google was firm about its policy. “Project Zero’s disclosure deadline… allows software vendors a fair and reasonable length of time to exercise their vulnerability management process, while also respecting the rights of users to learn and understand the risks they face.” But it also added that “we’re going to be monitoring the affects (sic) of this policy very closely.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft said that it’s currently “working to release a security update to address an Elevation of Privilege issue.” For full statements from both companies, see below.
Microsoft:
We are working to release a security update to address an Elevation of Privilege issue. It is important to note that for a would-be attacker to potentially exploit a system, they would first need to have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to a targeted machine. We encourage customers to keep their anti-virus software up to date, install all available Security Updates and enable the firewall on their computer.
Google:
There was some confusion yesterday about whether we had contacted Msft about this issue, so we posted an update (below).
Firstly, just to make this absolutely clear, the ahcache.sys/NtApphelpCacheControl issue was reported to Microsoft on September 30. You can see this in the “Reported” label on the left hand panel of this bug. This initial report also included the 90-day disclosure deadline statement that you can see above, which in this instance has passed.
Project Zero’s disclosure deadline policy has been in place since the formation of our team earlier in 2014. It’s the result of many years of careful consideration and industry-wide discussions about vulnerability remediation. Security researchers have been using roughly the same disclosure principles for the past 13 years (since the introduction of “Responsible Disclosure” in 2001), and we think that our disclosure principles need to evolve with the changing infosec ecosystem. In other words, as threats change, so should our disclosure policy.
On balance, Project Zero believes that disclosure deadlines are currently the optimal approach for user security – it allows software vendors a fair and reasonable length of time to exercise their vulnerability management process, while also respecting the rights of users to learn and understand the risks they face. By removing the ability of a vendor to withhold the details of security issues indefinitely, we give users the opportunity to react to vulnerabilities in a timely manner, and to exercise their power as a customer to request an expedited vendor response.
With that said, we’re going to be monitoring the affects of this policy very closely – we want our decisions here to be data driven, and we’re constantly seeking improvements that will benefit user security. We’re happy to say that initial results have shown that the majority of the bugs that we have reported under the disclosure deadline get fixed under deadline, which is a testament to the hard work of the vendors.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft, Google
Via: Slashdot
Source: Google
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