Core i3 and i7 Surface Pro 3 now shipping to US and Canada
In addition to the $999 Intel Core i5-equipped Surface Pro 3, Core i3 and Core i7 options are now on sale in the US and Canada. Starting at $799, selecting the i3 nets you 64GB of storage while devices outfitted with an i7 processor tout either 256GB or 512GB of space at $1,549 and $1,949 respectively. Of course, that significant investment nets you a 12-inch display, Windows 8.1 and the ability to tack on Type Cover or Pen to further boost productivity.
Filed under: Tablets, Microsoft
Source: Microsoft
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Office for iPad updated with PDF export, third-party fonts and video playback support
Microsoft’s iPad version of Office is pretty sleek, but it isn’t perfect: it has limited print and export functions and just isn’t as robust as its desktop counterpart. Slowly but surely, Redmond is changing that — today the company announced a few notable updates to the tablet-based office suite, including PDF exports, wider font capability and a small collection of advanced Excel features.
Much of the update consists of simple, small things that will make the average user’s life easier. The share button, for instance, now allows all users (even non-subscribers) to export documents to PDF, and fonts downloaded through the iOS AppStore are now instantly recognized and usable in document editing. Printing options have been expanded too, and now allows users to choose from more scaling and paper sizes. Some of the more interesting features are hidden in Excel: advanced users can now use keyboard shortcuts to switch between Edit and Point mode and a new flick motion makes it easier to select columns of related data.
Finally, Microsoft has augmented PowerPoint for iPad with a presenter mode — allowing users to project the main presentation to another screen while viewing a more complex, editable view on their iPad, complete with speaker notes. There are even more fixes (including the ability to play videos in PowerPoint and edit photos without leaving Word), but you’ll need to check out Microsoft’s Office blog at the source for the full rundown.
Filed under: Tablets, Apple, Microsoft
Source: Microsoft
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BlackBerry’s BBM messenger app officially arrives on Windows Phone
Have a Windows Phone and crave access to BlackBerry’s famed messaging app? Today’s your lucky day. Announced in a video posted today, BBM is now exiting beta to become available for download in the Windows Phone store. The company said it spent considerable time tweaking the app’s interface to fit with Microsoft’s mobile OS, and the result is a clean UI that looks considerably different than the versions you’ll see on iOS and Android (not to mention BlackBerry OS 10). BBM for Windows consists of three main screens — chats, feeds and contacts — and you’ll have the ability to pin a chat right to your phone’s start screen. Windows Phone users who are new to BBM can pick up a few tips on getting started via the video (posted below). As of this posting, the app wasn’t yet live in the Windows Phone store, but the rollout should begin shortly.
Filed under: Storage, Software, Mobile, Microsoft, Blackberry
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Experimental display lets glasses wearers ditch the specs
Engadgeteers spend a lot of their day staring at a screen, so it’s no surprise that nearly all of us are blind without glasses or contact lenses. But wouldn’t it be great if we could give our eyes a break and just stare at the screen without the aid of corrective lenses? That’s the idea behind an experimental display that automatically adjusts itself to compensate for your lack of ocular prowess, enabling you to sit back and relax without eyewear. It works by placing a light-filtering screen in front of a regular LCD display that breaks down the picture in such a way that, when it reaches your eye, the light rays are reconstructed as a sharp image. The prototype and lots more details about the method will be shown off at SIGGRAPH next month, after which, its creators, a team from Berkeley, MIT and Microsoft, plan to develop a version that’ll work in the home and, further down the line, with more than one person at a time.
Filed under: Displays, Microsoft
Source: MIT Technology Review
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Sky’s Now TV streaming app comes to the Xbox One
Well that didn’t take long. Less than a week after it rolled out the app to the PlayStation 4, Sky’s now brought Now TV to the Xbox One. With today’s launch, Sky now has Microsoft and Sony’s new and old gaming consoles covered, as well as a number of smartphones and tablets, giving it a firm footing on which to challenge Netflix. Now that Microsoft doesn’t require a subscription to access Live apps, you only need to stump up the cash for one of Sky’s movie, sport or entertainment packages to get streaming on your next-gen Xbox.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
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Making an indie game for Xbox One costs just over $5,000
So let’s say that you want to quit your day job and start making indie games. It’s a noble pursuit to to be sure, and with Microsoft’s Independent Developers @ Xbox program for Xbox One, it’s supposedly pretty easy. What Redmond doesn’t tell you, however, is just how much it’ll cost you. That’s where Jamie Fristrom, the developer behind Sixty Second Shooter Prime comes in. On his blog, Fristrom breaks how much everything from URL registration and maintenance ($19) to paying to have the game rated in foreign markets ($2,042) costs, with the total coming in at $5,143 — a stark contrast to something like Destiny‘s $140 million price-tag. He notes that even with Redmond giving away free development kits, Xbox isn’t the cheapest indie platform around but that the costs to publish there were “absolutely worth it.” What’s more, he says that if you choose to skip stuff like releasing in other territories, making a game for under $3,000 could be totally feasible. Good to know.
And even though he’s yet to see Prime‘s first sales report, Fristrom estimates that given the game’s leaderboard population he’s more than covered the cost of development and even made a living wage. How’s that two-week notice looking now?
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Source: Happion Laboratories
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Verizon’s FiOS Xbox apps now let you watch ‘The Walking Dead,’ er, live
Verizon’s FiOS app has been leading the way on the Xbox One live-TV front, and now it’s getting a handful more channels in its stable. If you’re a subscriber, you now have access to the likes of AMC HD, Showtime, Encore, Bloomberg TV and ten others. As Verizon tells it, this brings the total channel count to 88 across both the Xbox 360 and its younger brother, the Xbox One. Whether you’re going to use them to keep up with the exploits of the Ricktatorship or Homeland, however, is up to you.
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Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Source: Verizon
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‘EA Access’ subscription on Xbox One brings all-you-can-eat gaming for $5 per month
It appears EA and Microsoft have been paying attention to Netflix and PlayStation Now (which opens its doors to all PS4 owners in two days), and are combining to offer a different subscription service for gamers. The EA Access pass is available (currently in beta) for $5 per month or $30 per year and gives subscribers unlimited access to a “Vault” of games. Right now that list covers FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2 and Battlefield 4, with the promise of more titles soon. Not enticed by the promise of last year’s games plus 10 percent discounts on EA games, DLC, and in-game currency? They’re also adding in early access trials for this year’s round of EA sports games (Madden, NHL, NBA Live, FIFA) and Dragon Age: Inquisition that open up five days before the games go on sale and let your progress carry over to the retail version.
EA Access passes will be sold in GameStop stores, EB Games in Canada, and online for European gamers via GameStop and Amazon. You can hit the website for details, and EA says it will become available for everyone on Xbox One “soon.” Considering the discounts, if you were already planning on picking up a sports game or two this fall, the pricing doesn’t seem particularly outrageous, although we will be interested to see what rotates through the “evolving” list of vault games. So, on a scale from Horse Armor DLC to Sim City 4, how excited is everyone about this?
Awesome new way to play more @EA games coming to players on @Xbox http://t.co/XbBzfr2QzE. Great to have @GameStop on board as well!
– Peter Moore (@petermooreEA) July 29, 2014
Welcome to EA Access, a new membership kicking off on Xbox One! Access to The Vault, discounts, & more! Learn More: http://t.co/laaY10bpTf
– EA Access (@EAAccess) July 29, 2014
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
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OneNote on iOS and Mac now lets you attach files
Like it or not, school is fast approaching. However, Microsoft thinks it can make the fall semester a little more bearable with big updates to OneNote on both iOS and the Mac. Both apps now let you attach files to your notes; you can include audio recordings from a lecture to add some context to what you wrote, for example. If you add a PDF printout, you can also jot down annotations.
There’s more than just attachment support in this upgrade, as you might expect, and some of the improvements are meant as much for the corporate crowd as students. You can now open and edit OneDrive for Business notebooks, and it’s possible to both lock and unlock password-protected sections if you don’t want everyone peeping your content. Other updates let you shuffle the order of pages in a notebook, and (on the Mac) share them as email. The refinements probably won’t improve your grades if you’re headed to class in the next several weeks, but they may help you make sense of hastily-written notes when you’re studying for a big exam.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Source: OneNote Blog
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China investigates Microsoft over monopoly worries
Microsoft just can’t catch a break from China these days. The country’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) has raided Microsoft offices in four cities over concerns that the company may be violating anti-monopoly laws. While the government isn’t going into great detail about the raids, it’s linking the investigation back to companies’ complaints about “compatibility issues” with Windows and Office — shades of Microsoft’s EU antitrust woes, anyone?
SAIC is quick to note that it isn’t necessarily convinced that Microsoft has run afoul of the law; it conducted raids because its initial checks didn’t put Microsoft “above suspicion.” For its part, Microsoft tells the South China Morning Post that it plans to “actively cooperate” with officials. So long as an investigation is underway, however, the crew in Redmond is bound to be nervous. Previous antitrust cases against Microsoft have proven costly, and China isn’t likely to be any more forgiving if it believes something is amiss.
[Image credit: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images]
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Via: South China Morning Post, WSJ, The Verge
Source: SAIC (translated)
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