Goodbye Nokia, Hello Microsoft - Microsoft Lumia 535 Launched

Finally it’s the time to say goodbye to Nokia as today Microsoft unveiled the first Lumia device with Microsoft branding aka Microsoft Lumia 535. 

Microsoft’s Lumia 535 isn’t all that different from the Nokia devices that have come before it, but it’s the first to drop the Nokia branding in favour of Microsoft text at the rear and front, and a company logo on the colourful removable shell. All future Lumia devices will launch with Microsoft branding, and existing Lumia’s with the Nokia moniker will continue to be known as Nokia handsets. 

Microsoft Lumia 535 has been designed as an alternative of Nokia Lumia 530. It comes with a 5-inch qHD display (960 x 540), a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, and 1GB of RAM. While the screen is something you’d normally see back in 2011, viewing angles aren’t as bad as you’d expect even if the pixels are clearly visible. 

Lumia 535 comes in two flavours: 3G Single SIM, or 3G Smart Dual SIM, both loaded with Windows Phone 8.1 and the Lumia Denim Update right out of the box. That means you’ll get a hugely personal experience with features including one-swipe Action Centre, Word Flow, Live Folders and Cortana (where available). 

Lumia 535 is inherently coloured and available in cyan, bright green, bright orange, white, dark grey, and black. It will be available from November at an estimated RRP of 110 EUR before taxes and subsidies with sales starting in China, Hong Kong and Bangladesh, with other countries to follow. There's no information on the India pricing and release of the phone. 

Source: Microsoft

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Microsoft Band - a Fitness Tracker from Microsoft at $199

After all the tech giants jumping into the wearables market, Microsoft didn’t want to be left behind. So they launched Microsoft Band – a wearable that tracks your steps, heart rate, and stride length, all while showing you text, email, and Twitter alerts. 

The Band looks and feels a bit like a prototype, a relatively unadorned wristband with a clever sliding clasp (so you can change how it fits without taking it off) and a 1.4-inch, 320 x 106 display on the front. There are two buttons below the display: one for waking the device, and the "action button," which you use to scroll through data or start and end a workout. I quickly paired it to my iPhone 6 via Bluetooth, downloaded the beautifully minimalist Microsoft Health app, and was off. It automatically started tracking my steps and heart rate, funneling the data back to the app every time I hit sync. 

Microsoft's plan is as simple as it is large: to be the central repository for all the world's fitness data, to develop and distribute the best hardware and the best software for helping people live healthier lives. It doesn't matter what platform you're on, it doesn't matter what app or device you use. Microsoft wants to be everywhere. The company’s plan is to eventually combine your fitness data with your work calendar, or your email, or your location, to start to turn disparate data points into actionable insights. 

The device has 10 integrated sensors – including one to detect UV exposure and a special sensor to measure stress – plus a 48 hour battery life and is designed to be as open as possible to work across all platforms. Rather than just use the accelerometer to count steps, the Band combines that data with your phone’s GPS data and the always-on heart-rate monitor to figure out the length of your strides, which provides a much more accurate measurement of calories burned.  

Microsoft Band will be available from Microsoft Stores in the US for $199. There's no word on international availability yet, but given Microsoft's aspirations for the Band to become the centre of a health revolution, expect global rollout information in the not too distant future. 

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Microsoft’s Chromebook rival is coming at $199 made by HP

At such a low price, Google’s Chromebooks have been a nightmare to Microsoft. The Chromebooks are quite cheap with exceptional performance and are giving a tough time to Windows laptops. Dubbed HP Steam 14, a Windows 8.1 device is tipped to carry a tag of $199 when launched.  

The notebook is rumoured to be powered by an AMD “Mullins” A4 Micro-6400T quad-core SoC and 2 GB of RAM with an integrated Radeon R3 GPU. The architecture of the chipset features a heat sink, without a built-in fan, showed an image that was leaked. The device will be available with a 14 inch display along with 1366x768 pixels resolution. 

It will have 32 GB and 64 GB variants. While none of this is official yet, the laptop is also expected to have USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports along with support for HDMI as well. It has Beats Audio enhancement and consists of four speakers. 

In addition, the HP Stream Notebook 14 1.75 kg heavy has a 32 watt-hours or large 2960mAh battery. The notebook will also come in the colors silver, green and purple on the market, the cover has one type of each. The buyer will also receive for a period of two years, all 100 gigabytes of storage space with Microsoft's cloud service OneDrive - just as it does in the Google Chromebooks. 

Anyone looking for a great entry-level notebook, gets here probably a pretty attractive offer, to which shortly certainly likely to join tens of other models. So stay tuned for further updates. 

Source: MobileGeeks

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Microsoft to deliver Windows 9 aka "Threshold" preview next month

Microsoft is expected to deliver an early preview version of Windows Threshold next month, the codename for what will likely be named Windows 9. A preview of Windows 9 will be made available in either September or October, according to ZDNet. That timeline keeps ‘Threshold’ — Windows 9’s codename — out into the public market as a finished product likely in early 2015.  The software maker has been gradually working on the release over the past several months, adding and tweaking features ready for a “technology preview” release to the public. 

ZDNet claims updates will be pushed to users who install the preview on an automatic basis, meaning the release will change rapidly over the coming months before it's finally ready. 

Threshold is expected to include a number of new features that are aimed at continuing to improve Windows' usability on non-touch devices and by those using mice and keyboards alongside touch. Among those features — according to previous leaks — are a new "mini" Start Menu which Microsoft at its annual Build developers conference in2014, windowed Metro-Style applications that can run on the Desktop, virtual desktops, and the elimination of the Charms bar that debuted as part of Windows 8. Cortana integration with Windows Threshold is looking like it could make it into the OS, as well. 

As of now, Windows 9 stable version is expected to start rolling out by spring 2015, though this is yet to be confirmed by Microsoft. The pricing details of this OS are yet to surface. Representatives for Microsoft when asked didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Source: ZDNet

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Nokia Lumia 530 Launches in India

Microsoft has launched its most affordable Nokia Lumia 530 at a price of 7349 today. It was earlier launched on July 23 and now its dual-sim version is launched in India. It is available through company's official online store.  

First, a look at its specifications. 

• CPU: 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 300 quad-core 
• RAM: 512MB 
• Screen: 4-inch FWVGA(480x854) display 
• Camera: 5MP fixed focus camera 
• Storage: 4GB (expandable via microSD) 
• OS: Windows Phone 8.1 
• Connectivity: GPRS/EDGE, 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi 
• Battery: 1430mAh 

Apart from these customers are getting a whole lot of added benefits as 15GB OneDrive storage. Phone is also available from Snapdeal's Windows Phone app with a discount of 3000. They also stand a chance to win 6 movie tickets from BookMyShow and Airtel prepaid subscribers get 500MB free 3G data for 3 months. 

The new Lumia handset runs Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Cyan update and supports firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates. The Lumia 530 Dual SIM will be available in Bright Orange, Bright Green, Dark Grey, and White color variants. Its set to compete with Moto E and Unite 2 and probably with Xiaomi Redmi which will be launching probably this Diwali. It's worth noting that these 2 smartphones provide much higher specifications at this price, so it would be quite difficult for Microsoft to get along with this price tag and such competitors. 

Source: Nokia

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Xbox One goes up for Pre Order on Amazon, launch on 23rd September

Finally the day has arrived. Microsoft is launching Xbox One in India on 23rd September. It is now available for pre-order on Amazon. The pricing has been done like that of Sony Playstation 4. But Xbox One is about 9 months late as Playstation 4 was launched on January 6th. Xbox One with Kinect is priced at `45,990 and Xbox One (without Kinect) has been priced at `39,990. 

The bundle includes the Xbox One console with a 500GB hard drive, Xbox One Wireless Controller, and a free 14-day trial of Xbox Live Gold for new members. 

The Xbox One’s CPU runs at 1.75GHz and is an 8-core x86 processor which lets you instantly switch between a game and your favourite entertainment apps with ease. It has 8GB of RAM and 500GB hard drive giving you plenty of memory for your games, apps, demos, and more. You can watch movies and play games in stunning HD with a Blu-ray player. Also it can be connected to your cable or satellite box. HDMI pass-thru enables you to watch TV through your Xbox, making switching inputs seems almost pre-historic. The Xobx One with Kinect will have a number of special experiences such as gesture controls, biometric sign-in, controller pairing, Skype video calls, direct personalization, instant scanning of QR codes and much more.

These will be sold exclusively from Amazon and the first 1000 customers will be getting a lot of promotional offers. The special offers are worth `10,000 and it includes: `3,000 off on an additional controller, 2 free Blu-rays worth `2,500, a discount of `2,000 on speakers, and `1,000 off on backpacks. The Xbox One standalone variant comes with a free game, Fifa 2015 whereas the Kinect variant of the console comes with a free Dance Central Spotlight DLC and Fifa 2015. 

Get ready to Pre-Order it on Amazon. 

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Mircrosoft planning a data centre in India

After opening the biggest development centre in India 10 years ago, Microsoft is planning to open its data centre in India. With this move it will become the first MNC to setup the Data Centre in the country.  

Cloud services are the fastest growing segment of Microsoft and according to Jim Dubois, corporate VP and CIO at Microsoft, "It is growing double, triple every month, not every year." According to Gartner, public cloud services market in India is expected to grow from $423 million (` 2,550 crore) in 2013 to $1.3 billion (` 7,800 crore) in 2017. Gartner expects India to be the fastest growing market for cloud adoption globally.  

  

"We are considering a data centre in India. There are a lot of different companies that are looking at cloud right now, in anticipation that Microsoft will somehow figure out how to get that work," said Jim Dubois. 

  

However, Microsoft’s plan may hit a roadblock since RBI guidelines prohibit storing any customer data outside of India, which limits cloud adoption by financial services company. 

  

Despite this, none of the large cloud computing companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, has so far built a local data centre. Microsoft has 13 data centres globally to serve its cloud services while Amazon has eight and Google 12. In Asia, all three companies have data centres in Singapore, but none in Mainland China or India. "Over the last couple of years, the groundwork has been done in terms of Indian customers understanding nuances in public cloud. We are hearing about Amazon considering setting up a data centre in India but nothing has happened yet," said Naveen Mishra, research director at Gartner. 

Source: ET

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Microsoft Confirms Windows 8.1 Update for 12th August

Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday that they will be rolling out another update to Windows 8.1 on August 12. It's not the rumored Update 2 which everyone was waiting for but rather Microsoft said that instead of collecting all the small updates into a large one we would be delivering small updates frequently in order to respond quickly to customer and partner feedback. In fact they said there would not be another update like the big Windows 8.1 Update 1. 

So despite the rumors and speculations we are not planning to deliver a Windows 8.1 Update 2.  

Users will continue to receive updates through normal channels like Windows Update(WU), Microsoft Update(MU) and Windows Server Update Services(WSUS). These updates will be including a bunch of security and performance updates working "behind-the-scenes" improving the performance and reliability of the device. 

Following are the features and improvements for August 12th Update Tuesday. 

• Precision touchpad improvements – three new end-user settings have been added: Leave touch pad on when a mouse is connected; allow right-clicks on the touchpad; double-tap and drag. 
• Miracast Receive – exposes a set of Wi-Fi direct APIs for Independent Hardware Vendor (IHV) drivers or OEM drivers to develop Windows 32-bit applications that run on all supported x86-based or x64-based versions of Windows 8.1, enabling the computer as a Miracast receiver. 
• Minimizing login prompts for SharePoint Online – reduces the number of prompts with federated use in accessing SharePoint Online sites. If you select the “Keep me signed in” check box when you log on for the first time, you will not see prompts for successive access to that SharePoint Online site. 

It will be a gradual roll out for users who have turned Automatic Updates on but can be manually done through Windows Update. Also Enterprise users can update anytime. 

Source: Microsoft

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