Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has been a vocal opponent of Windows 10 and its Windows Marketplace, which he sees as Microsoft's attempt to lock down the entire ecosystem. Although his comments are often factually debatable, he's still not a fan of either and thinks Microsoft could drop W32 to try …
Read More »Court rules US can’t force Microsoft to hand over foreign emails
Microsoft and the US government have been butting heads in court over access to email data stored on servers in Ireland for a while now but this week, Microsoft had quite the victory, when a Federal Appeals court ruled that the US government could not force Microsoft to hand over …
Read More »Microsoft relents on sneaky Windows 10 upgrade pop-up
Microsoft received a lot of flak when it made the Windows 10 upgrade ‘recommended,' so something that would automatically install if you didn't opt-out. So much so that one woman sued and won. It seems finally though that Microsoft is going to scale back its pushy pop-up and will soon offer …
Read More »Microsoft is ending production on the Surface 3 this year
Microsoft has revealed that it plans to stop manufacturing its current entry-level Surface device by the end of the year. The Surface 3 first launched in May of last year at a lower price point to try and capture those who want a tablet that could also act as a …
Read More »Microsoft admits defeat on Kinect, no port on Xbox One S
It looks like years on from making the Kinect a mandatory piece of kit for its Xbox One console, Microsoft is ready to admit that it's a failure. The recently debuted Xbox One S, doesn't come with a port for the Kinect. If you want to use a Kinect with …
Read More »Microsoft to spend $26 billion on LinkedIn buyout
Microsoft has announced that it will be buying up business-focused social network Linkedin, for a whopping $26.2 (£18.5) billion. This will be Microsoft's biggest ever acquisition in the history of the company and is even more noteworthy because it will be purchased entirely with cash, no stock will change hands. LinkedIn …
Read More »Microsoft announces ‘Xbox Play Anywhere’ cross-platform initiative
Over the last year and a half, Microsoft has been talking a big game when it comes to supporting the PC platform but this year's E3 presentation really seemed to back that up. Not only was almost every Microsoft exclusive game shown today also announced for the PC but ‘Xbox …
Read More »Xbox One S leaks before E3, supports 4k video
Seemingly confirming rumours of a new Xbox One with more power and a reduced footprint, promotional images showing off just that have appeared online days before Microsoft's briefing at E3. They show a smaller, whiter Xbox One, which we're told contains a 2TB hard drive and will be capable of …
Read More »Dead Rising 4 screenshots leaked, reveal coming at E3
It's been a long time since we all got our first real taste of a 3D world where stomping zombies in their thousands was possible, but Dead Rising has been selling well ever since. It may well be making a comeback at E3 this year too and we have some …
Read More »Microsoft cuts 1,850 more jobs, former Nokia employees affected
It looks like Microsoft's Nokia acquisition didn't entirely go to plan. Windows Phone's market share is still in decline and since absorbing Nokia's former employees, Microsoft has had a fair few rounds of job cuts. Following on from last year's cut of 7,800 jobs to refocus the Microsoft Mobile division, the …
Read More »Microsoft is now selling the Nokia brand to Foxconn
Microsoft initially bought out Nokia's mobile phone division a couple of years back to bolster its own smartphone efforts. However, Windows Phone still hasn't seen a ton of growth and now the company is changing directions again by selling the rights to the Nokia brand name and transferring around 4,500 …
Read More »Microsoft to fully shut down Project Spark
Microsoft's Project Spark came around shortly after the release of the Xbox One. It was an ambitious concept in which players would have access to hundreds of assets and tools to form their own maps, levels and stories which would then be shared with everyone else. Unfortunately, it never quite …
Read More »Microsoft could have sold Lionhead, but it didn’t want to
When Microsoft announced earlier this year that it was closing longtime studio Lionhead, it was the end of an era. But it turns out that it didn't have to be. Many other companies wanted to buy up the studio rather than see it close, but Micorosft was unwilling to sell …
Read More »Microsoft’s UWP now supports variable refresh rates
Microsoft has caught a lot of criticism over the last few months stemming from its new Universal Windows Platform. While at first, many PC gamers were excited about the idea of more Xbox exclusive games heading to the PC, Microsoft's new platform was woefully lacking in necessary features and heavily …
Read More »Windows 10 will cost $120/£99.99 from July 30th onwards
When Microsoft initially unveiled its roll-out plans for Windows 10, one of the things it offered was a free upgrade to all Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 owners as long as they made the switch in the first year of Windows 10 being released. We are now coming up to …
Read More »Report says Windows 10 adoption is slowing down
While Microsoft may have managed to boost its Windows 10 numbers significantly over the last year thanks to things like automatic upgrades and free installs for those on Windows 7 or 8, a new report this week says that adoption is actually slowing down now. It only took Microsoft a …
Read More »Windows 10 locks down Cortana searches to Bing and Edge
Microsoft has been tinkering with a lot of features that launched with Windows 10 over the last year. The latest change made to the OS affects the Cortana feature, which is now completely locked to Microsoft's own Bing search engine and Edge browser. Obviously, this is the way Cortana ships …
Read More »Lionhead Studios is officially closing down today
After two decades as a staple game studio here in the UK, producing franchises like Black and White as well as Fable, Lionhead Studios is officially closing its doors today. We learned last month that Microsoft was ‘proposing' its closure after the cancellation of Fable Legends and now, it seems that …
Read More »Storing cat pictures in DNA: Microsoft buys up 10 million strands
While the world of mainstream computing seems to have finally caught on that an SSD is the only place to put your operating system, some companies are already looking to the future of long-term storage. One solution Microsoft is experimenting with, is very different than the norm: DNA storage and …
Read More »Remedy to address Quantum Break issues this week
While Quantum Break was a decent enough Sci-Fi shooter on the Xbox One, the game's PC version was definitely not up to par. However, Remedy is hoping to fix some of the most pressing issues with the PC version of the game later this week with a new patch and …
Read More »Microsoft and Google agree to try to stop battling in the court room
One of the more frustrating aspects of the tech world is the amount of lawsuits and legal complaints flying left and right between large companies. However, Google and Microsoft have agreed to make an effort to start to try to settle their differences outside of the court room going forward …
Read More »Microsoft testing ‘variety’ of new Xbox prototypes
While we know that at least Sony and Nintendo will be facing off soon with the PS4 NEO and the Nintendo NX, we haven't heard much about Microsoft's plans. However, according to reports, a “variety” of new Xbox prototypes are currently being tested, some of which do have upgraded internal …
Read More »Microsoft officially discontinues the Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is ten years old at this point and while it has served many over the years, it can't stay around forever. Today, Microsoft officially announced that it is discontinuing the Xbox 360, so once the existing hardware stock runs out, there won't be any more left to buy. …
Read More »Microsoft is suing the US government over cloud data searches
Microsoft is set to take on the US Justice Department in court claiming that it is “unconstitutional” to stop a company from informing its customers when their cloud data is being searched by the authorities. Microsoft's stance is that a customer has the right to know when a government obtains …
Read More »Microsoft to release three Surface phones next year
While Microsoft did initially buy Nokia to bolster its smartphone efforts with Lumia Windows Phones, the company has since moved away from the Lumia brand and will be expanding its Surface line of devices with smartphones. While the first Surface phones were expected this year, it looks like they won't …
Read More »Quantum Break’s PC version gives pirates an eye patch
Over the years, developers have come up with plenty of clever ways to mess with gamers playing pirated copies of titles and Quantum Break is just the latest example as the PC version of the game will give the main character an eye-patch if you did not buy it. The eye-patch …
Read More »There won’t be an Xbox One hardware upgrade like the PS4K/PS4.5
A few weeks back, Phil Spencer threw out the idea of an Xbox One mid-generation hardware upgrade and the reaction was pretty mixed. Since then, Microsoft has been going back on that idea, with Phil Spencer now saying that there won't be an Xbox 1.5, instead the company wants to …
Read More »Microsoft has officially begun shipping the Hololens
Microsoft's Hololens is one of the most interesting pieces of tech that the company is currently working on. While the likes of Sony, Oculus and Valve are chasing virtual reality, Microsoft is focussing on an augmented reality experience. The company announced that the Hololens would be selling to developers earlier this …
Read More »All Xbox One consoles can now double as dev kits
One of the big promises Microsoft made back when it first launched the Xbox One was the ability to turn any retail unit into a development kit. Now, after a couple of years of working on it, Microsoft is rolling out the feature but it does come with some fairly …
Read More »Microsoft: DirectX 12 adoption rate is fastest ever
It looks like developers are wasting absolutely no time in upgrading to DirectX 12 as Microsoft has revealed that its new graphics API has the fastest adoption rate of any DirectX version. DirectX 12 is the latest graphics API from Microsoft and it has strong ties to Windows 10, which …
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