The Windows 10 digital assistant, Cortana, may end up landing on iOS and Android following the official launch of Microsoft's latest operating system, which will attempt to unify its devices and form a better ecosystem. Bringing Cortana to other mobile operating systems would git in well with the company's new devices …
Read More »Microsoft confirms cross-IHV ‘AMD + Nvidia’ multi-GPU support by DX12
Microsoft Corp. has confirmed that its upcoming DirectX 12 application programming interface (API) will support some sort of cross-vendor multi-GPU technology that will allow graphics processing units from different developers to work together at the same time. Unfortunately, the software developer revealed no specifics about the tech, therefore, it does …
Read More »Minecraft could be banned in Turkey
Last month it was reported that the Turkish ministry has begun investigating Minecraft, deeming it as potentially ‘too violent'. The results of the investigation have now been revealed and it turns out that the Turkish Social Policies Ministry does want Minecraft banned. Turkish sites, Hürriyet Daily News and LeaderGamer (Via …
Read More »Microsoft appoints Kinect dev as Xbox experience head
Microsoft's creative director of important technology like the Kinect camera and HoloLens augmented reality headset, Kudo Tsunoda, is being moved and promoted to head of new vision and experience development for Xbox, making him in charge of a number of internal developers like Lionhead, Rare, Press Play and Decisive Games. …
Read More »No, Microsoft does not want PC gamers to pay for Xbox Live
Microsoft has announced plans to bring plenty of its Xbox Live features over to the PC with Windows 10. While console gamers have to pay for many of these features, like multiplayer gaming, Microsoft does not expect the PC crowd to do the same thing. Microsoft has no plans to …
Read More »AMD: Vulkan absorbed ‘best and brightest’ parts of Mantle
Early this week Advanced Micro Devices advised game developers to use Khronos Group’s Vulkan and Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interfaces instead of its own Mantle API. Later on, the chip developer made further clarification: Vulkan has absorbed the key features of Mantle, but it is not proprietary. While this …
Read More »Elite: Dangerous is coming to Xbox One but won’t feature cross-play
Elite: Dangerous is making its console debut on the Xbox One but despite Microsoft's recent attempts to unify PC and Xbox gaming, the space sim won't be featuring cross-play. However, there is a pretty good reason for it that many PC gamers will actually appreciate. There are a few planned …
Read More »Cross-buy and universal apps coming to Xbox One and PC
Microsoft had another presentation today, this time at the Game Developers Conference, revealing some more on its plans for the future of Xbox and PC gaming. One of the bigger announcements to come out was cross-buy support for Xbox One and Windows 10 PC titles. Phil Spencer took to the …
Read More »Khronos unveils Vulkan: API for wearables, computers, cars and drones
Khronos Group on Tuesday introduced what was originally known as the next-generation OpenGL initiative, a brand-new application programming interface called Vulkan. The new API is designed to replace OpenGL in the long-term future and will address loads of markets and platform. The Vulkan is a new low-overhead/high-throughput API that provides …
Read More »Microsoft’s Windows 10 browser shown off in new video
Microsoft's upcoming Spartan browser is due to take over from Internet Explorer in the Windows 10 Operating System. It was first revealed back in January but now we have a closer look at the new browser thanks to a leaked video, going over some new features. Microsoft provided a demonstration …
Read More »AMD advices developers to focus on DirectX 12 and glNext, not Mantle 1.0
AMD’s Mantle application programming interface was the first low-overhead/high-throughput graphics API to reach the market. The emergence of Mantle has made Microsoft and many other companies in the industry to redesign their APIs, including DirectX and OpenGL. While Mantle will continue to be AMD’s graphics innovation platform, the company now advices …
Read More »Apple seeking hardware and software engineers to build VR gear
Virtual reality has been a part of sci-fi movies and books for decades, but in the recent years the technology started moving towards commercial market and this year we are going to see actual VR gear in stores. Initially, virtual reality technology will be used solely for gaming, but Facebook …
Read More »Microsoft offers free Office 365 to students and teachers worldwide
A couple of weeks after Apple started to offer its iWork productivity web applications for free to everyone, Microsoft Corp. decided to propose an even better deal and provide its Office 365 suite free worldwide, but even to students and teachers. Starting today, millions of students and teachers around the …
Read More »Bing predicts 84% of this year’s Oscar winners correctly
The Bing prediction engine has been busy this last week getting to grips with the Oscars and trying to predict the winners for each category. While it didn't get all 24 predictions correct, it did manage to get 20 correct giving it an 84% success rate. At last year's Oscars …
Read More »AMD seeking CPU performance engineer to optimize GPU drivers
Advanced Micro Devices is hiring a microprocessor performance engineer to optimize its Catalyst drivers for graphics cards. The programmer will help to optimize AMD drivers to boost performance of Radeon graphics adapters in cases where CPU is a major performance-limiting factor. The CPU performance engineer will have to analyze CPU bound …
Read More »Tim Sweeney: VR will look as good as real life 10 years from now
Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games and one of the best experts in computer graphics and video games in the world, believes that virtual reality will have dramatic influence on gaming. Moreover, rapid development of VR will mean that 10 years from now it will be impossible to distinguish …
Read More »Report suggests that PS4 will outsell Xbox One 40% by 2019
A new report from Strategy Analytics claims that the PlayStation 4 will maintain its strong lead over the Xbox One, outselling Microsoft's console by 40 per cent by 2019. The results of the study were released this week, predicting sales figures for both consoles over the next four years. According …
Read More »Studio behind Xbox One Phantom Dust reboot shuts down
Microsoft had a pretty decent E3 presentation in 2014, one of the games to be teased at the show was a reboot of Phantom Dust, which was being developed by Darkside Games. Unfortunately, the independent studio has now shut down after Microsoft decided to take the game in another direction. …
Read More »Early details of Xbox One universal apps and retail dev kit plans revealed
More details surrounding the Xbox One's integration in to the Windows 10 ecosystem have come to light, showing that the upcoming universal applications will be able to run in the background, bringing a higher level of multi-tasking to the console. Additionally, Microsoft may finally be bringing the option to turn …
Read More »Microsoft to notify Office 365 and Azure customers of government requests
Microsoft is now the first major cloud provider to make use of the ISO/IEC 27018 international standard for cloud privacy. From now on, Microsoft Azure and Office 365 customers will be notified when a government data request is received, allowing for more transparency. The standard was published by the International …
Read More »Xbox One ultimate game sale is live
Microsoft has launched the ultimate game sale on Xbox Live, bringing discounts on many Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles, giving Xbox gamers the chance to save up to 85 per cent on some games. Those who have an Xbox Live Gold subscription will get an extra 10 per cent …
Read More »Computers are now better than you at recognising stuff
On average, us flesh sacks can recognise stuff in pictures pretty well, with an error rate of around 5.1% according to a recent study. Previously computers could come pretty close to that, getting around 6.66% of objects wrong. Now however, a new computer vision system from Microsoft Research is actually managing to …
Read More »Google to give developers more time to fix bugs before revealing
Google's Project Zero was announced last year as a new way to help improve online security by identifying vulnerabilities in software and services. Upon finding a vulnerability, it is reported directly to the company in charge of the software or service affected, the developers then have a certain amount of …
Read More »Microsoft responds to Turkey investigating violence in Minecraft
Minecraft is likely one of the last games you would expect to come under fire for violent content but that is exactly what has happened over in Turkey. The country's Family and Policies Minister, Aysenur Islam, has launched an investigation in to the game under the impression that it promotes …
Read More »PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling 60% faster than ancestors
Perhaps, new generation game consoles are considerably less powerful than the majority of gaming PCs; perhaps, they are not going to stay on the market for a really long time, like their predecessors. But here is a fact: Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 are selling dramatically faster than …
Read More »Obama signs order to protect America’s computer networks
In a move to help protect American online businesses and help them coordinate with US authorities, Obama has signed an executive order that will make federal agencies set up a way of sharing data between technicians in these businesses and federal agents. This information sharing will go both ways, with companies tipping …
Read More »Windows 10 Technical Preview arrives on phones
A few hours ago Microsoft opened up the Windows 10 Technical Preview, to a few models of Lumia phones that are currently running Windows Phone 8.1. While on the surface this upgrade isn't a massive change for Windows phone 8.1 users, underneath the covers big changes have been made, to allow …
Read More »RTM version of Windows 10 could land as soon as June
Microsoft might be looking to launch the final RTM version of its Windows 10 operating system in some form, sooner than initially anticipated. The release to manufacturer (RTM) version would allow vendors to make changes to the software and have it ready for the ‘back to school' season. This is …
Read More »Microsoft lowers price of Xbox One with Kinect
Although Microsoft Corp. decided not to promote its second-generation Kinect motion sensing accessory last year, it looks like the company wants give it another try. The software giant has slashed the price of its Xbox One with Kinect to $449 in the U.S. For two weeks, starting Sunday, the 8th …
Read More »Microsoft may speed up release of Windows 10
Microsoft Corp. will try to make sure that its next-generation Windows 10 operating system is available for systems that will ship during the back-to-school (BTS) season, according to a media report. If the information is correct, then it is completely logical for the software giant to roll-out its new OS …
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