Microsoft brings Dolby Audio to Windows 10 -- works with Edge, not Chrome or Firefox

 

Consuming media -- music and movies -- is one of my favorite hobbies. While this used to happen with VHS, DVD and CD, I have transitioned entirely to using streaming and downloaded files. The majority of my consumption happens on Windows, where I use a USB DAC to get the best audio performance.
 
Today, Dolby announces that Microsoft has selected its technologies to be featured in Windows 10. This means consumers should benefit from an improved audio experience.
 
"Dolby Laboratories, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation  announced today that Dolby Audio is selected to be a part of the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system and will be natively supported by the new Microsoft Edge browser for the playback of web-based content as well as accessible by third-party Windows Store apps. Users of Microsoft Windows 10 PCs and tablets will enjoy Dolby quality audio experiences through Windows entertainment apps and through Microsoft Edge", says Dolby.
 
The company also says, "Dolby Audio (supporting Dolby Digital Plus) will be available in x86 Windows 10 PCs and tablets for playback of movies, TV shows, and videos with crisp, clear dialog and greater detail of sounds. Windows 7 and 8 users may upgrade to Windows 10 for free and continue to experience Dolby quality audio consistently across headphones, built-in PC and tablet speakers, or connected home theater systems. Microsoft Edge will be the first browser to leverage the Dolby Digital Plus decoder on the Windows 10 operating system, enabling online content providers to enrich the entertainment experiences of millions of Internet users globally with Dolby Audio".
 
Did you catch that? Dolby Audio will only be available to apps from the Windows Store. In other words, Chrome and Firefox will not be able to take advantage unless Google and Mozilla make their browsers "Windows Apps" like Edge.
 
This is a smart move by Microsoft to entice developers to convert their traditional programs to Windows app variants. This could  increase the number of apps in the store, and ultimately, Windows users will benefit.
 
Are you excited for Dolby audio on Windows 10? Tell me in the comments.
 
Photo Credit: Boris Ryaposov/Shutterstock
 
~ Brian Fagioli

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Microsoft makes more Office features free on iPads

The Microsoft logo is seen at their offices in Bucharest March 20, 2013. 

 

Credit: Reuters/Bogdan Cristel

 

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp on Thursday said users of its Office suite of applications on Apple Inc's iPad would be able to create and edit documents for free instead of paying for a subscription, in a bid to capture more mobile users.
 
The move is the latest, and one of the most dramatic, in Microsoft's new strategy of getting customers to use their services regardless of device or operating system, rather than lose them to a proliferation of free or cheap alternatives.  
 
The new strategy, led by new Chief Executive Satya Nadella, is a recognition that the dominance of Windows and Office on PCs has not translated to the fast-growing mobile arena, where Apple's phones and tablets and devices running Google Inc's Android rule.
 
Nadella's first major move after taking the helm in February was to make Office available on the iPad, which has attracted 40 million users. 
 
By downloading a free app, users could read Office documents in Word, Excel and PowerPoint but had to buy a subscription, starting at $7 per month, to create or edit them. From Thursday, that will now be free.
 
Microsoft also announced on Thursday it is releasing Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for the iPhone for the first time, and rolling out a test version of those apps for Android tablets, which are expected to be released fully early next year.
 
The world's largest software company still has not released fully touch-optimized Office apps for Windows, but hinted on Thursday that they would be released with Windows 10 sometime next year.
 
Microsoft's Office suite is still the gold standard for work applications on the PC, but easy to use, touch-friendly work apps like Haiku Deck, Quip, Smartsheet and Evernote, plus a full range of Google Apps, have quickly gained a following among younger users who regularly create and consume content on mobile devices.
 
On Thursday, business networking site LinkedIn Corp said it would integrate Haiku Deck - a free alternative to Microsoft's PowerPoint - into its SlideShare platform, where 70 million users create and share presentations.
 
~ Bill Rigby        

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Microsoft offers first look at new Windows - and gives it a name

A shadow of a man using his mobile phone is cast near Microsoft logo at the 2014 Computex exhibition in Taipei June 4, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

 

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will unveil a new name for its best-known product on Tuesday when it offers the first official glimpse of its latest Windows operating system.
 
The project, known for the past few years as "Threshold" inside the software company and "Windows 9" outside it, will likely get an entirely new brand, or just be called Windows, analysts said, ahead of its full release early next year.
 
The name change is symbolic of a new direction and style for Microsoft, which is veering away from an aggressive focus on Windows and PCs, the hallmark of previous Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. The new, quieter emphasis is on selling services across all devices and is championed by new boss Satya Nadella.
 
The switch also represents a desire to erase the ill will generated by Windows 8, an ambitious attempt to redesign Windows with tablet users in mind, which ended up annoying and confusing the core market of customers who use mice and keyboards.
 
"Windows 8 was not a shining moment for Microsoft," said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. "Probably the biggest issue that lingers is the negative brand equity in the name."
 
Many users howled in protest over the death of the start-button menu and the introduction of a colorful grid of squares or tiles representing apps in what became known as the modern user interface, even though they could easily switch to a traditional desktop mode.
 
Judging by recent leaks online, which Microsoft has not tried to discredit, the start-button menu will come back in the next Windows, with an option of tacking on tiles if preferred.
 
But the problem of users having to toggle between the modern interface and the old-style desktop - for instance to use the full version of Excel spreadsheet software - has yet to be solved.
 
"The schizophrenic behavior between the modern user interface and the Windows desktop has got to go away," said David Johnson, an analyst at tech research firm Forrester. "They have to smooth that out." 
 
Microsoft declined to comment on the new name, or what it plans to unveil on Tuesday. 
 
The Redmond, Washington-based company has said only that it will have a "discussion" about where Windows is headed at a stylish event space in San Francisco on Tuesday.
 
The choice of wording and venue are key to a humbler, lower-profile Microsoft under Nadella, who is keen to rebuild respect in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley as it moves away from the PC and to play a bigger part in the mobile computing world fashioned by Apple Inc and Google Inc.

Nadella's slogan is "mobile first, cloud first," and although he will not be at the San Francisco event - he is traveling in Asia - that theme will be at the fore. 
 

"This is a launching pad and catalyst for Nadella's holistic cloud vision over the coming years," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at investment bank FBR Capital Markets. "Windows 9 is a potentially game-changing product release for Microsoft."
 
Nadella is resigned to the fact that sales of PCs have leveled off, and with it sales of Windows. With the explosion of smartphones and tablets, Windows now powers only 14 percent of computing devices sold last year, according to Gartner.
 
His response is to focus on selling high-quality services - such as the Office suite of applications or storing documents in the cloud - to people on whatever device or system they are using. 
 
"Microsoft is changing from a company that was Windows-centric to one that is services-centric," said Silver at Gartner. "It has to be that way. Windows revenue is likely going to decline, and Microsoft's task is to replace that Windows revenue with revenue from services on all sorts of platforms."
 
The challenge is to come up with killer apps and services users can't live without. 
 
"Microsoft built their business on being very good at delivering what people needed in the moment, for example Excel in the 1990s," said Johnson at Forrester. "That's what Microsoft has to get back to, innovating and creating things that people find indispensable."    
             

~ Bill Rigby

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Microsoft's new Surface tablet takes aim at Apple's MacBook

An attendee photographs the new Microsoft Surface Pro 3, during the event in New York May 20, 2014.

 

 

 

 

Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid
 
(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp unveiled a larger but lighter version of its Surface Pro tablet on Tuesday, hoping that the company's expertise in business software will help it take on Apple Inc in mobile devices.
 
At a presentation in New York, new Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella made it clear that Microsoft, which recently acquired Nokia's handset business, is committed fully to making its own devices, despite a lack of success for its phones and tablets so far.
 
"We are not building hardware for hardware's sake," said Nadella, at the event. "We want to build experiences that bring together all the capabilities of our company.
 
The Surface Pro 3 tablet, which comes in three models starting from $799 and costing up to $1,949, features a 12-inch screen, much larger than Apple iPad's 9.7 inches. It also comes with access to Microsoft's Office software suite, employed in businesses around the world.
 
Microsoft executives made frequent comparisons with the MacBook Air at Tuesday's launch, making it clear that Apple's lightest laptop, which starts at $899, was the device to beat.
 
The same executives, highlighting a focus on the enterprise segment of the market, also talked up the limitations of existing tablets in a full office environment.
 
Microsoft "has concentrated on its key strength - business users who look at tablets as extensions and/or replacements for full laptop capability," Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates wrote. "Microsoft finally seems to understand it cannot go head to head with Apple's iPad, and must offer a superior business device."
 
Microsoft, which is recasting itself as a 'devices and services' company, has not made much headway on the devices side, except for its Xbox game console.
 
The Surface, launched in October 2012 and updated last year, has about 2 percent of the tablet market, failing to make a dent on Apple's iPad. Microsoft has only 3 percent global share in smartphones, chiefly through Nokia.
 
The Surface Pro 3 runs the full Windows operating system, and Microsoft hopes it will be the device consumers and companies go to when they are replacing laptops.
 
Initial reaction was positive, but analysts have doubts that Microsoft can easily haul itself into a meaningful position in the hardware business.
 
"This is Microsoft's best shot yet to move the needle in the right direction on market share gains," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. "The odds are stacked against Microsoft, although we have to credit Nadella with putting his pedal to the metal to go after tablet market share, which remains key going forward."
 
The new device, which like previous versions uses Intel Corp processors, will be available to order this week.
 
(This story corrects 5th paragraph; starting price of MacBook Air is $899, not $629)

~ Bill Rigby             

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Microsoft to offer Windows for free on phones, tablets

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gestures as he speaks during his keynote address at the company's ''build'' conference in San Francisco, California April 2, 2014.

 
(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is to give away its Windows operating system to makers of smartphones and small tablets for consumers as it seeks to make more of an impact on those fast-growing markets and counter the massive success of Google Inc's free Android platform.
 
Microsoft's move, announced at its annual developers conference in San Francisco, is an attempt to broaden the small user base of mobile versions of Windows, in the hope that more customers will end up using Microsoft's money-making, cloud-based services such as Skype and Office.
 
Up to now, Microsoft has charged phone and tablet makers between $5 and $15 per device to use its Windows system, as it has done successfully at higher prices for many years with Windows on personal computers. Hardware makers factor the cost of that into the sale price of each device.
 
That model has been obliterated in the past few years by the fast adoption of Google's Android system for phones and tablets, which hardware makers quickly embraced and now accounts for more than 75 percent of all smartphones sold last year. Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad account for most of the rest of the mobile computing market.
 
By contrast, Windows-powered phones held only 3 percent of the global smartphone market last year. Windows tablets have only about 2 percent of the tablet market, according to tech research firm Gartner.
 
FREE MONEY
 
Microsoft's move to make Windows free for some consumer devices bucks a central tenet of Bill Gates' original philosophy, that software should be paid for, which led to Microsoft's massive financial success over the last four decades. But analysts said it is a realistic reaction to the runaway success of free Android.
 
"Microsoft is facing challenges on the mobile and tablet fronts and need to change their strategy to move the growth needle, this is a good and logical first step," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.
 
Windows will be free for companies making phones and tablets with screen sizes under nine inches for the consumer market. A license fee will still apply for business devices.
 
It comes a week after new Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella unveiled new versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel applications for Apple Inc's iPad. A year's free subscription to Microsoft's cloud-based Office 365 service will be offered on the new devices running the free Windows, Microsoft said.
 
Both moves show that Microsoft is now more interested in gaining market share for its cloud-based services such as Office on any platform or device, rather than its traditional approach of putting Windows at the center of everything it does and extending its influence from there.
 
In the new era of mobile computing, Nadella acknowledged Microsoft's underdog status.
 
"We are going to innovate with a challenger mindset," said Nadella in a question and answer session at the developer conference. "We are not coming at this as some incumbent trying to do the next version of Windows, we are going to come at this by innovating in every dimension."
 
Nadella did not have a snappy answer to the question of what Microsoft's overarching mission now was, after it had achieved its original goal of putting a computer on every desk and in every home. Instead he elaborated on remarks he made last week about the importance of mobile devices as everything we do becomes digitized and connected to the internet.
 
"Our vision, simply put, is to thrive in this world of mobile first, cloud first," said Nadella. "Our goal is to really build platforms, create the best end-user experiences, the best developer opportunities and IT infrastructure for this ubiquitous computing world."
 
SIRI RIVAL
 
Also at the gathering, Microsoft formally announced it has developed a voice activated phone assistant feature called Cortana, a direct rival to Apple's Siri.
 
The feature has been rumored for some months and a test version was demonstrated at the event by Joe Belfiore, a Windows Phone executive.
 
The Cortana service, which can take verbal instructions to search the Web, set alarms, make calls and a host of other actions, is still in beta testing but will soon be a standard feature on Windows phones, said Belfiore.
 
He announced that the latest version of Microsoft's smartphone software, called Windows Phone 8.1, will be rolled out to consumers as a downloadable upgrade in the next few months, and new phones running the software will be in stores by late April or early May. 
 
~ Bill Rigby                

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Microsoft leads disruption of largest infected global PC network

Men install Microsoft Corp's Windows 8 operating system on their laptops, as Windows 8 goes on sale after midnight, along a street at the Akihabara district in Tokyo October 26, 2012.

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it had disrupted the largest network of compromised personal computers, involving some 2 million machines around the world, since it stepped up its battle against organized online criminals three years ago.
 
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant filed a lawsuit in Texas and won a judge's order directing Internet service providers to block all traffic to 18 Internet addresses that were used to direct fraudulent activity to the infected machines.
 
Law enforcement in many European countries served warrants at the same time, seizing servers expected to contain more evidence about the leaders of the ZeroAccess crime ring, which was devoted to "click fraud."
 
Such rings use networks of captive machines, known as botnets, in complicated schemes that force them to click on ads without the computer owners' knowledge. The schemes cheat advertisers on search engines including Microsoft's Bing by making them pay for interactions that have no chance of leading to a sale. Microsoft said the botnet had been costing advertisers on Bing, Google Inc and Yahoo Inc an estimated $2.7 million monthly.
 
The coordinated effort marks the eighth time Microsoft has moved against a botnet and a rare instance of it doing serious damage to one that is controlled with a peer-to-peer mechanism, where infected machines give each other instructions instead of relying on a central server that defenders can hunt down and disable.
 
But the ZeroAccess botnet still had a weakness: The code in the infected machines told them to reach out to one of the 18 numeric Internet addresses for details on which ads to click.
 
Microsoft recently opened a new Cybercrime Center in Redmond and is using new tools in its efforts. They are helped by a provision in trademark that allows pretrial seizure of suspected counterfeit goods, including websites that, as in the present case, are spreading tainted versions of the Internet Explorer browser.
 
The company is working with national computer security authorities in various countries and with Internet service providers to notify individual computer owners with infected machines, hoping to reach most of them before the fraudsters can spread new instructions.
 
Microsoft has been sharing evidence with the FBI and Europol, the continent's law enforcement coordinating service. National agencies took part in seizure actions in Germany, Switzerland, Latvia, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
 
For now, at least, the fraud by this network has stopped, said Microsoft Assistant General Counsel Richard Boscovich.
 
The operators of the botnet are believed to be in Russia, while the author of the malicious software distributed on it could be based elsewhere, Boscovich said.
 
~ Joseph Menn          

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Apple unveils iPad Air, new Macs for holidays

Apple makes ripple, not splash (2:21)
 
Oct. 22 - Apple unveiled its new lineup of products for the holidays - including a new slimmer and faster tablet called the iPad Air. 
 
~ Bobbi Rebell

(Reuters) - Apple Inc on Tuesday offered free upgrades for life on its operating system and business software, and unveiled thinner iPads and faster Mac computers ahead of a competitive holiday shopping season.

The debut of the one-pound iPad Air and MacBook Pro with sharper 'retina' display repeats a pattern of recent launches with improvements in existing lines rather than totally new products, and Apple shares fell 0.3 percent for the day. 
 
Apple said upgrades to its Mac operating system and iWork software suite, which compete with Microsoft Corp's Excel, Word and other applications, will now be offered for all MacBooks and Mac computers.
 
That brings Apple's model of free system software upgrades on phones and tablets to the computer market, where Apple is still the underdog to Microsoft's Windows.
 
Apple may be trying to safeguard its grip on mobile software as Microsoft revs up its Windows-powered Surface Pro, which runs applications, such as Word or Excel, that are the standard for business customers, analysts said.
 
"We are turning the industry on its ear, but this is not why we're doing it," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told media and technology executives at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center.
 
"We want our customers to have our latest software."
 
The market is awash in inexpensive tablets running Google Inc's Android software, but the company may be focused on fending off a threat from the high end.
 
"In the tablet PC market, they do think Microsoft is a bigger threat than Android," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. "The iPad Air will compete with Surface Pro, not some rinky-dink Android tablet."
 
Gartner estimates that Apple's share of the global tablet market will slip to 47.2 percent in 2014, with Android-based tablets just overtaking Apple's this year. The IT research outfit expects Microsoft tablets to grab 3.4 percent of the market this year, double the 1.7 percent forecast for 2013.
 
PRESSURE
 
Microsoft gets 65 percent of its Windows revenue, which totaled $19.2 billion last fiscal year, from PC manufacturers which put the system on its machines, and 35 percent from other sources, chiefly people and businesses buying its software separately to install themselves.
 
The latest version of Windows, when bought separately to install on an old computer, starts at $120 for a home version and goes up to $200 for the full ‘Pro' version. The latest Windows 8.1 upgrade was free for customers running Windows 8.
 
Apple's product launches on Tuesday were evolutionary, with the new iPads equipped with faster processors and better screens. Cook, at an industry conference in May, had hinted at "several more game changers" from Apple which could include wearable computers, but had not given a time frame.
 
"As always with Apple, expectations on systematic breakthrough hardware innovations are irrational," said Forrester analyst Thomas Husson said. "Apple is good at inventing new products and at maximizing profitability of its product range over time through software innovations and clever marketing."
 
Apple's new iPad Air - its full-size tablet - is about 20 percent thinner than the previous generation of tablets, weighs one pound and starts at $499. It will go on sale on November 1.
 
The iPad mini now has a "retina" high-resolution screen and starts at $399, compared with $329 for the previous mini model. The two new tablets would face stiff competition, with Microsoft, Nokia and Amazon.com Inc all plugging rival devices in coming months.
 
Apple also showed off a new Mac Pro, a premium and high-powered cylindrical desktop computer that will be assembled in United States. It had shown the computer at a previously event.
 
For the first, Apple will launch the new iPads simultaneously in the United States and China, its biggest market, which is also a key growth region.
 
Apple, which jumpstarted the tablet computing market in 2010 with the first iPad, has already come under increasing pressure from cheaper devices ranging from Amazon's Kindle Fire to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Note.
 
But while Apple is ceding market share to rivals, its superior library of apps and content should safeguard its lead for years to come, analysts say.
 
Longer term however, investors hope to see real device innovation from a company that has not unveiled a new breakthrough product in years.
 
Cook on Tuesday dismissed the competition as directionless. 
 
"Our competition is different: they're confused," he said. "Now they're trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. Who knows what they'll do next?"
 
"We have a very clear direction and a very ambitious goal. We still believe deeply in this category and we're not slowing down on our innovation."
 
~ Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan                       

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Microsoft revamps Surface tablets to challenge Apple

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp unveiled faster, more powerful versions of its Surface tablet computer on Monday in an effort to boost poor sales of its flagship hardware product and mount a stronger challenge to Apple Inc's iPad.
 
The Surface is key to Microsoft's plan to reinvent itself as a 'devices and services' company, but comes less than a year after it brought out its own computers for the first time and failed to put a dent in the market. It has racked up only $853 million in sales while generating a $900 million charge for unsold inventory.

At an event in New York, Microsoft unveiled two new machines and a range of accessories promising faster processing, better battery life and more apps.
 
The new Surface 2, which runs on a low-power chip designed by ARM Holdings Plc, starts at $449 for the 32 GB version, not including a snap-on keyboard starting at $120. That is slightly less than Apple's latest wifi-only 32GB iPad, which costs $599.

The new Surface Pro 2, which runs on an Intel Corp chip and is aimed more at the lightweight laptop market, starts at $899 for the 64 GB version, not including keyboard. Apple's cheapest 128 GB MacBook Air costs $999.
 
Initial reaction was tepid.
 

"I don't see much incentive for people to buy these devices. Yes, they are cheaper than the iPads, but is that enough reason?" said Jack Gold, a technology analyst at J. Gold Associates. "It seems like Microsoft is just maintaining the traditional PC mantra - keep upgrading the chip and hardware a little bit every year at a slightly lower price. I think they needed to do something that was innovative beyond the first generation, and I don't see that in these devices."

Microsoft shares were steady at $32.82 on Nasdaq, while Apple shares rose 4 percent after reporting strong sales of its new iPhone 5s and 5c models and offering a more optimistic forecast.
 
As an added incentive, Microsoft is taking advantage of its other products, offering customers free Skype calling to landlines in more than 60 countries for one year and 200 GB of free storage on SkyDrive, Microsoft's online 'cloud' storage product that competes with Google Drive and Dropbox.

The Surface 2 comes preloaded with a stripped-down version of Office, including Outlook email. Surface Pro 2 can run the full, standard version of Office, but the software must be bought separately.
 
The hugely popular Office suite is the Surface's one unique selling point over Apple, as Microsoft has not released full, custom-designed Office apps for the iPad.

"What should be the 'killer app' is Microsoft Office," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, who was more optimistic about the new Surface products. "The Surface Pro has a place as an ultra-portable notebook replacement. If you value the touch screen form factor at that price point, it's a reasonable option."
 
The new machines will be available for sale online, in Microsoft stores and at a few third-party retailers in the United States and most other major markets, except Japan, on October 22. It will be available in China in early November.
 
~ Sinead Carew in New York and Bill Rigby in Seattle       
    

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