Items tagged with Skype
One of the many neat things about the Internet is that it connects people from all over the world. However, by itself the web doesn't overcome language barriers, so even though you can exchange messages with someone from a foreign country, will you be able to understand each other? That's where Skype Translator comes...
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If you’re heavily invested in Microsoft’s cloud services ecosystem, you’ll be glad to hear that the company’s popular Work & Play Bundle has returned once again to the Microsoft Store. As before, the Work & Play Bundle includes a year’s subscription to Office 365 Home, Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Music Pass, and Skype...
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Kim Dotcom, the man who negotiated a deal with hacking group Lizard Squad to cease fire on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network over Christmas break, has Skype in his crosshairs and is ready to pull the trigger. His weapon of choice? A competing browser-based chat service tentatively called MegaChat that he plans to launch soon.
The Mega
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Projects like Microsoft’s Skype Translator remind us just how life-changing technology can be. When Microsoft first announced its massive language-translation project earlier this year, the upcoming Skype feature was able to translate a conversation between English and German speakers.
Microsoft promised to show us...
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Well, that didn’t take long. In early November, Microsoft rolled out its new “Work & Play Bundle” that combines a year’s worth of Office 365 Home, Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Music Pass, and Skype Unlimited World + WiFi. Microsoft priced the bundle at $199, which at the time seemed like a sweet deal. Today, however, Microsoft is making the deal even
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Skype has been getting some love from Microsoft in recent weeks. On the consumer side, Microsoft introduced Skype Qik, a short video messaging service that’s bound to give SnapChat headaches. Today, Microsoft has news for business users: Lync is becoming Skype for Business in 2015. Microsoft says there will be...
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Just how secure is your favorite chat app? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) found out and is sharing the results of its research as part of its battle against NSA surveillance. As you’d probably expect, it has some complaints about the security of certain mainstream chat programs, but there are a few...
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Microsoft may have just figured out how to make short video messaging appealing to adults – and it might make headway with the teenage segment, too. Microsoft-owned Skype challenged the likes of Snapchat yesterday by releasing Skype Qik for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Like Snapchat, the app lets you record...
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It might not be too surprising given what we've seen from previous major releases of Skype, but thanks to the release of 7 for Mac, and the beta of 7 for Windows, we can see that the tradition holds. In addition to a revamped interface, Skype 7 has been treated to a number of enhancements that will simply make the...
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Windows Phone owners needn't feel like the red-headed stepchildren of the mobile industry. It's true that Microsoft's share of the mobile market is a drop in the bucket compared to Apple (iOS) and Google (Android), but regardless of that, it's all about the apps and hardware, both of which have been steadily improving. That includes Skype,...
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New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has his work cut out for him. Although Microsoft is still one of the most important tech companies in the world, the company’s dominance is slipping as technology evolves rapidly. The company’s old product paradigms simply don’t work anymore, and Microsoft has appeared...
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Our illusion of privacy was shattered when it came to light that our government is plugged into just about every form of communication that exists. To give users back some measure of privacy, Silent Circle has launched a fixed price, global encrypted calling service that allows customers to make and receive truly...
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Recently appointed Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella had an onstage conversation that lasted more than an hour at the inaugural Code Conferences in Ranco Palos Verdes, California, and among the topics that came up is language translation. Not by coincidence, the planned topic allowed Nadella to demo a...
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Earlier this week, Apple released an updated set of legal guidelines spelling out exactly what it can and cannot access on your iDevice, what material it will turn over to the police, and under which circumstances it will surrender it. What's particularly interesting is the split response we've seen from different...
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You know how Microsoft has gradually started pre-loading Windows 8 with a glut of apps? Sure, it’s kind of convenient--emphasis on the “kind of”--and having certain apps such as Skype ready to roll as soon as you install the OS is indeed rather handy, but a lot of it just feels like bloatware...
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Microsoft's newly appointed CEO may have received near-universal praise, but that doesn't mean that things are completely rosy internally. As these events always tend to do, there are at least a few folks who aren't exactly thrilled with the way the decision went down. Due to that, a few key executives are heading for...
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Hackers claiming to represent the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) decided to deface Skype's social media pages with disparaging messages about Microsoft and its digital properties. On Skype's Twitter page, for example, the hackers posted a status update telling followers not to use Microsoft's email services (Hotmail and...
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Ever since Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced his retirement in August, the company has been busily hunting for a new head honcho, and according to a Reuters report, among those on the shortlist are Nokia’s Stephen Elop, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, and three other external candidates whose names could not be...
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Among the various SNAFUs and PR misfires related to the Xbox One release earlier this year, one item that had people upset was that Kinect would be used for advertising--or worse, that the Xbox One Kinect was actually designed with advertising in mind. The source was a UI designer who was expounding the capabilities...
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If there’s anything positive to take away from this summer’s NSA spying scandal, it might be the increased transparency of major tech companies, as Microsoft has its latest Law Enforcement Requests report for the first 6 months of 2013. Of course, a downside is that these companies still aren’t...
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Let's stop harping on it. We've already discussed Microsoft's failures and shortcomings with their first generation of Surface and Surface RT devices. The company's $900 million dollar mistake has been bounced around along with Steve Ballmer's tenure ad nauseam and so it's probably no surprise that more than a few...
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In the hardware world, even the best-selling devices eventually reach EOL (end-of-life) status. And, as fate would have it, it seems that the software world follows suit. But every now and again, a product is killed that leaves us scratching our heads. While Windows Phone 8 is clearly the premier mobile product for Microsoft, it sure doesn't...
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