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Microsoft Garage incubator delivers new Windows Phone, Android productivity apps Summary: Microsoft has made a handful of new, free experimental productivity apps for Windows Phone and Android available for download from its Garage incubator. In October 2014, Microsoft announced that the Microsoft Garage was morphing from an internal hacking lab to  an incubator for lightweight, consumer-focused app s for Android, iOS and Windows devices. On February 25, Microsoft made available  a handful of new experimental Garage apps , several of which are more business-centric and productivity-focused. Among  the new, free Garage apps, ready for testers to download : DevSpace , available on Windows Phone, helps Visual Studio Online developers work and manage their projects more efficiently. Join Conference , available on Windows Phone, makes it easier to dial into conference calls with just one button or one voice command. Keyboard for Excel , available on Android, replace

Apple granted VR headset patent Summary: The US Patent Office has granted Apple a patent for a virtual-reality headset designed to accommodate an iPhone for its display, much like Google's Cardboard or Samsung's Gear VR headset. Apple has been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a virtual-reality (VR) headset designed to accommodate an iPhone as its display. The device, entitled "Head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display" in the patent documents, which were first mentioned by  Apple Insider , is described as a head-mounted display system that can be physically coupled with a handheld portable electronic device. The patent -- US Patent No 8,957,835 -- was filed with the USPTO by Apple in September 2008, and granted on February 17, 2015.The device, according to the patent documents, is: "A head-mounted device that is worn on a user's head and configured to integrat

Facebook's Internet.org arrives in India Summary: App offers free access to set of websites and services including BBC News, Bing, and Facebook. Facebook's Internet.org app has launched in India, offering free access to a set of websites for users in six states. According to the Internet.org - an initiative led by Facebook whose other members include Ericsson, Samsung, Opera, and Nokia - while over 85 percent of the world's population lives in areas with a mobile phone signal, only 30 percent have access to the internet. The idea behind the Internet.org project's app is to make the internet accessible to more people by providing a set of free basic services. The app first launched in Zambia in June last year and since then has been launched in Ghana, Kenya, Colombia, and Tanzania. The particular mix of services offered by Internet.org depends on the location: for example, last month the app launched in Colombia with 16 services  compared to the Indi

Microsoft gives business users more Windows 10 upgrade details, guidance Summary: Microsoft has shared a few more details about how businesses will be able to get Windows 10 and to keep their users current with feature and security fixes and updates. After providing Windows consumers with details about its planned free upgrade promotion for Windows 10, Microsoft has started providing business users with some early guidance, as well.In a January 30 blog post, Microsoft officials said users running Windows 7 Pro, Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro will be eligible for the free Windows 10 promotion. Via that promotion, users running these versions of Windows will have the option to upgrade to Windows 10 for free for the first year it is commercially available. (Microsoft officials have said Windows 10 will launch by this fall.) Microsoft will provide ongoing feature and security updates and fixes to these customers via Windows Update for the period their devices are supported

Microsoft rolls out new Outlook apps for iOS and Android Summary: Microsoft is using the code base from its Acompli acquisition to deliver new Outlook apps for iOS and Android. Just   a month after acquiring Acompli , Microsoft is turning that code into new Outlook for iOS and Outlook for Android apps. On January 29, Microsoft will begin making available  Outlook for iOS and a preview of Outlook for Android . These new Outlook apps will work with Office 365, Exchange, Outlook.com, Yahoo Mail, Gmail and other e-mail services. Microsoft plans to replace the Outlook Web Apps for iOS and Android, as well as the Outlook.com app for Android with these new Outlook apps. That won't happen overnight; the Outlook Web Apps and Outlook.com app will remain in the respective app stores for several months. But Microsoft plans to "sunset" Outlook Web Apps and the Outlook.com app for iOS and Android by summer, officials said. San Francisco-based email app vendor Acompli -

Firefox enters the realm of virtual reality with the Oculus Rift Summary: Mozilla has added support for virtual reality apps running on the Oculus Rift headset to an experimental version of the Firefox browser. Users of an experimental build of Firefox will be able to explore virtual reality inside the browser after Mozilla added support for the Oculus Rift headset.People running Firefox Nightly will be able to use the Rift to experience 3D environments inside web pages, following the  addition of support for the WebVR API . Virtual reality allows users to traverse 3D spaces by donning a headset that tracks their head movements and allows them to look around a 3D computer-generated world. While VR content on the web is scarce today, WebVR could eventually see VR scenes embedded into web pages, for example a car maker could embed a 3D 1:1 model of a vehicle for people to explore. VR headsets are also yet to go mainstream, but towards the end of this year production is expec

Facebook open sources AI tools, possibly turbo charges deep learning Summary: The plain English takeaway is that faster training of neural networks will now be widely available via open source project Torch. Facebook on Friday said it will open source deep learning modules for the Torch artificial intelligence project in a move that could speed up technology and make it more accessible to developers and ultimately companies. The social networking giant has a long open source contribution history and has even released documentation on its data center designs and building blocks. By contributing its optimized deep-learning modules and other tools, Facebook could turbo charge numerics, machine learning and computer vision. Facebook's technology has been used to train neural networks faster. Specifically, Facebook  is contributing  the following: GPU-optimized modules for so called convolutional networks as well as tools used in natural language processing and speech rec

HP launches virtual reality monitor: Will business, app makers buy in? Summary: The HP Zvr has promise in multiple industries. The wild card is whether HP can build a third party software ecosystem along with partner zSpace. HP on Monday launched a virtual reality display, dubbed the HP Zvr, that could have enterprise and education uses assuming applications become available en masse. At  CES 2015 , HP unveiled the Zvr as part of a series of displays. HP, like other display players, are rolling 4K and 5K ultra high-definition models. The products, launched at CES 2015, come as UHD screens are going more mainstream. HP's Z27s and Z24s are 4K displays and the Z27q is a 5K version. HP also rolled out the HP Z34c, HP ENVY 34c, HP EliteDisplay S270c and HP Pavilion 27c curved displays. The curved displays enable better visuals and audio, but also allow for room for productivity.The HP Zvr is billed as a step toward "true holographic viewing" and a test drive of th

Microsoft is building a new browser as part of its Windows 10 push Summary: Microsoft is planning to roll out a new browser when it debuts Windows 10, according to sources. But IE isn't going completely away. 0 Comments 0 0 0 0 in There's been talk for a while that Microsoft was going to make some big changes to Internet Explorer in the Windows 10 time frame, making IE "Spartan" look and feel more like Chrome and Firefox. It turns out that what's actually happening is Microsoft is building a new browser, codenamed Spartan, which is not IE 12 -- at least according to a couple of sources of mine. Thomas Nigro, a Microsoft Student Partner lead and developer of the modern version of VLC, mentioned on Twitter earlier this month that he heard Microsoft was building a brand-new browser . Nigro said he heard talk of this during  a December episode of the LiveTile podcast . Spartan is still going to use Microso

It's raining lawsuits in India: Micromax and OnePlus face off in battle of the Cyanogens Summary: After the Ericsson-Xiaomi fracas, this is the second lawsuit between phone makers in less than a month in India. Just when you were done reading about Ericsson stopping the Xiaomi juggernaut in its tracks, another lawsuit between rival smartphone makers has dominated headlines in India in the last few days. This time, it's a confrontation between Indian phone giant Micromax and Chinese company Shenzhen OnePlus Technology. Late last week, Micromax filed a lawsuit against OnePlus, stopping it from selling its line of phones featuring Cyanogen software. (Cyanogen software is based on the Android operating system, and has gained traction because of its popular customisation possibilities over stock Android.) Apparently, Micromax has an exclusive deal with Cyanogen that prevents anyone else in South Asia from flogging phones with this software on it. The complication is that