Visix, Inc. has released version 1.87 of their AxisTV Signage Suite digital signage software. This latest update includes a new Microsoft Power BI widget, major speed enhancements, simplified content scheduling and other updates for a better user experience.

Will Davidson and his Minecraft creation, modeled off the Santa Cruz Mission; Credit: Steve Henn

Minecraft is a deceptively simple video game. You're dropped into a virtual world, and you get to build things. It's like a digital Lego set, but with infinite pieces.

Its simplicity makes it a big hit with kids, like 10-year old Will Davidson. Last year, Will built a Spanish mission for a school report. He modeled his off the Santa Cruz Mission. "I made a chapel over here," Davidson says. "I also have a bell tower."

After he turned in his report, he added a few things. Like skeleton archers. "And zombies ... and exploding things, and spiders, that try to kill you," he said.

Minecraft is popular with kids because they're free to create almost anything, says Ramin Shokrizade, a game designer.

Also, kids aren't manipulated into clicking buttons to buy add-ons within the game. In other games, designers give players a special power for free at first, then take it away and offer it back at a price.

Zynga, the creator of Farmville, calls this fun pain, according to Shokrizade. "That's the idea that, if you make the consumer uncomfortable enough, and then tell them that for money we'll make you less uncomfortable, then [they] will give us money," he says.

Kids, Shokrizade says, are especially susceptible to this — and Minecraft has a loyal following, in part, because it doesn't do it.

Susan Linn, from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, agrees. She says a big reason she likes Minecraft is because after you purchase the game upfront, that's it.

"Parents don't have to worry that their kids are going to be targeted for more marketing," Linn says. "How forward-thinking!"

But Linn is worried. Microsoft bought Mojang, the company that created Minecraft, on Monday for $2.5 billion, and she says that any time a large company spends billions to acquire a smaller company, executives are bound start looking for new ways to get even more money out of it.

Parallels RAS Now extends the integration and delivery of applications from Azure Virtual Desktop to application delivery on Windows 365 Cloud PCs

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Phil Spencer just confirmed that Microsoft wants to release an Xbox handheld. He also said that the company is still working on an Xbox mobile store and exploring more studio acquisitions.

The post Phil Spencer Discusses Microsoft’s Xbox Handheld and Mobile Store Plans appeared first on Thurrott.com.

The Windows 11 Insider build 22749 is out on the Canary Channel, and it includes the same Narrator improvements that are also rolling out to non-Insiders with this month's Patch Tuesday updates.

The post Microsoft Releases Windows 11 Canary Build 27749 appeared first on Thurrott.com.

Microsoft's gaming division is developing prototypes for a handheld gaming device that won't launch for "a few years," gaming chief Phil Spencer said Wednesday. In an interview with Bloomberg, Spencer said that while Microsoft is actively working on prototypes, the company will first focus on improving its Xbox app performance on existing portable devices and establishing hardware partnerships. The gaming unit wants to be "informed by learning and what's happening now" before introducing its own device, Spencer said. "Longer term, I love us building devices," Spencer said, adding that Microsoft's team "could do some real innovative work."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has announced that it will end support for Mail, Calendar, and People apps for Windows by the end of the year. It is migrating users to the new Outlook for Windows app, where they will be able to access their local emails, calendar events, and stored contacts on a single platform — services previously available on three separate apps.

1. Phil Spencer Discusses Microsoft’s Xbox Handheld and Mobile Store Plans  Thurrott.com
2. “I think the ball is moving in the right direction." Xbox head Phil Spencer confirms Microsoft mobile game store delay amid Apple, Google regulations in interview  Windows Central
3. Microsoft is still in the market for video game acquisitions  Windows Central

1. How this ‘pop-up’ on Windows laptops and PCs may again lead to Google vs Microsoft tussle  The Times of India
2. Microsoft Edge is trying to forcefully get your Chrome tabs again  The Verge
3. Microsoft Edge has a sneaky new pop-up that tries to copy your Google Chrome data  9to5Google
4. Microsoft is sneakily trying to import tabs from other browsers into Edge  Ghacks
5. Microsoft is, once again, trying to force users into using Edge  MSN

Компания Microsoft представила проект Hyperlight, развивающий гипервизор, предназначенный для встраивания в приложения с целью изолированного выполнения кода, не заслуживающего доверия или требующего особой защиты. Гипервизор оформлен в виде разделяемой библиотеки, обеспечивающей выполнение отдельных функций в легковесных виртуальных машинах (micro-VM) и организующей обмен данными с этими функциями. Код проекта написан на языке Rust и распространяется под лицензией Apache 2.0.

U.S. tech giants Microsoft and Google have partnered wherein Office for Android will be supported on Chrome OS-based devices via the Google Play Store.

Microsoft said its Cheyenne datacentre in Wyoming will now be powered entirely by 237 megawatts of wind energy.

Microsoft on Thursday released tools that can be used by any developer on any platform, the company said in a statement, and added that developers will now be able to use the tools of their choice to create Android, iOS and Windows apps.

Microsoft on Thursday released tools that can be used by any developer on any platform, the company said in a statement, and added that developers will now be able to use the tools of their choice to create Android, iOS and Windows apps.

Back in November 2004, I referenced the historic Microsoft dividend payout in the context of what one could buy with money. I often perform these numeric exercises or reference work by others because it can sometimes be hard for people to comprehend how big numbers are. The influence of Microsoft is simply huge. I referenced how their recent moves affected the stock markets in the antivirus space. Now as Suzanne has pointed out to me, it appears the dividend payout has positively influenced the government's measure of consumer spending. Simply wow.

The current version of Windows on ARM contains Prism, Microsoft’s emulator that allows x86-64 code to run on ARM processors. While it was already relatively decent on the recent Snapdragon X platform, it could still be very hit-or-miss with what applications it would run, and especially games seemed to be problematic. As such, Microsoft has pushed out a major update to Prism that adds support for a whole bunch of extensions to the x86 architecture. This new support in Prism is already in limited use today in the retail version of Windows 11, version 24H2, where it enables the ability to run Adobe Premiere Pro 25 on Arm. Starting with Build 27744, the support is being opened to any x64 application under emulation. You may find some games or creative apps that were blocked due to CPU requirements before will be able to run using Prism on this build of Windows. At a technical level, the virtual CPU used by x64 emulated applications through Prism will now have support for additional extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture. These extensions include AVX and AVX2, as well as BMI, FMA, F16C, and others, that are not required to run Windows but have become sufficiently commonplace that some apps expect them to be present. You can see some of the new features in the output of a tool like Coreinfo64.exe. ↫ Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc on the Windows Blog Hopefully this makes running existing x86 applications that don’t yet have an ARM version a more reliable affair for Windows on ARM users.

Microsoft opublikował informację o krytycznej podatności CVE-2023-23397 w aplikacji Outlook na systemie Windows. Może ona prowadzić do zdalnego przejęcia hasła domenowego, bez interakcji użytkownika. Podatność była aktywnie używana w atakach przez jedną z rosyjskich grup APT od kwietnia 2022 roku, w tym w Polsce. Rekomendujemy podjęcie natychmiastowych działań we wszystkich organizacjach, których użytkownicy korzystają z poczty poprzez klienta Microsoft Outlook.

Slippery Bloggers getting their Palms Greased

"I wish to thank Bill Gates for giving me an opportunity at Microsoft catapulting me onto the blogger A-list. But above all I wish to thank my loyal suckup fans who have made this all possible. For without you I am nothing".

Todays Blog Quiz:

Absolutely nothing.

Related links: computing, internet, computers and internet, technology, tech, scobleizer, humour, humor, satire, microsoft, bill+gates

This spring Microsoft "gave in" to the EU and other governmental regulators and began unbundling Microsoft Teams from Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 plans.

Offers study guides of all leading certifications includes MCSE, MCSD, MCSA, Oracle 8i, Oracle 9i, CCNA, CCNP and A+.

DesktopMates are animated human like characters that live on your desktop as your personal interactive companion & assistant capable of speech & doing tasks for you using Microsoft Agent and Artificial Intelligence Technology ... Free Start Up!

According to msmobiles.com: "For the first time Microsoft officially recognizes Podcasting and offers Podcasting channel for MEDC 2005 ! While Symbian and Nokia are still oblivious to podcasting, Microsoft already offers it. " So much for the podcast backlash. Read the rest of the article - Microsoft starts podcasting:

Even as Microsoft won a victory recently against its new and increasingly agile young competitor Google in the case of Kai-Fu Lee, Google continues to nibble at the margins of Microsoft's more existential questions - the need for its software...

Alianza, Inc.amp;nbsp;today introduced Alianza for Microsoft Teams, a new and powerful solution that gives service providers a robust cloud PBX voice solution for Microsoft Teams.

Today, SAP SE announced the next step in its long-standing partnership with Microsoft, using the latest in enterprise-ready generative AI innovation to help solve customers' most fundamental business challenges. The companies will collaborate on integrating SAPamp;reg;SuccessFactorsamp;reg; solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning, as well as Microsoft's AzureOpenAI Service to access powerful language models that analyze and generate natural language. The integrations will enable new experiences designed to improve how organizations attract, retain and skill their people.

Microsoft has warned Outlook users about a potential crash when opening a high number of emails simultaneously in the application.

(Telecompaper) Samsung Electronics has announced new methodology for measuring the emissions and reductions linked to the use-phase of internet-connected electronic devices...

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De drie grote Amerikaanse hyperscalers, Amazon, Microsoft en Google, lijken een wapenwedloop te voeren om hun netwerken wereldwijd uit te breiden. Zowel de cloud als specifiek de zware belasting van AI vraagt daarom. Het is een trend die vooral sinds begin dit jaar zichtbaar is...

Branding is important, and this is something we’ve already seen with digital assistants like Siri. Moving into the artificial intelligence era, companies have been falling over themselves to get their own stamp on their version of AI. Apple has opted for the reasonably predictable “Apple Intelligence”, while Microsoft’s approach has been a little more haphazard. But now there are clues that suggest the company has finally come to understand the importance of giving people an overarching term to cover all of its AI-related offerings. Say hello to Windows Intelligence. See also: As is so often the case, it is the… [Continue Reading]

Access Office apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, along with 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage, for 42% off -- the lowest price we've seen.

This deal gets you a lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2019 for Windows or Mac and access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more for 88% off.

Code faster and work smarter with a Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 license, now on sale for 94% off.

The release of Windows 11 is still a number of months away, and we're still learning a lot about Microsoft's latest operating system update. In addition to the confusion about hardware requirements, there have been questions about other necessities.

Microsoft is changing its famous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) to black in Windows 11. The software giant started testing its new design changes in a Windows 11 preview earlier this week, but the Black Screen of Death isn’t fully enabled yet. The Verge understands Microsoft will be switching to a Black Screen of Death for Windows 11, matching the new black logon and shutdown screens.

When Microsoft announced it was rebranding its phone hardware as “Microsoft Lumia”, it hinted that there might be a new phone on the way, with the Nokia Conversations blog post quoting Senior VP Tuula Rytilä as saying “we are looking …

Microsoft just went live with what looks to be a pretty good deal it’s calling the “Microsoft Work and Play Bundle“, which includes one year subscriptions to Office 365 Home, Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Music Pass, and Skype …