If you are unfamiliar with the Azure Hybrid Benefit, it is a program for organizations using SQL Server and Windows 10, allowing them to extend their licenses on those platforms to Azure. In other words, they can create a hybrid license that allows server software to run in an Azure cloud virtual machine. Microsoft is expanding this ability to Linux servers. The company points out users with pay-as-you-go subscriptions on SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise can now access Azure Hybrid Benefit....

Until now, the Windows 10 app monitoring tool has been exclusive to the Windows Store. However, starting today, Android users can download the Dev Center on their devices. At the moment, the app is in beta release on the Google Play Store. As you would expect in this situation, the app is hardly a polished experience. It is a work in progress which will be improved with the help of beta users....

Starting with the new design, Android users will see the UI tweak through Skype version 8.13. As mentioned, this is only available to Insiders at the moment, but will come to all users soon. Just like the iOS release 10 days ago, the new design changes introduce a new menu bar and slimmer headers. The focus of the tweak is to make the Skype experience more fluid on mobile devices....

Throughout the last generation of consoles, rumors surrounded Microsoft’s Xbox division. The Xbox One took a beating from Sony’s PlayStation 4 in terms of sales and some argued Microsoft would one day offload the Xbox brand. Certainly, amongst the big hitters of Azure, Office, and Windows, Xbox is not a major revenue generator for Microsoft. However, instead of departing the gaming market, Microsoft is doubling down. The company is on board the next generation of consoles with the Xbox Series X and Series S....

Like the Healthcare solution, Microsoft Cloud for Retail is a vertical cloud solution, meaning it is oriented towards enterprise. Also, like the first service, this new offering provides access to Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Dynamics 365. Furthermore, it also provides access to Microsoft Advertising. The idea behind this service is to provide organizations with an “end-to-end shopper journey”. Coming Soon So far, Microsoft has only announced the platform, with no word on a launch....

The decisions taken by Microsoft and published today end a long-standing dispute. During the rivalry, a war of words quickly turned to a threat of legal action. It is unclear how this potential court battle affected Microsoft’s decision. Either way, Kaspersky Lab has decided to drop its impending lawsuit. You may remember, the anti-virus company accused Microsoft of favouring its own Windows Defender on Windows 10. That’s fair enough you may think, but Kaspersky argued it was taken too far....

Both board members have been with the Redmond company since 2003. One of them is Bank of America Chief Financial Officer Charles Noski and the other is BMW U.S. Operations Chief Helmut Panke. Before their departures, Microsoft’s board had 14 sitting members. With the departure of Noski and Panke, the number has been reduced to 12. However, GlaxoSmithKline CEO Emma Walmsley has been nominated to join the board. If the nomination is accepted, the board will consist of 13 representatives....

Sandbox Mode is one of the standout features of Windows 10 May 2019 Update. As the title suggests, the Windows Sandbox allows users to run programs within a disposable virtual machine. This VM never interacts with the OS, allowing potentially dangerous services to be run securely. Microsoft says Sandbox is limited to Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise users. Sadly, some users on Reddit and Microsoft own support tool say they Windows Sandbox is not working....

Indeed, we have known that this emoji would be coming eventually. It was originally planned to drop with the Windows 10 Creators Update, which rolled out in April. Microsoft clearly missed that and is now pushing out the Shoulder Tap with the fall release. If you are unfamiliar with the feature, is brings up a giant animated version of an emoji over the taskbar. This happens when a pinned contacted sends an emoji through Skype....

For users, this will become a hub to locate and install widgets to make the Windows 10 Game Bar more useful. Expanded functionality is the focus of the Widget Store, according to an Xbox Wire post this week: “We thought we’d bring your favorite apps to you right within the Xbox Game Bar where you can access them without ever leaving your game.” To kick off the Widget Store, Microsoft has brough two features to Game Bar users....

Both companies published their findings in a blog post on Thursday. Microsoft believes Nodersok is used to “turn infected machines into zombie proxies”. It does via a chain of fileless and difficult to detect techniques that the company was able to flag with its Windows Defender ATP software. “While the file aspect of the attack was very tricky to detect, its behavior produced a visible footprint that stands out clearly for anyone who knows where to look....

To access Vertical Tabs, users can click an icon in the top left corner of the Microsoft Edge browser window. The big advantage of the side vertical tabs is they also feature a thumbnail image of the page. If you have multiple tabs open during a session, this could make it easier to organize them. Elsewhere in Microsoft Edge 89, the browser is now more efficient at managing history. Microsoft is debuting a new dropdown menu that is available above the webpages....

However, it’s worth noting that WebP is only available in Insider builds. Specifically, Windows 10 build 17692. On top of this, users need to download an extension from the Microsoft Store, making it far from a full implementation. Still, it’s likely we’ll see this as a full feature after the next Windows 10 update. Google’s compression is clearly superior to many forms out there, making it a great choice for web pages....

The move contradicts the company’s announcement in April 2017 that support would end in 2020. Previously, Microsoft planned to hold the access with the end of mainstream support. However, it seems adoption of the cloud-based Office 365 hasn’t been as quick as it expected. “To give you more time to transition fully to the cloud, we are now modifying that policy and will continue to support Office 2016 connections with the Office 365 services through October 2023,” it said in a blog post....

This time, it’s not from a lack of trying on Microsoft’s part. The Redmond giant assured Google that the exploit was fixed in June’s ‘Patch Tuesday’ but it now it now appears it wasn’t entirely resolved. “MSRC has indeed confirmed that the fix released on June Patch Tuesday is incorrect and doesn’t resolve the bug properly,” said a Project Zero spokesperson today. “As such, the vulnerability still reproduces on Windows 7-10 with the original proof-of-concept program....

In a new blog post, the Windows security team details a remote Chrome vulnerability which was found last month. “We responsibly disclosed the vulnerability that we discovered along with a reliable remote code execution exploit to Google on September 14, 2017,” explains Jordan Rabet, a Microsoft Offensive Security Research team member. “Google patched the problem within a week in its beta versions of Chrome, but the stable and public channel “remained vulnerable for nearly a month....

Bing’s trending articles section promoted stock videos with titles such as ‘Boys Erection’, ‘Girls Take of Panties’, and ‘Little Girl Peeing’. However, though alarming, an investigation by Shutterstock and Microsoft found that none of the videos contained illegal content. ‘Boys Erection’, for example, contained harmless footage of two children erecting a tent. A video titled ‘Big Tits Stock Video Footage’ featured great tit birds in glorious 4K. All were in the realm of acceptable stock footage, but there was clearly something awry on Microsoft’s side....

Microsoft emailed us to point out it had made a “human error” in the initial reporting. The company originally said it received between 1,000 and 1,499 surveillance requests for foreign intelligence purposes (known as FISA) from January to June 2016. It turns out that figure is not accurate. In the email, a Microsoft spokesperson told us “the correct range for this time period is 0 – 499 FISA orders seeking disclosure of customer content....

By using the toolbar, Office 365 users on Mac can access items such as calendar entries and documents. My Workspace sits in the toolbar area on Apple’s OS, providing a quick look at some key features. Among them is the ability to join a Skype meeting or to RSVP events. Microsoft has taken inspiration from its OneNote service by adding a list of recently used files to My Workspace. This allows Office 365 subscribers to manage these files in the toolbar....

Microsoft has said Windows 11 will only be available for laptops with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 or higher chips. Admittedly, that is most modern-era laptops, but hundreds of millions use Windows 10. That means there will be millions of users running hardware that cannot upgrade to Windows 11. With the release of Windows 11 Preview build 22458, Microsoft is now preventing VM installations. You may remember the company initially allowed users to use VMs for installing the platform, even on incompatible hardware....