Tag: microsoft

Don’t Call It a Dump Truck: This Massive Mineral Hauler Transforms Into an Overland Train

When massive, open-pit mines like the Minera Escondida —in Chile’s Atacama Desert—need to pull millions of tons of minerals out of the ground each year, they rely on fleets of huge, “Ultra-Class” haul trucks. The ETF Haul Train, however, pulls four times the minerals of these stone-toting behemoths with just one driver. More »

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Don’t Call It a Dump Truck: This Massive Mineral Hauler Transforms Into an Overland Train

Microsoft Can Convert Your Voice Into Another Language

It’s unlikely that you speak Mandarin, but that doesn’t mean you won’t need to at some point. Now, Microsoft has created software that can analyze your speech, translate it and then spit out a new recording of your very own voice speaking in a different language. More »

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Microsoft Can Convert Your Voice Into Another Language

How a Reddit Rage Comic Saved a Man’s Life

Four days ago, the rage comic above was posted to Reddit by CappnPoopdeck . It described the true story of her friend, a man who decided to try his ex-girlfriend’s pregnancy test himself. To his surprise and confusion, the results came back positive. Funny? Sure, sort of. But also, Reddit commenters quickly noted, a symptom of a potentially deadly disease. More »

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How a Reddit Rage Comic Saved a Man’s Life

Microsoft Retiring Messenger, Replacing It With Skype

Entropy98 writes “Windows Live Messenger will be shut down by March 2013, after nearly 13 years of service, so Microsoft can focus its efforts on Skype, its recent $8.5bn acquisition. No word on whether users will be able to transfer their WLM accounts to Skype. ‘According to internet analysis firm Comscore, WLM still had more than double the number of Skype’s instant messenger facility at the start of this year and was second only in popularity to Yahoo Messenger. But the report suggested WLM’s US audience had fallen to 8.3 million unique users, representing a 48% drop year-on-year. By contrast, the number of people using Skype to instant message each other grew over the period.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Retiring Messenger, Replacing It With Skype

Report: Microsoft going to production with 7-inch “Xbox Surface”

When Microsoft first revealed its Surface tablet back in June , many in the rumor mill were expecting the company to reveal a gaming-focused “Xbox Surface,” based on leaked documents pointing to such a tablet. Those rumors have resurfaced again, with The Verge reporting  today that Microsoft is working on a final implementation of a 7-inch tablet tuned for gaming. The Verge’s unnamed source says the previously leaked specs for the tablet were indeed accurate, meaning the system would include a 7-inch, 1280×720 screen, 288MB of RAM, and a “custom IBM engine for scale-out workloads.” Those specs could be altered to allow for different models independent of one specific hardware architecture, however. The tablet will supposedly run a small Windows kernel rather than the full version of Windows that the 10-inch Surface tablet uses, and will work in conjunction with a “stationary computing device” that could be a next-generation Xbox, as outlined in another leaked Microsoft document from the summer . The Verge claims that the full console will be built by contract manufacturers like Pegatron and Foxconn, but that the tablet will be built by the same secret manufacturing process used for the Surface. The Xbox tablet would be released in 2013, ahead of a next-generation console. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Microsoft going to production with 7-inch “Xbox Surface”

Microsoft-Built Smartphone Could Irritate Hardware Partners, Harm Nokia

Nerval’s Lobster writes “Rumors have circulated for weeks that Microsoft intends to release a smartphone of its own design and manufacture, embracing the strategy that drove Apple’s iPhone to such enormous success over the past few years. While releasing a branded smartphone offers several potential benefits—look at the revenue and brand recognition Apple’s earned as a result of the iPhone—such a strategy also carries significant risks for Microsoft. First, it could alienate smartphone partners such as Nokia, which would find itself competing against a high-end device backed by Microsoft’s sizable marketing dollars. (Given the Finnish phone-maker’s already perilous situation, that could prove ruinous.) But a branded smartphone could also convince hardware manufacturers that Microsoft really is ‘all in’ on building its own devices, which could lead to all sorts of drama.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft-Built Smartphone Could Irritate Hardware Partners, Harm Nokia

Microsoft Escapes Kaspersky's Top 10 Vulnerabilities List

An anonymous reader writes “Security firm Kaspersky has released its latest IT Threat Evolution report. There were some interesting findings in the report, as always, but the most interesting thing that stuck out was all the way at the bottom: ‘Microsoft products no longer feature among the Top 10 products with vulnerabilities. This is because the automatic updates mechanism has now been well developed in recent versions of Windows OS.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Escapes Kaspersky's Top 10 Vulnerabilities List

Ballmer: four million Windows 8 upgrades in four days

Greetings in beautiful, gray Redmond, WA. What better time to kick off year’s Build event at the Microsoft campus than four days after the launch of Windows 8 ? CEO Steve Ballmer started the developer-centric event off with a nice little number: four million. According to the enthusiastic exec, that’s the number of Windows 8 upgrades MS has seen in the four days since launch — and there’s certainly a lot of excitement around the operating system this tent full of developers. Filed under: Laptops , Microsoft Ballmer: four million Windows 8 upgrades in four days originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink    |   |  Email this  |  Comments

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Ballmer: four million Windows 8 upgrades in four days

This Is the First Picture Ever Taken From Space—and It Was Taken From a Nazi Rocket

This grainy picture was taken on October 24, 1946, almost 14 months after the end of World War II and almost 11 years before the Sputnik launch. It was taken by American military engineers and scientists, using a Nazi rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico. More »

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This Is the First Picture Ever Taken From Space—and It Was Taken From a Nazi Rocket