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MS, Google to Sue US Govt. for Permission to Release More Data about Privacy Damaging FISA Requests
Microsoft and Google are working together in a fight for greater transparency on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders. Not satisfied with the limited out of court agreement that’s already been reached with the US government to disclose summary data relating to national security requests, the two companies are now taking legal action and lobbying for support from Congress.
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AWS and Microsoft Release Dueling Mobile Notification Services
Within days of each other, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) released mobile-friendly notification services aimed at developers. Both services make it possible to quickly and cheaply broadcast millions of messages to devices of all kinds. While similar on the surface, each service offers their own unique capabilities.
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Steve Ballmer Steps Down as Microsoft’s CEO
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has announced today his retirement from Microsoft, stepping down from his position within the next 12 months after a new CEO has been chosen.
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Microsoft Is to Undergo Major Reorganization
Microsoft has detailed their plan for a major reorganization. All OSes will be under one lead. Other engineering areas will be Apps, Cloud and Devices.
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Microsoft to Retire TechNet Subscription Service
Microsoft recently announced the retirement of its popular TechNet Subscription from August 31, 2013 to provide so called free services that will provide an ability to download free evaluation software for limited period.
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IE 11 to Feature WebGL, New Development Tools and SPDY
There is good news for web developers: Windows 8.1 will ship with Internet Explorer 11, which will feature WebGL, much improved developer's tools and support for Google's SPDY protocol.
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Windows Azure Extends their MBaaS with Custom APIs and Git Support
Shortly after Google announced their Mobile Backend Starter for Android applications, Microsoft has announced the extension of their Azure mobile services adding support for Custom APIs, Git, NPM, Android Push Notifications, and a free SQL DB.
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Microsoft To Developers: Our Cloud is Ideal for Application Development and Testing
Last week, Microsoft shipped a series of improvements to Windows Azure that were focused on cost control and lower barrier to entry. While they updated their cloud services – including SSL support for Windows Azure Web Sites and introducing a new integration service – Microsoft’s primary updates were targeted directly at developers who are considering the cloud for their dev and test environments.
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Microsoft Enterprise Library 6.0 Adds Semantic Logging
Microsoft has released Enterprise Library 6.0 with a Semantic Logging application block, support for Unity 3.0 and Windows Store apps, simplified usage, better documentation and overall experience.
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Microsoft Makes Infrastructure Cloud Generally Available, Matches AWS Prices
Today, Microsoft took their Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud product – called Windows Azure Infrastructure Services – out of preview and made it available to the general public. Microsoft is entering a crowded IaaS market but they’ve committed to matching cloud leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) on price while also promising enterprise-class SLAs and services.
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Microsoft Open Sources Kinect for Windows Samples
Microsoft has recently open sourced on CodePlex 22 code samples under the Apache 2.0 license. The samples which are also included in the Kinect for Windows Toolkit show how to make use of various Kinect features: Audio, Basic Interactions, Colors, Depth, Face Tracing, Infrared, Slideshow Gestures, Speech, WPF, XNA, and others.
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Cloud Optimization Takes Center Stage with Free Microsoft, AWS Services
While a cottage industry has grown around providing services to optimize cloud usage and costs, large cloud providers themselves are beginning to promote their own optimization offerings. Microsoft recently purchased a cloud performance management company and made its product free to customers. Competitor AWS is aggressively promoting their own “Trusted Advisor” program with a free trial period.
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What’s Up with CU-RTC-Web?
Microsoft CU-RTC-Web is an alternative approach to WebRTC meant to show some of WebRTC’s weaknesses and to push it forward.
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Hadoop + SQL Server + Excel = Big Data Analytics
Few months back, Microsoft announced HDInsight, Microsoft’s Hadoop distribution for managing, analysing and making sense out of large volumes of data. InfoQ connected with Val Fontama, Senior Product Marketing Manager for SQL Server, to know more about how the Enterprise Big Data @ Microsoft story is panning out.
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Microsoft Creates Catalog of Linux-based Virtual Machines for Windows Azure
Microsoft Open Technologies unveiled their first major offerings in the form of a repository for pre-configured virtual machines that can be quickly deployed to the Windows Azure cloud. The VM Depot is advertised as a place to discover and deploy Azure-friendly virtual machines, and may be Microsoft’s answer to the popular catalog provided for AWS users.