Cortana and on Android

Microsoft's Cortana virtual assistant is getting a facelift on iOS and Android aimed at making it more useful for users, and also bringing a bit of brightness to what's currently a rather dour interface.
The app's biggest change is the launch of a button that lets users quickly choose between a suite of common actions, like viewing their calendar at a glance, checking reminders, or getting a weather forecast. The app itself looks friendlier, with a purple gradient background replacing a stark black, white, and blue color scheme.

On top of that, Microsoft also announced on Thursday that the iOS and Android versions of Cortana are coming to the U.K., so that Brits will be able to use the virtual assistant. Microsoft has been slow to expand Cortana's geographic reach until the assistant has been set up to work with local social norms and other expectations.
The Cortana app is a key part of Microsoft's strategy with its virtual assistant. Windows smartphones are an extreme minority compared to the iOS- and Android-powered devices that overwhelmingly dominate the market. If Microsoft wants its virtual assistant to be ubiquitous, it's important to invest in a mobile app that works on other platforms.

Microsoft’s Quest , Quantum Computer .

The race is on build a ‘universal’ quantum computer. Such a device could be programmed to speedily solve problems that classical computers cannot crack, potentially revolutionizing fields from pharmaceuticals to cryptography. Many of the world's major technology firms are taking on the challenge, but Microsoft has opted for a more tortuous route than its rivals.
IBM, Google and a number of academic labs have chosen relatively mature hardware, such as loops of superconducting wire, to make quantum bits (qubits). These are the building blocks of a quantum computer: they power its speedy calculations thanks to their ability to be in a mixture (or superposition) of ‘on’ and ‘off’ states at the same time.

Microsoft, however, is hoping to encode its qubits in a kind of quasiparticle: a particle-like object that emerges from the interactions inside matter. Some physicists are not even sure that the particular quasiparticles Microsoft are working with—called non-abelian anyons—actually exist. But the firm hopes to exploit their topological properties, which make quantum states extremely robust to outside interference, to build what are called topological quantum computers. Early theoretical work on topological states of matter won three physicists the Nobel Prize in Physics on 4 October.

Microsoft's vision for LinkedIn .

Now that Microsoft’s massive $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn has officially closed, it’s time for the next step: figuring out how its massive store of business information can best be used by Microsoft and its customers. Building upon the company’s integration plan outlined earlier this year, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella laid out a set of plans for short-term integration with LinkedIn (in a blog post on LinkedIn, natch), with advantages for both consumers and business customers.

Perhaps the most interesting will be closer ties between resume functions in Word and in LinkedIn, so that users drafting resumes in Word will be able to update their LinkedIn profiles automatically. Nadella suggests that LinkedIn updates will propagate through Windows 10’s Action Center, and that your LinkedIn identity will be used in Outlook and in Office.

Nokia turns to Android

Back when the first Android smartphones rolled off the assembly line in 2009, they weren’t just competing against Apple. Feature-phone pioneer Nokia commanded a large chunk of the market, and it was hard at work on its own open-source touchscreen platform. We all know how that story ended. Android and Apple took over the market and Nokia floundered for years with half-baked handsets until Microsoft mercifully put Nokia’s smartphone segment out of its misery after acquiring the business last year.

But like a classic B movie, Nokia is back from the dead. Well, kind of. Earlier this year Microsoft sold the Nokia branding rights to Finland-based HMD Global, and the first fruits of that labor are due to appear in the first half of 2017. And like the Nokia N1—an iPad mini clone with handwriting-based search—they will run Android. It remains to be seen just how much Nokia is in these phones beyond the name on the rear, but it’s a good comeback story nonetheless.

Microsoft Surface Studio teardown

On paper, Microsoft’s Surface Studio is the pinnacle of Windows 10 PCs. It’s an all-in-one computer with a touchscreen to make it function more like a giant tablet, and even packs a supplementary ARM processor typically found in mobile devices. Yet despite its modernity, Microsoft still managed to include a nod to the PC’s tradition of DIY upgrades .
Not everything can be swapped out—a sad new tradition in the world of PCs. In fact, almost nothing can. But when iFixit ripped apart the Surface Studio in its latest teardown the site discovered the Studio’s onboard storage drives—both the traditional hard drive and the m.2 SSD—were replaceable.
  

SQL Server on Linux

First Look Microsoft has released a public preview of SQL Server for Linux, and I took it for a spin.

There are three supported platforms for SQL Server on Linux, these being Red Hat Enterprise 7.2, Ubuntu 16.04, and a Linux-based Docker engine. Installation on other versions of Linux may also work, although unsupported. The Docker image enables installation on Mac or Windows. Microsoft specifies a minimum of 3.25GB of RAM.

I installed on a modest 8GB dual-processor VM running Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial" for testing. Setup involves agreeing a licence and setting an SA (system administrator) password. I then installed command-line tools, sqlcmd (execute SQL queries) and bcp (bulk copy). The install script prompts you to enable automatic start-up.

Microsoft Black Friday deals

Microsoft has released its upcoming Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.
Highlights include news that the company is offering customers its Xbox One at the “lowest price ever” during the season, according to Microsoft. From Nov. 20-23, customers will receive $50 off any new 1TB Xbox One or Xbox One S bundle, which starts at $299.

AMAZON TEASES BLACK FRIDAY 2016 DEALS
From Nov. 24-28, customers will receive $50 off any new Xbox One or Xbox One S bundle, which starts at $249. Customers will also be offered $25 off “Gears of War 4” and the entire “Gears Xbox 360 Collection,” and $20 off “ReCore” and $10 off a 3-month or 6-month Xbox Live Gold subscription.
Looking to buy a Surface? From Nov. 24-28, customers looking to upgrade their Surface can save up to $430 off select devices and bundles, including Surface Book i5 and Surface Pro 4.

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