Is Microsoft About to Kill Off Internet Explorer?

Credit:The Hacker News

Rumor about Microsoft making some of the big changes to their internet explorer in Windows 10 has been for a long time and it is said that they are making Internet explorer “Spartan” feel and look like Firefox and Chrome. According to some insider and market sources, the truth seems to be that Microsoft is building a completely new browser, which now has been codenamed as Spartan.

Earlier this month, Thomas Nigro, who is Microsoft Student Partner lead and developer of the modern version of VLC had already indicated about Microsoft building a new browser. According to him, he came to know about this through the talk, which was going on during the LiveTile Podcast December episode.

Spartan- The new browser: 

According to the company sources, Spartan is still expected to use the Chakra JavaScript engine and Trident-rendering engine (not WebKit) of Microsoft. According to the report released in September, Neowin's Brad Sams stated that, the new browser would not only look and feel like Firefox and Chrome, but will be able to extensions. He also reported that the company is working on two different types of trident, which supports claims made by the company about two different Trident-based browsers.

However, according the sources Spartan is a light-weight and new browser and should not be considered as Inter explorer 12. Some of the sources also revealed that Windows 10 (the desktop version) is expected to have both IE 11 and Spartan. The IE 11 is expected to be given as backward-compatibility's sake. According to the sources both desktop and mobile (phone/tablet) versions of Windows 10 will have Spartan.

The codename for the browser has been given as Spartan but at the same time, there is no information about the name expected at the debut. The name has been changed so that the developers can make the users get information about the new browser being more standards-compliant IE and different from the older version of internet explorer.

The company is planning to reveal the Spartan on 21st January, this is the time they are expected to reveal their next set of windows 10 features. However, sources also revealed that there is no surety if Spartan will be functional enough to be included in their Windows 10, January Technical Preview, and mobile preview builds. These builds are expected to be available for testing from early 2015. Therefore, we cannot expect the browser to show up in the test builds until later point of the year.

At present no one of sure of Microsoft will be ready to port out Spartan to other systems like Android, iOS and/or any other non-Windows operating systems. But some of the people of IE team stated that the company doesn’t have any plan of porting out the new IE to any other non-windows operating systems. But as Spartan is not IE and Microsoft already porting out their software and services to others, there is a slight chance to get the new browser in other operating systems as well.

Microsoft Combats Tech Support Scammers with Lawsuit

Microsoft is currently trying to fight one of the biggest frauds in the recent days by means of lawsuits. What lead to this legal battle? There are people who have received calls from people claiming to be with Microsoft and informing that their computer has got affected by the virus.

They claim to fix the issue after the payment of a fee. On 18th Dec, a civil lawsuit was filed by Microsoft's Digital Crimes unit in the Central District of California. This lawsuit was filed against the company called as the Omnitech Support and other firms, citing the reason as "unfair and misleading business practices and trademark encroachment.

According to the blog pertaining to this lawsuit, Microsoft has charged Omnitech Support, a division of Customer Focus Services for misusing the Microsoft name, service and the trademark, with the ultimate aim of defrauding the customers out of their money and other personal information. They pretended that the customer’s PC was affected by a virus.

Pattern of these scams

Most of the computer related scams follow a similar pattern wherein it starts with a phone call from someone pretending to be working with Microsoft or claiming to be the partner’s of Microsoft. They will give you some technical details about how they identified the virus on your computer. They will them convince the customer to install the remote control software on the PC and then take full control over the computer of the customers. They will use a scareware to show that there is a virus affecting your system and they can have it fixed after paying a certain amount of fee. If the customer agrees, they can now get additional details about the customer apart from the access to the customer’s credit card.

According to the information on the Microsoft Blog, the scammer have been able to create security issues as they have installed malicious software, which includes password grabbers to get all the financial and personal details of the customer.

Microsoft with the help of investigators has been able to back up their lawsuit by contacting the defendants’ names in the lawsuit. Each investigator contacted the defendant with a computer having no virus or malicious software but were convinced by the latter that there is a virus and need to pay a large sum of fee for them get that removed and get the corrupted windows work again. Many of the customers had contacted Microsoft stating that computer is not in good shape post the repair. According to Microsoft, around $1.5 billion each year is lost by customers due to these kinds of frauds.

Due to the action of the Omnitech Support, Microsoft has claimed that they lost their goodwill and looking forwards for claiming financial damages apart from permanent injunction on the actions. Microsoft has requested for a jury trial as per the details mentioned in the lawsuit. According to the Microsoft spokesperson, all the details pertaining to the lawsuit and the scam has been updated in their official blog but Omnitech Support denied to comment of any of these.For complaining to FTC

Windows 10 Will Bring Native Support For .Mkv And Flac Files

Microsoft is planning to add the .MKV and FLAC support on Windows 10 for next year, to expand its support for other popular media file formats. Microsoft is also adding the native support for audio codecs and advanced video in Windows 10 Developer Preview. 

Windows 10 build 9860 was recently released by Microsoft, wherein they have also given the native support for .MKV and FLAC media formats. As far as these media formats are concerned, these were not supported by Microsoft in any of their builds and as recent as Windows 8.1. This lead to the user getting the pop-up displaying that, “File is not supported by the player”, when they tried opening these formats in windows media player. Gabriel Aul from the Windows Insider Program posted some of the screenshots on Twitter depicting the FLAC support in Windows media player. Going by the lossless nature of the file format, the FLAC support by the media player for Windows 10 has taken the high-end audio fanatic community by a large storm.

Further, the company is also looking to offer platform-level support for MKV and FLAC media formats, this means that now a 3rd party application also will be able to play these files. One of the best features is the fact that a user does not need to search and install plug-ins in their media player to play these files. This news is even more exciting as Microsoft is currently working on unveiling their new consumer-centric features of Windows 10 in late of January 2015. From this, it is very clear that the company is trying to reach out to the fans of the AV and making the right changes, which will mainly helping in boosting the multimedia competency of Windows 10.

Need of FLAC and .MKV format: 

High-end audio fans love to use FLAC files as it promises everything, which required for crystal clear sounds. But unfortunately, this format is not widely-supported; however it is going to get the space in Windows 10. Last month Microsoft officials stated that now Windows 10 will support .MKV format also.

As now Microsoft is providing the platform-level support for FLAC and .MKV format, so it clear that now third party applications will be able to play their specific files on Windows 10. It will be helpful for users as; now they don’t need to face any hassle such as; installing plug-ins and other software’s in order to play the files of these formats.

Although FLAC is not a very widely supported format, but it is loved by the high end audio fans as it preserves the quality of the music as it would be in any music studio. It has the capability of reducing the original audio file to 60 % of its original size. This is possible through the fancy algorithm of FLAC. With the passing, we are getting new information about the yet to be launched Windows 10 operating system

The other positive aspect of FLAC is that it is an open and non-proprietary format with royalty-free licensing. Currently, there is no patent or any kind of issues that anyone has to worry about regarding FLAC. FLAC is known for boasting about their support for metadata tagging, cover art, album and fast seeking. Microsoft is ready to unveil these consumer-centric features in January 2015, for Windows 10. It is making the clear statement that now in January is targeting the AV geeks and enthusiasts.

'Cloud' Boosts Microsoft Earnings Beyond Their Expectations

According to the reports published by Microsoft, although their revenue was more than what was forecasted by the analysts, the net profits of the company during the same quarter of last year dipped from $ 5.2 billion to $ 4.5 billion.

Now Microsoft has reported in quarterly profits, which are beyond their expectations. The company has attributed this boost to their Xbox consoles and internet cloud services that were being offered to different enterprises.

According to financial reports, the revenue of the company has reached over $ 23 billion, which is the best figure for the first quarter of any fiscal year. This boost in the revenue has pushed the shares of the US technology giant by nearly 3.8 % which is now at $ 46.75 in all after-market trades.

According to Satya Nadella, “Microsoft Company is looking towards faster innovation, engaging far more deeply through the industry and they are ensuring that their customers are the focal point of every process as it will help in shaping up the future of the company.

The company has confirmed that the record setting high revenue is because of the huge popularity of their Xbox video game consoles and Surface tablet computers apart from turning business to software offered as services as in the Internet "cloud."


According to Kevin Turner, who is Microsoft’s chief operating officer, the customers are now willingly accepting their latest technologies like Office 365 and Surface Pro 3 to Azure and SQL Server (cloud based) meant for corporate customers.

The net revenue of the Microsoft's customer and device unit increased to 47 % and reached $ 10.96 billion. The company was able to bring in nearly $ 1 billion from the sales of their Surface Pro 3 tablet computer.

The sale of Xbox consoles increased and was nearly doubled their value at $ 2.4 million in the quarter, which basically observed the new versions of the Xbox consoles being sold out in more than 28 new markets. According to Microsoft, there was a 10 % increase in the revenue from the commercial offerings of the company like that of Office 365. 128% growth was seen in Azure according to the company.

Nadella during their press brief held in San Francisco gave details about the latest changes and modifications in the strategies of Microsoft, which will enable them to attract more companies and businesses.

They are aiming to do so with their ability to hit the power of colossal online data centers whenever required. At this event Nadella was seen boasting about the fact that the company’s cloud is currently the most completed cloud services offered, which can empower every organization, every company across various industries and different locations and geography.

Microsoft was focused on highlighting the main fact that they have been using their power in the software’s which are used by companies to basically benefit from a trend which is moving towards renting of the computer power, their storage as well as software as services that is hosted at data centers with the cloud internet.

Windows 10 – Launching Window Insider Program

The latest report is that Microsoft has officially announced the next version of its computer operating system called `Windows 10’ and will be launching a Window Insider Program enabling users to comfortably run the early beta software access to Window 10.

Its first preview would be made available for desktops and laptops and a build for server would be following later on. The company provided details stating that its new operating system will have a tailored user experience with various screen sizes, for instance if the user has a smaller device, then you will see different form of user interface and the code would run across all device categories - `One product family, One platform, One store’.

The amazing news is that Windows 10 has been designed to run across all the devices including, tablets, phablets and smartphones besides, laptops and desktops.Microsoft has stated that they are opening this beta process in order to get feedback from users early on and that this would also be a learning experience for the company as well as user would get some experiments in new builds thoughprobably would not make it to the final version.

Enterprise Value/Device Management/Customize….

Microsoft is presently focusing on Enterprise value, device management, the ability to customize the store to the device the user is on and an option to protect data, to be more precise, the ability of the enterprise to manage their devise and customize their application store, etc.

According to Terry Myerson, Microsoft Executive VP of Operating Systems, he states that `Windows 10 will be running on the broadest amount of devices with a tailored experience for each device. There would also be one way to write a universal application, one store, and one way for apps to be discovered, purchased and updated across all of these devices’.

The company, as expected is striving to bring back some of the features of Windows 7 which includes a redesigned start menu combining the basic Windows 7 menu with the resizable tiles of the Windows 8 start screen. Windows 8 Metro app also can be opened in a windowed mode on the desktop to save from being taken into the full screen mode through default and can use `modern’ Windows 8 alongside with a standard Windows desktop app.

Swiping from Left – Task View

With its focus mainly on the keyboard and regular mouse combo for functions with the operating system, the company has emphasized that it is not doing away with `touch’ and Windows 10 will continue to have a similar Windows 8 Start Screen for touch enabled machines.

Some changes in the gestures will alter a bit in Windows 10 where swiping in from the left now tends to give a task view, though the overall features will be same to Windows 8 and the Windows 8 Charms bar would be still available.

The release of Microsoft’s OS is expected to be sometime in 2015 after the company’s Build Developer Conference to be held in April. If users intend to get their hand on an early version of Windows 10, they could sign up for the Windows Insider Program on October 1 to get the early preview build on laptops and desktops.

Outlook.com Encrypts E-Mails

Now this is Microsoft’s turn and it wants to improve the safety in the use of its email service namely Outlook.com, so that no middle man could read the content of the incoming and outgoing emails in transit.

Hence Microsoft increases the data security of Outlook.com through the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS). If Transport Layer Security is used the emails can be send in a more secured way. This TLS will protect the data only when receiving and sending email between the client and server but not on the server.

In addition to this, PFS a Perfect Forward Secrecy is supported for sending and receiving the emails between the individual providers. This also applies to the Microsoft cloud service namely OneDrive also.

The PFS will get employed when one comes to access OneDrive through their web browser, the mobile apps as well as via the sync client to use Microsoft detailed in an announced in their blog posting. The method is used with Deutsche Telekom, Yandex, Mail.Ru and many other providers, so that messages will remain encrypted throughout the transit when exchanging between large service providers.

Of course an end-to-end encryption is not assured that is the contents are protected during transport only. A help, for example, to integrate OpenPGP is not offered. Therefore, still the user must have to take care of the security of their email content.

Skype 2.19 integrates Cortana on Windows Phone 8.1

Microsoft has offered an update for Skype on their mobile OS recently, the updates brings total support to Cortana, the voice wizard of windows Phone 8.1.

This update was released by Microsoft for the Skype application for windows phone 8.1 the main feature got the advantage from the update is the voice assistant Cortana.

This update helps the user to use Skype by simple voice control without opening it. Since Skype 2.19 came with Cortana integration, you can just make a voice or video call with voice command.

With just a swipe you can see all your latest notification on your Windows Phone device. This obviously works on the latest version of the OS, and is now limited to United States only soon you may expect the update for your own region.

But No launch date outside United States have not yet been provided by Microsoft. Within the update we wish to especially mention about the support for 51 languages and the arrival of Skype notifications in Action Center for Windows Phone 8.1.

In case of any typo error on a message already sent, now it will also be possible to correct that typo error with a simple touch.

Microsoft Universal Windows Apps!

With Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft will unify its app infrastructure. With the new Universal Windows apps there is now a simple way to create apps for all Windows platforms. An update for Visual Studio 2013 allows you to convert Universal Windows apps.

 Windows Universal apps will allow developers to create apps that work on both tablets and PCs as well as on Smartphones and share large parts of the code. Even for the Xbox One, Microsoft will consider the developers participation.

A new Windows run time environment will reduce development time for apps. Visual Studio 2013 will get for Universal Windows apps an update that is designed to simplify the transition from traditional apps on the universal format. In addition, there are new diagnostic tools that enable developers to figure out why an app has performance issues and how it can be easily resolved can be find out easily.

 Microsoft demonstrated using a simple example application that converting an existing Windows 8 app into a universal Windows application has to go fast. The app then ran into a Windows Phone emulator. According to Microsoft, Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is ready and released for the developer program.

This also changed the distribution channel: The apps must be purchased only once. Who buys a Universal App, can use it on all devices, whether console or Smartphone. A universal logo displays in the store that it is a versatile app. Universal Windows apps work on Windows Phone from version 8.1.

Whether the apps also require Windows 8.1 Update 1 is not yet known. In addition, Microsoft announced that the Windows Library for JavaScript (WinJS) is also a cross-platform tool to better cross-device web application development for the Internet Explorer 11 too.

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is available

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is available now. In addition to integration with Azure and a data platform for Hadoop 2.2 of the SQL Server and it also provides advanced in side memory solutions. This week, in-house exhibition and Build developer conference Microsoft announced the general availability of its SQL Server 2014.

The new version should be much faster than its predecessor, at least in the online transaction processing (OLTP). For OLTP is now equipped with an In - Memory technology, which can improve speed and it can be achieved by 30 times. The new in-memory -based OLTP complement existing in-memory technologies for business intelligence (BI), complex event processing with Stream Insight and the column-oriented processing in SQL Server.

In addition, the new version of SQL Server for On-Premise, for pure Azure applications or for mixed hybrid cloud solutions can be used. This includes the Azure service HDInsight, Microsoft's Hadoop platform, which can be used with Hadoop 2.2 now. The SQL Server 2014 is available in three versions: Enterprise for mission critical applications and data warehousing, business intelligence for premium companies and self-service BI and the Standard Edition with basic database, reporting and analysis functions.

 The BI and Standard Edition can be licensed per user or per device. In addition, the Standard Edition can license per processor core customers. A trial version is available and which can be used up to 180 days.

Microsoft Announces DirectX 12 On March 20

The Game Developers Conference to be host the late giant, which must unveil the new version of the API dedicated to the video game. The Windows - maker Microsoft has announced a new version of its graphics platform DirectX - DirectX 12 In a blog entry on the developer side of the Microsoft Developer Network, this is the company’s first published preliminary info. Microsoft will announce on March 20 the new version of DirectX API dedicated to video game developed over the years by the giant.

He unveiled at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, during a session on the future of DirectX. According Polygon, eight workshops dedicated to Microsoft DirectX 11, but prepare the future. The giant did not hide it also, which gave appointment on the date specified by the newspaper on MSDN. Microsoft made a trailer focused on machine performance, and their exploitation by video games. Several presentations sessions of GDC are however state the future of graphics, Direct3D, etc.

Each time, they promise the developers for a unprecedented level of control equipment and increased to a broad hardware ecosystem performance. In short, if you are sure that the new version of the API will be presented on March 20 - and that's a good thing, the previous major version for Windows from before 2009 - there are quite a few details the direction taken by Microsoft.

Microsoft announces new graphics platform DirectX 12. Microsoft's announcement page shows next to the DirectX logo and the logos of AMD's graphics division, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm – The good thing is it is likely to be that DirectX 12 will be equipped on desktop computers and mobile platforms such as Smartphones and tablets with new graphics capabilities.