Tag: Microsoft

If you missed out on picking up the beautifully styled Harman Kardon Invoke, powered by Microsoft Cortana, for $99 this past holiday season, now is your time.  Right now at the Microsoft Store you can pick one up for that special price, saving $100 in the process.

I posted my review of the Invoke in December and as I put in that review, it is one of the most stylish smart speakers out there with stunning audio quality as you would expect from Harman Kardon.  At the heart of the Invoke is Microsoft Cortana which, much like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, is a voice command away to help you with tasks or get information.

A new update to Microsoft Outlook for Android is rolling out, bringing a new one-tap handling of spam email and your junk folder.  The updated build is version 2.2.88 for those keeping score at home and is in the process of rolling out to the Google Play Store.

With this update, you will now be able to mark a message as spam when it comes into your inbox as well as empty your junk mail folder with a single tap.  Previously if you wanted to do this, it involved marking the message and then having to navigate to your junk mail folder to delete the message for good.  Microsoft has now streamlined it, making it faster and easier.

Microsoft has rolled out another update to Microsoft Cortana, their personal assistant app & service, for Android.  The update is version 2.9.10 for those keeping score at home and should be hitting devices with the Assistant installed over the course of the next few days.

There are several improvements in this update, the most visible of which is and enhanced upcoming view for better calendar and missed reminders management.  Now calendar events are more discretely listed in the Upcoming page which makes it easier to find upcoming events and reminders.  There is also a new “Here’s what I can do” card at the top of the Upcoming tab to help you with some of the commands that you can give to Cortana.

Smart Suggestions for tasks have also been improved in this update.  These include the ability to have a reminder added or an event added.

Microsoft has rolled out a new update to the Bing search app for Android today.  Version 7.4 of the app brings mostly under-the-hood fixes and improvements to the search app but does have two new widgets for Bing Rewards tracking.

For those who aren’t familiar, Bing Rewards are points that you accumulate as you use the app on your phone, PC or if you use Microsoft Edge on your PC as your browser.  You can then use these points for discounts in the Microsoft store.   It is a program that Bing has had for several years and remains popular.

With the 7.4 update, you will have the ability to add one of two widgets.  The first is an adjustable panel which shows you your progress and a quick link to go search using the search engine.  The second is a non-adjustable round dial style that shows your progress.  I’ve added a screen shot at the end of this post so you can see them.

Good news for those of you who use OneDrive in the enterprise.  A new update to the app is rolling out now in the Play Store that brings support for SharePoint 2013 and 2016 to it.  The update brings the app to version 5.0 for those keeping score at home.

With this new version of OneDrive installed on your Android phone, you will now have access to file that are stored in SharePoint.  That means you can open and edit them and you will have the ability to do so even if you are offline.  It is a big step forward for enterprise users who were limited to pretty much having to use their desktop to access SharePoint and edit files.

Back in September, I posted on a rumor that an LTE equipped Surface Pro was going to be announced with it likely being available in December of this year.  We can now put those rumors to rest.  The LTE Surface Pro is real.

In London today at the Future Decoded conference, Microsoft announced two LTE versions of the Surface which will be available starting December 1st.  Both models are based on the Intel Core i5 processor and both have the Qualcomm X16 LTE modem with 20 mobile bands support for global use.  The Core i5 with 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD will be $1149 while the bigger model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD will be $1449.

In all, there are 7 LTE antenna built into Surface with the modem built into the motherboard of the device.  Also, it will support eSIM technology for provisioning without a SIM card.