Tagged: microsoft

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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) on Monday announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion, inclusive of LinkedIn’s net cash. LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence. Jeff Weiner will remain CEO of LinkedIn, reporting to Satya Nadella, CEO of...

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Microsoft is banning your stupidly easy-to-guess passwords

No matter how many times we tell you to change your passwords and make it anything but your birthday, “123456,” or “password,” many still aren’t taking the efforts to make their accounts more secure. So Microsoft is actively doing something about it by banning weak passwords entirely. The team calls it “dynamically banned,” which means that if your account uses a password that appears in the most-used/stolen...

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Microsoft Wants PS4 and Xbox One to Connect Online

Microsoft has announced it will natively support cross-platform play between Xbox One, Windows 10, and other “online multiplayer networks.” The move effectively opens the Xbox Live platform so that it can accommodate players on Sony’s PlayStation Network, among others. The announcement was made on Xbox.com by Chris Charla, director of ID@Xbox, who said “it’s up to game developers to support this feature” and noted...

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Microsoft has released a Debian Linux switch OS

Put down your coffee gently. Microsoft has today released a homegrown open-source operating system, based on Debian GNU/Linux, that runs on network switches. The software is dubbed SONiC, aka Software for Open Networking in the Cloud. It’s a toolkit of code to bend switch hardware to your will, so you can dictate how it works and what it can do, rather than relying on...

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Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code

At its Build developer conference, Microsoft today announced the launch of Visual Studio Code, a lightweight cross-platform code editor for writing modern web and cloud applications that will run on OS X, Linux and Windows. The application is still officially in preview, but you can now download it here. This marks the first time that Microsoft offers developers a true cross-platform code editor. The...

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Microsoft brings Android, iOS apps to Windows 10

Microsoft announced a four-pronged effort to bring developers and their apps to Windows at its build conference today. One of these prongs—a way for Web developers to present their sites as apps—was already announced at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year. The second prong is logical but not altogether surprising. In Windows 10, developers will be able to specially prepare existing Windows apps,...

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Games for Windows and the DirectX SDK on GitHub

As you may have heard in the technical press, Microsoft is a more open-source friendly place these days, and has embraced GitHub for a number of high-profile projects. As a result of this shift and an internal push to move to git generally, I’ve updated my existing CodePlex projects so that I can easily mirror them to GitHub. For the immediate future, I plan to...

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Download Windows 7 ISOs with a Valid License

If you don’t have your Windows 7 disc handy—but want to create a custom installation, run Windows from a USB drive, or just do a fresh install—you’ll need an ISO file of the disc. You used to be able to download them from Digital River’s servers, but those links no longer work. Now, Microsoft has a Software Recovery Center where you can download those...

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Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

While Microsoft has dropped hints that the Internet Explorer brand is going away, the software maker has now confirmed that it will use a new name for its upcoming browser successor, codenamed Project Spartan. Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. "We’re right now researching what the new...

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Paul Allen donates $100 million to fight Ebola

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen one-upped his good friend co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates with an even bigger donation to fight the Zaire Ebolavirus (ZEBOV) which has engulfed a trio of nations in western Africa in a deadly, fast-growing epidemic. Gates and his wife have pledged to give away all their money to charity before they die. His Microsoft-derived fortune current makes him...